Author Archive

You’re probably familiar with a bunch of techniques for getting through moments when you’re feeling creatively empty.  Some suggest forcing yourself to write (or sculpt, or whatever activity you’re doing)—if you just get something on paper, some say, inspiration will strike.  Other common examples include free writing, listening to certain kinds of music and mind mapping.

If these techniques work for you, more power to you.  But if you’re still finding the creative process agonizing, I invite you to try another approach.  The novel exercise I’ll give you for dealing with writer’s block is this:  just sit there.

In other words, next time you run out of ideas, try breathing deeply, relaxing your body, and simply allowing that creative emptiness to be, exactly as it is.  Hold your attention on that blank sensation until it dissolves.

Welcoming Writer’s Block

What I suspect you’ll find is that the emptiness will fade within a few minutes once you choose to let it be.  And when that blankness is gone, in its place you may discover some of the best ideas you’ve had all day, all week or even all month.  I think you’ll be surprised at the results.

The power of this approach lies in its willingness to treat writer’s block as a friend rather than an enemy.  Like meditation practice, this method has us let go of the judgments we usually make about our experience—”this tightness in my shoulder is bad,” “the vacation plans arising in my mind are good,” and so on.  When we drop our resistance to what we’re experiencing, our suffering falls away.

Creative blankness is like any other thought or sensation—as long as we don’t grasp onto it or resist it, it disappears quickly.  As Buddhist monk Martine Batchelor writes in Meditation for Life, “if you just let your thoughts come and go, and do not stick to them or magnify them, they will soon disappear of their own accord.”

Beyond “Fighting or Fleeing”

Of course, this isn’t the way we usually relate to writer’s block.  Most of us, I think, treat creative emptiness like any other experience we’d rather not have—we either fight it or flee from it.  That is, we either shame ourselves for being uncreative and try to force ourselves to come up with something, or we turn our attention to something else, hoping we’ll get inspired later.

At a deeper level, I think, this is because blankness can be a scary experience to confront—particularly in our culture, where we’re usually surrounded by noise and we spend little time in silence.  We’d rather do practically anything than stare down the abyss of an empty mind.

Unfortunately, as I’ll bet you know firsthand, the normal approach often falls short.  If we try forcing ourselves to produce, we usually just get frustrated, or we end up churning out mediocre work that we scrap in the end.  And we won’t create anything, of course, if we take our attention off our work.

We might think of writer’s block as a test of our faith in our intelligence and creativity.  If we resist the emptiness, like anything, it persists.  But if we trust that we have the resources to excel at whatever we’re doing, and that the emptiness is a chance for us to show our trust, the inspiration we want will arrive.  As psychologist Nancy Napier writes in Recreating Your Self, imagination operates best when we “think of the blankness as a creative void, a place where your unconscious takes its own time to give you whatever awareness it wants you to have.”

More about Chris Edgar….
Christopher R. Edgar is an author, speaker and personal coach who specializes in helping professionals transition to careers aligned with their callings, and find more satisfaction and productivity in what they do.  Chris’s new book, Inner Productivity: A Mindful Path to Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work, uses insights from mindfulness practice and psychology to help readers develop focus and motivation in their work.  You can find out more about the book and Chris’s work at www.innerproductivity.com

In Feng Shui there is a way to drive out and protect your home from bad spirits. The method I am about to describe requires that you get a double blade dagger. In Tibet they use purbas, or triple blade daggers. It also requires that you take the compass reading of your front door. The way to do the compass reading is to stand in your doorway and face out. Then read on the compass the direction you are facing. You will either be facing North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, or Northwest.

Once you have done the compass reading, you need to draw the floorplan of your house. Then draw a tic-tac-toe grid over the floorplan dividing it up into equal areas. Then you need to mark off the compass direction of each of the areas. Your house will have a North area, a Northeast area, an East area, a Southeast area, a South area, a Southwest area, a West area, and a Northwest area. In addition, because of the tic-tac-toe map, your house will have a center area. This operation doesn’t deal with the center area of your house.

The tic-tac-toe map in Chinese is called the Lo Shu map. There are eight Lo Shu maps, one for each of the eight possible door facings as determined by making a compass reading. In other words, there is a Lo Shu map for a house whose front door faces North, a Lo Shu map for a house whose front door faces Northeast, a Lo Shu Map for a house whose front door faces East, and so on. In each of the Lo Shu maps there are eight auguries, one for each of the eight compass directions. Of these eight auguries there is one called Six Demons. It is Six Demons that we wish to cure so that your home becomes calm and settled, and less prone to mishaps.

If your front door looks out to the *North*, the area called Six Demons is the Northwest corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Northeast*, the area called Six Demons is the East corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *East*, the area called Six Demons is the Northeast corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Southeast*, the area called Six Demons is the West corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *South*, the area called Six Demons is the Southwest corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Southwest*, the area called Six Demons is the South corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *West*, the area called Six Demons is the Southeast corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Northwest*, the area called Six Demons is the North corner of the house.

If your house has land around it, go outside and bury the dagger about a foot underground at the appropriate corner of your house. The dagger should be aligned so that it points in the direction away from the corner. For example, if you bury the dagger at the North corner of the house, the dagger will point exactly to the North. The dagger must always point away from the house, not toward it.

If you live in an apartment, you can drive the dagger into the appropriate corner of the apartment, along the floor. You also can get a nail and drive it into the corner at the floor for the same affect.

This little known method does settle the energy in the house. I’ve used it many times, and it works.

