Okay, look, I know that the lyric is actually -
“Sign, sign,
Everywhere a sign.
Blockin' out the scenery
Breakin' my mind…………………………….”
However, for those of us in the, hmmmmmmm, what is the word/phrase for this?
New Age? Metaphysical? Paranormal? Superstitious? Alternative? Too Superior to be Human? Ultra-Conscious? (blech) Awakened? (blech) communities, signs are a thing. Ugh! I remember when this all used to be so much fun! Faeries and angels and guides and E.T.s and energy and healing and magic and love.
As my world (I guess I’ll just call it that) began to be infiltrated and co-opted by the far-right, qanon cultists, white supremacists, etc, and/or some of those in my world began to just show themselves to be who they had always been, I’ve not been able to claim any of those terms above any longer in the ways that I used to. It’s been a complete disruption for me while somehow I just keep doing my thing, being of service in ways that feel genuine to me without the need to try to hold all of that or any of that any longer as my identity.
The identity shifts for me and so many have been massive for a few years now and it seems there is no end in sight, just an ever-evolving experience of the self in the moment. It’s freeing and terrifying at the same time.
The other night Jon and I strolled over to The Farmer and The Cook, easily one of our favorite and most frequented restaurants in the valley serving up organic vegetarian and vegan fare with a delicious bakery and an all-organic market. Much of the produce they cook up and sell is grown on their farm or by other local farmers. It’s a true gem. It captures the spirit of what Ojai was when we first moved here, and living down the street from them has positively and healthily impacted the way we cook and eat at home more than anything else has.
We ordered our meals and went to sit outside on the patio. It had been hot but the early evening air was already cool. The patio faces one of the mountain ranges that ring our valley. It’s always a special place to sit, and we always see people we know.
While dining a man with dark hair strolled by our table wearing a bright yellow shirt. The color grabbed my attention and he saw me staring at him and gave me a look.
“I’m just enjoying your shirt,” I said, and he smiled at me as he continued past us to his table out in the orchard which sits right next to the far end of the building.
“Hmmm, yellow,” I said to Jon, “Third chakra.”
It’s midnight as I am writing this. My office door is open to grab the cool night air, and as soon as I started writing about the man in the yellow shirt the coyotes who frequent our area began whooping up a storm.
We continued to dine and relax, and a few minutes later another dark-haired male walked by wearing a yellow shirt. I did not really catch what the print on the first yellow shirt was, but this one was clear. It was Bowie, David that is.
“I like your Bowie shirt,” I called out to him. It’s pretty regular for me to engage people I do not know in conversation.
“Thanks!” he replied.
“Another yellow,” said Jon
The wheels of my mind started churning, trying to draw some meaning from the two yellow shirts.
Oh, there go the coyotes again. Louder this time.
I stopped myself and went back to eating. Whatever. Two random dudes both wearing yellow t-shirts. “No big. Nora! Why you gotta make a thing out of every single thing?”
A few minutes later the two of them walked by us. Together.
“Wait, you two yellow shirt guys are together???” I said
“Yeah, we planned this,” one of them joked.
Okay, I decided to let it go. If there was something I needed to know regarding the color yellow, or third chakras, or whatever, something else would show up to let me know.
A few minutes later our friend Andy pulled up (he was not wearing a yellow shirt), and I yelled out to him. We first met Andy and his wife Sharon on a cold winter’s night at The Farmer and The Cook over a decade ago. It was too cold to eat outside and the indoor dining room back then was much smaller than it is now. It was packed. Olivia (The Cook of the duo that owns this fabulous place) came over to our table and said, “Would you be okay with Andy and Sharon sitting with you? They’re nice and I think you’ll like one another.”
We nodded, they joined us, and we all got to know one another that night.
“Hey, Andy!” I shouted.
He came over laughing, “Did you see me as soon as I got out of my car?”
He’s pretty recognizable, and we almost always see him there and at the Farmers’ Market on Thursdays.
“Sit with us!”
He did and after “Hellos” and “How are yous?” he let me know that Sharon had been reading my blog and had been filling him in with my perspective on the city council meetings. It’s the first time someone has talked to me about my writing out in the wild. People have been coming up to me and talking to me about my channeling work for many years now due to the Gaia Series and other things I have done that have been more public. So, I have gotten used to that. I always seem to be in the midst of something very mundane (pumping gas, grocery shopping, sitting in the yard with the dogs, etc) and often seem to be unshowered and a mess when this happens. Ojai attracts a lot of tourists who are into my kind of work. This, however, hearing someone casually say, “We’ve been reading what you’ve been writing.” This was new.
I was happy to know that my work is getting out there farther than I am aware of, and I also suddenly felt a bit vulnerable and exposed. Like, “Oh shit, people are reading what I am saying!!!!”
I mean, my intention is to share, and yet, it’s one thing to have an intention, start taking action toward that intention, and then suddenly start receiving a response. It’s wonderful and fulfilling. It’s also really interesting to me that the articles I have published that have been read the most are the ones pertaining to our city council. I guess it’s the conflict. Conflict is central to almost all forms of storytelling.
