It’s been quite a concern for me for some time now watching the growing information fascination phenomenon metastasize. It’s become contagious and extremely toxic for those who should have transcended this energetic level some time ago. If we are aware of the fact that we are co-creators of our reality, why are we fixated on this dark, false imposed one and its projection instead of what we know to be true and pure and empowering?
Sure, we need to be aware of what’s going on around us and see through this façade, but once we do, then what?
Why do we dwell on these dark temporal and clearly manipulative realities? Once we know they’re negatively charged and spiritually poisonous and clearly coming from the wrong source, why do we keep drinking at their well? Is the next purely logical step so hard to take? To break free of it and assert what we know to be the true alternative world? Or is something even more close to home afoot – having to do with our own personal issues?
Enter the Egoic Self Preservation Loop
For some reason we wrap our identity around what we participate in. Even though we have clearly found out that we each are the captain of our own sovereign ship, we still keep running around their decks and want to know every intricate detail of how their damned matrix tanker operates.
Where’s the cut off point? When is enough enough?
Never – but only if we’re operating in their system. That’s what it’s designed to be, a vortex. Entertain it and you become it. New and fanciful ways but part of it we are when we do this, when we’re caught in the fascination loop, for whatever personal or outside stimulated reason. This is where other forces are in full play, so our seeming reasons for being there are even convoluted within their false paradigm.
At every level. We are not strong enough to operate in their field. It requires a dumbed down vibrational change to be on their level, and at that level we are destined to lose – even if we appear to be so-called winning.
It’s a trap.
News Fever and the Grip of the Info Grid
I’ve worked in actual news rooms. It’s frantic, and oneupmanship is the skill of choice, even if only with yourself to excel at what you do, but it’s addictive. Stress is a known killer but it’s the operation system in the survival of the fittest world out there. Staying on “top” of what’s going on becomes a 24/7 addiction and it sucks – literally – sucking the very life out of you.
But ironically you feel very connected, and on “top” of what’s going on in the world. Your personal life might go to hell but you feel essential to the process, and thereby very connected and self affirmed.
It’s a drug. A vibrational source of fascinating deception.
The internet has made amazing things available like no other time in known history. There’s no doubt about that. But how are we handling it? Websites are awash in up to the minute breaking news, each trying to “keep up” with the latest, even with the best of motives. Just because it may be “alternative” doesn’t change this dynamic. We’re feeding off it, and feeding into it.
Where’s the break-off point? Shouldn’t we as conscious warriors recognize when we’re being played, drained and tripped off? It appears the alt-stream current is predominantly well into this mode. It doesn’t mean the reasons are all wrong and everything’s a psy-op or wannabe cash machine – it just means we need to find our own cut off point and listen to the prompts telling us when we’re caught in something.
As well as have the personal discipline to turn it off.
So much is at play, but yesterday’s truth can become today’s bullshit with just a spiritual nuance, a wrong source, or twisted application. That or just the overwhelming quantity of fundamentally negative crap can sink our once sailing ships – if we’re not careful.
Choose Your Battles – Don’t Let Them Choose You
Reactive living is a bitch. If we just react to everything that crosses our path or our screen we are not living very responsibly nor consciously. Time for meditation, being in nature, relaxing with friends, and doing personal energy work, are imperative.
More now than ever.
This has been the theme of the 3 plus months I’m taking to visit Europe and it’s been amazing, especially the energy work and allowing time to have my bearings reset and energy system rewired. It had to take movement from my previous surroundings and deliberately laying aside a good chunk of time to allow the process to take hold. As a result my life has radically changed, in some obvious ways but mostly in more subtle yet deeply profound ways.
And this needs to keep on. That’s the main message.
Taking the initiative on life instead of letting circumstances or the onslaught of information direct us is so empowering, howbeit challenging and somewhat disconcerting. Seeing new things means being confronted with new reponse-abilities. How much am I taking on board for real? How much will I let these new understandings of whatever sort affect the course of my life?
There’s always a lot of letting go involved in real change. Old habits, viewpoints, understandings, attachments, social contracts and on they go.
All I know is: When our authentic self is knocking on the inside of the door of our hearts we better answer and let it out, come what may.
Therein lies the key to the true breakaway civilization being born within and without us.
We Are the True Breakaway Civilization
It’s ironic how the intruders of our planet think they’re creating a technological breakaway civilization, capable of not only fully controlling our world but actually believing they can now invade and colonize other planets in their pathetic state. Psychopathy doesn’t begin to address the level of deviance of such a mind set.
Yet it exists. In our midst.
As completely out of touch with Creative Source these people, beings or hyper-dimensional sources are, they are very active and even walk among us in many forms, and exert empathy-devoid power with abandon. The question immediately arises: Why? Why do they exist in a Universe that clearly curries love, community and togetherness as the essential part of its most basic fabric?
Again, it’s not a time to be unconsciously reactive. All is good and essentially right – at a very profound level. Yet the paradox rides on. We are still in situations where we need to respond – but consciously.
Not only is this the great school of learning, but a great contest. But awareness of the overall must predominate. All is here for a very deep purpose, despite the hand to hand combat.
Again. A paradox of very great and profound dimensions. But here we are. Waking up to the grand design yet being called up to respond consciously and participate in meaningful ways.
Break Away!
While vibrations rise and the great awakening continues to erupt, the onus is still on us. How do we respond and at what level? Will we feed the lower level testing energies by fighting back on their level, or will we rise to new heights of awakened activism?
Not so easy to discern but once we do and literally break away from the parasitic mindsets and lower level understandings of our current situation things begin to make incredibly clear sense.
We are breaking away. As we affirm what’s right and true and live according to our convictions, we feel a tremendous difference in our reality. We’re separating from the host and parasite – the doomed cycle of entrapped slumbered-down civilization. Breaking away into a new realm of co-creativity and sense of tremendous empowerment.
It may appear vague at first, but it’s happening. On a massively broad scale as awakening souls feel the pull, but much more profoundly manifested by the vanguard of truly realized souls coming to life – activating and taking the necessary steps towards freedom.
Lead on, lead on. The movement works itself into the vein of transition. It’s not leadership nor followership, it’s co-creation, where our only time is in the now.
With your continuous expansion through the spiritual journey, there is that possibility that you may come across the one person who understands the core of your soul. It’s as if you both posses the same soul just in two separate bodies. You may foresee this as some form of fantasy, evidence suggests otherwise, as many have met their twin soul and recall past life instances. Evidently it is rare to meet your twin soul on Earth. Whenever you meet the other half of your soul, your universe will shift by the immense power of the souls uniting together as one again.
Twin souls have gone through many reincarnations and lifetimes on earth and throughout the universe, so when they do meet again, the soul recognizes and the synchronicities light up, just like spark and passion combined, a feeling of familiarity. If you need insight and direction to know if you have come across this person, here are some tips.
1. Twin Souls Signs – The instant spark.
Not just the physical chemistry, there is a spark within your heart and soul, you will know the difference. A soul recognition, that you have once known each other on a deeper level, you have so much love for this one person even though you have not met them before, you will feel that instant bond.
2. We Meet Again, Deja Vu
You will begin to see there are many things you both have experienced together, you may see flash backs, signs in dreams. The feeling you have done this before will be quite frequent. This happens because the soul never forgets its previous life experiences. This is an immense loving union of heart and soul.