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T. Raphael Simons was a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show
Listen to his interview here: http://exploreyourspirit.com/Media/shows1.shtml#SIMONSFENGSHUI1

More about T. Raphael Simons…

T. Raphael Simons is a psychic reader, astrologer (Western and Chinese forms), feng shui expert, hypnotherapist and life coach and is  available for consultations and counseling in person and by telephone. Author of Feng Shui, Step by Step, Feng Shui Strategies for Business Success: Arranging Your Office for Success and Prosperity, and The Feng Shui of Love, his interest in the metaphysical sciences and arts began in 1970, he first learned to read Tarot cards in 1971 and took up reading them professionally in 1977. From there he studied astrology for seven years with Ivy Jacobson beginning in 1980. In 1988 he took up the study of Chinese astrology and fengshui with Terry Lee in New York and has been practicing and teaching Chinese astrology and fengshui ever since. He also trained in channeling in New York with the medium Alex Murray. Since 1999 Raphael has been a member of OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids), the most ancient bardic and druid order in the UK in which he was elected a full member in the Druid grade. Raphael has been living in Durham, North Carolina since 2003, moving to NC from New York City. Originally trained as a musician, he taught music at Princeton University and Oberlin College.  For more information or questions about a Chinese astrological reading and/or Feng Shui consultation, contact Raphael Simons www.psychicarts.net

What is the universe?  It seems like I’ve been asking this question for just about as long as I’ve been looking up at the night sky.  Standing under the jewel-like starry nights, profound questions such as these seem to naturally arise, and I think in part it was these kinds of questions that led me as a child to want to become a professional astronomer.  As I’ve taught astronomy to students of all ages over the past twenty years, I’ve found that I’m not alone in asking these kinds of questions.  Nearly everyone I’ve ever spoken to about the universe has thought along similar lines: “What is all this?  Where do I fit in the big picture?  Who am I?”  Even in the midst of our modern lives and busy schedules, these kinds of questions have a way of slipping through the cracks of our everyday consciousness during our quietest moments. Our curiosity about ourselves and our place in the universe is very natural, and our ability to ask these kinds of questions and wonder about them is part of what makes us human.

A few years ago, it occurred to me that if I were asking these kinds of questions about the universe, then perhaps others might be as well, and so I made of list of all the people I would to approach for their views on the universe.  As I began conversing and having profound and transformative discussions with them, I noticed something very peculiar happening to me.  Bit by bit, so much of what had seemed so certain to me about the universe began slipping away.  The universe, it was turning out, was much, much more mysterious than I had initially thought, and it was leaving me with quite a conundrum.  Here I was, supposedly an expert on the universe as a professional astronomer, and yet after I began asking these kinds of questions, I found myself less and less able to say exactly what the universe actually is!

For example, modern physics holds that the entire universe (including ourselves) is made up exclusively of energy and matter, interacting in various ways to create the world we live in.  Yet in talking with various spiritual practitioners and indigenous elders about the universe, it seemed that very important nonphysical and yet undeniably real aspects of the cosmos were missing from our modern scientific view of it.  So it became increasingly clear that the universe is not just matter and energy but also has a profound spiritual dimension to it as well.  And yet this spiritual dimension is not separate from the material world we interact with on a daily basis.  The two are inextricably intertwined: matter and spirit, spirit and matter. We need both, because we live in a world that is both of these and so much more.

One of the results of asking these kinds of questions and interviewing people from all different fields and walks of life about the universe was my new book Cosmic Conversations www.cosmicconversations.org.  The other result was an appreciation that the universe is not only more complex than we think, but much more mysterious as well. How can the cosmos be matter, mind, energy, spirit, consciousness, love, truth, and all the other qualities we’ve discovered through our sciences, spiritual traditions, and personal lives?  To answer big cosmic questions such as these in a meaningful way, we need to ask more than a few experts and professionals – we need to start asking these questions ourselves.  “What is the universe for me?” is one of the most meaningful explorations we can have, because it begins to tie together our physical, moral, spiritual, outer, and inner lives together into one coherent whole.  Asking these kinds of questions of ourselves and those around us is one of the ways we make meaning of our world, how we find our place in the cosmos, our larger purpose, our higher values, and the truth of our deeper nature.

After a while, asking these kinds of ‘cosmic questions’ not only bring us clarity about what we believe about ourselves and the world, they also begin to slowly unravel what we previously thought we knew about who (and what) we thought we were.  This unraveling can be delicious, because as we begin to wrestle with the truth, untangling the myriad of knots that we find in ourselves, we begin to find that we are much more than we ever thought we were, and much more than we ever thought we could be.  We find ourselves drawn ever deeper into the mysteries of life, deeper into the mysteries of our inner depths, deeper into the starry cosmos, for at the mysterious center of things, we finally come home to discover that all these are one.

About Stephan Martin….

Stephan Martin, M.S., is an astronomer, educator, and writer who has taught astronomy and physics at colleges and educational centers across the U.S. for over twenty years. Currently Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Bristol Community College in southeastern Massachusetts, he is active in exploring and promoting interdisciplinary approaches to exploring the universe.  His current research and writing focuses on the transformative potential of the insights of modern science and their integration into personal experience and everyday life. He continues to lead innovative and learning programs in educational, holistic, and nontraditional learning settings that explore the innovative results of modern cosmology with the insights and practices of the world’s spiritual and indigenous traditions. He frequently lectures and gives presentations on astronomy and the wonders of the night sky at observatories, planetariums, and other popular venues, and has published a wide variety of articles on a multitude of topics that range from technical scientific research to academic papers in philosophy and humanities to popular-level articles on science education and everyday spirituality.  His new book, Cosmic Conversations, is a collection of interviews with scientists, spiritual teachers, indigenous elders, and cultural creatives on the topic of “What is the Universe?” His website is: www.cosmicconversations.org.

As a parent, you may not realize that your child possesses many of the answers to life’s challenges—right in her own imagination. Through learning and practicing visualization, kids can develop emotional self-care skills to help themselves with a variety of everyday, practical concerns.

