meditation
The Ideal Starting Crystals For Beginners
Crystals and gemstones are a popular resource in modern metaphysical practices, mysticism, and alternative spirituality. It can be used in various powerful ways, including healing, energy protection, meditation, prayer, manifesting, divination, psychic reading, and channeling.
Crystals are versatile and useful in enhancing one’s spiritual practice or energy work, but there are so many to choose from that it can difficult to know where to start.
Three of my favorite crystals that I recommend for beginners to get started with are amethyst, rose quartz and black tourmaline. These three crystals are affordable and easy to find, so they are ideal to start with if you wish to explore using crystals to expand your spiritual practice.
Amethyst
Amethyst is the ideal stone to start with because it has a gentle energy that almost anyone can tolerate without being overwhelmed by its influence. It is a fantastic stone to help you get in touch with your intuition and find your calm center. Amethyst’s calming energy especially enhances meditation and dreamwork.
Amethyst is associated with the crown chakra. It heightens our spiritual and personal awareness, which in turn helps us to self-reflect and evaluate more honestly where we need to make adjustments in our beliefs, behavior, and perspectives. Amethyst thus supports us in maintaining clarity in our self-reflection, which is a vital first step in a spiritual journey of higher consciousness and personal enlightenment.
Using The Four Elements In Your Spiritual Practice
Our ancestors worked with the elements in their metaphysical and spiritual practices. The four classic elements are found in many wisdom traditions, while some also employ additional elements such as metal, wood, and spirit.
The four primary elements can be a meaningful resource in one’s personal practice. It is powerful in prayer, meditation, manifesting rituals, energy healing, divination, psychic protection, and self-care. For example, I use all four elements in my New Moon and Full Moon ceremonies. Depending on what I am working on, I also create specific rituals throughout the year focusing on one metaphysical attribute of a particular element and call upon that energy to assist me in my own life.
Air Energy
The element of air represents consciousness, intuition, understanding, and the mind. I call upon this element when I am attempting to figure out something complex or when I need to make a decision about something important.
To work with this element, I light an incense stick. Since the movement of air is not something visible, the smoke from an incense stick is a symbolic way to represent it. I then focus on the smoke and use an invocation to call upon the element of air.
I call upon the element of air to provide me clarity and understanding.
I invoke the element of air to elevate my consciousness above this fear
People often assume that intuition is the innate ability to know absolutely everything, especially about the future. However, authentic intuition is about knowing what we need to know regarding a specific situation. The element of air can awaken what we need to know without providing too many spoilers along the way.
Spirit Will Guide You Through Life’s Murkiest Fog
This time of year, I am usually way too busy to spend much time relaxing on my porch, but today, I just felt it was high time for some ‘me time.’ Yes, psychics and mediums tend to be great at giving guidance to others about the necessity for taking some ‘me time,’ but not so good about following our own advice.
It is always so calm and peaceful to just rock away in my favorite chair on the porch, feeling the energy of the ocean. It is a wonderful time for me to meditate and connect with my spirit guides and loved ones in spirit.
Looking out over the ocean, I observed some ‘sea smoke’ over the water. Sea smoke, also known as ‘frost smoke’ or ‘steam fog,’ is a type of fog that arises when extremely cold air moves over warmer water.
The sea smoke can become so dense that it is impossible for sailors to clearly see all the boats and yachts on their moorings. This is when one hears the tugboat’s foghorn guiding the big tankers safely to their destination. Although it is a strange, eerie sound, it is also reassuring to know the boats can find their way through the sea smoke.
As I came out of meditation, I noticed the sea smoke had finally started to lift. I could now see the red tugboats and the sun was peeking through the clouds. It looked like a slice of heaven to me.
Then the thought came to me how symbolic this beautiful sight was of life’s challenges and how we can overcome adversity more easily with the support and guidance of spirit.
Stay Spiritually Uplifted This Winter Holiday Season
For some people, the approach of winter is a fantastic time of the year. They love to walk amongst the golden autumn leaves, breathing in the crisp air that enlivens the soul, while looking forward to the festive holiday season.
For others, the holiday season is a time of fear and dread. It is for some that time of the year when they feel more bored, lonely, depressed and lacking in enthusiasm. I used to be one of those people. I could not wait for it all to be over, so the brighter days of spring could arrive. But these days I have a very different outlook. I have learned ways to lift my spirits during this time of the year. Yes, winter holiday period does not have to be a ‘dark night of the soul!’
