Reminder from Mano: “As you walk the earth, enrich your experience by sending blessings. See your feet radiating love into the earth with every step, leaving footprints of love and light wherever you go.”
What an interesting conversation it would be to share with a group all of the oracle, or oracle-like tools we have used to guide us in our lifetimes—how we found them, how long we used them, and how they lived in us. For myself, the I Ching caught my attention in the early 1970s, and later in that decade, while living in Italy, I discovered and delighted in D. H. Lawrence’s small book Etruscan Tombs. He posed the Etruscans—unnerving their enemies by dancing into battle playing double flutes, then banqueting in sumptuous reclining ease—as living at the height of aliveness, in intimate touch with the mysteries, “gay and quick” with vibrant energy. I was in love with them, and with Lawrence’s intoxication with them, no matter whether he was completely accurate. The paintings in the Tarquinian tombs show the augurers with their divination tools, and I have, through the years, held close Lawrence’s commentary on this kind of knowledge-seeking, partly because it seemed so ecumenical.
“The science of augury, Lawrence says (in 1932), “certainly was no exact science. But it was as exact as our sciences of psychology or political economy. And the augurs were as clever as our politicians, who also must practice divination, if ever they are to do anything worth the name. There is no other way when you are dealing with life. And if you live by the cosmos, you look in the cosmos for your clue. If you live by a personal god, you pray to him. If you are rational you think things over. But it all amounts to the same thing in the end. Prayer, or thought, or studying the stars, or watching the flight of birds, or studying the entrails of the sacrifice, it is all the same process, ultimately: of divination. All it depends on is the amount of true, sincere, religious concentration you can bring to bear on your object. An act of pure attention, if you are capable of it, will bring its own answer. And you choose that object to concentrate upon which will best focus your consciousness. Every real discovery made, every serious and significant decision ever reached, was reached and made by divination. The soul stirs, and makes an act of pure attention, and that is a discovery. . . . As soon as there is any pretense of infallibility, and pure scientific calculation, the whole thing becomes a fraud and a jugglery.”
Last month’s blog on ritual, plus the revelatory process of combing through her life experience to complete her Council of Gnomes book, has led Barbara to flesh out her own contribution to oracle wisdom and consciousness. She recently wrote the following.
It is my belief and experience that everyone on the spiritual path needs an oracle—an outside source of information that gives guidance and answers to specific questions, or a new perception and clarity on what is happening in daily life. Ancient cultures created a way of divination to discern the will of the divine. I have used many oracles over the years, like the I Ching, angel cards, or the Bible. Jim used the runes. I have finally settled on, and learned to trust, the Tarot and the pendulum.
The Pendulum
My first try in using the pendulum for information was a complete failure—and perhaps a hidden blessing. In the early 1960s I accompanied Jim to Phoenix, Arizona for a business conference. I wanted to use the car while he was in his meetings and when I couldn’t find the car keys decided to ask the pendulum whether Jim had them with him or if they were in the room. I got the answer that Jim had them. When he came back and told me they were in the drawer, I felt betrayed and did not use the pendulum again, because, I said, it had lied.
A decade later, while living at Findhorn, I took a workshop with Marko Pogacnik, a Slovenian sculptor and geomancer who uses a fascinating process to create installations with huge stones in parks and public spaces. He goes to the site, aligns with the land, then uses a pendulum to determine where the installation wants to be placed. He goes to the quarry and has the pendulum direct him to the stone that wants to be used in the sculpture. Back at the site, the pendulum shows him the exact direction the stone wants to be facing in the chosen location.
The workshop was set in the huge garden at Newbold House, a small community within the larger Findhorn Foundation. We were to find a stone and ask, “Do you want to be moved?” Next we were to observe whether the pendulum moved in a yes or no direction (which had already been established). My second rock responded that it wanted to be moved. When I asked the rock to direct me to its new location I felt the pendulum move in small straight-forward jerky movements. Then it changed direction and made short movements to the right. As I turned my footsteps to the right it went straight again, and then in a few more feet it went in a circle. The circling told me I was in the right spot. Now I needed to know which side was to be up and how it was to be turned. When the rock was in its chosen all-around right place, the pendulum went in a circle. I became a believer and have used the pendulum as a clear guide ever since. The pendulum had not lied to me in my first and only attempt; I was simply ignorant and, I would say, arrogant. I had not taken time to gain trust in the process.
I use anything on a string as a pendulum. Right now I am using a beach rock with a hole and dental floss for the string. When desperate for guidance, I have often used my car keys, and once I used my shoe, holding it by the shoe string. I always start by aligning with my higher discerning intelligence, asking for clarity. Then I talk to the pendulum to embrace it as a tool for consciousness, and I ask it to give me a yes answer, and then a no answer, to be sure we are in agreement about its response. Anytime I feel things getting “fuzzy”, I stop working and come back later to continue the questioning.
More to Come
In August we’ll do a blog on the Tarot and other oracles Barbara has used and how she has honed her attention to find trusted guidance. I have seen her use body gestures as a pendulum and heard her reflect on how a series of breakdowns in the daily running of things can be a useful oracle, reminding her to get herself back into balance. As usual, her process of acting, reflecting, consulting, and feeling her way enlarges and enriches the picture.
Thank you for all this sacred information.
Isn’t it wonderful that our spiritual journeys are like fingerprints ~ unique to each individual. Thank you for this beautiful sharing.
Wonderful ideas! After reading a book by Machaelle Wright, I started using kinesiology, muscle testing, to obtain guidance. I have practiced using my body as a divine pendulum, but sometimes I need something not so noticeable when in a store testing for just the right vitamin or supplement. It is so nice to learn about other tools I can use. Thank you!
Liz in Auburn Ca.