These imagination tools can help your child:

• Love, accept, and appreciate himself.
• Reduce pain and heal other physical ailments.
• Overcome fears, such as fear of the unknown, abandonment, doctors, disasters, and dying.
• Deal with bedtime issues such as insomnia and bedwetting.
• Cope with death, divorce, and other losses.
• Handle anger, hurt, and frustration.
• Achieve success at school and in sports.
• Live peacefully with siblings and parents.

Here are nine imagination tools you can teach a child to help her deal with stressful times
and navigate the challenges of growing up.

TOOL #1: Use the Balloon Breath.

With her hands around her navel, have her breathe slowly and deeply into her lower belly so it presses into her hands like an inflating balloon. The balloon breath has calming effects and facilitates a waking state of focused concentration and receptivity to positive suggestions. Kids can use it to calm down before musical performances, soothe anger or hurt feelings, or wind down at night, for example.

Tool # 2: Discover A Special Place.

This is a safe, special place within your child’s inner world where he can relax, regroup, or take mini-vacations from the stresses of life. It’s a place to pose endless questions about life issues, and create numerous positive, possible solutions. Your child might visit his special place to find courage before taking a difficult test at school, or to get away from a bully’s harsh words.

Tool # 3: Consult an Animal Guide.

This is an imaginary guide—a kind, loving, and protective creature—that helps children tap into their wisdom. It’s often safer and easier for animal friends to offer solutions to problems in creative ways, than expecting logic and linear thinking to do the work. Your child’s animal guide can help her fall asleep, or practice patience at school in long, boring classes, or be brave before a trip to the doctor.

Tool # 4: Conjure up a Personal Wizard.

Wizards come into play when animal friends “just won’t do.” His Personal Wizard is a mentor and magical teacher in human form who brings a different level of wisdom: human but extraordinary. A wizard can give advice, conjure up special powers such as math answers, and even cure troubling feelings like jealousy, anger, and grief.

Tool # 5: Receive Gifts.

Gifts from imaginary helpers can be thoughts, objects, or ideas that symbolically provide children with exactly what she needs in the moment to help her. Gifts can be obvious or require further explanation by the animal friend or wizard. Sometimes gifts are hidden and need to be unwrapped or dug up. When a child goes to her special place and asks a wizard or animal friend for a gift containing the solution to her problem, she often finds the answer.

Tool # 6: Check in with Heart and Belly.

This tool is comparable to suggestions of “listen to your heart” and “pay attention to your gut feelings.” Children are encouraged to take a few minutes to “check in” with their heart and their belly, and to notice what messages are there for them. The heart and belly often have two different, but equally important, messages to relate.

Tool # 7: Talking to Toes and Other Body Parts.

The body is a repository for lots of hidden information. With this tool, children discover where and how they stash different feelings in their body. Kids then find they can have a dialogue between emotions and/or symptoms to find answers to their concerns. For example, your child might discover that his stomach knows exactly why it hurts every day 30 minutes before school starts—it doesn’t want Mom to leave, and it’s afraid she won’t come back.

Tool # 8: Use Color for Healing.

Color is especially helpful in healing pain. Feelings and symptoms often have different colors associated with them. They can be unique to each individual and change over time. You can teach children how to imagine a color, such as ice blue or deep forest green, cooling down his hot fever. When a child imagines color inside or surrounding her body, it can be a remarkable tool for transforming pain, shifting emotions, and accessing healing energy.

TOOL #9: Tap into Energy.

When words are insufficient, a loving touch from a parent can do wonders to restore calm and well-being. For example, you can help a child “pull the pain” out of his head by holding your hand about three inches from his forehead to give him a direction in which to send his pain—out and away.

You’re now armed with nine simple, efficient, and totally free options to mix and match—depending on the situation and your child’s favorite. When we teach our kids effective imagery techniques to solve their own problems, it can transform their world.

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More about Charlotte Reznick…

Charlotte Reznick, Ph.D is a child educational psychologist, an associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, and author of a new book, The Power of Your Child’s Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee, 2009, $14.95). More information at: www.ImageryForKids.com

Mary Magdalene is the Goddess in our Christian story and it’s time we learn to use her spiritual stories for  help along our soul journeys through life. Did you know that she has seven legendary Mysteries in addition to her seven well known Gospel stories?  Yes, and each of these spiritual stories take place within the expanded spiritual story of Sacred Union, which is one of  the hallmarks of the Aquarian Age. By that I mean we are entering into an age where we know ourselves to be literally connected with everything on the planet. The divine principle of Sacred Union told through the love story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene  is the model  for union between all things. Union of God with us, each of us a grail chalice, a sacred vessel, for the Divine. Heaven and Earth, Body and Soul, Masculine and Feminine…these concepts are all there in the Sacred Marriage of Christ and Magdalene.

Margaret Starbird and I have written a book called 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene , which builds on all Margaret’s Biblical scholarship  about the  marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene , but expresses it in short lessons meant to be used in groups or individually to deepen your spiritual response to life.  I’m a Jungian psychotherapist, accustomed to using mythology and spiritual stories as a way to  help strengthen the connection between our personal life story and it’s  archetypal themes.   When I began learning that Mary Magdalene is our Goddess in the western world, I wanted to see if I could use her stories instead of the Greek and Eastern religious stories I knew about. So I started a Magdalene Circle and began telling Magdalene stories, such as “Journey in a Boat with No Oars” and “Descent To the Tomb”, and we’d talk about how these themes ran through our lives.

