A Crowd-Sourced Oracle
This oracle consists of hundreds of picture cards created by almost as many individuals. I have compiled this collection over decades through an intuition game I’ve presented to classes and groups of friends.
There are many card decks available these days offering wisdom through the symbolism of animals, angels, minerals, numbers, variations on the Tarot, and more. Many contain archetypal imagery; virtually all express to a greater or lesser degree the singular points of view of their author/artist creators.
What’s unique about the Community Oracle is that it is crowd-sourced and, rather than expressing a single vision, it reflects the collective voice of a community. Rather than being a static creation, the Community Oracle continues to change and is open to your submissions. Why is this significant?
New Consciousness
The growing trend toward crowd-sourcing reflects the emergence of a new kind of intelligence that has been enabled in recent years by the heightened connectivity the internet has given us. The “hive-mind” effect of millions of people and millions of computers all connected to one another has created a new phenomenon which, according to Thomas W. Malone, Director of MIT’s relatively new (2006) Center for Collective Intelligence, just might be able to, “act more intelligently than any individual, group, or computer has ever done before.”
Collective intelligence, where the minds of many combine to create a superior form of knowledge for all, is quite different from the more familiar model where the intelligence of one mind guides and influences many minds. Collective intelligence is free of the biases, limitations, egoism and other baggage that can accompany a single influence, and it and may well reach a superior quality of knowledge than a single mind ever can.
This egalitarian form of intelligence is very much a part of humanity’s new consciousness. Some common examples of collective intelligence include Wikipedia, Yelp, and search engines such as Google, that tap world information to quickly provide answers that would have required laborious research just short years ago. This Oracle is a small dip into the pool of collective wisdom that I hope you will find fun and helpful.
How the Oracle Works
This oracle, and all tools of divination, work on a synchronicity principle. Synchronicity is a term Carl Jung gave to the law of meaningful coincidence where events that have no clear cause and effect relationship can nevertheless “coincidentally” have a profoundly meaningful connection. Through synchronicity, the message that randomly appears from the set will be one that has special relevance to the user at this moment in time.
This is not a magical process. Increasingly, scientific research is documenting an undeniable connection between our state of mind and our external results. Well-known researchers Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunn (see Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World for more on their work) have shown very convincingly the power the mind has to affect the physical world. What happens when you consult the oracle is that your higher consciousness quite literally affects the random delivery of messages, drawing to you the one you most need.
The use of randomness in this way is a powerful means for inviting higher wisdom and guidance to break through the barrier of our limited perspective. It has a way of introducing a wild card element, quickly taking us beyond what we already know to what we need to know.
How to Work the Oracle
This oracle and all synchronicity tools, work best when you hold a serious intention to receive the highest possible guidance. The power of your intent and the sincerity of your request for guidance are what activate synchronicity, drawing to you the most appropriate message. Therefore, the more you bring to the experience, the more you will receive.
You will know when synchronicity is at work because the message will feel right. It will echo and expand upon your own quiet thoughts or it will trigger an “Aha” experience that will give you new and helpful insight.
When you receive your message, consider how this guidance may relate to your life right now and why synchronicity delivered this particular message to you. Use the Oracle messages that feel helpful and disregard the ones that don’t. But don’t be too quick to throw away a message that doesn’t immediately trigger a big response. Keep it in mind for a few days and see if you begin to hear this same guidance from different sources in your life. When we need a message, Spirit will whisper to us again and again until we are ready to listen.
Ready to Begin?
- Then take a moment to relax. Breathe deeply. Stop thinking or problem-solving. Let your mind float free.
- Now, hold an intention that some form of Higher Mind is now guiding the process. You may hold a specific question in mind such as, “What do I need to do, understand, or shift in order to achieve my goal of ________?” You may also simply open to receive whatever message your Higher Wisdom deems most important for you right now. Trust that you will get the message you most need.
I’d love to hear what you think of the Community Oracle: lynn@lynnwoodland.com
Submit Your Own Message Card
If you would like to add a message card to this collection, create your image using words and/or pictures. The originals were all done on colored 3×5 cards so please use the same proportions for your contribution. Scan it and send us a JPG of the image to lynn@lynnwoodland.com and we may add your message to the mix.
