Sidewalk Oracles: Final Chapters

Notes on the final chapters of Sidewalk Oracles by Robert Moss, Winter 2024

Mar 21, 2024

“Kairos moments multiply when we are in motion.” — Robert Moss, Sidewalk Oracles

A Willingness to Walk the Path

Each week, I will post some general discussion, reflection, and thoughts on the chapter or “games" from the week. You are invited to share your experience with this book in the comments section.

Basic Information

📌 We are reading Sidewalk Oracles: Playing with Signs, Symbols, and Synchronicity in Everyday Life by Robert Moss.

📅 The reading timeline outlines a slow reading (with weekly discussion posts) for anyone who wants to read along.

📌 Weekly reading notes and discussion (the timeline links to the weekly posts)

🍥 I encourage you to go into this reading with an open mind and a willingness to consider what is being described/discussed.

🧵 I use the comment area for discussions rather than a chat thread. Neither would be private because this read-along is free to everyone. You are invited to comment on comments and interact with those reading together.

From Within the Fog, Final Chapters

We have reached the end of our shared reading of Sidewalk Oracles by Robert Moss. Thank you to those who read along.

In the final chapters of the book, Moss shares more stories of his experience with moments of synchronicity and with the “trickster” (fox) archetype.

Chapter 5, “On Other Planes,” is a string of moments experienced in airports. For the most part, the encounters didn’t strike me as profoundly as I think they may seem to Moss. But, of course, symbol and synchronicity can be subtle, possibly details only we would notice individually and in our own context.

Airports. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Moving in the world. This is one of the things that I worried about from the beginning of this book, the sense that finding sign and symbol might require being constantly out and about, out of your element, or among new things.

Realistically, this doesn’t make sense. If you are willing to believe the universe drops symbols and messages in your path, then you should assume that the universe will meet you where you are. Why would the universe make judgments about whether you have an “on the go” life or not? Why would symbols and messages only be left in places you are never going to look? (Part of me says there is a level of privilege to his emphasis on stories that all take place “as part of his nonstop travel.” These, however, happen to be where his stories are collected.)

It does seem much easier to look and see when you are out of the house, whether that means traveling (as in Moss’s stories) or simply going to the grocery, neighborhood park, pharmacy, coffee shop, library, riding the bus, or spending time in some other community or natural space. Being out in the world puts a new and varied tableaux in front of you at every turn and also puts you in a mix of sounds and, possibly, conversations.

This doesn’t mean one can’t have a life rich in symbol (or kairomancy) when one is mostly at home, but I do think nurturing and cultivating that richness takes intentionality and the nurturing of concrete habits that invite seeing, an invitation to find symbol and synchronicity even in the familiar.

The final chapter is “Fox Tales,” and Moss returns to the trickster and shares stories of encounters with the trickster.

“When Fox is around, the message is, Pay attention. Fox is a liminal animal, and its appearances suggest that we are entering an edgy time. Fox is at home in confusion. Fox knows when to hunt and when to hide and how to wait in concealment for the right opportunity. Fox is a master of distraction — and can succeed in distracting us when we get too sober-sided and serious about things.” Sidewalk Oracles (211)

The trickster seems to have no meaning for me, no resonance. I may (in the future) look twice when I run across fox insignia on things, or if I ever see a fox, but right now, this character, so important to Moss, seems beyond the realm for me. The fox in Sidewalk Oracles is an outlier, one that doesn’t fit into the picture for me.

I always enjoy a good story quote though:

“But to dance with the Trickster and enter each day as a kairomancer requires us to be ever on the lookout for stories, the stories that make a day, the stories we are living, the stories through which we make or remake our experience of the world. We live by stories. A story is our shortest route to the meaning of things, and our easiest way to remember and carry the meaning we discover.” Sidewalk Oracles (227)

Sleep On It

This is, in part, Moss’s final message. Take all of this in, sleep on it, and see how it looks tomorrow. Wake and walk like a kairomancer.

I was always attuned to certain symbols. I am aware of lots of things I notice and pay attention to. In the language of the book, I would say I have a set of oracles. I have had clear moments where I’ve said “the universe is speaking.”

This book didn’t change any of this.

If anything, the book reminded me to now and then give myself a shake and say, “look around…. What do you see?

One thing that also is clear to me is that I struggle with asking the question.

The other thing I take away is a reminder that, on the off-chance that we get what we give, there is a lot of work to do in the attitude department.

The license plate in front of me today was FROMSP.

I don’t think it had anything to say to me.

Thank You

Thank you for reading Sidewalk Oracles and sharing your insight and experience, especially as you read through the series of “games” and reflected on your own relationship and attenuation to sign and symbol.

I think many of us hoped for something more magical or transformational at the outset of this reading. That only a very few continued reading may be a comment on how the book felt or it may be a comment on the experience reading along here.

I hope that reading Sidewalk Oracles gave you some food for thought and also made you more open to things you hear, see, dream, or encounter in your daily life.