On Intuition

I’ve been wondering about intuition. Who is this guide pointing me in the right direction without me understanding and often without me immediately listening?

It’s mysterious but known at the same time. It’s such an in the body feeling, but also a mental certainty that feels hard to articulate or explain with logic.

I think that intuition is a plain on the edge of the subconscious. It’s something almost ready to be articulated, present enough to direct actions, but not present enough to clearly explain, a hidden layer if you will. It hasn’t quite crossed over into true awareness.

When it does cross over, it’s either sharp, an epiphany, roots forcefully breaking through dirt, or soft and slow. An immediate “of course, how didn’t I realize that!” or a slow “ohhh that’s what that meant.”

There aren’t too many layers between intuition and awareness, for it does live near the surface of the subconscious. I’ve found that the in-between layers that do exist, once acknowledged, tend to just disintegrate. These are usually layers of fear about a reality there’s an awareness of but that may be unpleasant to accept. Key word being may, because most often the reality isn’t unpleasant to accept, but even some part of being thinking it may be, makes the being wary.

I think those fear layers are why intuition is often disregarded. It’s when the threads of desire supersede subconscious signs. My justification is that sometimes I feel like I ought to leave intuition fuzzy, to just experience. But I’d rather see all the layers in their respective colors and goopiness and allow the clearheaded mind to choose what to keep and what to clear.

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The other day I woke up and felt called to read Patti Smith’s Just Kids. It felt like some out of body force. I physically ran to Green Apple Books to pick it up (I’m not really a runner, I don’t usually do this), and read it in the span of days. I’d seen Patti live the year before, but knew nothing of what the book was about. I only understood after that it was the catharsis I’d needed in that moment. It was an intuition breaking through the surface, the book a vessel to unearth what I already knew to be true.

an old man with a book, spotted running to green apple