“The Journey in a Boat with No Oars” is part of Magdalene’s story of escape to France after a period of time in Egypt when her child Sarah was born, under the protection of Joseph of Arimathea.  Legend says the boat had no oars, which means to be under the guidance of God, with faith as your only companion.  We’ve all had that experience in our  life’s journey, where we can’t go back and we don’t know exactly where we’re going. Faith that we’ll be shown the way has to be strong at such a time, as well as a good ability to “watch the signs”. Honoring intuition and feeling are  strong themes in the feminine mysteries of Sacred Union, and it’s through those functions that Magdalene is returning inside women everywhere.  She is the heart, the heart’s feeling and the heart’s wisdom gained through experience.

I always have on pretty music in my Magdalene Circle and we always share food.  Remember the recent study about women’s response to stress? We “tend and befriend” rather than “fight or flight”, and having a welcoming environment is part of women’s nurturance for each other. We say a centering prayer and tell a bit of Magdalene story, then we talk and share about the story’s meaning for us. Women’s circles have been called a “revolutionary-evolutionary movement hidden in plain sight “ by Jean Shinoda Bolen in her wonderful book The Millionth Circle. Jean says that women have always circled together to change their worlds, from getting women the vote to solving parenting problems in groups. We know how to help each other and be focused on goals. The goal of Magdalene Circles is to raise the Divine Feminine through the stories of Mary Magdalene and her Sacred Union.  The goal is also to foster the inner life of each woman through guided imagery meditations which help connect us with “the Mary Magdalene within”.  We’ve been told that “the Kingdom of God is within” and that also means “the Queendom of God is within”. We each have a unique connection to divinity and the inner way always allows for great uniqueness.  Some women have visions while meditating in the Magdalene Circle, some just enjoy the quiet time and the soothing words.  The old way is the way of indoctrination and dogma; the new way is the way of personal relationship to the inner sacred world.

My first book is called The Mary Magdalene Within and it’s a channeled piece of writing that happened to me and through me in 1996.  I was published monthly in “The Sedona Journal of Emergence” at that time and I’d just sat down to channel my usual commentary from “Energies of Grace”, a cosmic wisdom source.  Much to my surprise I heard these words instead, “ We want to express the gratefulness that Mary Magdalene felt in experiencing the regard with which Jesus held her. And to this end, we ask Mary to speak now…” And then the story began, with me being a faithful secretary to the love story she told me.  It was so beautiful. She was so respected and truly a Beloved, it was my honor and privilege to hear her words.   I think many people are touching the “archetypal hem of Her garment” these days, bringing pieces of Mary Magdalene’s  hidden story back into consciousness.  As with all channeling, people just have to judge for themselves whether the story helps or hinders their concepts of Christianity. To me, their love story is at the very center of the meaning of Christianity because it’s through love that we are all connected to each other and their Sacred Marriage showed the Way.

Another story and lesson we highlight in  14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle  of Mary Magdalene is  called  “Other Ways We Know She is the Bride”.   We all know by now that Mary Magdalene wasn’t a prostitute, but you may not know that her name is actually her title. “Mary, called the Magdalene”  is what she’s called in the Gospel and if you use the calculation of a canon of sacred numbers called “gematria” , which is what was used in writing the Gospel, you quickly find out her name  is the symbolic equivalent of “Source of Life” and “Sacred Cauldron” and “yoni” and “vesica piscis”. These are   all references to Goddess that we are now familiar with.  Everyone has their “ah-ha” moment about Mary “called the Magdalene” being  the Bride of Jesus, and  mine came in reading Margaret Starbird’s  Magdalene’s Lost Legacy and  discovering the secret codes  hidden in the Greek words the scriptures were written in.  Those ancient writers carefully crafted words to underscore religious meanings and to elevate the spiritual associations of the word. They did this for Jesus and they did it for Mary Magdalene.

Women know what it is to be ignored and written out of the story, even to give up one’s name.  Perhaps in those times 2,000 years ago it was not possible to support in consciousness a Sacred Marriage at the center of Christianity, but women are strong now and men also understand the need for strong loving partnership.  Mary Magdalene is out of hiding now, revealed as Goddess in her own time.

I’m particularly fond of the lesson called “Symbols from a Dark Time”    because I love the stories of the brave papermakers who put hidden symbols of the Church of Love into their craft. They fashioned small wire figures of unicorns (Christ), fleur-de-lis (the bloodline dynasty), grail chalices, towers (Magdalene), and many more symbols of their faith  into the papers which were then used to print Bibles and special documents.  You had to hold the paper up to the light to see the heretical symbols, which apparently the authorities never did . And it’s a good thing too because they could have been tortured by the Inquisition.  In their way, these artisans kept the love story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene alive to this day. The symbols are still potent ones and sometimes appear in visualizations and dreams.  Symbols and images are  God’s primary language and understanding them is one way we “stay  on the path” and  perceive our guidance.

Women and men can also use 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene as a personal study guide  to become familiar with the ways Mary Magdalene  fell into the shadows of our story.  We have guided meditations that can be read alone and pondered on, and also questions for journaling.  In a group of friends or alone, engaging with the “inner Mary Magdalene” will bring you closer to sacred union with the divine.

If you find yourself intrigued and wanting more closeness with this fascinating woman, Goddess, and Bride of Jesus, you can also listen to my podcasts of the guided meditations at http://podomatic.com/MaryMagdaleneWithin .   I also write a weekly blog  about “all things Magdalene” and I love to hear from people there. It’s at http://blog.MaryMagdaleneWithin.com

I feel privileged to be an emissary of the Sacred Union and I feel hopeful for it’s strength in the new era we are all building together.

Joan Norton will be a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show in early 2010 . Check back for the official show date coming soon.

Joan Norton is a licensed psychotherapist with 25 years of experience helping women and founder of the Los Angeles Mary Magdalene Circle. The author of The Mary Magdalene Within and a contributor to Secrets of Mary Magdalene, she has now co-authored a book with Margaret Starbird entitled: 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine

I love to collage – I have been doing it for about 30 years, professionally. When I look back on my drawings and artwork as a child, I find collages with stars and hearts and princesses-many of the archetypal images that I use even now.