3. Synchronicity
There will be endless synchronicity a sense you know each other very well, you end up finishing each others sentences. You are both deeply connected on the soul level and you both feel each others happiness and even sadness.
4. Comfort
There is stability, sense of security and trust with them and you have never felt like this before with anyone. You know in your heart they will never hurt you.
5. There is Balance
Between both of you there is masculine and feminine balance, which is very complimentary and feels natural. The union feels very balanced as far as twin souls goes. Your masculine energy honors the feminine energy in them and the same can be said in reverse.
So Why do I keep dreaming about about my twin soul?
Twin souls signs in dreams often carry warnings about possible future events, most likely it’s a message that needs your attention.
Spiritual dreams are when we are subconsciously in our soul self, and we can connect with other souls, some may call this the astral plane. Pay extra attention these dreams often need your attention, it has been said that these dreams are not created by our subconscious, twin souls have shared dreams together.
Twin souls Signs and Romance
Unfortunately not all twin soul connections begin being romantic, if your encounter was just being friends and deep level understanding then that’s all it will be. There are some occasions where meeting of twin souls can be very romantic, and it will remain that way. It’s important for the man to be dominant and have confidence in flirtatious ways. This isn’t about Hollywood romance, the twin soul union is much bigger than some movie script. To be with your twin soul is to share your love, heart and soul with each other and with this planet, selfless, in unison.
Twin Souls signs and Kundalini Awakening
Whenever twin souls meet, the recognition activates the dormant chakras. The kundalini rises up your spine like a coiled snake, this spark of energy happens mostly when you are close to your twin soul, this energy may pull you closer together and it won’t matter how many miles away you are. If you have read stories about people who have met their twin soul, this strong pull is very evident.
The Content You Consume Becomes Your Reality
Steven Maxwell
July 10, 2016
By Steven Maxwell
“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.” — James Allen in As A Man Thinketh.
I’m a ravenous consumer of content. I bet you are, too. If we are what we eat, for better or worse, the content we consume becomes our reality. It becomes the story we tell ourselves, the principles we believe in, and it may even determine our health. Some content is detrimental and some is beneficial. Because we’re bombarded with information from every direction, it’s never been more important to carefully curate what we consume.
Practically everything we observe and experience now seems to be “content.” From music, movies, books, news, politics, gossip, work, friend feeds and texts, even to our immediate surroundings like how our homes are decorated. Sometimes the noise and choices can get overwhelming. This overload is like decision fatigue.
Steve Jobs popularized the idea of “decision fatigue” when he chose to wear the same outfit of clothing every day to eliminate wardrobe decisions from his daily decision bank. Decision fatigue describes when we make too many decisions in too short a time, we significantly reduce our decision-making ability.
The video below is an excellent explanation of decision fatigue and its potential effects:
Some common effects from decision fatigue are losing self-control over things you normally refrain from doing, decision paralysis, or beginning to avoid making decisions altogether. Significantly, life starts happening to you instead of for you. High performers like Steve Jobs require life to happen for them, not to them.
Often we’re tempted by the emotional clickbait headlines without considering the consequences on our psyche. There are some things we cannot unsee or unhear. Words and images affect us. They mold our reality. We have to ask ourselves if we really want to manufacture more rage in our lives. Rarely do we stop to deliberately protect ourselves from the content we consume.
But like the James Allen quote above says, the mind will grow harmful weeds if not deliberately cultivated. These weeds can be damaging. They seem to manifest as stress or anxiety which can lead to a host of mental and physical ailments. And much like decision fatigue, we seem to lose room for critical thought and productive ideas to blossom.
For me the flood of content I was consuming caused me anxiety. I was in my mad-as-hell stage of awakening and I was rabidly rage-clicking on endless reels of content that confirmed my rage. I thought being awake meant “if you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.” But I was wrong.
Then I had a simple epiphany: the best way to better the world around me is to better myself. I was responsible for the content I consumed and how it made me feel. I realized that I was planting the wrong seeds in my mind and they were producing choking weeds. The rage I felt toward the machine dramatically subsided.
As a Man Thinketh was instrumental in shaping this epiphany. Listen to it for free below.
Upon focusing my thoughts to more fruitful purposes, my life started getting better. Suddenly it made sense that this strategy, individually, would be far more effective activism than merely raging against the machine.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s healthy to be angry at the right things. But when we’re experiencing information overload, it’s all too easy to become angry over trivial differences in tribalism, for example.
So the next time you catch yourself tempted to click on “rage clickbait,” ask yourself if that’s the type of garden you want to cultivate in your mind. Does rage make your life better? What will?
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
A few mornings ago the surf was rising, so I drove down to one of my favorite spots at sunrise with the vision of catching some sweet waves before the world woke up and the water got crowded. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with this idea. As the first rays lit up the ocean, I paddled out to find about 30 other surfers already out there. Instantly I felt behind, like I’d missed something. So I hit the water with a sense of urgency, trying to make up for lost time – paddling this way and that to dodge people, ducking under big waves, navigating currents and looking for my groove. But every wave I paddled for seemed to have someone else on it, or it broke too soon or too late for me to catch. The harder I tried, the more difficult it seemed to find my flow with the ocean… Until eventually I got so tired I couldn’t keep paddling – so I stopped for a moment, sat up on my board and just let the current take me.
Before long I had drifted away from the main peak where everyone was jockeying for waves, to a quiet little area where I was sitting all alone. Catching my breath, I started noticing the way the light was dancing on the water, the way the dawn air brushed against my face. As my lungs slowed down and I let go of trying, I started feeling good just being out there. Just feeling the ocean, and me in it. Right about that time, I glanced up to see the rising face of a beautiful wave picking up right before me.”What are you doing way over here?” I smiled, turning to meet it, stroked once or twice and popped up onto a clear blue wall that carried us both all the way to shore.
As my lungs slowed down and I let go of trying, I started feeling good just being out there.
Accessing Flow
Wu Wei is a Chinese concept central to Taoism and a core theme of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. Translated literally as “non-doing”, Wu Wei is not so much about “doing nothing” as it is about aligning our movement with the greater flow of life. Often referred to as ‘natural action’, Wu Wei does not involve excessive effort or struggle, but a kind of “going with the flow” where we are able to move with the energy of the moment and respond freely to whatever situation that arises.
We each have moments in our life when we access flow. In these moments – through sheer focused intent or absolute letting go (or a combination of both) – we enter a state of connectedness to what we are doing, and our movements become simultaneously highly productive and effortlessly expressed. The world around us seems to slow down, and in that space, it is as if we become one with the very thing we are trying to do. The words pour onto the page revealing what to write, the waves of the ocean carry us and we are part of them, the rhythm of the song we are dancing to comes right through us… and becomes a pure expression of who we are.
While each of us catch glimpses of this state of flow in peak moments of movement, love and creative endeavor, we often believe that these extraordinary experiences are the realms of the elite, only accessed through miracle or mastery. But what if this sense of flow was actually meant to be our normal way of being – available to each of us in every moment? What if, beyond the many details and mixed agendas of our daily life, we each had direct access to experience a sense of oneness and flow everyday, no matter what we were doing?
