Archive for the ‘Guest Blogs’ Category

Following Sound into Silence:  Chanting Your Way Beyond Ego into Bliss – Illustrated book with mantra-music CD (2008, Hay House)
.. excerpt from the book by Dr. Kurt “Kailash” Bruder

Invitation to Chanting
Are you hoping to find a simple, straight-forward spiritual practice that reliably calms and concentrates your mind, elevates and stabilizes your feelings, and inspires and energizes your will? The fact that you’re reading this suggests that you’re already a spiritual seeker—someone wanting to experience the Great Mystery directly and hoping that this experience will translate into concrete improvements in your day-to- day life.

Devotional chanting is the very spiritual practice you need, allowing you to take full advantage of a resource that’s already available to you for your own evolution: your voice. If you’re like me, at some time or another you’ve been inspired by stories of saints and sages. You’ve probably imagined yourself becoming like them—holy, compassionate, wise, and carefree—only to discover that wishing didn’t take you there. Learning about how great someone else’s spiritual life was doesn’t do much by itself to improve your own. True enough, reading about their heroic efforts with respect to self-discipline and their amazing insights can be inspiring. However, it can also be discouraging in the long run, especially when you discover that the particulars of their path are simply too ambitious for you to imitate.

Yet, there’s this nagging sense that you can be more than you’ve been thus far and that a way of life that transcends your current limitations exists, if only you knew how to access it. But where do you begin? What you need is a system for spiritual development that works with your life as it is, yet challenges you enough to result in definite growth. It should stretch you where you need to expand and provide incentive to strive where you’ve been lax, while not overwhelming you with its complexity or difficulty. The practical spiritual exercise of devotional chanting has filled these needs for me, and I know it can do the same for you.

My own entry into chanting was from two different “angles.” One was my search for an approach to spiritual growth that would engage every dimension of my being, especially my feelings. For many years, my emphasis was on cultivating the clearest and most accurate understanding of ultimate reality that I could. This process led me to consider a wide variety of perspectives, first exclusively within Christianity, and then within other wisdom traditions as well. While I learned many things that I still regard as valuable, this philosophical approach was sometimes rather “dry” and detached. I wanted a practice that involved all of me—my body and heart, as well as my mind—which would lead me to a direct experience of the ideals I was pursuing. Devotional chanting delivers.

The other point of entry for me was my work as a scholar-teacher of communication. For the bulk of my professional life, I’ve been investigating the relationship between people’s specific communication behaviors and their interior lives, especially their sense of self. I came to realize that everything we say (or sing) to ourselves and others shapes us and contributes to the quality of our lives. My studies of interactive methods for spiritual development that have been used by people throughout history and around the world inevitably led me to devotional chanting…

Why Chant?
The advantages of this ancient form of worshipping the Divine are many and varied. Not only does chanting quiet our minds, it also helps us forget our troubles; produces a sense of connection with others; and fosters a wealth of positive feelings such as serenity, lightness, and joy. Many chanters—novices and veterans alike—even report the sensation of having transcended their bodies during this practice. Chanting is a technique that makes the best use of our love of pleasure, redirecting our desires toward the Supreme. In this way, chanting is a shortcut to ecstasy. Mantra repetition is a simple, enjoyable, and powerful procedure for purposefully reorganizing your consciousness. The uncomplicated nature of chanting may seem at odds with some of the extravagant claims made for its power as a form of spiritual technology.

After all, how could speaking or singing syllables from an ancient foreign language possibly generate such an amazing range of benefits? The very act of repeating a mantra induces relaxation, allowing you access to the sublime silence always abiding at the core of your being. Simplifying your mental processes by working with mantras will support you in increased concentration and emotional command. Additional benefits may be realized when you chant in coordination with other types of sadhana (spiritual practice). For example, the rewards of chanting are exponentially increased when also harnessing the force of imagination—such as repeating mantras while visualizing the Perfections that are being invoked…As you move through these pages, you’ll learn about other benefits common to all mantras, as well as many that are linked to the repetition of specific mantras…

Visit Kailash’s website, http://OmKailash.com, for chant-relevant information, events schedule, audio and video clips of Kailash chanting and teaching, and much more.

I made both a Chinese astrological chart and a western astrological chart of the Presidential inauguration on January 20th. The Chinese chart report is first. As the events these past several months are reflected in what the charts say, we can reasonably say, therefore, that what was predicted in the charts, will indeed happen.

President Obama was sworn in on January 20th, at 12:06 PM in Washington DC. Chinese astrological calculations show a picture of a long period of reform coming, and in spite of the challenges and oppositions that are bound to come up the new Administration will succeed in large measure. The energy at the time in which the new Administration began was contracting, not expanding. This means that the situation of the Nation, as seen in January, 2009, in general gets worse before it gets better; it takes time to turn around. (It is now August, 21st. The recession is just beginning slowly to turn around. It is most probable that the economy will pick up little by little through the later part of this year and through 2010.) Creative planning is being called for in the current Administration. Creative planning is the vital element for the success of the Administration. The time, as shown in the Chinese chart, calls for an independent leader, one who carefully weighs all sides and who acts forcefully in face of serious opposition.

Overall, the dynamics of the Chinese chart show a trend toward repolarization of wealth. This means the poor will ultimately benefit even though the getting there will be fraught with difficulties. The Government will be seeking out new and alternative solutions, but their efforts will exceed expected returns; they won’t be able to come through with all they promise because the opposition is growing in intensity throughout the term of the Administration. Financial resources being unstable, it will take considerable time to turn the situation around. The Chinese chart does show, however, increasing resourcefulness and storing up of money after the first year. The picture is complicated and difficult. The country is being divided by opposing forces. The opposition to the President doesn’t care that the President is popular and is doing all it can to undermine the President. It will continue this way and grow in virulence.

