A peacock ran directly in front of my forty-mph car today, forcing a thankfully successful brake-slam. I might have let it pass as coincidence had it been the first time, but something similar happened to me about six years ago, at the timeframe that my latest book Beyond Identity begins, only without the benefit of a car.
I was in the living room speaking on the phone with a friend when a loud rustling noise on the back deck caught my attention. Stepping out the door, a huge blur of light and color hurtled directly for my head, causing me to fall backward right onto my butt. After a loud, “what the f…! I jumped up, turned around and found myself staring beak to beak with a giant peacock now sitting on my roof.
So, what, if anything, does a run in with a peacock mean? A quick web search evoked in me a drawn out “whoa…”
The peacock’s spiritual symbolism is connected with integrity, doing what you say, truth, honor, beauty, strength, spiritual awakening, and awareness, among other traits. Okay, so, humor didn’t make the list, neither did swearing, and the obvious mischaracterization of beauty is impossible to ignore. Still, the rest rings true.
Reflecting on both events, each a bookend to Beyond Identity’s timeframe, I’m somewhat compelled to take the spiritual awakening/awareness parts seriously, after all, these are the core themes of the book. I find myself doing that sort of thing more often these days, not necessarily looking for signs, but occasionally accepting them as meaningful, particularly if they literally jump out in front of me.