Wu Wei is a Chinese concept central to Taoism and a core theme of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching.
How do we learn to do, without doing?
Historically, many Taoist adepts chose to explore the essence of Wu Wei by withdrawing from society – wandering freely through the mountains, meditating for long periods in caves, and cultivating a daily existence which was nourished and guided directly by the energy of the natural world. According to Lao Tzu, the ultimate expression of Wu Wei is found not only in retreat from the world but in our experience of flow in the way that we live in it.
“When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei. Then we work with the natural order of things and operate on the principle of minimal effort. Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes. Mistakes are made–or imagined–by man, the creature with the overloaded Brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard.” – Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
While many of us wake into our day with multiple “to-dos” stacked on our list and a sense of urgency to get things done, it’s powerful to consider that there is a natural order in everything we do. If we tune in and follow the order, things get done effectively, efficiently and without extra effort. If we go against the order, it takes extra time and energy to get things done and in some cases (like me in the surf) nothing will get done, no matter how hard we try.
If we go against the order, it takes extra time and energy to get things done.
Following the Way of Nature
Whatever our intent or outcome may be, and whatever our mind may be saying about how urgent or pressing things are, Wu Wei tells us that ultimately the most effective way of doing anything is to follow the way of nature. As we tune in to the natural flow of any task, we may find that there are critical actions for us to take, but by aligning with the energy of what we are pursuing, we can often achieve way more by doing less.
How nature does its work reveals many perfect examples of Wu Wei. The cycles of the sun, the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the moon, the flow of rivers to create and feed valleys, the life of a tree to grow and give life to so many others… Each is highly productive, fit for the purpose to naturally deliver that which it was born to deliver. Each does it’s work without doing it.
Some people intuitively interpret ‘non-doing’ as something passive, laid back or lazy. In the eyes of Tao, there are times for action, but if no action is needed based on the laws of nature, then doing anything may be ‘overdoing’. In fact, sometimes action can do more harm than good.
If we are growing a plant and we have created the right conditions for growth with healthy soil, sun and water, there comes a time when the very best way to ensure the growth of the plant is simply to leave it alone. More water, more sun, more fertiliser won’t help, in fact too much of any of these may stifle the growth of the plant. We remain attentive, connected to the plant’s needs but for the time being, doing nothing is just what is needed. Wu Wei teaches us to not force actions but to let them take their course of nature.
“When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit into round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it. And when it does, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But Things Get Done.” – Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
For the time being, doing nothing is just what is needed.
Finding our Wu Wei Today
If you are depressed, you live in the past. If you are anxious, you live in the future. But if you are at peace, you live in the present. – Lao Tzu
When we look around at the world today, it seems there is so much to do. Amidst our striving for progress, personal achievement, and in some cases, survival, the idea of “non-doing” can feel out of reach. Fortunately, the essence of Wu Wei is simplicity and there are some simple things we can do (and not do!) each day to help us align with the natural flow of life. Here are a few:
1.Spend time in nature – If our fundamental aim is to align with the natural flow of life, there is no better teacher and no better place to connect with this aspect of ourselves than in the natural world. When we step into nature (ideally without plastic-soled shoes) we plug into a Wu Wei world, where natural, generative, flow-filled systems abide on all levels. If there was a “practice” to discipline ourselves around in the aim of bringing more Wu Wei into our lives, being in, observing and connecting with nature would have to be one.
2. Give without condition – As we come into alignment with the natural world, we are reminded of the generosity that comes when living systems are in harmony with themselves and each other. A single seed produces fruit which feeds many and gives forth a thousand more seeds. The sun gives everything that it has without being drained. A river gives life each step and turn of the way as it follows its calling from mountain to the sea. One of our most natural expressions of flow we experience in life is to give freely to each other. When we allow ourselves to follow our spontaneous callings to give – even in small ways – we bring ourselves into alignment with the generous nature of life and (without trying or looking for it) open ourselves to receive in ways that we could not have imagined.
When we step into nature, we plug into a Wu Wei world.
3. Let go of how we think it’s supposed to look – There may always be elements of our life that we consciously plan for, but every step along the way will invariably reveal passageways and possibilities that we could not have predicted. Sometimes our efforts to fulfill the plan and gain a predictable outcome shuts us off from seeing what other possibilities may be waiting to reveal. When we find ourselves struggling (as I did in the surf this week), often it’s because we have a fixed idea of how things are supposed to be, according to our desires or “the plan”. As we let go of our agenda and attachment to have it be a certain way, we open ourselves up to how it actually is… and in that space of acceptance, we become available for flow to find us!
If you’re in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on you can look back and say, “Oh, now I understand. That had to happen so that those could happen, and those had to happen in order for this to happen…” Then you realise that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better, and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing. – Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
Sometimes our efforts to fulfill the plan shuts us off from seeing other possibilities.
4. Stay open to spontaneous emergence – One of the fundamental principles of Wu Wei is that the essence of flow is not premeditated, but arises spontaneously. We can play our part to create the right conditions, we can bring ourselves into the ocean, but we can’t make the waves. My family has a beautiful, well-planned veggie garden, but amidst our consciously planted rows of lettuce and kale, one of the most productive crops this season was an entire patch of pumpkins that rose spontaneously from the compost. As we take steps in any area of life, one of the great invitations Wu Wei offers is to remain open to what is emerges spontaneously (inside and out!). What whispered calling or fresh impulse may be giving us an opportunity in this moment to experience our intended outcome (and more!) in ways that we never could have planned.
What simple things can you “not do” today to begin opening yourself to the greater flow of Wu Wei in your life?
“Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.” – Lao Tzu
Apparently in the ‘story’ of Jesus there is no account of his laughter. Strange? Apparently Buddha told jokes or saw the humor in many things, and ‘just’ life – out of happiness. Because he laughed a lot, we are ‘informed’ that he’s a good reminder to ‘lighten up’ and enjoy. Positive laughter is a healer, and in it’s few forms like smiling, chuckling, and just using any humor to lighten situations as a tool of behaviors to have developed for many situations. Sometimes ‘light humor’ is a peacemaker for challenging happenings like taking the ‘air’ out of someones anger, frustration, or just negativity.
Be aware of your own laughter or humor. ‘Feel good humor’ to others is not hard or harsh, but ‘soft’ to evoke a better atmosphere. A few years ago, I had two people in my center who laughed all the time, and very loud, sometimes in talking to each other. It came across to those in a more peaceful state as ‘offensive’, particularly when they didn’t seem to be any reason to laugh. Then there is the person who laughs at half the things they say themselves – unresolved pain? Harsh laughter or humor when done often is symptomatic of early negativity, ironically, and happily most with unresolved issues don’t indulge in the ‘foghorn’ laughter. Seems it happens more with certain substance abusers.
Humor is a great gift that needs to be cultivated from the heart and that ‘light, grateful part of the brain. Kidding, teasing, mischievous banter, light sarcasm, etc., from the heart is a greater fuel for positive, supplemental interaction. Often, healthy laughter will release tensions or stress. In my ‘let go’ meditation groups in Venice Beach with 20-50 in the group, we’d have 45 minutes of laughter with the idea to ‘fake it ’til’ you make it’! Clearly, there were startled neighbors who walked by. Afterwards, folks would lie down and just watch the thoughts in meditation. Of course, some couldn’t stop laughing. A great cleansing of the mind bringing everyone into the moment. Try it for a few minutes every day for a while, stopping with eyes closed to meditate for a few minutes. Laughing will become more accessible in everyday life then.