One of my fondest memories is of making a dish garden.  We are all collages – the way we dress – the way our homes look, our dressing tables.  And a lot of the way we see things, our taste is comprehended in this same way.  How does this picture look here – are the curtains the right color with the couch – are these earrings too long for my face?  These are all judgments that we might bring down into the art of collage.

We all collect things – photographs, stones, shells, cards that your friends send, dried flowers from a trip.  Collage can be a way of re-cycling – of creating a life story or a visual diary out of reminiscent objects or images that convey an important time in your life.  You may make one once a year for a Christmas card – or today we are going to try and identify some of our own personal symbols and incorporate them into a personal “inner” portrait – to capture our essence and make magic that way.  To empower and imagine the way you might like things to be.  To make a stage set, to act out your hopes and dreams.  Or you might want to make an inner portrait of someone else.

Another way you might think of this collage piece is as a “treasure map” – you can even add words and affirmations to the image so that when you see it, it stimulates your confirmation of that goal:  “Success” – “finding the perfect mate” –“good health”.

I would like to convey how important it is to be open and in tune with your unconscious and spontaneous self.  Try to be as a child.  There might be something that falls out of the magazine by accident.  You notice a bird fly by.  Everything is synchronistic. (Jung’s story of the scarab.)  You pass a yard sale and stop by – there is the perfect object that you’ve been wishing for.

As far as materials go, anything goes.  We make a big mess when we collage.  You need a lot to play with.  These materials are your palette.  You want a pile at hand, so that you can develop a flow.  At some point you  might see that the only thing that will do is a purple flower in the right hand corner – in that case you will have to stop and search – but you might run across a perfect tiger that you would not have even thought of if the other thing hadn’t come up.

Often when I needed something, I find someone comes to the door with the exact right thing, right when I need it, or in the mail.  It’s very nice.

There are no accidents – that is why collage is such a therapeutic technique.  When we develop our abilities to visualize – we can achieve many goals – we can create our own reality.  By making these decisions it strengthens our decision making abilities on a daily basis.  By getting in touch with what colors we like, by trusting.

To begin with, all you need is probably right in your house – and we have to use right there.  A patch of wallpaper, leaves in your yard, …..  If you have old drawings, you can recycle those.

If you really get serious, you can experiment with different glues and paints.  I know a woman who uses left-over eye make-up.  My sister goes running and finds flattened cans and metal pieces that have been run over by cars.  Many of us go to yard sales and flea markets.  But its like photography – you can spend a lot of money and go crazy getting the perfect equipment, but you can also get a great photo with a simple little camera.

So, start simply.  And don’t be too precious about cutting into things. There are no mistakes with collage – you can fix anything. Have fun!

More About Monte Farber and Amy Zerner:

Internationally known self-help author Monte Farber’s inspiring guidance and empathic insights impact everyone he encounters. Amy Zerner’s exquisite, one-of-a-kind spiritual couture creations and collaged fabric paintings exude her profound intuition and deep connection with archetypal stories and healing energies. For more than thirty years they’ve combined their deep love for each other with the work of inner exploration and self-discovery to build The Enchanted World of Amy Zerner and Monte Farber: popular books, card decks, and oracles that have helped millions answer questions, find deeper meaning, and follow their own spiritual paths.

Together they’ve made their love for each other a work of art and their art the work of their lives, with over two million books in print in fourteen languages. Their other best-selling titles include The Chakra Meditation Kit, The Tarot Discovery Kit, Karma Cards, The Enchanted Spellboard, Secrets of the Fortune Bell, Little Reminders: Love & Relationships, Little Reminders: The Law of Attraction, Goddess, Guide Me!, The Animal Powers Meditation Kit, Astrology Gems, True Love Tarot, The Instant Tarot Reader, The Psychic Circle, Wish Upon A Star, The Pathfinder Psychic Talking Board, The Truth Fairy, Spirit of the Ancestors Altar Kit, Vibe-Away!, The Mystic Messenger, The Breathe Easy Deck, The Healing Deck, and The Ghostwriter Automatic Writing Kit.  More info at: www.TheEnchantedWorld.com

In many popular books on Feng Shui we find recommendations for hanging mirrors that, while they seem easy enough to understand, may work against you and bring you bad luck in the long run. On numerous occasions people have called me in to fix the problems brought on by Feng Shui consultants who, without any working knowledge of the compass methods, came to do their houses.

For instance, I once did a job for a woman whose husband had a fatal accident. A Feng Shui consultant, who came to this woman’s house some months prior to the accident, had advised her to hang mirrors in the “marriage and money corners” so as to enhance these areas of life. Reading the compass, I discovered, however, that these areas in her house were really about “accidents” and “ghosts,” not money and marriage. The mirrors, instead of enhancing anything positive, had encouraged a big disaster. It is known, by Taoist wizards, that destructive entities can be enter into a person’s house through badly placed mirrors. And healing spirits can enter a house where the mirrors are hung in good places. Mirrors are portals as well as reflectors. In other words, mirrors hung on wrong walls reflect good fortune away from the home and invite trouble. Mirrors may also be used in more secret ways. For example, it is an old practice of Taoist wizards to hang a mirror inside by the front door, some say to reflect the people coming and going in such a way that the wizard may find out their secret intentions. (My teacher of Chinese astrology and Feng Shui, an incredible Chinese psychic, had a mirror like that by his door). Others, especially those who do business off the street, will often hang a mirror by the doorway to reflect the people on the way out so that they always will want to come back.

While many wise Taoists avoid hanging mirrors in their homes and temples altogether,
the use of mirrors in Feng Shui goes back several millenia to when polished jade reflectors
were put on bed posts to repel undesirable spirits.

