How to read signs and omens

Dudes, you welcomed The Bitch back with open arms. Awesome! (Next time, a little deodorant, maybe? Think of others before you embrace so fervently.)

And now the pressure is on. Fine. In the last eight months or whatever, The Bitch has had plenty of time to hone her already razor-sharp wit, to fine-tune her startlingly astute opinions, and to separate out the New Age bullshit from the sweet sweet perfume underneath the steaming pile.

Which is why we’re talking about Signs and Omens today.

How many times have you heard this:

“I was seeing these plus signs everywhere, just EVERYWHERE … blue ones! Especially on those little white sticks that Xerxes kept insisting I pee on. Isn’t that wild? It was totally a sign, that’s what I kept telling Xerxes, a sign. And next thing you know we’re engaged. Want to see the ring? I told Xerxes that he was supposed to spend two months’ salary on it, and he said something about paying for it with blood, something about ruining his life forever? But whatever, I mean, we’ve already set the date and all, and I have all those darling blue plus signs to thank for it!”

Or this:

“11:11. It’s EVERYWHERE. The microwave. The alarm clock. In the car. We’ve been seeing it for weeks now. Eleven eleven. So we’re going to name our daughter that. Eleven. It’s a sign.”

Sound familiar? Another nutzoid making important life decisions based on what they think a clock is telling them.

ALL HAIL THE CLOCK OF WISDOM!

I’m sure that darling little Eleven (or Evelyn, as her parents will sheepishly change it to a few months later, or perhaps Elven if they’re total LOTR freaks, and if you know what LOTR means then you might be one too, but you’ve already named your kids Frodo and Arwen which means I just cannot help you, sorry) will appreciate someday knowing that her parents were slaves to a hunk of plastic that plugs into the wall.

I can hear you whining already in that miserable pleading voice, “But Bitch, I KNOW that signs are telling me something! I just know it!”

Yes, and they are. They might be telling you that you need more fiber. Or that your mouthwash is, apparently, not doing its job. Or that you need to sell all your belongings and dress in long shapeless garments made of handspun hempen flax and stand barefoot at freeway exit ramps, attempting to stare passing drivers into submission with your newly-acquired laserbeam stare.

Or, they might be telling you nothing of consequence at all.

You have to decide which.

Signs do have meaning, though. Let me explain. First you have to understand that the You as you know yourself to be is just a small and puny part of the overall You That You Are. So say that we are all actually M&Ms. The part you know yourself to be (“Mr.Personality”) is the colored candy shell — thin, easily cracked, and melts in my mouth, not in my hands. And the bigger, wiser, and frankly more substantial part (“Chocolate Soul Brother,” or just “Soul” for short) is what’s inside the candy shell — complex, has a wider perspective, hangs out on the astral plane, etc.

Mr. Personality is kind of stupid. Well, one-dimensional. He gets caught up in day-to-day life, like about who gets to eat the red ones, and forgets the big picture. Soul, on the other hand, has got it goin’ on. Soul sees clearly the whole big picture and then some. Soul has this loose plan-thing, stuff he’d like to accomplish in a given lifetime, but he’s got to keep Mr. Personality from getting too distracted by things so they can get anything done. Soul is more or less the brains while Mr. Personality is the brawn. Soul can’t do much on the Earth plane because Soul doesn’t have physical form except as expressed by Mr. Personality. They need one another. This works pretty well except for one thing. Communication. The thing is, they don’t speak directly to each other most of the time. It’s weird — you’d think that chocolate and a candy shell could talk to one another, but they don’t speak the same language.

So they resort to signs.

Say your soul needs to tell you something. Like maybe it’s time to stop picking your nose and scratching yourself and to start doing whatever this big Life Plan stuff was that you signed up for. Since your soul doesn’t actually have arms, it can’t wave them wildly in front of your face to get your attention. Instead, you get little nudges. Like to look at the clock once a day, say, at 11:11. After several days (or maybe weeks, depending on how dense you are) of this, you suddenly go “OMG A SIGN!” and then madly start Googling 11:11, soon becoming convinced that the world is ending IN JUST TWO YEARS and you’ve got to help prepare, so you sell everything and move to New Zealand, where you hope that both the proliferation of sheep there and the space-time continuum regarding reverse drain flow in the Southern Hemisphere is going to save you.

Now, if you had been paying attention, and trusted yourself instead of Google The Omniscient to determine the course of your life, you might have taken those 11:11’s for what they were:  nudges. And then, if you were smart, you’d simply start listening for more. You’d ask questions like “What is this sign really telling me?” (hopefully you are not asking this out loud in the presence of your boss) and then wait for an answer to take shape. Doing this, frankly, takes trust in yourself and also in the connection you have to yourself on a soul level.

“But Bitch,” you whine again, a confused puddle on the floor, “How do I KNOW? What the signs are telling me? Can’t you tell me, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?!!!!”

Well, sure I can.

But do you really want to trust me with The Rest of Your Life? How do you know I won’t tell you that you need to shave your head, paint yourself green, and become a lamppost in order to find enlightenment? People are so quick to give up their own power and just hand it away to some stranger. Use yours. Trust The Bitch — you do have inner wisdom.

“But Bitch!” (this whining thing is getting out of control) “What about Omens! YOU SAID OMENS!!!”

Oh. Yeah. Those.

Okay, two, no three, schools of thought on omens, which are signs foretelling the future, right?

1. School #1. Time is simultaneous (that’s right: past, present, and future are all in this one big amorphous Now), which means that omens telling the future, or at least pointing to a possible future, are not a crock of shit and can exist. CAVEAT: like signs, omens also mean what you think they do. In other words, their entire meaning is the meaning you give them. If you think, for instance, that seeing two crows walking hand in hand (wing, beak, whatever) across the street means you’re going to meet this fabulous guy to walk hand in hand with for the rest of your life (or until one of you gets tired of it, which is reality people, let’s face it, and we’ll talk about this “forever” nonsense another time), then SO BE IT, IT IS SO, it is done, amen.

2. School #2. Omens don’t mean shit and you can’t predict the future.

3. School #3. OMG! I live my life doing everything the signs tell me! Also not stepping on cracks! And holding my breath in tunnels! And OMG black cats! And ladders!

(HINT: The answer is not #2 OR #3)

TO REVIEW: Signs are a way of your soul kicking you in the head. Pay attention. Then listen. They mean what you think they mean. Don’t ask other people what they think your signs mean; your signs are for you and if you ask other people you’ll only get their opinion and why are you giving your power away like that? Listen to yourself, pay attention, and be cool.

Also: in the U.K. please substitute “Smarties” for any reference to “M&M’s” in this post. We apologize for any momentary confusion.

Now go forth and spread the wisdom! Also tell everyone you know.

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