A twinkle in the eye be it the smile of a newborn or a 90 year old enjoying the blessings of life, it’s a reminder to feel the spirit of the goodness of love, life, and thankfulness. We are all told to exercise, eat well, have good thoughts, sleep well, but it’s important to have humor in its many forms that ‘greases’ life’s smooth journey. There is a season or time to be serious, friendly, to cry, to empathize, to have foresight, on and on, but never forget to keep laughing readably available. Lightness of being is the path to enlightened love.
There will be times when you need to purchase a crystal, and given the great abundance of healing stones now available, it can be useful to have a system for choosing your crystals. You do not need to know the exact properties of every stone in order to buy one, although this may help.
Below is a list of possible ways you could go about choosing a crystal. Remember, just because a crystal is beautiful, and the nicest one of a bunch, doesn’t mean that it is the best crystal for you. It is more important to be receptive and allow yourself to be drawn to a stone that will have meaning for you.
CHOOSING BY “FIRST SIGHT”
Often when you first see a range of crystals, one stone will catch your eye, and continue to draw your attention. This is likely to be a stone that will be beneficial to you. At this point you may like to trust your intuition and purchase the crystal.
However, if you are overwhelmed by choice, or are unsure of what crystal it was that first grabbed you, try standing quietly for a few moments with your eyes closed, and remember the reason that you needed to purchase a crystal. When you open your eyes choose the crystal you feel most drawn to. This will be the stone for you.
SENSING CRYSTALS
One of the suggested methods of buying a crystal requires that you look at a crystal and see if it “vibrates” with you. All crystals vibrate at their own frequency and some people are sensitive enough to feel these vibrations. Holding or placing your hand on a large piece of clear quartz crystal is a good way to develop your sensitivity to these vibrations. Sometimes a quartz may give off a regular pulse of energy; you may feel others as being very cold in your hand, or even warm. Some crystals may produce a tingling sensation on your skin. Generally a crystal that will be beneficial to you will feel right to you even though you may not be able to describe the sensations it creates. Look through a large number of them until you find just the right one. This works fine as long as you wide variety to select from.
USING A PENDULUM
This is a simple way to seek answers from your subconscious mind. You can hold a pendulum over the top of a crystal and ask “will this crystal be beneficial to me?”. Another way to use the pendulum, if you are considering a large choice of crystals, is to pass it over the top, and look for any circular motion in the pendulum above a particular crystal. If you do find the pendulum reacting over a particular stone, hold it over the stone directly, and ask a question.
RECEIVING A CRYSTAL
Crystals given as a gift are a precious experience, and as you start to use crystals more, you may begin to find crystals, or rather, they find you! It is not uncommon for these crystals to be just what you need at that given moment. It is also not uncommon to lose crystals, and although this can be upsetting when your favourite goes missing, it is usually an indication that the crystal has served its purpose in that situation and is no longer required. This is particularly so with “Record Keepers” and “Window” crystals.
BUYING WHAT’S AVAILABLE TO YOU
Another method to purchase a crystal is buying whatever crystal that is available to you. You may also get one as a gift. In either of these cases, you will be “bonding” with the crystal and that provides the “tuning” of the crystal to your “vibration“. So it isn’t all that critical that you find the “perfect” crystal when buying one.
INTERNET BUYING
When choosing a crystal from an internet site it is not possible to touch the crystal, so you need to take your intuition one stage further. Browse through the pictures and note which most appeals to you. You may find yourself excited by the picture of a particular crystal, with a powerful urge to touch and feel it and a sense of frustration that you cannot. If you feel that you very much want that crystal to be a part of your life, it is likely that on some level it has something to offer you.
WHAT IF I’M NOT DRAWN TO A CRYSTAL
Don’t worry. As with all purchases relating to spiritual growth intent is crucial, and you may need to acknowledge that the time isn’t right. If nothing strongly appeals to you, accept that the time is not right and come back on another day when perhaps a crystal will plead with you to take it home. Beware of buying crystals purely because that is what you set out to do as this could result in a collection of crystals unsuited to your needs and lacking meaning.
A FINAL WORD
Expect the Unexpected – I often set out to buy a specific crystal and end up purchasing something completely different. Be prepared to have your unconscious lead you to a different crystal. The unconscious or higher self doesn’t get involved with life’s day-to-day clutter and thus can get straight down to the business of selecting the most appropriate crystal for you. This is why the best approach to choosing a crystal is to quieten your mind and simply do what feels right.
Clearing Your Crystals
Crystals can collect various forms of energy from emotions, thought, touch, and many other sources. When other people handle your crystal, they leave their energy imprint on the crystal. This isn’t “bad” however, in order to make your crystal truly yours, we suggest that you remove the stored vibration. This is known as clearing the crystal.
It is a good idea to clear your crystal when you first get it, after you use it for any healing work, or whenever you feel that the crystal lacks light, luster, and energy.
Sea Salt Method
(Please note: many feel this method is too harsh. They prefer some of the other, more gentle methods listed below.)
Bury the crystal in sea salt overnight, preferably in a ceramic or glass container. You can purchase sea salt in most health food stores and in some supermarkets. You may also put your crystal in a container of water and sea salt. Use your intuition to determine how much salt you need and how long you want to leave the crystal in the solution (usually one to three days). Wash all salt off the crystals after clearing them. (We recommend filtered water for this.)
Smudging
A wonderful Native American method of clearing is to burn cedar and sage leaves and pass your crystal through the smoke. Cedar and sage may be purchased in most shops that specialize in herbs. You can also use a smudge stick, which combines cedar, sage, and often other herbs. This method is excellent for clearing your crystal as well as yourself and your environment. We prefer it for clearing jewelry.
Breath
Hold the crystal in your dominant hand, or if it is large, in both your hands. Focus your thoughts on the crystal with the intention that it will become free of all negative energy. As you hold this thought, inhale through your nose and exhale forcefully through your mouth. Your breath carries your intention to clear your crystal.
Remember to use your intuition to determine when your crystal needs clearing. Whenever you sense a decrease in its energy, a cloudiness or stickiness, it’s time to clear.
Charging
To charge a crystal is to revitalize it. Think of what kind of energy you want to store in your crystal. We have tried charging our crystals with many different energies.
Use your imagination and experiment by putting your crystal in direct sunlight or moonlight, on a large crystal cluster, under a pyramid, buried in the snow, or in the earth.
Even if all you do with your crystal is keep it near you, you will begin to notice subtle changes in yourself. Crystals amplify and balance even the most subtle mental energy. Just having crystals in your environment can improve the quality of your life.
Active Use of Crystal
When we consciously work with crystal we can accomplish anything that the mind can imagine. Crystals have been helpful in improving memory, helping plants to grow, healing animals, contacting spirit guides, and in communicating with the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms.
One particularly powerful way to work with crystals is through the use of affirmations.
Affirmations
Affirmations are one of the most powerful methods we can use to change the quality of our lives and to create the things we want. An affirmation is a declaration or a thought which creates a desired result. To affirm means to make firm.” What we think or believe about ourselves and the world becomes our reality.