If you are currently also dreading the fast-approaching holiday season, the following self-care strategies can help you turn this time of the year into a period of true joy and upliftment. It will assist you in navigating the winter through to the spring effectively and happily, while maintaining emotional well-being and keeping your spirits high.
Intentions & Goalsetting
It is always great to have something uplifting to look forward to, especially when the nights are cold, long, and lonely. This time of the year is the perfect opportunity to set new goals or personal targets that will add value and excitement to your life. No need to for New Year’s Eve to make your resolutions. Start setting those intentions
Once you have set your goals, begin to meditate on and visualize those intentions. Once you get your intentional energy rolling, the Universe will assist you in manifesting your endeavours by cosmically aligning you to the desired end result.
Creating A Brand New Life
Many teachers, philosophers and authors have said the same thing in different ways. We create our own reality; we are the masters of our own destiny.
Some of my favorite books with this message include James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh; Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich; Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization; Mike Dooley’s Manifesting Change; Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: Bob Proctor’s You Were Born Rich; Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret; and Bud LaBranche’s audio recording What You Believe, You Become.
The average person has had access to this information for generations. For example, James Allen’s book was first published in 1903. If the universal Law of Attraction was indeed ever ‘a secret,’ it has not been so for at least a century. So, why don’t more of us apply it in our lives? Why don’t more of us take more control of our destiny and create the life we desire?
I think the first reason is that many people do not even think it possible. They choose to believe that life happens to them, instead of for them, and that they are merely meant to react to whatever comes their way in the best way humanly possible.
Others are so buried in the day-to-day chaos of their lives that they don’t have the time, nor the inclination to sit down and learn about a different way of living.
Then there are also those who believe that their life is simply pre-ordained, and they have minimal choice in the matter. For them there is no point in trying to get out of the rut in which they find themselves.
A Simple Meditation For Psychic Development
I often have clients ask me during psychic readings or in Yoga class, how they can develop their own intuitive awarness or psychic ability?
It is generally accepted that meditation is one of the most effective and powerful methods to develop psychic perception and increase intuition. If you are new to meditation, you can easily begin with any guided meditations that balance energy flow in all the chakras, but especially meditation that is focused on opening the third eye chakra.
The third eye chakra is located in the center of the forehead and is the energy center associated with psychic perception, higher consciousness, and spirit communication.
I usually share with my clients a Kundalini Yoga meditation technique to stimulate the life nerve in the shoulder. In my experience this helps to tune into one’s intuition and increase your psychic awareness.
In this exercise your arm is used as an antenna to pull in energy to the heart chakra, or fourth chakra, and connecting it to the third eye, or sixth chakra.
This simple meditation is a powerful technique for psychic development, as most people tend to not venture much into the higher chakras by channelling energy above the heart chakra.
Psychic channeling and intuitive awareness requires unrestricted and balanced energy flow through all the chakras, like a row of dominoes. If there is a gap between two dominoes, the flow of energy is distorted, disrupted or blocked. This exercise helps to bridge that gap.
Sometimes All You Need Is A Divine Love Adjustment
Sometimes all we need is a divine love adjustment or compassion ‘tune up.’ It is like going to the chiropractor to ‘get the kinks out’ of our physical body, so that we can move more smoothly without pain and greater mobility. In the same way we need to sometimes realign our light body and energy field with the unconditional universal love of God, Source, Spirit, the Divine.
I get my spiritual love adjustment through prayer. I can sense when it is time for me to open my heart chakra and bring in greater compassion or patience, or whatever I may need to be a part of the greater good and connected to Light and Love. When I pray, I ask for healing when I do the opening and closing of the chakras, and I meditate at a deep level to bring healing and a deeper connection to what brings us all together and connects us – love!
So, if you are currently feeling the lack of love, kindness, patience and compassion in your life, and notice a lack of caring for yourself and others, perhaps you also need a spiritual love adjustment. It’s cheaper than a visit to the chiropractor – it’s free! All you need to do is spend some quiet time alone to hear that inner voice directing you towards the greater good. it will also guide you to what you need to do in order to achieve this.
Sometimes all it takes is just ‘being.’ Just being. Enjoying the present and not feeling like you have to go and do, as that will often only bring more stress and chaos. We have a direct link to joy, happiness and unconditional love. To reconnect to it, just become quiet, be still, and pray or meditate. Before you know it, life will once again be bright and meaningful.