The Yazhi rarely communicates directly with a follower of the Path of the Yazhi, but rather seems to speak through seemingly random or arbitrary twists of fate and dreams. Sound incredible? Tarot and palm readers have been doing this same kind of divinatory communion with the greater spiritual realm in a very specific and localized way for centuries, using their decks or interpretations of the lines on a person’s hand to shed light on an otherwise uncertain future. But for a Yazhi, this sort of “reading” goes far beyond cards or hands, incorporating everything a person’s senses come into contact with, and providing answers and guidance in matters both trivial and extreme. In this sense, Awareness in all things is a critical part of everyday life for a Yazhi; he or she must always be ready and able to discern messages from the divine in the way events play out, especially if those events have an element of chance in them. A great example of this can be seen in a Yazhi I interviewed who believed that a good deal of the guidance and spiritual advisories, if you will, that he received as a Yazhi came through to him through card games.

    This does not mean, however, that a Yazhi will take everything that crosses his or her path as the proverbial gospel, (If they did, imagine their priorities after reading a week or so’s worth of Spam or junk mail!) but rather that if things begin popping up that point to a central sort of concept, duty, or problem, he or she will be inclined to look deeper, and discern what, exactly, the Yazhi is trying to tell them.

    But, the Yazhi’s guidance doesn’t just come in the form of random or arbitrary circumstance, it also comes in a form loosely classified as “visions,” incorporating dreams, gut feelings, and hallucinations. Now, when we think of hallucinations, we think of drugs, and while hallucinogens are widely used in many older religions and religious traditions, they don’t seem to be the preferred method for a Yazhi to “transcend” the limits of his or her body, if you will. Much like many Native American tribes, the way in which a typical Yazhi would bring about an altered state of consciousness in which hallucinations can occur more easily is through extreme physical exhaustion and fasting. They push their bodies to the limit as a act of both cleansing and preparation for contact with the divine, until the physical aspect of their being can take little more and the mind opens incredibly, allowing an experience much like the legendary vision quests that were (and in some cases, still are) undertaken by most, if not all Native American tribes.

    Dreams play the biggest role in the manner in which the Yazhi grants guidance, and it is almost a universally held belief among Yazhi that sleep is exclusively the realm of the soul, a time when a person’s essence can travel to any place or time, communicate with other sleeping individuals, and even ascend to a higher plane (temporarily, lest they die, which many Yazhi consider a likely explanation for comas.) It is in this manner, in this ascension, that Yazhi feel they come into direct contact with the Yazhi, and are granted information in a form specifically designed to produce a specific effect (or set of actions) in the dreaming individual for a specific impact on fate and the continuing progress of time once they awaken.

    But, nonetheless, gut feelings should not be ignored as a source of guidance; many Yazhi have an uncanny sort of perception beyond their natural awareness that goes beyond mere chance. It is the sort of thing that they attribute to the unseen hand of the Yazhi, as well as a firm grip of logic complimented by a decent dose of common sense.

    For a Yazhi, very little, if anything, is truly random; think of the Chaos theory’s butterflies– the smallest change in one place can snowball into something great, or something terrible. The words of a newscast catching your ear and stalling you for half a second before you rush out the door to work could decide whether or not you make it there safely; a number that shows up frequently (and prominently) around events of a certain type (epic changes in your life, for example,) showing up prominently again might be an indication something similar is on it’s way. It’s about preparation, awareness, and making the right choice, of learning how to listen to the divine, and how to act on guidance given.