Welcome back to Letters From Love, where — one day, one week, at a time — we are learning how to hear/access/download/create letters to ourselves, written in the voice of unconditional love.
Our special guest this week, the great Tami Simon, founder of Sounds True, received a letter from love that mentions the magic of coincidences and signs. This, in turn, inspired me to ask the spirit of unconditional love (what we call SOUL around here) what it would have me know about coincidences and signs — which also happens to be a favorite topic of our dear Margaret, my beloved friend who is also the managing editor of this Substack.
So let me now share with you one of Margaret’s favorite signs, which she received some years after her father died. Margaret’s father was one of the best men who ever lived — a hardworking, kind, loyal, and honest man who came from a small village in Italy, where he had left school at the age of eight to become a blacksmith’s apprentice. When he moved to the U.S. as an adult, be brought with him a few of his treasured handmade horseshoes, as a memory of his early life. (PS: Margaret and I never stop marveling that her father was entrusted with the handling of fire, iron, and anvils at the age of eight — truly, it was a different time!) When her father died, he was even buried with one of his horseshoes, and the others were dispersed to loved ones. I am honored to say that I have one of them myself.
A few years ago, on Margaret’s birthday, she was eating lunch near the Brooklyn Bridge with a friend. A little bird hopped over to them, and soon began eating out of her friend’s hand. Margaret remarked that some people see birds as messengers from loved ones who have passed away. Margaret said her father’s sign would obviously be a horseshoe — but that she had never seen one in the wild.
After lunch, the two friends walked home together, and Margaret saw a horseshoe — a real horseshoe — embedded in the cement of a sidewalk. Right there on the streets of Brooklyn, for no reason at all. No horses in sight! But there it was. A sign from her father, on her birthday. A sign of love.
What has love shown you, dear Lovelets, through signs and coincidences? And what does SOUL want you to know about looking for those signs and coincidences?
Today we dip ever more deeply into the realm of the mystic, for answers about the unseen mechanisms of the universe.
Can’t wait to hear what love has to say to you all, and thank you to Tami Simon, for your work, your friendship, and your inspiration to us this week!
Dear Love, what would you have me know about signs and coincidences?
Oh Lizzy, your mind is such a funny mechanism, you little flopping pond duck.
The first instinct you had after writing this question was to turn to the internet and ask it about the history of spiritual signs and portents, and to look up the etymology of “coincidence” — in other words, your right brain instantly wanted to get involved and do some research because it wants to understand things, because understanding gives your ego the illusion of power and control.
But please take off your research head for a moment and just be with us here on the other side of logic, which is where we dwell. What we, love, have to tell you has nothing to do with reason, cannot be proven, cannot be understood by your right brain, is not for you to control, and is made of an entirely different sort of power.
Signs and coincidences are not just funny little weirdsies, my dear. They are not accidents. They are real. They are cosmic messages. They are made of love, and they are for you.
There is a web that connects all things, all timelines, all thoughts, all possibilities, and certainly all souls. You have been in jungles where you have seen the great spiderwebs that stretch almost invisibly across giant trees, waving in the wind and only available to the naked eye when a dewdrop that gets caught in the webbing glints at exactly the right angle of the sun — and then you can see it. You can see the whole elaborate network of weaving. You can see how a spider could cross the entire forest without ever having to touch ground, or make a sound.
Like that, there is a web. Here, there, everywhere.
What you call a sign or a coincidence is nothing more than a moment when you actually notice the web. But just because you only notice the web sometimes does not mean it isn’t there at all times. Waving, weaving, spinning, connecting, glinting.
Let us give you an example of a few moments when you noticed the web.
You had always called Rayya a hummingbird, because of how she darted and ducked and danced and dodged through life, never settling for long in any one place, or in any one pursuit. She hated this quality in herself, always wishing that she had more discipline to stay still and really make something of herself, by focusing on just one thing.
But there were so many things she was good at! She could do absolutely anything with her hands: make art, cut hair, play any musical instrument, cook beautiful food, arrange clothing to be lovely. She could also tell stories, sing, write, make films . . . but she never landed on one thing long enough to become, in her words, a master of that thing. Her ego told her that this made her a loser. But all you ever saw was a beautiful hummingbird, flying from one gorgeous flower to another, cross-pollinating, being curious, keeping the whole system of inspiration connected.
The week after Rayya died, you went into a terrible sinkhole of dismay, wondering if she had ever really loved you. The last year — especially the last months — of her life had been so chaotic, with her relapse into drug addiction revealing some of her worst and most destructive qualities. Everything you ever thought she had been seemed to disappear, as this very scary and even cruel version of her showed up. You felt used and exploited, dismissed and abused. Who was this Rayya? you wondered. Who had she been really? Was she the steady, reliable, loving presence you had known for thirteen years and whom you had trusted more than anyone on Earth? Or was she just a user? A liar? Had you just been another thing she had used, taken, dismissed, destroyed?
After she died, you kept asking your friends, “Did she ever really love me? Was any of that love real?”
