Pink Flamingoes (Set a Sign to Follow Your Heart)

Some four to five years ago as I was just beginning to consider the prospects of retirement and relocation, I decided to set a private sign that I would see if I was meant to relocate.  I chose pink flamingoes as my token sign because this image was not very common where I was living then in Colorado.  I have used this approach one other time and it was very effective then, so I made my inner postulate to see pink flamingos as an affirmation it was time to leave and hopefully with some indication then of where I should move to after my retirement.

I did start seeing pink flamingos more frequently than I had noticed them before, and sometimes at odd times. Not that this sign was a major impetus for retiring relatively early, but it did help buttress my resolve.  This sign seemed also to show up in ads and such in a way that suggested a certain direction of movement: back East rather than, let’s say, to Florida (though that was not out of the question for me and is where pink flamingos might be more expected). 

I retired except for part-time online teaching in 2018 and relocated to New York state, near to where one of my sisters lives and at the time near where my mother was in a nursing home. This was home turf for me since I had moved Out West from Buffalo, NY over forty years earlier. I first moved to one town I had researched online, Ithaca, for about 9 months. It was nice and I was happy to be able to continue teaching there part-time, but I soon realized it was not my final retirement destination. I started seeing pink flamingoes again when I thought about moving elsewhere, and that next move was to a lakeside community in Canandaigua, still in the Finger Lakes, translated from Iroquois as “the chosen place.”

My second move was also good, and I enjoyed lakeside living for a year and a half in a small, nestled community of largely retired folks like myself. But when the pandemic struck, I started feeling restless again, and isolated in my remote little patio home, and I realized that this was still not my deeply sought destination.  I started visiting and thinking about my original, high school hometown two hours away, a quaint but active community centered around a performing arts center and nestled near a river and a lake, just across the border from Canada.  I sold my lake house, packed up and moved with my pets again, to rent the house where we are living now.

I am Back Home (at least in the physical world sense), and it is exactly where I want to be.

A few weeks ago, I went for breakfast at a great little diner up the road a bit from my new home. Although the diner is in the countryside and not very near to any body of water, I realized the theme in all the pictures on the wall was pink flamingoes! This time the sign felt like a confirmation: that this is where I was meant to be moving to, all along. Since then, I have been seeing pink flamingoes quite a lot in my little hometown: at stores, in peoples’ yards, and lately, filling the screen when I turn on my desktop computer.

I haven’t always thought that this practice of setting up a personal sign and paying attention when you see it works. I have had other friends who have used it effectively for themselves through the years, and now the two times I have used the approach, it has worked very well for me too.

images are gratefully from pixabay.com

But why?  The practice of choosing a private sign is I think a way of working with your own inner guidance or with your higher/ superconscious awareness.  It sets up a suggestion that lets your unconscious mind and your spiritual consciousness work together in tandem; it can align you with your deeper Self, with your own inner compass, helping guide you to find your own North Star.

Eagle with Snake

While driving in my car via a new route for me, from Ithaca to finally settle in at my new lakeside community retirement house, I watched as a Golden Eagle carried its living prey: a snake, dangling from its beak. The eagle with snake flew in front of my car in my same direction for a long while, weaving back and forth like blazing my trail forward; then it veered off to the northwest, precisely in the direction of my new home.

I certainly accepted this unusual experience as a waking dream, and one that relates greatly to my June question: ‘Why Am I Here?’

My initial personal associations with this sign include that the Eagle could be understood as an Animus (a masculine energy form) in Jungian terms, with keen vision, sharp talons to provide for its young; also as positive purpose and clear directionality.

Online some of the information I discovered about this image revealed:

•  Eagles and hawks have the keenest vision of all birds; therefore they are symbols of visionaries and messengers;
• eagle with snake, in mythology, represents the conflict of opposites (a dialectical, dynamic fusion);
• the Mexican flag contains the image of a golden eagle on top of a cactus, grasping a snake: “the very image the people had been promised would direct them to the place they would make their new home.”
• Golden eagles do eat snakes but only as 2.9% of their usual prey; this has not even been reported to occur in New York state.

images are from pixabay.com

I am grateful for this sign which feels like a blessing for my purpose in my new home. May I serve Life here in whatever capacity I am able.

I welcome YOUR Story and Comments!

Reading the Tea Leaves (Pay Attention to Your Signs)

“Not everything has meaning!”
(my college fencing coach Roxanne, en route to a competition in NYC)

Later, to myself: “No, but anything can!”

I am a huge believer in using outer signs for listening to and following inner guidance. I have found through long experience that so long as I reflect deeply and act in a balanced way in response to ‘waking dreams’ that catch my attention while I am mulling over some question or pursuing some meaningful goal, good things follow.

