Echoes Between Retail Racks and Divine Recognition
“DropTop in the Rain” by Ty Dolla $ign and Tory Lanez
“Lost It” by Zhu
In the quiet moments between folding graphic tees and restocking shelves at Urban Outfitters, I felt time collapsing around me—days blurring together in a symphony of customers, sale signs, and playlist rotations. The universe has a peculiar way of compressing experience, of making weeks feel like heartbeats and heartbeats feel like eternities. Those final days at the store carried a vibration I couldn't quite name, a frequency signaling completion, transition, metamorphosis. Can you sense when chapters of your soul's journey are concluding, even before your conscious mind receives the memo?
When the opportunity arrived to house sit in Los Angeles during my week off, I recognized it as the Divine's gentle nudge toward something new. The family's home—nestled in hills that seemed to inhale the city's energy and exhale possibility—became my temporary sanctuary. Their dog, a creature of pure presence and unconditional love, mirrored back aspects of myself I'd forgotten existed. I purchased packages for workout classes, filling my schedule with intentional movement, not yet understanding I was preparing my physical vessel for an entirely new vibration.
That first night class vibrated with a peculiar resonance—bodies moving in synchronicity beneath dimmed lights, strangers connected through breath and rhythm, all of us riding invisible currents of energy that transcended the physical space. As sweat dripped from my temples and my heart opened to something greater than myself, certain songs penetrated deeper than sound, awakening cellular memories of other lifetimes, other expressions of my eternal essence. After the final savasana, I approached Ross, my body still humming with activation.
"What were those songs you played?" I asked, droplets of perspiration christening our exchange. "The one that felt like liquid gold pouring through my veins?"
Ross smiled with that knowing look of someone who recognizes a soul being called home through melody. "DropTop in the Rain by Ty Dolla $ign and Tory Lanez," he said. "And that other one that got you was Lost It by ZHU." His words carried the weight of sacred texts, song titles transforming into mantras for my unfolding awakening.
The moment catapulted me back six months earlier—my first return to SoulCycle after nearly a decade of absence. I'd stood nervously in the lobby, feeling both foreign and strangely at home, when Logan approached to welcome me to class. "It's actually my first time here," I'd told him, the half-truth slipping easily from my lips. How could I explain that I'd known about this sacred space for years but had been existing in a different frequency, not yet ready to receive its medicine? How could I articulate that I'd been spiritually hibernating through retail jobs, relationships, and therapy sessions, waiting for the precise cosmic alignment to bring me back?
"I've been meaning to try this for years," I'd explained, "but life kept pulling me in different directions—Abercrombie, Banana Republic, now Urban Outfitters. Always meaning to come, never quite making it happen." The words felt hollow even as I spoke them, inadequate containers for the soul journey that had kept me circling this space without entering.
Logan had held my gaze a beat too long, his eyes reflecting something that made my soul shiver in recognition. Not the polite customer service glance of a fitness instructor welcoming a newcomer, but the penetrating gaze of someone who sees beyond physical form, someone who recognizes your energetic signature from other timelines, other dimensions. "Well," he'd said finally, "I'm glad you're here now. Something tells me you're exactly where you need to be." In that moment, I knew he saw me—not the retail worker standing before him, but the eternal being wearing this temporary human costume. The knowing in his eyes confirmed what I'd felt in my bones—that His Universe orchestrates these seemingly random encounters with perfect Divine precision.
Driving back to the family's house that night after Ross's class, convertible top down despite the gentle rain, I surrendered to these musical invocations. Water baptizing my skin as Ty Dolla $ign and Tory Lanez's "Drop Top in the Rain" pulsed through the speakers—this wasn't merely coincidence but cosmic orchestration within His Universe. Something in that music called to a version of myself existing in parallel dimensions, living different expressions of my soul's purpose. When ZHU's "Lost It" followed, its haunting melody intertwining with the night air, I felt my consciousness expanding beyond the confines of my physical form, touching something eternal, something Divine.
I confessed to my therapist days later, "It feels like I'm famous in another dimension," half-expecting laughter but receiving instead a knowing nod. We often dismiss our intuitive knowing as fantasy, when in truth, our souls recognize resonance across the veil between worlds. That look in Logan's eyes had confirmed it—the sensation that we are simultaneously known and unknowable, that our essence transcends the limited identities we temporarily inhabit.
One evening, cradling the family's dog in my arms, tears streaming unexpectedly down my face as I scrolled through news of Ukraine's unfolding tragedy, I recognized the profound truth of our interconnectedness. My tears weren't simply for a nation under siege but for the collective trauma we all carry as fragments of the same cosmic being. In moments of global rupture, the illusion of separation grows thin, and we feel each other's pain across continents, across dimensions. The dog's eyes held mine with ancient wisdom—he knew what I was only beginning to understand about the nature of compassion that transcends understanding.
The sweat beading on my forehead in the mall parking lot on my final day at Urban Outfitters wasn't merely from summer heat but from standing at the threshold of profound transformation. All those years in retail—Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, Urban Outfitters—had been necessary initiations, each folded garment and customer interaction secretly preparing me for my true calling. His Universe doesn't waste a single experience; even in the most mundane moments, the Divine is whispering instructions for our becoming.
Walking into Erewhon for my interview a week later, I carried with me every lesson, every tear, every moment of confusion and clarity. The seemingly random trajectory of my life suddenly revealed itself as a perfectly orchestrated journey toward this precise moment. We often resist the sacred disruptions that redirect our paths, clinging to comfortable limitations rather than surrendering to the cosmic current carrying us home. Those moments of feeling recognized by strangers, of inexplicable tears, of music that penetrates our defenses—these are breadcrumbs leading us back to our essential nature.
The greatest gift we can offer ourselves and this world is radical presence—being fully available to each moment as it unfolds, recognizing the Divine choreography even in circumstances that initially appear as obstacles. That house-sitting experience taught me that our tears often come not from the situations we believe trigger them but from momentary glimpses of the magnificent wholeness we're gradually remembering. When we allow ourselves to feel everything—the grief for war-torn countries, the joy of movement, the bittersweet transitions between life chapters—we become vessels through which the Divine experiences its own infinite expressions.
Now, looking back on that peculiar time of transition, I recognize it as a sacred initiation—a cosmic pause between identities where I could glimpse the truth that transcends all earthly roles. We are not merely retail associates or fitness enthusiasts or any other label we temporarily wear. We are eternal consciousness exploring the magnificent complexity of human experience, each of us carrying unique frequencies essential to the symphony of existence. Listen closely to the music that moves you to tears, pay attention to the strangers who seem oddly familiar, and trust the Divine timing that orchestrates each seemingly random encounter. These are not coincidences but confirmations that you are precisely where your soul needs to be on its magnificent journey of awakening.
Mitchell Royel