Having spent nearly two years writing a book, The Art of Intuition, which is due to be published in February, I’ve been thinking a lot about intuition.
What is it? Who has it? And how do you develop it? Is intuition another word for the mystery of angels diving down to nudge us or protect us?
The other day I had such a curious experience that for all my understanding of intuition I’m left baffled. I was standing in the great, moving, shifting, noisy throng at Grand Central Station in New York, waiting for my daughter who had come to spend a day with me. While waiting for her train, I checked my cell phone and found a missed call from a number I didn’t know. When I tried to call back, however, the number didn’t work. And suddenly I was struck forcibly—not with an idea but with a FACT—that Ellen* was trying to reach me concerning the audio book of Art of Intuition. I should add that I have never met Ellen and had no reason to believe she needed to contact me. But so intense was the feeling that I phoned my agent to ask for her number so I could call her.
It turns out that at that very moment, Ellen had been emailing me, asking me urgently to call.
What do we make of such knowing? Is it intuition—a premonition of some sort? Is it mental telepathy? But look: I don’t even know the woman. If it were a family member trying to reach me, I would accept such “knowings and showings” as normal, carried as they are on ribbons of love. But a total stranger? Or are guardian angels nudging us, even in the midst of shouting, jostling, pressing crowds, silently moving us to our highest good?
And still more important: How do we become so inwardly still that we may hear their whispered intuitions even in the clamor of our daily activities?
*Name has been changed
