Sidewalk Oracles: Week 3

Notes on Week 3 of Sidewalk Oracles by Robert Moss, Winter 2024

“To become a kairomancer, you need to learn to trust your feelings as you walk the roads of this world, to develop your personal science of shivers, to recognize in your gut and your skin and in free-floating impressions that you know far more than you hold on the surface of consciousness. You need to take care of your poetic health, reading what rhymes in a day or a season. You want to expect the unexpected, to make friends with surprises, and never miss that special moment.” 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.

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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.

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Threading the Needle, Week 3

In Chapter 3 of Sidewalk Oracles, Moss outlines 12 “rules” for kairomancy, a process of living a life guided by synchronicity.

We only read through the first 6 “rules” this week. (I probably should have just had us do the whole chapter.)

I found myself really focused on one of these rules this week.

Last night, after a day with some big emotional moments, I re-read the chapter, and I, again, stumbled a bit over the first rule:

“Whatever you think or feel, the universe says yes.”

When you first read that, it might come across differently…. as in the universe is going to give to you (good things) regardless of your attitude (because the universe has your best interests in mind) — the answer is always yes. But it doesn’t say “no matter what you think or feel, the universe says yes.”

It suggests the universe goes along and mirrors back to us what we are projecting.

“Whatever you think or feel, the universe says yes.”

When you read again and then read the explanation, the role we play in this process becomes clear. This “rule” warns us that the universe is going to say yes (or agree) with whatever we are thinking or feeling. This may or may not be a “yes” we want. It may or may not be positive. This is very different than “the universe will provide (positively) regardless of our attitude.”

While I think there are plenty of examples of people who maintain a positive and optimistic outlook and have things go off the rails, the idea that the universe gives what you ask for and mirrors what you project…. really stopped me in my tracks.

I’ve poked a lot of holes in the balloon this week, but a little part of me worries about the extent to which this may be true. Negative energy may beget negative responses from the universe. Ultimately, I think Moss posits that we are masters of our own destiny, to some extent, because we can choose our attitude. If we present a more positive and open attitude, the universe may mirror it back to us.

This strikes me as particularly sunny, problematically sunny. Just being sunny doesn’t make everything turn out right, bring success, pay the bills, or keep us in good health. There are too many examples where we know this is not true, right? I have trouble with a view that suggests that all the things that are currently trending the wrong direction are simply my fault, the result of a bad attitude.

But I understand faith, belief without proof, belief even in the presence of things that make no sense.

This is similar.

While I don’t want to accept that I’m responsible for the mess I’m in and that a better attitude along the way might have changed things for the better, the niggle of that possibility, that cause and effect, that responsibility is there.

In the middle of the night one night this week, unable to sleep after a fluke problem that flooded the bathroom at 3AM, this came to mind. My mind was spinning, a negative spiral. But the niggling worry was there. Was my own floundering to blame? Was I going to make things worse?

Sleepless and overwhelmed, I found myself trying to slow down and focus on a positive line of thought, a single strand of thought, an affirmation I could repeat, over and over there in the dark.

Moss doesn’t seem to think much of social media’s current obsession with affirmations, but obviously, many of us would see affirmations as related to this emphasis on attitude and projecting positive energy and intent..

Saying a line over and over to myself is exactly what I found myself doing at 3AM, suddenly worried to what extent I had brought everything upon myself because I have been sinking under the weight of what is going on rather than making balloon animals.

Approaching Kairomancy as a Method

The first six rules of Kairomancy

1. Whatever you think or feel, the universe says yes — “Before you walk into a room or turn a corner, your attitude is there already. It is engaged in creating the situation you are about to encounter. Whether you are remotely conscious of this or not, you are constantly setting yourself up for what the world is going to give you.” (51)

2. Chance favors the prepared mind — always be open to synchronicity and ready to make use of it in whatever way emerges

3. Your own will come to you — like-minded people (and opportunities) will find you

4. You live in the speaking land — “We live in a conscious universe, where everything is alive, everything is connected, everything has spirit.” (59) Everything can speak, if you know how to listen.

5. Grow your poetic health — “Kairomancers take care of their poetic health by developing a tolerance for ambiguity and a readiness to see more angles and options than the surface mind perceives.” (61) “I do know that life rhymes. We notice recurring themes and symbols in dreams….. we notice that themes and situations recur in everyday life.” (61)

6. Coincidence multiplies on the road — “…it is generally true that when we are in movement, not in the familiar rut, we are more likely to notice and to generate and experience coincidence. The bigger side of it is that when we are in motion in terms of life passages, including challenging passages, when we are falling in or out of love, falling in or out of relationships, when birth our death is in the field, coincidence tends to multiply not just in our perception, but in objective reality. it multiplies because everything is astir. Things are not constant. They are themselves in motion.” (65)

All of these are worth pondering, and next week we will look at the final six.

Two other personal reflections:

• In the section on rhyming, Moss talks about moving not just in circles but in a spiral, repeating something but from a perspective of growth or change. This was a fascinating image for me, something I thought a lot about in comparison to our common understanding of moving forward as involving a linear path. (I am still thinking about this. It will probably come up again.)

• The discussion of synchronicity being more prevalent when we are in motion or when we are in states of change or flux was timely for me.

“When you begin to notice a repetition of a certain situation in life, you may say, ‘Okay, we’re going around this track again. Maybe I want to make sure that I’m not just ground around and around in my life in circles of repetition, but that I am on a spiral path.’ Which would mean that each time life loops around to where you think you were before, you’ve risen to a slightly higher level, so you can see things with greater awareness and, hopefully, make better choices.” Sidewalk Oracles (62)

Your Thoughts?

• How was this week for you? Simply by being in the process of reading this book and thinking about and talking about these concepts with others, you are likely more attuned already to symbol and synchronicity. Did you notice anything meaningful in your week?

• Were there moments of coincidence?

• Of the first six rules of kairomancy, did any of them stand out as particularly important for you or as something you feel you especially need to keep in mind?

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