Is It All Just Meaningful Coincidence?

I'd been using divination tools for over twenty years before consciously forming an opinion about what forces were behind the choices, chances, synchronicity, and serendipities that I observed.

Reading Tarot cards, playing with ouija boards, throwing the I-ching, bible dipping, and rolling that beautiful old classic the Magic 8 Ball produced often uncanny, hard-to-ignore results. But my "jury" remained out for most of my life on the question of the forces at work in the divination phenomena -- I guess I chalked it all up to [something] -- but I wasn't really sure what [thing] that might be.

There's A Reason We Call It Mystery Divination worked for me, more often than not, but HOW it worked the WAY it did -- or WHY -- I could only call a Mystery. When I was in my late teens, my training in Wiccan mysticism and university courses in philosophy, religion, and anthropology led me in two directions regarding WHY and HOW, simultaneously:

Mysteries were not necessarily riddles MEANT to be solved down to the last detail
Spirituality and the paranormal -- if they could be explained by science -- were still likely to be revealed as so increasingly complex (and complicated) that understanding would only amount to a laundry list of interconnected patterns -- each piece of the puzzle an intellectual maze of knowing, in and of itself.

Basically, the layers of scientific understanding were deep and dense enough to remain mysterious; the mysteries beyond explanation were... well, mysteries.

Is Knowing Even Necessary? Here's something you may not have considered before -- you don't have to understand a tool to use it. Example: the ability to drive a car does not require that you know how to build one from parts.

I approached divination tools -- and the results of using them -- with a similar attitude: something or someone communicated information to me via these tools and I could process those messages. I stopped there, with that question mark hanging out there -- for some future revelation, or perhaps never to know.

I've noticed that people discuss spiritual, paranormal, and religious topics as if they are based in fact -- even more so there seems to be a NEED to find the facts.

Before what? I ask. Before you engage in spirit? Before you live? Have you considered that you may not -- most likely WILL NEVER -- KNOW the Answers to these questions, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in this lifetime. Or afterward, for that matter.

My Daddy used to say "A lot of people are going to be incredibly disappointed when they die." He always offered this with a smile on his face -- what I feel he was getting at is that the Questions we have on this side of life may cease to be relevant at all. People are seeking as if the answers will be -- can be -- found.

Life is not a race to be won; you don't WIN at living anymore than you win at, say, Gardening...

Asking is Enough When I was reading about Toni Morrison, long-time literary editor turned Nobel-prize-winning novelist (not to mention one of my personal greatest living heroes on the planet), I was struck by something she described about the significance of writing fiction.

It's not the novelist's job to provide answers -- it's to ask Questions. One can lead the mind of another by asking provocative questions. You don't have to know another's Path or exactly where it leads to point the Way...

The process of asking questions is powerful in and of itself. Ripping back the veil of the Mysteries is not the be-all, end-all point; the nature of contemplation, and the impact that exploration has on wisdom, is not dependent on answers.

Whether or not you ask Questions is all that matters; and the unanswerable, unknowable... Well, that's why they are called Mysteries.

This permission -- this freedom -- to NOT have to always KNOW is powerful.

We are here -- incarnate in mortal, human form -- to contemplate the Mysteries from the perspective that only life can provide -- and to transcend the condition. We are here to practice love, to secure joy, within the wonder of the wisdom we can obtain -- what we can see -- in spite of all that we can't.

I have gained much peace through the relaxed perspective of just being Okay with the Question Marks.

So, Who Are the Invisible Hands at Work in the World? To a certain degree, I was fine with not knowing their identities; I saw evidence of their presence, and I was left with little doubt that they were benevolent.

Slade Leaves Q&A All Over the Place As I wrote on Erin Pavlina's blog

You don’t have to know a stranger’s name to be saved by them or receive a life-changing message.

Reading the Present You can probably guess who I will claim is drawing the cards in your Tarot readings.

I do want to draw attention to the significance of divining the Present -- the only relevant moment. I do not believe in fortune telling; I believe reading the future is -- at the very best -- only an extrapolation of potentials based on the circumstances at hand. I do NOT believe in predestination or fate. I do not believe that God micromanages our activities -- it's not part of the simulation.

Me & My Favorite Druid I was invited to return a Guest Blogging spot for Jeff Lilly's Druid Journal with an original article you won't find here called Drawing Cards : Storyboarding the Tarot. Jeff is one of the coolest people I've never met -- we collaborate behind the screens -- his intelligence inspires and challenges me.

Please check it out if you are interested exploring one of my favorite ways to approach working with Tarot.

This article requires a part two -- I had more to say here than I realized.

Some Questions for You Before I elaborate further on who the Invisible Card Dealers are, you tell me:

Who do you believe is responsible for placing Signs in your sight?
Who do you feel is orchestrating the magical coincidences?
Who is arranging the fantastic serendipities you've encountered?
Who is fixing you up with the marvelous people who come along and change your life forever, for the better, at just the right time?
Is someone or something planting that Message where you will be sure to find it?
Does the beauty and wonder in your world reveal itself like a perfect Easter Egg hunt sometimes?
Who is half-hiding from you, yet showing you the way in sweet glimpses you know you are meant to discover?

Who Are the Authors of Chance? I want to hear your theories first...

You tell ME who you think is dealing the hands.

Seek Wisdom -- Practice Love