This One Moment

It was happening with so much frequency, I finally had to Google it. When all else fails, when our hamster brains stumble at the starting block of deciphering some meteoric message from the universe, as we wander through the fog which has created an impenetrable shield like a cosmic condom over our antennae, when we’ve leveraged all the drug or drink and every meditative pose or prayer we know in pursuit of enlightenment and still we come up empty handed, it’s time to round up the fucking posse.

It took me a while to give in to Googling, but to ignore it would have proven unfortunate. It started with the clocks. Anybody who has ever been to my house will tell you they are unreliable. The greasy, cheap, plastic kitchen clock over the fridge with an eggplant and carrots on the face stopped at 12:40 well over a year ago. A friend of mine dashed out from a party at my house thinking it was much too late to be cavorting about when she had to punch in at 8 o’clock the next morning. Much to her dismay, when she got home to a normal house, she discovered it was barely 11:00, cheated out of another perfectly good hour of fine entertainment. I’ve deliberately not replaced the battery, partly because it necessitates cleaning the grimy, sticky clock and partly as a running (well, not running) joke. The clock on my nightstand is an hour and fifteen minutes off. I simply do the math. Like, every morning. It’s an iPhone dock clock that my son bought me for Christmas last year. I got so frustrated trying to reset it that I gave up, after I’d accidentally changed the hour instead of hitting the snooze button. The clock on my coffee maker is out of synch with the stove, which is out of synch with the microwave. The clock in the dining room, my beloved Elgin 30-day wind-up clock that I’ve had for 30 years has wound down, apparently for good. When daylight savings time comes around, I just wait six months to catch up.

Even with my ticking dysfunction, in the fall of 2012, an eery phenomenon began occurring. For days, which turned into weeks and now 14 months, when I’d glance at whatever clock was actually working, the time would be 11:11. Yep, 11:11, day or night.
I found it amusing at first. I swear on my mother’s grave it was not a conscious thing. If it wasn’t 11:11, it would be 8:11, 12:11, 1:11. You get the idea. I woke up once out of a sound sleep, my head turned exactly in the right position to open my eyes to the red glow of 3:11. It was starting to freak me out just a little.

When the series of 1’s began popping up on buildings, phone numbers, license plates gas pumps and grocery store receipts, I started feeling like I was in The Truman Show.  One time on a video shoot, (my day job) we were racing along a Missouri highway at about 78MPH and I was in the back seat screening footage on a playback deck. Talk about car sick! I was wearing headphones, looking out the window, listening to an interview, and I reached over to hit the stop button. The counter read: 01:11:11.  We’re talking 30 frames-per-second here, folks. One frame earlier or one frame later, the numbers would have been off. That’s when I decided to get to the bottom of the 1s.

See? I told you.

According to the Global Vision  website, seeing, but more importantly, noticing 11:11 or a series of 1s in any iteration is called the Sign of the Awakening. Well, okay, but awakening to what, exactly? I thought I’d done that already. I mean, I’m the woman, who watched her hapless mutt bark like a rabid dog at a cat just a few feet away, but wouldn’t bust through the impotent electrical fence for fear of getting zapped, even though the batteries in the shock collar had been dead for months. Witnessing this, I interpreted it as a sign from the universe that I should quit my job and travel across the country with said dog to write a book. It was all about freedom; breaking through artificial boundaries to rise to your greatest self. I wrote passionately about following your inner voice to help you, heal you and make you happy, all the while, being mindful of external forces far greater than your ability to comprehend or manage them. My thesis was defended by more cosmic encounters than you could shake a stick at. The journey proved successful. I wrote the book, got it published. Enlightened and published, done and done.

What need for further instruction? Yet, it wasn’t until after my odyssey that the 1s started coming in bunches and batches everywhere I looked.  Google the divining rod led me to vast well of explanations. which left me feeling, well frankly, if not a little overwhelmed, then somewhat dubious. I mean, come on, look at this list!

Angelic Humans:  According to George Barnard, 11:11 is “the calling card for beings that are half angels and half humans”.

Awareness: The first thing you should pay attention to when you see a synchronistic number is what you’re either doing or thinking at that particular moment.  You should also be cognizant of your surroundings, such as the song that you’re currently listening to or even something as simple as the rays of sunshine coming in through your window.

Balance:  Your life is either gaining or becoming more in balance when you see  1:11. This might also be an affirmation that your life is in complete balance as well.

Gateway or Portal:  11:11 is the doorway between two worlds – between the 3rd dimensional and the 5th dimensional worlds.

Global Consciousness: When you see 11:11, you feel connected with the universe and everyone else who is currently experiencing this phenomenon. You completely understand what “we are all one” means.

Other Google bread crumb trails led to sites that talked about guardian angels, or loving beings who use the 1s to merely say hello, subtly suggesting that I am capable of uplifting our planet in some way, large or small. Still another said, “you are unique and you are needed now on the planet. This also brings with it a responsibility. It’s time to express the unique you, who you really are at the core. No one else can contribute that piece except you. Of course this isn’t an onerous responsibility, it simply means it’s time follow your joy. Your joy leads you back to who you really are.”

Or how about who I want to be? What I want to have? There’s an app for that! Further study on the series of 1s, advised that at the very instant I was seeing the a series of 1s, that I should monitor my thoughts carefully, and only think about what I want, not what I don’t want. Seeing the 1s, it said, is a sign that there is a gate of opportunity opening up, and my thoughts are manifesting into form at record speeds. A bullet train to all I ever hoped for? Hell, my daughter already knew about “11:11 Make-a-Wish” who am I to squander an opportunity?  So after that,  in a weird mix of Catholicism and mysticism, when the 1s came calling, I’d genuflect and say out loud, because after all, if you say it, therefore it will be:

I have a happy and peaceful life.
I am a successful writer.
My children are happy and healthy.
I love a man who loves me in return.

But isn’t this kind of like praying with a calculator in your hand? I’ve heard about The Secret. I know all about visualization and self-actualization. I’m all about the will to survive, the power to succeed. But somehow, on some deep level, I felt like I was generating static, scrambling the signal of the divine. Who was I to wrestle something ethereal to the ground and try to mold it into worldly riches that my ego deemed most precious? It began to feel false. My angels were disappointed. I wasn’t really listening, like really tuning in, I was trying to lock in on a station of my own choosing.

So, I stopped. Some people will label this, “let go, let God.” I don’t give a flip what you call it, I just conceded that if there are indeed angles hovering around, they are running the table. I’ve taken my will out of it. I am off the clock. I am not going to look a celestial gift horse in the mouth. These days, when I happen to see the 11:11 or any variation on that theme, the crack where the light comes in (to quote Leonard Cohen) is called submission. I submit to the moment, completely, free from design or desire, filled with gratitude. Perhaps, herein lies the real awakening. We are nothing if not vessels.