Omens and the Alchemist

It has been said that every bird, rock, plant, and even person speaks the language of the universe and each sign can be interpreted to tell a listener what they need to know to do what they can't not do.  Many spiritual individuals try to seek the meanings hidden away in the metaphors beneath the physical form of reality.  However, this always seemed false to me.  I have started to listen and what I have found is that there is no manual or encyclopedia of omen, there is no primer or Rosetta Stone for the language of the universe.  All you can do is listen and feel.  

When I see two owls perched like sentinels exactly at the two corners if a building they have no reason to chill at, I do not seek to understand why this happened or what it means I am to do.  Instead, I simply listen.  These two birds instill in me an urge to write and an itch that must be scratched-- an itch that is unique to me at this exact moment, different in any other shell or at any other time.  Right or wrong, true or false, do or die, this urge to speak comes not from the omens themselves and more from what I feel when experiencing the world around me.

I have been feeling for the past few months that I wanted to start my yearly fast.  As the day of my birth approached, I began to feel signs.  Reading Rumi and just coincidentally hearing him speak of fasting filled my heart with joy on the subject, having a day of D&D with roommates involving copious amounts of sugar and the following day's energy level filled me with reminders of the heightened energy levels of my past cleanses, constant reminders of my own weight as well charge me to take sword in hand, the day of my birth begins feeling more poetic than ever as a day to start--  all of these signs lining up just could not be ignored any longer.  Today I begin day 1 as day 0 and -1 have come and passed with relative success.  

This is what I am talking about when I say signs, omens, and feelings.  It is not ravens and moons meaning auspicious foretellings, it is the universe pouring into me purpose-- leading me towards the path I know I must walk.  As Paulo Coelho said in The Alchemist, if you stop listening, the language of the world may also stop speaking through you.  Listen, and you may know love for all of your life.  And here is what Rumi told me this morning on the train to work:

"One kind of food gives you flatulence and diarrhea, a heaviness in the stomach.  The other keeps you light as you ride on the ocean.  Fast and see what arrives.  A materially full person is not alert for dishes that descend.  Don't always eat what's offered.  Be Lordy!  Refuse the first plate.  Wait and the host will send out better.  Lift your head like the tallest mountain that the dawn turns red, then gold."