Pay attention to your affirmations, not only to avoid rote-like repetitions, but to actually hear what you’re saying. Joyce once realized that her affirmation, “I have an unlimited number of valuable ideas” had turned into “I have an unlimited number of limiting ideas.” This was a valuable, if depressing, discovery.
We have been giving ourselves affirmations all our lives – only we weren’t aware of it. Anything we say or think to ourselves is an affirmation. Anything anyone else says to us is an affirmation if we accept it and believe it. When we’re not aware of the process and the power of that which we think and believe about ourselves and our world we affirm a lot of things which don’t serve us well.
We are all carrying around basic core beliefs. Some of them are non-supportive things that we learned early in childhood from parents, teachers and friends.
Some unconscious affirmations:
If I look at food I gain weight
Life is nothing but suffering
The universe is against me
I am doomed to die without ever having been appreciated
Metaphysics works for everyone but me
Discovering Negative Beliefs
Becoming aware of these unconscious affirmations is the first step to dissolving them. Be conscious of your negative thoughts. One way to do this is to create a positive affirmations for example, “Abundance comes to me easily.” Your helpful mind will quickly come up with a list of reasons why this isn’t going to happen.
It never did before.
Some people aren’t meant to have money.
Why should I get my hopes up?
Another way is take the situation you want to change, and list the benefits of the negative situation. The benefits of not being prosperous might be:
You’ll never have to worry about suddenly losing your fortune.
You won’t have to feel guilty that others have less.
Whatever your issue is find out what its benefits are. Be careful not to censor yourself in the process, i.e., don’t tell yourself, “If I had a lot of money and someone needed help I’d be a terrible person not to give it to them.” Self-condemnation will not encourage your beliefs to surface; honesty will.
Work on each belief, identifying the emotion connected to it. Would you give money to people who needed it? Do you feel ungenerous? Are you afraid of acquiring money, only to lose it? Is this fear part of your life? Does guilt have a lot to do with how you relate to other people?
We strongly recommend the use of flower essences for deeply-held emotions.
The Three Aspects of Affirmations
When we consciously create affirmations we choose words which exactly express the reality we desire to create.
Another important aspect is the visual image we create to accompany the words. If we want to create a vacation in Hawaii we visualize palm trees, beaches, blue skies, warmth, etc. (It can be very helpful to look at the pictures in a travel brochure, and some people like to make a “wishboard” with an arrangement of photographs which represent whatever they’re creating).
A third (and perhaps most important) aspect is to create the way we feel when our special dream comes true. For a Hawaiian vacation you may feel relaxed or excited and stimulated to be in a new place. If you’re with someone you love you may feel increased closeness or a heightened sense of romance. If you have difficulty in visualizing or feeling the reality of your affirmation go back to the section on discovering negative beliefs.
Programming Your Crystal
Your thoughts, visualizations, and feelings have an energetic charge; when you program a crystal to assist you in manifesting your desires and dreams you put that energetic charge into your crystal.
Although quartz crystals are usually the preferred crystals for programming, we’ve used many others: citrine for abundance, rose quartz for a situation which calls for love, aquamarine or turquoise for creativity, aventurine for physical health.
Below is one method of programming.
Exercise
Hold the crystal in both hands and gaze into it, making contact with the crystal.
Start breathing with deep long breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling forcefully through your mouth.
Concentrate on what you want to program into the crystal„ a new job, good health, a better relationship, etc. As you inhale, see a visual image of what you want; imagine how it feels to have it, and repeat an affirmation to yourself.
With each exhale send your desire into the crystal.
Your intention has now been programmed into the crystal. This vibration is stored in the crystal until you clear it and replace it with a new intention.
Written Affirmations
One of the most powerful methods of programming that we’ve discovered is to write your intention on a piece of paper and, after using the above method, place your crystal on the written note and leave it there. We did this when we were searching for the perfect spot for Crystal Gardens. We placed a programmed quartz cluster on a map of Greenwich Village along with a note requesting the size and rent we wanted. It worked!
Basic Meditation
We prefer to meditate with crystals and describe this further along in the article. For those who are unfamiliar with principles and practices of meditation, though, we provide a basic introduction.
Meditation gives us a chance to relax, and to heal our bodies. It provides periods of mental stillness, an opportunity to silence the mundane chatter which so often fills our minds, time and space for us to focus our thoughts, to concentrate on the solving of a problem, to visualize the accomplishment of a particular goal.
As we become more skilled at quieting our busy minds, we discover that meditation helps to focus our attention on the here and now. When we give ourselves the gift of time in which we are neither regretting the past nor worrying about the future, we are able to appreciate the present.
Seth, the entity channeled by the late Jane Roberts, often said that he had only one rule for changing one’s life. That was: The point of power is in the present. When we concentrate on the present, we experience our aliveness, the strength of the energy which flows through us. We learn to recognize that energy as power, the raw material with which we create ourselves and our worlds.
(Very) Active Meditation
Some forms of exercise, such as hatha yoga and tai chi ch’uan, which consist of particular patterns of movement, are recognized as forms of meditation. We believe that any form of physical activity can be meditational. The key is to be totally focused on what you’re doing.
When you’re exercising concentrate on the smooth, easy movement of your muscles, your breathing. If you swim, be aware of the feeling of the water. In hiking or walking, focus on the ground beneath your feet.
Sometimes, while swimming or walking, we silently repeat affirmations. To do this, repeat each affirmation three or more times, focusing on the instructions you’re giving your mind, visualizing that you are prosperous, or thin, or loved. We recommend physical exercise not only for its own meditative values, but because it discharges excess energy, the kind that creates worries and anxieties which can prevent us from being relaxed and at peace when we want to practice passive meditation.
(Not Very) Passive Meditation
Passive meditation generally involves sitting or lying down. Create a time during which you’ll be undisturbed. Take the phone off the hook. Go into a room where you’ll be alone. Create this as a special time for yourself.
You may want to start off with a guided meditation tape. This will help direct your mind into appropriate channels. You can also direct passive meditation by silently repeating affirmations. When you feel comfortable with these forms of meditation you can begin to guide your meditations.
We like to listen to meditation music (which can be any kind of music which makes you feel relaxed and calm) on a mp3-type device. This is especially helpful when garbage is being collected, fire engines are blaring, or strangers have entered your life by having a fight outside your window.
Concentrate on your breathing, following each inhale and exhale, feeling energy flowing from your feet to your head and back. Do this for as long as you can. If you find yourself wondering whether you’ve paid the rent, or thinking about what you’ll have to eat when you’re finished meditating, let those thoughts drift away.
It may help for you to imagine that you have a feather duster with which to brush them out of your mind. You’ll find that your ability to meditate improves with practice. In passive meditation, you’re developing psychic and mental muscles. As you learn to silence distracting thoughts, you’ll begin to receive messages from your intuitive mind: new ideas, creative solutions to problems.
You may want to ask specific questions of your intuitive mind. Don’t worry if the answer doesn’t come right away. It may occur to you a few minutes or a few days later.
Crystal Concentration
We have noticed that the quality of our meditations improved immeasurably when we started making crystals part of our meditation. Crystals help to focus our energy, and thus our thoughts. They raise our vibrations and energy level and help to turn our attention from everyday concerns to our greater purposes in being alive.