The second and third years of the Obama Administration promise to be very dynamic. Opposition to the President will become loud through the second year. And the fourth year shows a hidden danger coming up. The Chinese chart does not say from whom or to whom, but it does say that opposition will come up very strongly toward the end of the Presidential term. All through his Presidency, Obama will have challenges. It is an exciting time. And while the President does have enemies he appears to have protection as well.

President Obama’s hopes of unifying everyone, reaching across the aisle, will not work. Divisive factions are growing and will come to challenge him loudly especially toward mid-term. And while mid-term may bring up some radical choices, the President will receive assistance from key people right from the start and throughout the four years of his first term. It is probable that he will be reelected. He has the genius, or luck of turning adverse conditions to his advantage. President Obama glows with vitality and vigorously carries things through. His gift of attracting others, however, is double edged; it works both for and against him. He has a danger of becoming entangled in the snares of his political enemies. President Obama’s alliances will therefore not always be trustworthy. Notwithstanding, he is a clever politician.

The Western astrological chart for the inauguration had Mercury retrograde and combust showing Justice Roberts having a senior moment flubbing his administering of the Oath of Office. Some people had the opinion that the inauguration was made invalid because of this flub, however, according to the 22nd amendment of the Consititution, the inauguration was, indeed, valid. Notwithstanding, there was a second oath of office given to President Obama on January 21st at 7:35 PM at the White House. A brief analysis of it follows this report, but it doesn’t hold water beyond warning the President of the serious intentions of his opposition; there are no accidents; that chart does say something. The country is deeply divided and there are a lot of fearful, angry people that can stir up a lot of trouble.

At the time of the Presidential Inauguration the Moon was at 29 degrees Scorpio in the 7th house. This means the Nation will have something to weep about during the the current Administration. This position of the Moon tells of an ominous turning point in the affairs of the Government tied to trouble in foreign relations and turmoil at home. We need to be on the lookout for violent characters.

To allay the fears of some people: while the chart does point to notable deaths of Senators and other outstanding figures, it does not point to the death of the President; the President is protected and has great popularity. The highest branches of the Government will be able to flourish and exercise power under him. But while the President has the ability to build up something of lasting value he will be vexed; he won’t find himself in the best of circumstances all the time and he has enormous problems to deal with.

The Inauguration chart showed the President turning his attention to the real estate crisis, something he already has done. The chart also showed the following concerns of concern: trouble to children involving poverty and crime, illness coming from afar (swine flu), rising mortality rate, increase in crimes against women, crooks in the financial markets, international criminals, in other words, vice and immorality rooted in the past.

The Inauguration chart also showed that there would be much activity in Government circles involving banking and labor, also disgrace to public officials and people in high places of business; in other words, we will see plenty of scandals involving finances, banking and labor. We’ve already seen some.  The Administration’s aims will likely be vexed by shifting circumstances and factional struggling, causing changes of mind related to complex financial issues. The Administration’s financial and social plans will therefore be thwarted, compromised, or delayed to the discomfort of the public while the public is being intimidated by nefarious media characters. Some hoped for, and important social and economic reforms will get bogged down and delayed, in other words. The people started out with high hopes and need to be more realistic lest they be disappointed.

In two years from the time of the Inauguration radical developments will likely come up in the Congress. There will be dramatic developments and a likely upset in the country at that time. The opposition will get very loud. And in four years there will be a noteworthy loss that will bring weeping to the Nation. There is something tragic shown in this chart that will affect the Nation. Other charts over the years will reveal what this means. No matter, the President is protected, and will likely be reelected for a second term.  We can expect religious disputes to come up. The Administration favors taking bold new scientific, technological and medical directions that will attract dissention from religious fundamentalists. The new Administration will encourage innovation and invention, nonetheless. Technology is highly favored and will the an area for positive international cooperation.

The chart also shows that projects that were put aside or underfunded in the past Administration will come up in the future to engage the new Administration in working to build hospitals, schools, and such public works as roads, bridges and levies. There is also a call to improve interstate and international commerce and shipping. There are plans on the table for a new trans-continental rail system.  This year, when Saturn enters Libra after the end of October, the power of the President will be considerably strengthened and the economy should show some encouraging signs of improvement.

The chart also shows elements in the media grasping for power and stirring up a hornet’s nest that contribute to conditions of danger that must be watched; there is danger of terrorism. Again, the Inauguration chart says that it is most unlikely the President will be harmed in spite of the dangers, but it is possible that someone close to the President will be in danger. It is also very possible that in four years an act of violence will come to affect the Nation. But that has to be confirmed by other charts along the course of time to be predicted with any certainty. The Inauguration chart, however, does point to turbulence and danger of violence developing through the four years of the Administration. Wisdom tells us to be watchful. The violent talk on the media is something to be watched. Dissention and turmoil will develope over the Administration’s economic and social policies. Rebels and rabble-rousers will rise up to stir up riots, strikes, and destruction of property. These violent forces must be taken very seriously. As of this date, August 21st, you can see it already happening. It will not stop so easily. It is very serious.

The chart of the second oath of office, given on January 21st at 7:35 PM at the White House casts a shadow over the Presidency altogether. The second chart is extremely negative and shows that there are dark forces militating against the Government, and the Presidency itself; these forces must not be ignored. This chart lends serious weight to the negative indications of the first Inauguration chart, and shows the enormity of the problems that confront the Obama Administration.

Listen to T. Raphael Simons interview on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show

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. More info at: www.psychicarts.net

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.

* * * * *

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