September 13, 2002:

What is intuition?

Rationally I'd answer that it's the end-result of the ongoing process of unconscious reasoning and evaluation we're permanently engaged in, which we don't usually hear. We're all the time churning away on stuff, even when we sleep, maybe especially when we sleep. Although it seems so spontaneous, that sudden flash of intuitive illumination would really be the end product of days or weeks of work.

Emotionally I'd answer it's the way Life speaks to us. Life is wider than we usually think. More things are alive. The stars are alive, the rocks, the wooden table my wrists are touching as I type this. They're just alive in different ways than we are, particularly they're alive in different rhythms than ours and these differences mask much of their reality from our senses. Mystics have always known this: the various transcendental techniques are all attempts to create forms of consciousness which make this insight more immediate.

What does my intuition say about this? That the emotional answer is the right one.

We're part of a much larger being. We're like cells in a universal organism. We're the conscious, or the semi-conscious units through which Life experiences itself. Intuition is the voice of the rest of Life speaking to us, especially when we need its help.