The simplest way to introduce crystals into your meditation is to hold a clear quartz in one or both of your hands. To receive light and energy, hold the quartz with point facing you. To project your wishes into the universe (as when you’re repeating affirmations), face the points away from you.
Chakra Balancing
For stress reduction and overall energizing, place quartz points (they may be very small) at the base of the spine, just above the pubic bone, on the navel, heart, throat, 3rd eye (between the eyebrows), and at the top of your head.
These seven chakra points can be further activated by slowly rotating a quartz point over them. If you find that, despite your best efforts, you’re still worrying when you want to be meditating, place an amethyst on the third eye. If you’re feeling extremely depressed or spaced out, hold a smoky quartz. Before long you’ll discover that you intuitively know what stones you want to be with on a particular day.
We believe that your intuition will generally be opened if you begin the practice of daily meditation. It is a discipline, and there will be times when you’d rather read the newspaper or call a friend, or do anything in the world except meditate. Persevere. You’ll be glad you did.
After working with crystals and the ideas presented in this article, you may notice that you are developing a new consciousness, a new belief system which stretches the limits in which you were living before. There is a new inner freedom in which anything becomes possible as long it is in harmony with your deep heart’s core. This is the gift crystals give us.
The world has never been so connected as it is now. Communication and internet technologies have made it possible to stay in touch with anyone no matter where they live. Today, it’s probably impossible to find a person who doesn’t use social networks and instant messaging apps, which have become an integral part of our life. Many people can’t even imagine their daily routine without online communication and feel incomplete if they don’t chat with their friends and don’t see their updates in the Facebook feed st least once a day. We are basically never alone and yet, we are lonelier than ever.
This is not just a claim – studies show that the number of people who feel lonely is constantly increasing. For example, a survey by the Mental Health Foundation found that one out of ten people in the UK often feels lonely while 48% of the respondents believe that modern people are getting more and more lonely.
It seems that the feeling of loneliness is a real epidemic of our society. But why do we feel this way while numerous ways of communication with other human beings are available to us at any minute of every day? To answer the question the title of the article asks, first of all, let’s figure out what loneliness actually is. While the dictionary suggests that it’s a state of being alone paired with the feelings of sadness and isolation, loneliness is far more complex than that.
Have you ever been in a company of people you didn’t have much in common with? Or maybe in a company of strangers/acquaintances who were good friends with each other and didn’t pay much attention to you? If you have been in similar situations, you will agree that in those times, you were feeling lonely without being alone.
This is what loneliness really is – a lack of connection and understanding, no matter if you are alone or not. In fact, this feeling may be even more intense when you are among people you don’t resonate with rather than when you are by yourself. Let me cite Robin Williams here: “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.”
So isn’t it the reason why we are so lonely in an over-connected world we live in today? Popular culture and our excessive reliance on the social media have basically made us believe that human communication is about quantity, not quality.
To demonstrate this contradiction, let me ask you two simple questions: How many friends on Facebook do you have and how many of them do you have a really deep connection with? I bet that most of you have hundreds of Facebook friends and yet can name only a few individuals you are truly close to.
As you see, what we lack in the modern world is a deep and meaningful connection with other people, which inevitably makes us feel lonely. We are constantly surrounded by people (if not physically, then at least virtually) and yet, we rarely feel truly close to someone mentally and emotionally.
If you think about it, it makes sense why human communication has become so superficial, since the entire mainstream culture is based on superficiality and shallowness. We are made to believe that all we need is to satisfy our physical needs and fulfil our selfish desires.
To sum up, remember that the only way to avoid loneliness is not about being and communicating with people all the time. It’s about establishing a deep connection with the right people along with being a self-sufficient individual who doesn’t need approval from others.
Anyone may go through a period of sadness or challenge that is so deep-seated and tenacious that it qualifies as a dark night of the soul. Not long ago I was giving a talk at a university when a man shouted at me from back in the crowd: “I’m terribly depressed. It’s been years. Help me.” I shouted back my email address. In his voice and body language I could see that this man was not caught in some passing depression. His life was broken by some loss, failure, or long-forgotten emotional wound that left him in a desperately dark place.
I reserve the expression ‘dark night of the soul’ for a dark mood that is truly life-shaking and touches the foundations of experience, the soul itself. But sometimes a seemingly insignificant event can give rise to a dark night: You may miss a train and not attend a reunion that meant much to you. Often a dark night has a strong symbolic quality in that it points to a deeper level of emotion and perhaps a deeper memory that gives it extra meaning. With dark nights you always have to be alert for the invisible memories, narratives, and concerns that may not be apparent on the surface.
Faced with a dark night, many people treat it like an illness, like depression. They may take medication or go into counseling looking for a cause. It can be useful to search for the roots of a dark night, but in my experience the best way to deal with it is to find the concrete action or decision that it is asking for.
Engaging the Night
A dark night of the soul is a kind of initiation, taking you from one phase of life into another. You may have several dark nights in the course of your life because you are always becoming more of a person and entering life more fully. At least, that is the hope.
One simple rule is that a truly deep dark night requires an extraordinary development in life. One outstanding example is Abraham Lincoln. With his early life surrounded by death and loneliness and his adult life weighed down by a war in which thousands of young men died, he was a seriously melancholic man who, in spite of or through his dark night, became an icon of wisdom and leadership. One theory is that he escaped his melancholy in his efforts for his country, but another possibility is that the very darkness of his life—he once said, “If there’s a worse place than hell, I’m in it.”—was the ground out of which his leadership grew.
As a therapist, I have worked with people profoundly sad and discouraged, and I join with them in looking for ways to transform that heavy mood into a weighty life. Contemporary people often don’t take their lives seriously enough. This tendency might be an aspect of the cult of celebrity, where we lose sight of our own importance by making too much of it in others.
In the archetypal psychotherapy that I practice, we always say: Go with the symptom. I don’t look for quick escapes from the pain or good distracting alternatives. I try to imagine how a symptom, like a long-standing dark night, might be re-imagined and even lived out in a way that is not literally depressive. As far back as the Middle Ages at least, dark moods were considered to be the work of Saturn, a spirit symbolized by a planet far out in the solar system. He was cold, lonely, and heavy, but he was also the source of wisdom and artistic genius. Look through history and you will find a great number of creative men and women who have struggled with the Saturnine humor.
This ancient idea that a dark night may be connected with genius and inspiration could help us today as we try to be constructive with a Saturnine disposition, like Lincoln’s, or a period of smoky moodiness. We might imagine it as the root and basis of an engagement with life that could give meaning and purpose. This doesn’t necessarily mean that eventually the dark spirit will go away, but it may have a counterweight—some extraordinary creative activity and involvement in life—that will make it more than bearable and may diminish it.
With our contemporary view of anything that looks like depression, we think: I’ll never be happy, never have a good relationship, never accomplish anything. But with the medieval image of Saturn, we might instead tell ourselves: A dark night is the sign of a high calling. My pain and loneliness will prepare me for my destiny.