To find where you may best place mirrors in your home, first take a compass reading of its main door. A compass reading of a home is always done by standing in the doorway, facing out. The compass direction of your home is what you face when looking directly out the main door. There are eight basic compass directions. Once you find out the compass direction of your doorway note it, then sketch a floorplan of your home showing where the front door is, and draw a grid pattern resembling a tic-tac-toe over the floorplan. The tic-tac-toe pattern has eight squares, i.e., eight compass areas around a center square. Mark off the eight compass directions: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW.

According to the ancient Lo Shu compass method,
there are three areas in a space that are particularly good.
And it is in these that you may hang mirrors.

One of these three areas is especially good and can be used to bring healing energy through a mirror into your home.   It is called Sky Medicine.

• If your door faces North, the best compass areas of your home are in the East, Southeast, and South. Sky Medicine is in the East.
• If your door faces Northeast, the best areas in your home are in the Southwest, West, and Northwest. Sky medicine is in the Northwest.
• If your door faces East, the best compass areas in your home are in the Southeast, South and North. Sky medicine is in the North.
• If your door faces Southeast, the best areas in your home are in the South, North and East. Sky Medicine is in the South.
• If your door faces South, the best compass areas in your home are in the North, East and Southeast. Sky Medicine is in the Southeast.
• If your door faces Southwest, the best areas in your home are in the West, Northwest and Northeast. Sky Medicine is in the West.
• If your door faces West, the best areas in your home are in the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast. Sky Medicine is in the Southwest.
• If your door faces Northwest, the best areas in your home are in the Northeast, Southwest and West. Sky Medicine is in the Northeast.

If one of these good compass areas is the area of your bedroom, be careful not to hang or place a mirror that reflects your bed. Mirrors that reflect the bed disturb sleep and draw interferences into personal relationships. Do not place a mirror that directly faces the front door. If you have a mirror squarely facing the front door, people are being confronted with their reflection upon entering the house and are being told to go away.

If you have a bathroom door that is visible from the front door, a most undesirable situation, place a mirror on the bathroom door and keep the bathroom door shut. If you have a bathroom that has no windows, place mutually reflecting mirrors inside the bathroom. Mirrors that reflect one another activate Chi.

The device called the Bagua mirror is always hung outside the house, above the doorway, to ward off shars, or disturbing energies if these are detected.

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T. Raphael Simons was a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show
Listen to his interview here: http://exploreyourspirit.com/Media/shows1.shtml#SIMONSFENGSHUI1

More about T. Raphael Simons…

T. Raphael Simons is a psychic reader, astrologer (Western and Chinese forms), feng shui expert, hypnotherapist and life coach and is  available for consultations and counseling in person and by telephone. Author of Feng Shui, Step by Step, Feng Shui Strategies for Business Success: Arranging Your Office for Success and Prosperity, and The Feng Shui of Love, his interest in the metaphysical sciences and arts began in 1970, he first learned to read Tarot cards in 1971 and took up reading them professionally in 1977. From there he studied astrology for seven years with Ivy Jacobson beginning in 1980. In 1988 he took up the study of Chinese astrology and fengshui with Terry Lee in New York and has been practicing and teaching Chinese astrology and fengshui ever since. He also trained in channeling in New York with the medium Alex Murray. Since 1999 Raphael has been a member of OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids), the most ancient bardic and druid order in the UK in which he was elected a full member in the Druid grade. Raphael has been living in Durham, North Carolina since 2003, moving to NC from New York City. Originally trained as a musician, he taught music at Princeton University and Oberlin College.  For more information or questions about a Chinese astrological reading and/or Feng Shui consultation, contact Raphael Simons www.psychicarts.net

Since the first cave paintings, we humans have found creative ways to express ourselves with art. We naturally draw, paint, and doodle to capture thoughts and feelings. Art has also been used throughout history for healing. Studies show that it creates brain wave patterns that enhance the autonomic nervous system, hormonal balance, and brain neurotransmitters. While doing artistic expressive art, the body’s physiology shifts from stressed to serene.

It’s often easier for a child to talk about pictures than about himself or his feelings (grief, anger, shame, etc.). Drawing will allow your child to express difficult feelings or to disclose what he might not share verbally. Your child’s artistic expression will give you a clearer sense of his inner struggle, an insight that will help you guide him.

Drawing also increases your child’s awareness of his inner world and creates a window onto that landscape. In addition, a child’s artwork can be a launching point for conversations that reveal her thinking about the world around her.

You don’t have to be a trained therapist to use some art therapeutic techniques with your child. Just stock up on a variety of supplies—giant rolls of paper, colored paper, crayons, and a variety of markers, including scented, metallic, fat, thin, even markers that change color as they write over another color. Then try the following art exercises to explore new ways to communicate with your child.

Draw a self-portrait. On a large sheet of paper, trace your young child’s body. Have her fill it in. Older children can design and complete their own. Drawing increases your child’s awareness of her inner world, and it’s easier to talk about a drawing than to express troubling feelings.

Picture the future. Artwork is also an effective starting point when you’re working with clear end-goals, like getting a good night’s sleep or reducing a fear. Have your child draw two drawings—how things are now and how he’d like them to be. Kids often hang these pictures in their bedrooms to remind them of their desired direction.

Show and tell. After an imaginary journey, such as a walk through a special place she imagines with her eyes shut and tells you about, have your child draw her experience. The picture gives you both something to look at and discuss. If the drawing illustrates a problem—say, a dangerous goblin or a fire at home—ask her what might solve the situation. She can even draw the solution right onto her picture.

Accept every drawing. Some kids have a tough time committing their mental pictures to paper; they fear they won’t measure up. Reassure your child that anything he creates is fine. Sometimes all that comes are strokes of bold color evolving out of a wonderful or terrible feeling that is finally set free on paper. Praise each one. They are the artifacts of your child’s inner world.