Responding to outer signs can help to keep the flow of communication open between Spirit or the Universe, Inner Guides or whatever you prefer to acknowledge, and your own higher awareness. The more you can progress in tandem with your inner nudges or guidance, the easier it becomes over time to wend your way through challenging situations and key decisions; and, life is more fun!

So what are your ‘tea leaves’ telling you this month about some meaningful question you are pondering? Pay attention to the slightest waking dreams or outer signs: random seeming thoughts or insights you may have; statements that stand out to you from a passerby or on tv or in your reading; roadside messages on signs that you pass, or even bumper stickers that catch your eye… Any of these or several taken together could offer you a breakthrough insight on your problem or query.

Some people like to set up an image or a specific object that they will see if their potential decision is correct.

If you want to try this, you can set up a sign of affirmation for your question that would not be common or likely for you to see, and you can set a time frame as well for encountering your sign. When I was working on my final book proposal for Your Life Path (see right panel), I set up the sign of a blue butterfly if I was going to be able to find a publisher. Right around the time my wonderful literary agent began circulating the book proposal, I started seeing blue butterflies everywhere. This encouraged me with every step of the proposal and publishing process. Now I have several items in my home with blue butterflies on them to remind me that this book process has initiated a longterm project, with much yet to come for me to fully realize its potentials in terms of writing and service.

images are from pixabay.com

What are you asking to better understand or what decision are you weighing? Pay attention to YOUR outer signs; they are all around!

Spelunking Your Cave

Consider how you are looking for a sign–aren’t you, anyway?–about a significant change or a transition you are approaching in your life. [Name it! You can use or start your “manifestation journal”.]

Now then, imagine you can simply “sink down” within your well of unconscious awareness, into a safe, cozy, half-lit CAVE. Perhaps you have a campfire in your cave or you are holding a torch that illuminates the chamber.

On the walls of the cave there are pictures and/or words put there by your own Communicator archetype Ally.  S/he has left a message on the wall of the cave for you. This is an important message which will help you to make a key decision about your future.

What message do you see on the cave wall? EXPLORE!!! Later, you can contemplate and journal about what you find.

I invite your Comments and your stories!

Show Me a Sign!

It is the final scene in Castaway. Chuck Noland, finally back to civilization after being marooned alone on an island for five years, has returned to find his erst fiancé married and with a family.

Chuck is once again cast away, adrift on a sea of possibilities. Where to go next? He delivers a UPS package that indirectly had saved his life, hoping to thank the sender, but he or she is not at home. He is at a standstill then, literally stopped at a barren crossroads, trying to decide what direction to take to proceed into his uncertain future.  North, South, East, West: all seem equally empty.

A woman driving up to make a turn at the rural crossroads slows to see if she might be able to assist the apparently stranded man who stands outside his Jeep with a road map, looking aimless and lost. She explains his options in terms of destination points in all directions, then she leaves. But as her pickup truck steams off down from the direction in which he had made his delivery, Chuck sees a sign: angel wings painted on the back of the truck—the same angel wings that were on the package he had delivered; a symbol that had served to keep him sane and brought him home from his isolation on the island.

The movie ends, but we know where Chuck will go next, in what direction his future lies. He will follow those angel wings and forge a new Life Chapter.

Is this a story about synchronicity, when just the right sign appears in your life at just the right time? Chuck was asking for direction, studying a road map, and that is precisely when he received his Sign. How Mystic-al! And yet, improbable synchronicity like this happens for most of us when we most need it, especially when we remember to ask—and then, to pay attention so to recognize the answer!

How about in your life? Can you think of a time when you asked for a sign and one appeared to help guide you to your next step with some situation or decision? Did you follow that sign then, or did you continue asking and looking, just accepting the sign as partial guidance for a question of bigger proportions?

Some people are able to take quite successful ‘quantum leaps,’ as it were, responding to signs they receive, while others are more circumspect and prefer to proceed in smaller steps. I am—with some significant exceptions in my life—most often one of the latter. Signs are still important to this second kind of seeker, though, as each sign might reveal a significant piece of the puzzle.

“Ask and you shall receive!” is the postulate we are looking at with this post. To assimilate this principle more deeply within your mindful awareness, I invite you to write about a time when you did recognize and when you ACTED upon a clear sign you received, whether the sign came through a dream, a contemplative vision, or outwardly as a “waking dream” or as “golden tongued wisdom” (if it came as a direct answer to a question you were pondering as an unlikely statement from a friend or stranger). What were the results?

Secondly, I invite you to contemplate a question for which you would like to receive a sign in your life Now.  Pose the question in direct, simple terms. Ask to receive a clear sign.

I welcome your insights and stories!