One of my guiding principles is that the universe is always communicating with us, so when something unusual happens – like this week – I pay attention. The other day, something small and slender drooped from the top bar of my shower stall. Was it caulk? The glue unfurling? No. It was a millipede.
For context, I live on the second floor, and my bathroom is nowhere near anything natural like a tree. Also, I’ve lived here for nearly 11 years, and I’ve never seen a millipede in my home before. In other words, this isn’t a common occurrence. This millipede essentially appeared out of thin air, and I’m choosing to believe it was to tell me something.
I googled the shamanic meaning of millipede and nothing resonated until I read a post from the website Symbols and Synchronicity, where the author wrote that millipedes are messengers. “Not messengers in the way of grand declarations, but gentle ones—quiet teachers reminding us that transformation is not always loud,” she said. “Many traditions hold them close, seeing in their patient crawl the essence of protection, endurance, and hidden strength. . .The millipede, coiling slow and sure, brings lessons in groundedness and trust in the path beneath our feet.”
My millipede didn’t look like this, fyi. Photo by Markus Blüthner on Unsplash
I won’t quote the entire piece – even though it’s gorgeous and I recommend reading it – but here are a few more parts that jumped out at me: “[The millipede] teaches in silence. No bark, no roar, no teeth. But you follow her for a while and she’ll show you how to go on when everything says stop. She’ll teach you to live like the forest floor lives: slow, patient, making something rich out of all that has fallen apart.”
And one more quote: “So if she comes, stop. Get low. Lay your palm to the ground and say thank you. For the lesson. For the witness. For the reminder that the slow way is not the wrong way. That you can lose things, many things, and still go on. That your healing, like hers, may come not in leaps—but in inches. And that is holy, too.”
When I read the piece from Symbols and Synchronicity, tears started streaming down my cheeks, and even now I’m getting choked up, because this year has been like that. Losing things, grieving dreams, releasing old ways of being. It’s been a deep and slow healing process. And oftentimes I feel like I’m backsliding, that I’m not making any progress at all. But then I get a message from the millipede, who says, “You’re healing in inches.”
No one else may notice the healing; I might not be able to broadcast it like a story on the 6 o’clock news, but it’s happening. This subtle growth is fitting for the season we’re in, too, in the Northern hemisphere. Winter is about hibernation, taking things slow. I know that’s counter to the messaging we get around the holidays but that doesn’t make it any less true.
The millipede reminds us to go slow, to remember slow is not bad or wrong. Sometimes it’s the only way and it’s still beautiful and worthwhile. Sometimes healing happens in inches, not leaps, and it’s still worth celebrating.
I dream of a world where we understand healing doesn’t always look the way we expect it to look. A world where we recognize it’s often slow and deep. A world where we celebrate the progress we’ve made, even if no one else can see it. A world where we remember that sometimes healing happens in inches, not leaps.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I keep thinking about fantasy, delusion, and reality. A spiritual teacher I like was convinced Kamala Harris would become the next president. When Trump won on election night, she said, “Kamala won’t concede! She’ll ask that the election be investigated!” When that didn’t happen, this teacher said, “The election won’t be certified!” And then when that didn’t happen, she said, “Just wait until late April or early May. This election isn’t over! It’s all about to end!”
What interests me is not the content – people believe wacky things all the time – it’s that she kept saying her intuition told her all of this was true. And not only her intuition, but intuitive tools like tarot cards and signs. All of her tarot cards said more would be revealed. And she received sign after sign, things like walking around town and seeing t-shirts and bumper stickers that said, “The End,” which she interpreted to mean Trump’s reign was about to come to an end.
Yet here we are in mid-May and Donald Trump is still president. So what gives? How could her intuition be so wrong? Especially when she received external signs? It’s not like you can make that sort of thing up. Here’s the thing: An incredibly painful lesson I’ve had to learn over and over again is that signs are literal. People read into them, adding in their own layers, but usually, the universe will answer the question you ask.
Let yourself ground in reality, not fantasy. Photo by Stas Ostrikov on Unsplash
Here’s a perfect example from my own life: When I was in my early-20s, I was completely enamored with an avoidant man. I didn’t know he was avoidant because I didn’t learn that term until later, but what I did know is we had a strong connection, yet he ran away from it. He was hot and cold, giving me mixed signals, and it made my head spin. Was this something worth pursuing or not? So I asked the universe. I said, “Who is my soulmate?” and literally in that moment, a truck drove by with just this man’s initials spray-painted across the side in giant letters. It seemed pretty clear to me. He was my soulmate! We would get married and live happily ever after!