Talk to the image. Once your child has spilled his feelings on paper, he can converse with them. He might use his picture of Fear to ask what it needs to calm down, or to tell it to leave. It’s much easier to speak to feelings when they’re outside than when they’re gnawing away at his tummy.

Take artistic action. It’s a great release when a child can draw her angry, hurt, or upset feelings, but pictures don’t have to be static. She can erase part of it, or draw over it in “healing” colors with a changeable marker—an immediate transformation that feels magical. She can even rip up or throw away the paper. These actions can offer a hurting child a sense of control and satisfaction.

Capture the memory. The special places your child visits on her imaginary journeys are personal healing sanctuaries. Hanging pictures of them somewhere private but visible will remind her that she can return whenever the need arises. Drawings of trusted animal friends and wizards can help her remember support is always near.

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More about Charlotte Reznick…

Charlotte Reznick is a child educational psychologist, an associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, and author of a new book, The Power of Your Child’s Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee, 2009, $14.95). More information at: www.ImageryForKids.com

What is Consciousness? I spoke recently with friend Eva Herr about this very question. In her experience as a radio host and author, she has asked more than fifty learned people to respond, scholars in the study of the mind and consciousness. She said that she received fifty different answers. But I have a short and concise answer that she just may not have heard uttered. I want to share this with you.

Today, as I cut the grass on a beautiful and warm Hawaiian day, I didn’t think of consciousness as I steered the riding mower around the couple of lawn acres, not thought of it at all until I had to trim along the fences with a self propelled hand mower which, on the uphill grades, is not always effortless. Then it hit me: To have two gas-powered machines, let alone the fact that one can be mounted like a horse and has a drink receptacle, was truly a gift. I could have had to push some old-fashioned reel mower which would have required days of effort and may have stressed my heart. Well, it came soon on the heels of that thought that just to be able to ponder such a question is another gift, just as is my stopping to view the beautiful fluffy white clouds in an azure Hawaiian sky. So, what is consciousness?

My friend Robert Bruce, author of Astral Dynamics, asked me a dozen years ago if I could fashion an appendix for his book. He wanted me, as a brain surgeon, to describe the location of consciousness and the seat of the soul. I did this for him, taking time to study the work of great scholars.

There were many guesses as to the location of consciousness, but none seemed to be correct. According to Gerald M. Edelman, “Consciousness is neither a thing nor a simple property.” Edelman has asserted that a fundamental property of consciousness is that it cannot be broken down into independent components. That is to say, consciousness is integrated within the brain, and involves many widely separated areas.

I began my study with the work of the famous neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield (Montreal Neurological Institute), who found that vast areas of the cerebral cortex can be removed without affecting consciousness. However, small areas of the brainstem, when destroyed, will seriously affect or abolish consciousness. Brain stimulation cases show that found that the “mind,” not the brain, watches and directs human cognition and function.

Thanks to Robert’s request for my opinion, I came across something that allowed me to finish my book, Medicine, Miracles and Manifestations as it seems to prove that we incarnate on Earth to follow a carefully crafted plan. That critical piece of information is the Bereitschaftspotential and as demonstrated by the work of Dr. Benjamin Libet, (University of California, San Francisco). Libet described it as a “readiness potential” that can be picked up by EEG electrodes (a la Libet) or in modern times, functional MRI studies. It is a brain signal that precedes a consciously-made motor movement by roughly 350 milliseconds and it indicates that what we seemingly do of our own volition is actually initiated in the subconscious mind. Although we feel we have made a conscious decision to do perform an act, it is not so.

I investigated the work of many other luminaries in the field and was left with the thought that can be best described by the following quotation:

On the surface of things, nothing appears as it is.

And yet, everything that appears unreal,

is more real than the surface of things appears to be.

Now, after having a few years to reflect on consciousness, to study the work of others and to listen to their learned discourses, I have reached a concise description of what consciousness is. Perhaps in a few years my thoughts will change, but for now, I will say this:

“Consciousness is a gift.  Consciousness is a miracle”.

Dr. John L. Turner was a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show Listen to his interview here: http://exploreyourspirit.com/Media/shows8.shtml#TURNERMEDICINE

More About Dr. John L. Turner:
After graduating from the Ohio State University with a degree in engineering physics, Dr. Turner continued in graduate school at the Ohio State University, Department of Physics. Three years into the PhD program, he was given a book about Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet. This changed the course of his life! He was excited about the existence of a spiritual world and made immediate plans to attend the Ohio State University’s College of Medicine where he earned his M.D. He completed his internship year in general surgery and his first year neurosurgical residency at Ohio State University. He completed the remaining four years of neurosurgical training at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. For eighteen years, he served as the sole neurosurgeon on the island of Hawai’i, initially performing lifesaving procedures with a marginally trained staff and substandard equipment. By all measures, John L. Turner is a surgeon with classic western medical credentials. From his first day on call in Hilo, Hawai’i, metaphysical events appeared for his edification and continue to the present day.