Finding the Gift in Darkness
There are many examples of men and women who endured unimaginable ordeals and yet contributed in a striking way to humanity’s progress. Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years under harsh conditions, yet he never lost his vision and sense of destiny. One of his younger fellow prisoners said of him: “The point about Nelson, of course, is that he has a tremendous presence, apart from his bearing, his deportment and so on. He’s a person who’s got real control over his behavior. He is also quite conscious of the kind of seriousness he radiates.” This is dark night talk—presence and seriousness, the key gifts of Saturn—as a long tradition holds. Mandela’s dark night was an actual imprisonment, not a mood. Still, he teaches how to deal with a dark night. Don’t waste time in illusions and wishes. Take it on. Keep your sense of worth and power. Keep your vision intact. Let your darkness speak and give its tone to your bearing and expression.
The regenerative power of nature grows more beautiful after a devastating forest fire at Yellowstone Park in 1988. photography | Wikimedia Commons, Jim Peaco
As strange as it may sound, there is a temptation in a dark night to slip into enjoyment of the pain and to identify with your emotions and moods. “I’m a lonely person. I’m depressed. Help me.” One striking quality we see in men and women who are dealing with their dark nights effectively is a lack of masochistic surrender to the mood, which can be forceful and dominating.
Mandela had “control over his behavior.” He didn’t succumb. It’s important to live through the dark night, acknowledge it, notice its qualities, and be affected by it. At the same time, it is not useful to be too attached to it or to let it dominate. You don’t want to be the hero who slays dragons and tries to obliterate the darkness, but you do need all the strength of heart you can muster.
While giving a dark night its due, you can also cultivate a love of life and joy in living that doesn’t contradict the darkness. You can be dedicated to your work and your vision for humanity and also feel overwhelmed by the suffering in the world. To do this it helps to have a philosophy of life that understands the creative coming together of conflicting moods. The rule is simple: Human beings can do more than one thing at a time. You can acknowledge your darkness and still find some joy.
An example of the dark night leading to a transformative presence in the world is Maya Angelou, who went from not speaking for five or six years as a child out of guilt and the wounds of abuse to reciting the inaugural poem for Bill Clinton and inspiring millions to make something of their own dark nights. In all her public appearances, Angelou showed both the pain and the joy that shaped her mission in life. She carried her pain throughout her life and yet her joy seemed to increase with her impact on men and especially women around the world.
Angelou’s experience demonstrates in an intriguing way how a dark night might take away your ‘voice’ and then give it back with added power. The question is, how do you go from a dark night to having a positive impact on the world, thus giving your own life purpose?
The first step is to embrace the darkness, take it to heart, winnow out any subtle innuendos of resistance. Then find any images that are trapped in the thick dark mood or situation. Those images may hold the clue to your release and future service. Angelou lost her voice, a fascinating symptom and a strong image, and then became known worldwide for her voice. The cure lies in the illness, the hint at future activity within the symptom. If you tone down the dark elements because they are painful and discouraging, you may also hide the gifts that are there for you.
The Return of Aliveness: The Dark Night of the Soul
By Eckhart Tolle
The ‘dark night of the soul’ is a term that goes back a long time. Yes, I have also experienced it. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life… an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event—some disaster perhaps. The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death—for example, if your child dies. Or the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.
It can happen if something happens that you can’t explain away anymore, some disaster, which seems to invalidate the meaning that your life had before. Really what has collapsed is the whole conceptual framework for your life. That results in a dark place.
There is the possibility that you emerge out of it into a transformed state of consciousness. Life has meaning again, but it’s no longer a conceptual meaning that you can necessarily explain. Quite often it’s from there that people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality, which has collapsed.
They awaken into something deeper. A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual. It’s a kind of re-birth. The dark night of the soul is a kind of death. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died—only an illusory identity. Now, it is probably the case that some people who’ve gone through this transformation realize that they had to go through that in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. Often it is part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self.
You arrive at a place of conceptual meaninglessness. Or one could say a state of ignorance—where things lose the meaning that you had given them, which was all conditioned and cultural and so on.
Then you can look upon the world without imposing a mind-made framework of meaning. It looks, of course, as if you no longer understand anything. That’s why it’s so scary when it happens to you, instead of you actually consciously embracing it. It can bring about the dark night of the soul. You now go around the Universe without any longer interpreting it compulsively, as an innocent presence. You look upon events, people, and so on with a deep sense of aliveness. You sense the aliveness through your own sense of aliveness, but you are not trying to fit your experience into a conceptual framework anymore.
Another important strategy is to avoid making the dark night too personal, too focused on yourself. Yes, you feel it intimately and alone. But it could still have more to do with the suffering of the world than with yourself. Maybe dark nights are generally less personal than they feel. At any one time, beings on the planet are suffering. The planet itself is suffering; it is going through a dark night constantly. If you live in a place where children are hungry and dying in wars and in domestic violence, you are within the realm of the world’s dark night. Listen to political leaders deny climate change and you worry about the future, not of the planet on which you live but the planetary being of which you are a living part. If you can stretch your moral imagination to perceive this suffering, then you will have the energy and focus to work toward a transformation.
Waking Up
By definition, visionary people imagine utopia, a word that means both ‘no-place’ and ‘good-place.’ It is an imagined state of the world in which people are free of their struggle, where at least the basic insecurities and inequalities have been dealt with. But oddly, it takes the pain and despair of a dark night to envision utopia.
Think about it, you wouldn’t be compelled to imagine a perfected life unless you were steeped in its imperfection. The emptiness of the dark night transforms into the no-place of a wonderful world. If you don’t feel the hopelessness of a dark night, you will probably float through life identifying unconsciously with the values and expectations of the culture. You won’t know that there is something wrong, something that calls for a response from you. Personally, you may not feel your being. You may eventually decide that you’re a nobody, for you become a somebody by identifying with the world outside you. Self-realization is not a private psychological achievement managed by a strong will and a hygienic attitude. A strong sense of self emerges when you own and activate the awareness that you are your world. A mystical sensibility and social action go together. Through an essential shift in imagination you realize that you are not the one suffering; the world is.
The real stunner is that when you begin to serve the world, your darkness changes. It doesn’t go away completely; nor should it. It continues to feed your vision of utopia and your frustration at the imperfection of it all. But your personal darkness converts into anger at injustice and then into compassionate vision and effective action. The darkness and the vision are two parts of one flowing movement.
Maybe it isn’t that your darkness eases but that your ego investment in it diminishes. It feels as though it goes away because you’ve been grasping it. There may be a degree of love for the darkness and a disdain for hope. You don’t want the challenge of being alive and engaging the world. It may be easier to sink into the pit. Some people resist participating in the transformation of the world because they glimpse the challenge in it. They will have to give up a long-held philosophy of easy, comfortable pragmatism and, maybe for the first time in their lives, feel the world’s suffering.
You see this pattern of waking up from pleasant unconsciousness to awareness of suffering in the story of the Buddha, and one of the key words Jesus uses in his teaching, not often pointed out by his followers, is ‘wake up.’ But waking up is also entering your dark night instead of remaining in the oblivion of avoidance. You do wake up to a joyful message, the meaning of the word ‘Gospel,’ but the dark night is always part of the picture, the other side of the coin.
The best source in classical spiritual literature for describing the paradox of darkness and vision is the Tao Te Ching, where on every page you are invited to live without polarization. Chapter 14 is a good example: “Above, it is not bright. Below, it is not dark.” ‘It’ is everything. Below, where you might expect darkness, it’s bright. Above, where you think you’d find light, it’s dark. Keep this paradox in mind and you will be neither a sentimental idealist nor a cynical pessimist. You will be part of the transformation of it all because it is happening in you.