Spoiler alert: We didn’t. I thought “soulmate” meant romantic partner but it doesn’t. A soulmate is someone who you have a deep connection with and often impacts your life in a profound way. This could be a friend, a boss, or even a pet. And this man? He absolutely changed the trajectory of my life. It was because of him that I pursued healing and immersed myself in the world of mental health, so much so that I’m a ghostwriter for therapists. I became a different person as a result of our connection. Was he my soulmate? Yes. Was he my “sitting in rocking chairs growing old together partner?” No.
That’s the thing about signs and intuition – we receive information but the interpretation is likely skewed based on our desires, biases, and more. This is also why using our brains is so important. My spiritual teacher says, “The highest treasure of human beings, distinct from other creatures, is their intellectual superiority. Had there been no intelligence in humans, they would hardly be different from other animals.”
He encourages everyone to practice discernment. To use their brains as well as their intuition. Like if your intuition says Elon Musk used his internet provider Starlink to steal the 2024 election for President-elect Donald Trump, to check whether voting equipment is even connected to the internet (it isn’t). Or if your intuition says to buy a car and then you take it to two mechanics and they say the car is a lemon, trust them.
I know it can be excruciatingly painful when your intuition doesn’t match reality. I don’t want to minimize that because these experiences of learning I misinterpreted my intuition have been the most heart-wrenching of my life. And at the same time, reality is reality. I’d much rather be grounded in reality than live in some fantasy land that never comes true. I’ve been in fantasy plenty of times and it only ever ends in disappointment and heartbreak, which is much worse than seeing things as they really are.
I dream of a world where we understand that interpreting our intuition is an art, not a science. A world where we recognize that the universe is very literal and oftentimes we’re the ones that add in layers and meaning to the signs and messages we receive. A world where instead of relying solely on intuition, we also use logic and reason. A world where we ground ourselves in reality because reality is where life happens.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Lately, I’m noticing how the universe is conspiring on our behalf. The right people are showing up at the right time to help my friends. The things that seemed impossible are suddenly possible. And in my own life, this happened in a big way with my novel.
I’ve been working on a heroine’s journey novel for 3.5 years. It’s about belonging, community, and recovery from an eating disorder. Writing the book hasn’t been easy at all. Shortly after I started, I realized I didn’t actually know how to write a novel and enrolled in a course at UC Berkeley. I joined writing groups and took more courses. I cried and wrung my hands, and wasn’t sure I could write a full-length novel, which, for my category (women’s fiction), needs to be at least 75,000 words. That’s 230 pages double-spaced in a Word document.
Sometimes the writing flowed, but most of the time it did not. And yet, through it all, I felt like the universe was supporting me, and I received confirmation of that over and over again. When I wasn’t sure if my story mattered, I met someone struggling with an eating disorder at 32, and my book is about a woman who struggles with an eating disorder at 32 and finds recovery.
Once I got on board with my book mattering, I still wasn’t sure I could write 75,000 words but I did. A day or two after I hit that goal, I got a call from a client who was circling back to me after a year of not working together. He lives in Dallas but for some reason that day he called me from his cellphone so “McKinney, Texas” popped up on my screen. Do you know where the bulk of my book takes place? McKinney, Texas.
After a friend read my novel, it became clear to me I needed to hire a professional to read it but I didn’t have the funds for that. I prayed and said, “God, if you want me to hire an editor for this novel, you need to find the money for it.” Literally the next day, I received an assignment from a magazine I write for sometimes, that after taxes, would be enough to hire an editor.
Last Monday, I turned in that manuscript to the editor and told my chiropractor it felt like this book wants to be in the world. I went into her waiting room and pulled the oracle card below.
You can’t make this stuff up.
In case you can’t read it, it says, “The word wants to be written.” I burst out laughing when I saw the message because it couldn’t be any clearer: yes, this book does want to be in the world, and yes, the universe is helping to make that happen. It reminds me of a quote/concept I’ve written about before.
My spiritual teacher says that “whatever happens in this universe of ours is nothing but an expression of Cosmic desire or Cosmic will … when a human desire and His desire coincide, then only does the human desire become fruitful, otherwise it is a sure failure.”
In other words, if something is meant to be, the universe will help you. It may not always be easy, because again, I would never say writing a novel is easy, but there will likely be something within you that whispers, “Don’t give up! Keep going!” Or you might get external validation like I did in the form of signs. Regardless, instead of being cold and unfeeling, the universe, or more accurately, Cosmic Consciousness, is loving, supportive, and conspiring on our behalf. And when so much in the world seems to be going wrong, it’s important for me to remember that.
I dream of a world where we realize there is a force in the world that’s loving us, guiding us, and supporting us. A world where we understand that when human desire and Cosmic desire coincide, that’s when our dreams come true. A world where we recognize the universe is conspiring on our behalf.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.