The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imagination (19 page)

But there are three changing lines in the hexagram, and they produce what readers of the Chinese oracle call the “secondary” hexagram. This is number 64, the final hexagram in the cycle, and its name is Not Yet Over. The picture that comes is of a crossing that has not yet been completed. We're at the end of a whole cycle, but everything is still in play. Every ending is a beginning. The counsel that comes with this hexagram includes the line: “Move like an old fox on thin ice.”

In this episode, I was given a spontaneous message from the world, and then provoked one, a further example of how life rhymes.

PUTTING YOUR QUESTION TO THE WORLD

Here's another story about “provoking” an answer from the world.

Sheila told us in one of my beginners' classes that she had stopped remembering her dreams. When gently questioned, she admitted that this was probably because she feared her dreams were telling her something unpleasant she preferred not to think about — the possibility that she was going to lose her job.

I asked Sheila to write down the theme on which she needed guidance. Her theme, of course, was: “Am I going to lose my job?”

I invited her to play the Coincidence Game. I said, “Carry that question with you. Then pretend that the first unusual or unexpected thing that enters your field of perception is a personal message to you from the universe, containing the answer to your question.”

I saw Sheila one week later in the next class.

She couldn't wait to tell us what had happened. “I got my answer as soon as I walked out of the building that night. I know the area very well, but somehow I found myself driving the wrong way down a one-way street for three or four blocks. I wouldn't have noticed even then except a truck driver put on his high beams and leaned on his air horn.”

“So the message was. . . ?”

“I've been driving the wrong way down a one-way street. My job is blown.”

Clarity is good; a plan is even better. Sheila proceeded to report that no sooner had she gotten the message about her job than her dream drought broke. She dreamed she was at a conference on transportation in Washington, DC. There was a sense of promise in this dream, although the contentmystified her since, as she told us, “I know nothing about transportation except how to drive the wrong way down a one-way street.”

As we explored the dream, running a reality check on what Sheila recognized from it in her waking life, we discovered that (1) she had a close friend in Washington, DC, and (2) hermain job skill was organizing conferences.

I asked her for an action plan. She said, “I have some frequent-flyer miles. I'll use them to fly to Washington, DC, stay with my friend, and scope out the prospects.”

A month later, she quit her job and moved to a higher-paying job in Washington, DC — which was just as well, since six months later the department where she had worked was abolished. Her new job essentially involved arranging conferences, including the conference on transportation she had dreamed.

Five-Minute Oracle: Putting Your Question to the World

To play this game, you first need to come up with a clear intention. I find it easiest to get clarity if I frame my intention by filling in the blank in the following simple statement: “I would like guidance on . . .”

What you put in that blank should be something that really matters. Don't worry about whether or not your intention is spiritually important or earth-shattering. Make it snappy. Let it be authentic. Listen to your heart and your gut.

Quick — what do you
really
need help or guidance with?

If it's love or money, then say so. If it's what to wear on a date, or whether you should call someone to make a date, that's perfectly fine. On the other hand, don't be scared to express one of the
big
themes. If the first thing that comes is “I would like guidance on my life purpose,” then go with that.

Once you've expressed your intention, the game is to pretend that the next striking or unusual thing that enters your field of perception is a direct message to you from the universe. That message may come right away, as it did for Sheila. Or you may need to do something active in order to inspire it.

Here are a few suggestions:

Take a ride or a walk
. As we 've observed, coincidence multiplies when we are in motion. Maybe your message is in the vanity plate on the car in front of you, or the fact that it's an Illinois plate with the slogan Land of Lincoln.

Play the car radio game
. Pretend the first song or commercial that comes on is the guidance you are seeking.

Play the book-skimming game
. Open a book at random. Pretend the first passage that leaps to your eye contains your message from the universe.

If the message you get is clear, you're done! You have your five-minute oracle.

If the message is ambiguous or a total mystery, well, that's how oracles stay in business. You may need help in relating the message you received to your original intention. Consider asking others to use their imaginations to help you with this, as in the Coincidence Card Game (see below).

Then again, you may not
want
to hear the message you receive. Many years ago, when I was developing
three
business projects, I played the car radio game. What came on right away was a commercial for
three
funeral homes. And I thought, this is not the message I want. Funeral homes are for things that are dead. The universe is telling me my three business ideas are dead before they've been born. I wriggled and twisted, trying to get away from that clear message. But by the end of the week, I had to accept that the car radio counsel was spot on: those three oh-so clever projects were dead.

Five-Minute Oracle: Let the World Put the Question to You

Putting Your Question to the World can be a wonderfully revealing exercise, whether it's confirming or chastening. But it's sometimes more magical to enjoy coincidence
au naturel
. We may not actually know what question to ask, and the world — like our dreams — may have more to tell us than is on our minds.

Here 's how to claim the deeper power of coincidence that comes with putting ourselves in rhythm with the natural cycles of what
wants
to happen in this world: schedule at least five minutes of
unscheduled
time every day to ramble with no fixed intention, looking for nothing in particular.

How many times a day do you check the time — on a watch, a clock, a computer, or a cellphone display?

What do you suppose would happen if, on an equal number of occasions, you paused to check
the pattern of the moment
?

You might just take an instant to scan yourself and see what you are feeling and sensing in your body. You might try to listen to your inner sound track. When you turn off the world for an instant, what is playing, what is being spoken, inside your head?

You might take this instant to see what grabs your attention in your physical environment. Even in a very familiar place, you might be surprised by what you notice. Or you might close your eyes and ask yourself what you feel and sense about your situation in a more subtle way.