Berkeley Wellness Berkeley Wellness offers you positive ways to live a long, healthful life.
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By John Swartzberg, M.D.
Do you sometimes feel like you’re surrounded by creative people—musicians, writers, artists, builders, inventors—but have no muse of your own? Maybe you’ve said to yourself, “I’m not creative. It’s a personality thing and I’m just one of those logical left-brained folks.”
Not true. We are all creative. Creativity lives within each and every one of us. We sell creativity, and ourselves, short when we believe that creative people are only those who can paint beautiful paintings, or perform in a symphony, or invent brilliant new technology. Creativity, at its essence, means coming up with new ideas, recognizing new possibilities, and solving problems.
How can you foster your own creativity? Studies suggest that there are a myriad of ways you can tap into that inventive, innovative side of yourself. Try a few of these activities and see where they lead:
Go for a walk. Getting off the couch and moving doesn’t just do your body good—it apparently gets your creative juices flowing as well. A 2014 study from researchers at Stanford University found that people who went for a walk significantly increased their creativity—what’s called “divergent thinking” over people who just sat. This held true whether they were walking on a treadmill or outside, so it wasn’t just exposure to the great outdoors that stimulated more creative output.
Get a hobby. You may think that you have to already be creative or talented to develop a hobby like cooking or painting or music. But a recent study found that people who engage in creative hobbies outside their job also have better problem solving skills on the job. So what if you’re never going to be a pastry chef? Taking that cake decorating class might open up your mind in new and unexpected ways. According to the study’s author, organizational psychologist Kevin Eschleman, the participants described these hobbies as providing “self-expression and an opportunity to really discover something about themselves.”
Daydream. Set time aside—maybe even ten minutes a day—to let your mind wander, with no set destination. You may be surprised at where it goes and what you discover. Researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara have found that daydreaming when you’re consciously aware of what you’re doing—called “meta-awareness”—can help you find creative solutions to problems that have been stumping you.
Embrace the Mess. Conventional wisdom says that a neat work space is essential for productivity. But isn’t creativity unconventional? Researchers found that while a neat desk encourages “good behavior” (like choosing an apple over a candy bar), working at a messy desk promoted novel choices and stimulated new ideas. “Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights,” said the study’s lead author, psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota. “Orderly environments, in contrast, encourage convention and playing it safe.”
Work in a coffee shop. Too much or too little noise may hinder creativity, researchers have found—but just like Goldilocks, a moderate hum of background noise may be “just right.” In a series of brainstorming experiments published in the Journal of Consumer Research, scientists found that a light level of ambient noise—like you’d find when you settle down with your laptop at Starbucks or Panera—spurred divergent thinking.
Dim the lights.Working in dimmer light can instill a sense of freedom and dis-inhibition that breeds creativity, compared to standard office lighting, suggested a study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology in 2013.
Spend time in another country. Multi-cultural experiences can make you look at things from other perspectives, and stimulate innovative and flexible thinking, suggests a series of studies, including one in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in May 2009.
For the most part these are all small and relatively subjective studies. After all, measuring the lightning in a bottle that constitutes “creativity” is a complicated and highly variable process. And I suspect that many creative people have found ways to prime that pump of innovation that aren’t on this list. But all of this research, taken together, supports the idea that creativity isn’t just something that’s stuck in the on or off position. We just have to be open to new ways to tap into the creativity that lies within us all.
All healing must start by getting to the emotional cause of the ailment, or the problem will reoccur or manifest in another part of the physical body. Once established, with forethought that the patient is ready to accept the energy you will channel to them, you are both ready to begin.
Healing, using the palms of the hands, is almost instinctual, and is becoming a growing technique, especially with Reiki, as an easy way for anyone to tap in and develop healing skills.
When you begin, focus on the palms of your hands, relax, and slowly feel the higher energies filter through them. This may create a sensation of heat or tingling. here’s what’s going on. You raise your frequency … bring in higher balanced energy … transmit it to the other person by touching them, or holding your hands near their body. Some people wash their hands before and after a healing session.
Basic skills for healing with your hands
Let’s first determine which hand works best for you.
Hold both hands out in front of you – palms up. Focus your attention on your left hand and experience the flow of energy. In truth, the left hand receives energy and the right hand sends it out.
Focus on your right hand and see how strong the energy from that hand feels. One palm should feel stronger energy flow – hotter – more tingles. Now place your hands – palms facing each other – just in front of you. Keep them about 3 inches – 7.6 cm – apart. Move your hands slowly – back and forth. Feel the lines of energy between your palms. Now slowly move your palms further away from each other.
See how far out you can go before you no longer feel the ‘pull’ of the energies.
When the energies stop – move your palms back and forth slightly in opposite directions and you should continue to feel the energies.
Now let’s tap into that energy … relax, breath deeply, and focus on your palms. For some people this happens immediately, for others it takes time to recognize the changes in frequency. The more you practice, the better and more powerful you become.
Now allow the energy to come through you. You may feel the source of the energy if a spirit guide, another healer on the other side, angels, or you may come to understand that it is you … that you have the power once you practice and learn to tap in. Take your time working with the energies until you are comfortable with them moving through your body, and how your body reacts to them – heat, cold, tingles, increased psychic abilities, etc.
You are ready to go.
Find someone who needs healing. Be sure the person comfortable. Determine their emotional problems. Keep the conversation brief, this is not a therapy session, but you do need to know what’s going on and what the physical problem in masking. The person will heal faster and more permanently if they are confident in your abilities. Assure the person that you will do nothing to hurt them in any way or aggrevate the situation.
Place your hands within three inches from – or on the person. Pause and allow the energies to begin to flow through your body. This could take a few minutes.
You can do an auric sweep of the body by move your hands slowly down the body starting with the top of the head. You are looking for changes in temperature levels which is an indication of improper flow of the energies in their subtle body. When you feel this change tell the person. They may respond with, “Oh yes, I have been having discomfort there.” At the very least you are finding one or more problems.
When you find the problem, place your hands near, or on that part of the body, focus your attention to it, and visualize the higher frequency energies coming through you into the other person. It will happen. Anyone can do it.
There is no specific time frame for the healing. The amount of time you spend with the person is up to both of you.
On occasion, someone you nay as if someone has energetically entered your body to do the healing. The other energy could come from your spirit guide or that of the person being healed, as we all have guides.
It all takes practice. You can use the healing energies from your palms on pets, animals, plants, on your own body, anything with an auric field to accept the exchange of energy to create healing, balance and understanding.
As my lungs slowed down and I let go of trying, I started feeling good just being out there. 
Wu Wei is a Chinese concept central to Taoism and a core theme of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching.
If we go against the order, it takes extra time and energy to get things done.
For the time being, doing nothing is just what is needed.
When we step into nature, we plug into a Wu Wei world.
Sometimes our efforts to fulfill the plan shuts us off from seeing other possibilities.
, which combines cedar, sage, and often other herbs. This method is excellent for clearing your crystal as well as yourself and your environment. We prefer it for clearing jewelry.
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