Medicine, Miracles, and Manifestations, is the twenty-year story of Dr. Turner’s contributions to the field of neurosurgery through Integral Medicine. The concept of Integral Medicine has been written about by notable members of the medical community, including Andrew Weil, Larry Dossey, Deepak Chopra, Mehmet Oz and Dean Ornish. Each of these writers is a physician who specializes in internal medicine or surgery. What makes John Turner similar to these writers is that he, too, is a physician. What makes him different from these writers is that he is a neurosurgeon. In fact, he is the only brain surgeon to write of medicine from this perspective: hand’s on use of complementary techniques prior to, during and after surgery, and exploration of pathways that lead to the spiritual world. The tools of the surgeon normally have more immediate, measurable results on patients’ health and well-being. With the opportunity to study and operate on the brain, Dr. Turner was in a perfect position to explore the mind-body connection. Medicine, Miracles, and Manifestations reveals how metaphysical events such as remote viewing, telepathy, consciousness and life-after-death are verifiable manifestations of the manner in which the human brain interfaces with the universal consciousness that author Lynne McTaggart refers to as The Field. More info at: www.johnlturner.com

Fall is my favorite time of year.  Every summer, right around the end of August, I start getting that itch, that nagging feeling that I’m ready for the seasons to change. I do love all of the seasons and celebrate the coming and going of each one but for me there’s something extra special about Fall. I love everything about that time of year- the beauty in the colors of the changing leaves, the smell of mulled apple cider on cool evenings, the sound of honking geese as they fly south for the winter, and that warm snuggly feeling you get when you put your favorite sweater on for the first time that season.  It feels like a magical time to me when we finally get a reprieve from the long hot summer.

Spiritually, one of my favorite things about this change of seasons is the Fall Equinox and the rituals that are associated with it. I believe, as many others do, that the Fall Equinox is the true Thanksgiving.  It is the time of the harvest and a time to look back on the past year and reflect on what we have experienced and learned.  It is a time of gratitude and abundance. The equinox is the perfect time to release excess baggage or stagnant energy you may be carrying so that you can start the new year (November 1) with a clean slate.

There are a number of rituals that can be done during this time and, being that I own a holistic bath products company, one of my personal favorites is a ritual bath or shower. Unfortunately most people on most days don’t really think about their bath or shower- except to think they need one. I think that people would be much happier in general and certainly happier with their bodies if they were more mindful and thoughtful during their bathing time. What we are thinking about during that very personal time can have a great impact on our physical and emotional well-being.  There is much more to go into on this topic but we’ll save that for another time.  For now let’s focus on what we should be doing for the Fall Equinox.  There are many good resources available that can guide you on rituals for your house and home but again, we’re going to focus on a bathing ritual.

I do this ritual the day before the official Equinox day.  I do this so that I can focus on other rituals and celebrations related to my home and family on the day of the actual Equinox.  Because this is the time to reflect on all of my actions (and inactions) and experiences over the past year I light a candle and spend some time sitting quietly and thinking of all that has come to pass since the last Fall Equinox. I think about the lessons I have learned and those that I am still working on.  I try to pay close attention to any negative thoughts or energy I may have.  I also try to think about the seeds that I want to sow in the spring, the lessons and adventures I want to take on in the coming year. When I feel like I have gone over the past year and my experiences and taken note of any negative thoughts and energy I want to be rid of I get into the shower.  I actually prefer a shower to a bath for this particular ritual because once I am in the shower I take all of those negative thoughts and energy and I visualize them being washed away as the water washes over me.  I see them swirling down the drain, away from and out of me. When I feel that my etheric body has been cleansed I move on to my physical body.  For this particular ritual I use the White Light soap from our Celestial Farms product line.  This soap has a clear quartz crystal embedded in it which is useful here because clear quartz enhances energy by absorbing and balancing it- which is exactly what we want at this time- absorbing (negative energy) and balancing (equinox literally means equal night or  balance).  I wash my body with the soap (and the embedded crystal) from head to toe, all the while thanking the Universe for all that I have and all that I am. Since I am bathing I pay particular attention to my body and I say things out loud such as, “I am thankful for the body I have been given in this life. I am grateful for all that is has done for me and I treat it with love and respect”. I also take a few moments to give thanks for my family and friends, for the life that I have and for the coming year.  Once I have rinsed the soap from my body I use the White Light Dead Sea Salt Scrub where I gently exfoliate and purify my body with the therapeutic energy of the Dead Sea.  The salt scrub also has a clear quartz crystal in it so I know I’m doing even more to absorb negative energy and keep myself balanced.  Once I have rinsed the salt scrub off I am ready to get out of the shower.  As I towel myself off I visualize myself surrounded in a blanket of White Light and I say out loud, “I am surrounded by Pure White Light and all that happens, happens for good”.

And remember it’s Thanksgiving so give thanks and live abundantly!

Next time we’ll talk about the importance of positive thinking while bathing.

More About Niki Fountain….

Serene Bath & Body was the vision of its owner and founder, Niki Fountain. As a young woman, Niki, like many girls her age, found herself with a poor body image and did not treat her body with the love and respect it deserved. One surefire way to lift her spirits when feeling down was shopping for and using sumptuous soaps and lotions. Nothing felt better than indulging in a little luxury (even if, while in college, the checkbook didn’t agree). The act of bathing with a wonderfully smelling soap and finishing with a silky smooth lotion created a sense of peace and well being. Through the years Niki was able to overcome her body issues and realized that everyone, especially young women, needed to learn to care for and respect their bodies- physical and otherwise. She wanted them to experience the same indulgence and feeling of serenity that she felt while caring for her body. This is what inspired Serene Bath & Body. She wanted to create products that would help young girls and women learn to love their bodies and treat them well by using high quality products that nourish the body, the mind, the spirit and the soul. Niki earned her Masters Degree in hydrogeology and has a professional background in developing and perfecting soaps. She spent several years in a university laboratory as a hydrogeologist developing soap formulations to be used to “clean-up” chemicals that had been spilled into groundwater. She has been applying this experience and knowledge ever since while working in the environmental industry, cleaning up sites that have been contaminated with chemicals. She has since taken this knowledge and experience and applied it to developing and perfecting formulations of soaps for people. Additionally, being a geologist, she is intimately familiar with crystals and gemstones and both their physical and metaphysical properties. She uses this knowledge while creating new formulations for Celestial Farms that include various combinations of bath products with the appropriate crystals to obtain an array of desired outcomes (relaxation, invigoration, aura cleansing, etc). More info at: theserenestore.com