You can simply choose, in this instant, to be open to whatever the inner and outer worlds give you — birdsong, a phrase, a sense of warmth, a pang of regret, a sloppy dog who loves you no matter what, a news story, the way someone left the toilet seat up, whatever.

Going a little deeper, you can decide to turn down the volume of all the noise and stress around you, then call back to yourself whatever parts of you are not fully present in this moment — the part that's rehashing an old drama, or out on coffee break, or obsessing over the next meeting with the boss, or away with a loved one. Gather as much of your self as you can into this moment.

Now
ask, drawing on all the awareness that is with you, “What is the pattern of this moment?” Observe the response that rises, from within you and from the world around you. In this moment, you will likely find that the world within you and the world around you are very closely interwoven.

The Coincidence Card Game

This is one of my favorite games, period. I literally dreamed it up.

I have a low boredom threshold, so I am constantly looking for new material for my seminars. One night I asked my dreams to show me a new exercise I could lead in a creativity workshop. I saw myself leading the game explained here.

You can play this game with just one other person, but it works best in a group, best of all in a large group. I have played it with two hundred people, and I have never failed to find that the more, the merrier!

Tools
You need index cards, blank preferred, one (and only one) for each player. Every player needs something to write with.

Write the Answer
You distribute the cards, one per person. You then ask all the players to write down something that comes to them on one side (just one) of their index cards,
legibly
, so that anyone would be able to read it. What do they write? Anything they like! It might be a summary of something that happened on the road, or of a dream from the night, or a quote from a book, or something that just pops up. It can be anything at all, so long as it fits on just one side of the card and is legible.

Make the Deck
Collect the cards as people finish writing them. Keep them face down and shuffle them. This is a card game. You now have a deck, a one-time deck that will never be used again, which is very cool.

Ask the Question
You hold on to the deck while you ask the players to Ask the

Question. You suggest to them that in a moment, they are going to have a chance to put their question to the Oracle of the Universe. What is the question they most want to ask? For clarity and simplicity, you suggest to them that they frame the question or theme this way: “I would like guidance on [fill in the blank].”Get them to write down that statement in their journals, or on scrap paper, or simply memorize it.

Deal the Cards
Now offer the deck to the players one by one. Each person draws one card at random. Be sure to tell everyone, as fiercely as possible, that they are not to look at what is written on their cards until they are asked to do so. Since it's almost impossible not to sneak a peak, ask everyone to lay their cards face down, nearby, instead of holding them.

Let the Oracle Speak
Now, ask all the players to pretend that the Oracle of the Universe is about to speak, exclusively to each of them. Whatever is written on the card that each of them has drawn is the answer to their question or theme.

Follow this process: The first player (chosen at random or by the leader) announces his or her theme for guidance to the group. Then — with a drumroll or fanfare if possible — he or she turns over and reads what is written on the oracular card. I've found that the oracular message often needs to be read twice: once to decipher the writing, and again to get closer to the meaning.

Understanding Oracular Speech
What is on the card may at first seem totally mysterious, irrelevant, or ambiguous. Such is the nature of oracular speech. Nevertheless, a profound connection between the question and the answer is almost always found if you probe long and close enough. Other players can now be encouraged to help the person who drew the card, by offering suggestions in a respectful way, as in, “If it were my card, I would think about such and such.”

Give this game a spin. You will be amazed, and often hugely entertained, by the results.

CHAPTER 8
COINCIDENCE and WHAT WANTS to HAPPEN

M
ost societies have sought ways to understand the hidden logic of events and establish cooperative relations with the powers of the deeper universe.

The Romans grew and maintained a world empire this way. They believed that the divine will could be ascertained through divination, and also that the gods sent signs in the form of coincidence and dreams and unusual natural phenomena. The more dramatic the signs, or “prodigies,” the more urgent it became to read the signs right. When lightning struck close, it was certain that the greater trumps were in play, that the game of the gods was spilling over into the realm of humans.

The Romans were especially devoted to getting messages from the flight and the voices of birds. Before making an important decision, top Roman officials, accompanied by members of the council of augurs (“bird-watchers”), would take their stand at a special place on the Capitoline hill and designate a certain quarter of the sky as the place to be watched. They had agreed on ways for interpreting the speed, direction, number, and altitude of birds, and for translating their language.

The most powerful portents, for the Romans as in our lives, were often those that came uninvited. A strange bird settled in a wood and could not be driven away until a defeated emperor, Otho, killed himself. A dying oak tree revived and put out fresh shoots when the first emperor, Augustus, first set foot on the island of Capri.

When signs were obscure and the need was great, the Romans consulted the Sibylline Books, kept — in imperial times — in a vault under the temple of Apollo. In their later form, the Sibylline Books (originally attributed to a great seeress) were a gathering of magical texts from all over the world. The preferred form of consulting them was apparently to spread and shuffle loose pages and then pull one at random — a solemn version of the Coincidence Card Game.

THE DIVINATION DEPARTMENT
OF IMPERIAL JAPAN

In imperial Japan, one-third of the officials in the Ministry of Religious Affairs — the Jingikan — were assigned to one department, the Department of Divination. Their job was to read patterns of coincidence and advise the emperor accordingly. They had many techniques for provoking a sign from the world, including heating a turtle shell and reading the cracks and monitoring night time activity in the Shinto and Buddhist shrines where priests and supplicants went to ask for an oracular dream, a
reimu
. But the task of the divination office was also to advise on the meaning of spontaneous signs and coincidences: the fall of a comet, an incident at a bridge, the case of three doves who, strangely, pecked each other to death.