There’s an old saying that the universe is always speaking—most of us just forget to listen.
Some people hear that and think I’m talking about grand revelations, pillars of fire, or glowing runes in the sky spelling out your destiny like some cosmic billboard. But no—most signs don’t show up with a drumroll. They’re subtle. Quiet. Almost shy. They gather at the edges of your awareness like ravens on a fence, waiting for you to finally look up from your phone long enough to notice them.

And here’s the wild part: once you start paying attention, you realize they were everywhere the whole time.

I learned this as a kid in that small Maine town I grew up in—the one with a library older than the fire station and a post office where gossip traveled faster than mail. The town had one foot in the past and one in the future, and I think that’s where I learned to walk with both magic and reason at the same time. You can’t live in a place like that without learning to listen to the world around you. Every crack in the ice in January, every shift in the wind before a storm, every candle flicker in an old farmhouse during a power outage—those little things taught me more about signs than any textbook ever did.

Years later, traveling the world as a younger wizard with more curiosity than money, I realized every culture does the same thing. Whether it was a tea master in Istanbul reading the direction of a settling leaf, a monk in Kyoto watching the angle of rising incense, or a rancher in New Mexico reading the behavior of the sky like scripture—everyone is studying the signs. They just call it different names.

That’s the funny truth about magic: half of it is learning how to see, and the other half is remembering that you already could.

Some signs arrive as patterns. Those moments where life repeats a message until you finally mutter, “Alright, I get it.”
Ever notice how when you ignore your intuition, the universe stops whispering and starts raising its voice? First it gives a gentle nudge. Then a coincidence. Then a weird dream. And if you keep bulldozing through, eventually it drops a metaphorical tree branch on your path like, “Hey. You. Pay attention.”

Some signs come through people. The stranger who says exactly what you needed to hear. The friend who calls out of nowhere just when the darkness in your mind starts to grow teeth. Even the folks who irritate you are often some of your greatest teachers—though usually not in ways you appreciate in the moment.

And some signs show up in the rhythms of your own heart. That quiet tug toward a new direction. That nagging discomfort every time you step away from who you really are. The ache that shows up when you’ve been pretending too long. Those are the signs we most often ignore because they’re inconvenient. They demand honesty, courage, and sometimes a complete re-arrangement of your life. But those are the signs that matter the most.

Technology gives us signs too—just in the language of data instead of symbols.
Your algorithms know your habits. Your devices reflect your patterns. Modern tools don’t replace mystical signs; they mirror them. Ancient diviners watched the ripple of water. We watch the ripple of notifications. Same human curiosity, just a different interface.

The point is: the world is always speaking. The question is never, “Are there signs?”
The real question is, “Am I willing to notice?”

So here’s my simple invitation, friend to friend, wizard to wizard-in-progress:

Slow down.
Take a sip of your tea.
Look around your life as if everything in it is trying to tell you something.

Because it is.

And when you start paying attention, you’ll discover a truth wizards have always known:
Signs aren’t rare. Awareness is.

May your path be clear, your intuition steady, and may you never miss the signs meant for you.

— MacBayne