Asking for signs
This is a story about asking for signs and the ripples they create.
A few weeks ago, my husband asked for a sign. He was facing a challenging situation, feeling anxious about the future, eager for reassurance.
Like all people asking for signs, he wanted some kind of affirmation that he was on the right or wrong path, believing that a sign would shed new light on unanswered questions, allowing him a sneak peak into the unknown. Ultimately, a sign, whether good or bad, will provide new perspectives, open new paths, and hopefully bring clarity or even guidance.
The next day, he found a baby crow by the side of the road. It was injured and needed care, so he brought it home to our farm. My husband had always wanted a pet crow. Despite spending much of his free time in nature, he had never found one. He had cared for many wounded animals, but never a crow. Crows, when nursed back to health, can become lifelong friends. Finding one in need of care was as sure a sign as any, one which my husband interpreted as a good omen. I agreed, watching my husband tutelag the crow, like the forest gnome he is. He named her Frøy.
Sadly, Frøy the crow died after a few days in our care.
I expected my husband to be sad. I worried that this meant the sign was no longer valid, that the death of the crow was somehow a bad omen, that he was given this gift only to have it taken away. No friend for life, just the grief of losing what could have been. But he wasn’t sad. He just buried her and moved on.
The sign and the ripples
A couple of weeks later, he got a call. A baby crow in need of care, lost in the noise of the city. Would the gnome be willing to take in another crow for nursing? Of course, the gnome would. I asked my husband if this was yet another sign. "No," he said, "this is just a ripple. Frøy was the sign."
You see, a proper sign is like a rounded stone dropped into a still, deep pond. It lands with a plunk, creating a milky flow of soft, tongue-like droplets. Concentric ripples radiate outward, smooth and even, spreading across the water's surface.
Asking for a sign sets life events in motion. As a seeker, you observe the ripples, becoming more aware of the life events that unfold around you: interpreting and questioning, both objects and encounters. This process, this inner dialogue, becomes your companion in times of doubt. If you let it, it will guide you through the uncertainty.
When a stone is dropped in the water, it temporarily disrupts the settled stillness and the entrenched underlying currents. On the surface, the ripples grow wider. As the stone sinks to the depths, the ripples grow fainter until they ebb, and the water stills into an altered serene state. The sign has run it’s course. This is when you also might find yourself in an altered state, with an answer to your question, or rather: having received exactly what you truly needed, or learned the lesson that was truly the most important.
My husband rarely ask for signs, and when he does, he asks with clear intent and reverence. He spends time rounding and smoothing the stone before requesting a dropp. He asks with respect for the ripples that might unfold. To separate the sign from the ripple, he observes and listens with awareness. He humbly rides the ripples as they come, contemplating where life takes him as he goes, until the ripples fade and he is left a little wiser.
Ripples prompt action and events to unfold. Once the stone is dropped, your task is to observe and interpret with patience, allowing time to pass without demands.
If you ask for signs too often, if you keep throwing and dropping new stones, not properly rounded or even sharp, the ripples will become too many. They will interrupt and disturb each other, making the water busy and murky.
Equally, if you desperately look for signs all day and night, interpreting every animal sighting, miss placed object or change in the wind, you will stir the pond with your hands, making disorganized waves that are undirected, out of control, not intended for you.
Stiring and stressing creates chaos, and your ability to distinguish genuine guidance from the random noise of coincidence wakens. This is when one can get caught up in an endless loop of interpretation, leading to the most exhausting kind of madness.
Anothers stones in your pond
Throughout life, we will meet people who desperately and frequently throw many stones, sharp and pointy, both in their own pond and into others. Some are just like children: tossing stones right or left, with no or good intentions, poor aim and little thought for tomorrow.
Others are driven by darker forces, feeding of the chaos in the murky pond, watching as the undercurrents drag you down into the deep, the dark current taking you away.
My husband is still riding the ripples of Frøy. One ripple at the time, slowly, and patiently. Who knows where she will take him.