They reassured you that of course she loved you, but you could find no comfort. You were sick with grief and doubt.
Then, as you were cleaning out her desk, you found a card in an envelope with your name on it. It was written in her handwriting, but with such a shaky hand that you knew it had to have been written very close to her death. You opened the envelope. On the card, there was a drawing of a hummingbird. Inside, in her labored, shaky hand, was this message: “I love you so much, Liz, and I am so sorry that I can’t seem to show it right now. But I will always love you so much. I guess the hummingbirds will have to show you from now on. Love, Rayya.”
A few months later, you found yourself in a mess of complication regarding the settlement of Rayya’s estate. She had named you as her executor, but she had died in Michigan instead of New York, where the will was written, and the state laws were different. And because you were not legally married, the state of Michigan did not recognize the legality of her New York will. You had to scramble and tussle for proof that you were, in fact, her legal executor. That she wanted you to carry out her wishes.
There was a bunch of paperwork you had to gather, a bunch of signatures from her relatives. It was more work than you had the energy for, and it was emotionally messy and difficult. And you were angry at Rayya — angry that she had left so much of her life for you to clean up. Not just the estate, but other unfinished business, emotional and otherwise.
Exhausted with grief and at your wit’s end, you yelled up at the sky one day, yelling at her as you had never done in life. You said, “I’m not to going to clean up this mess for you, Rayya! You made me take care of so much of your stuff when you were alive, and you left me so much to settle for you after you died, and it’s not fair. This is family business that I shouldn’t be involved in. This is your business, not mine. If you want me to be the executor of the will, then you settle all this. You get that paperwork done, you collect those signatures that are needed, you handle it. You don’t get to just float off into the infinite and leave me here to fix everything for you!”
Then, feeling like a madwoman, you shouted, “I’m giving you to the end of business on Friday to make all these problems with your estate go away, or, I swear to God, I’m quitting. I’m not gonna handle it. And I’m gonna leave you. And don’t think I can’t leave you just because you’re dead! I still expect you to show up for our relationship, or else I’ve had it!”
The week passed. You didn’t try to fix anything about Rayya’s estate. You really did surrender it over and you went on with your own business. You ended up in Arizona for a speaking event. Friday came. You were taking a nap before the event when you heard a tapping sound. You woke up, looked up from your hotel room bed, and saw that there was a beautiful hummingbird right outside your window, tapping lightly with its long, curved beak. Its feathers were iridescent and green, glinting in the sun.
“Wow!” you said, still half asleep, and wondering if you were dreaming. At that moment your phone rang. It was the estate lawyer back in New York, where — you looked at your watch — it was exactly 5pm. End of business day.
“We just got a fax with all the necessary paperwork and signatures from Rayya’s relatives, saying that you can be the executor of the will,” the lawyer said. “So it’s all done and completed. Everything will be easy from this point on.”
You looked back at the window, where the hummingbird still danced and darted.
“Rayya!” you shouted, and you pumped your fist in the air. “You did it, baby! You took care of it!”
The hummingbird circled one more time, obviously triumphant, and then disappeared.
I guess the hummingbirds will have to show you from now on, indeed!
Sweetheart, you could write a book of these stories — yours, and the stories of others. These glimpses, these signs, these coincidences. And we are here to tell you that if you were even more tuned in, more calm, and present at all times, pretty soon you will see nothing but such glimpses, signs, and coincidences. Pretty soon you would see that there is more invisible web than there is material “reality.”
None of this is logical, honey. It all makes the right side of your brain break. But it is all true, and it is all real. And remember the conversation you had with your friend Marty this week, where she said she’s been having so many experiences lately, more than ever, that defy reason.
You were inspired to ask, “Marty, when did what we call the Age of Reason begin?”
“Middle of the 16th century, more or less,” she replied.
“When did European capitalism begin?”
“Around the same time,” she said.
“Could it be that they are both ending at the same time, too?”
Good question, little peanut.
Both reason and capitalism do seem to be cracking lately. So what came before reason and capitalism — with all their hard logic and obsession with control, with all their masculine certainties that everything could be understood, manipulated, directed, managed?
Mysticism and magic came first. Intuition and connection with nature came first. Before all that learning came feeling. Seeing. Trusting. Believing. And yes, being guided by love itself. By us.
You’re on the right track, sweetie, when you get out of the right brain and go back into the truth of the heart. See the world from another angle, and all you will see are glinting signs and affirming “coincidences.” There’s a whole other world beneath, behind, and amidst this material world and every time you see a glinting glimpse of the web behind “reality,” you are getting closer to the truth of how things work around here.
You know what we are saying is the truth because of how calm and quiet it makes you feel. And the hummingbirds know, too.
Stay trustful. Melt deeper into the heart of love. We have so much more to show you.
If you’re still reading, chances are very good that you keep an open mind when it comes to not just what we see and know to be true, but to the unknown forces behind the scenes. The question of the week is: Dear Love, what would you have me know about signs and coincidences?
Can’t wait to read your letters — and also your stories of signs and coincidences!
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