I used to teach playwriting to kids and teens. We had a pretty simple formula we used to create a blueprint for each story, and “What is the conflict?” was one of the biggies. It’s the grist, and yet it triggers my awareness that this is connected to the loop of suffering we have found ourselves in here on Earth.
I’m putting a pin in this one to come back to for later as this seems to be off-topic. I mean, it’s probably not. I’ll probably discern how this is all connected to the story I am now telling in a month or so. However, there are more yellow shirts to share about.
The next morning I went “downtown” (I put this in quotes to highlight that, even though we do have an official downtown, when you live in a town of 8000 people downtown is only a couple of blocks long) to Pinyon Ojai to grab my biweekly delivery of coffee from Beacon Coffee. Pinyon is also a favorite of ours. It sits on the East end of downtown about a couple of miles from our little Meiners Oaks neighborhood. Beacon Coffee is my go-to coffee; single-origin, small-farmed, and the best coffee I have ever had in my cup. Their Ojai location recently closed due partly to the not-so-great direction Ojai proper seems to be headed (greed being primary, see my city council stories for more about this). So, Pinyon formed a partnership with Beacon to allow us regulars who order monthly beans from them and live in Ojai to have a local pickup spot. It’s a total joy for me to go to Pinyon, the food there is delicious and special and created with such love and detail, and I am in love with the owners and staff there.
I walked in and there was Jeremy, one of the owners and chef extraordinaire, wearing a yellow t-shirt.
”Nephew!” I called out to him as I entered. A while back I let them know I was adopting them as my family. I have no nieces and nephews of my own, and these people are a fantastic solution to this.
He smiled his beautiful smile at me as he was sliding a pizza into their wood-fired oven. The restaurant is mostly open concept with the pizza oven and chef’s station occupying the center back of the space. It’s really fun to eat there, especially when it’s a bit quieter, because we can talk with Jeremy and Tony and Cello and Sally and Ellie as they make our food, and I can easily crow at them how delicious it all is as we are enjoying it.
There were only two others in the space. Jeremy was just boxing up their order as I was grabbing my bag of beans and choosing the loaf of bread that wanted to come home with me. They left, and it was just Jeremy and me.
“Okay, you’re the third yellow shirt I have seen in 2 days,” I said.
Three, oh three is the magic number. In my world, no longer defined as it was, and yet still my world, when things come in threes, well, it really is time to take note.
His shirt was from the show “Shen Yun”, and he regaled me with his uncensored and hilarious critique of this cult production created and produced by the Falun Gong (owners of the far right and conspiracy theory filled rag, “The Epoch Times”), embedded with more propaganda than an actual story, as he continued to create his delicious offerings and then ring me up. Jeremy is a former theater person (I don’t think any of us who have worked in the theater actually ever lose touch with it, so former is the wrong word), and hearing about a bad show from someone who has theater running in their veins is always fun.
However, at this point, I was thoroughly confused as to the meaning and mystery of the three yellow shirts worn by three beings aligned with male bodies, all of who have dark hair. I left loaded up with bread and soft pretzels and other treats, along with a warm hug and headed to my car.
While driving home I was pondering the color yellow and the recurring sightings and how this all pertained to me and my world and perhaps what I needed to pay attention to that I currently wasn’t. As I was having this lengthy conversation with myself while singing along with Sinéad O'Connor, I approached an intersection, and right as I was getting to it the light turned yellow. I hit that moment we all know, either slam on the brakes or speed up and go through. I chose to speed up while remembering the actual meaning of yellow, at least where the rules of the road come in, is “caution”.
Shit, I’d been all jazzed up by the more confident and joyful attributes of the color yellow. I had completely forgotten about the warning element to it. My mind started to scramble, looking for the thing I was supposed to be cautious about (or at least slowing down about) - was it my writing? “Am I going too fast, putting out too much too quickly? Am I on the verge of causing trouble for myself?”
“I need another sign!” I yelled.
I turned a corner and saw a yellow street sign that said, “Share the road”, with the image of a bicycle on it.
WTF?
I guess I’ll know when I know, and when I do, I’ll let you all know. I’m also open to the possibility that I may never know or that there is actually nothing to know.
Speaking of yellow (Sun in Leo, Sirius, Pyramids at Giza, etc) our Lion’s Gate Portal Transmission is this Tuesday, August 8th at 2:00pm Pacific Time online via Zoom. This will be a live and interactive broadcast.
More details and registration are here on my site
If you’d like to join us on our weekly chat/check-in thread on Substack, you can do so here.
Remember one time I told you that messages come to me very literally, in the form of billboards, truck skins, road signs, etc...
So to me when you saw " share the road" it hit me. Share the path, share the gateway..."
And you do! It's been one of your greatest gifts to me, and this writing, substack, these musings are excellent.
Even if you never wrote another word, I personally have received your magic.
Love to you.