Category: Energy Healing

The Yoga of Overwhelm: A Practice of Self-Care #EMYoga #fiveelements

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Reflections, yoga9 Comments
Image by Joe from Pixabay

In the predawn hours of morning, I dream of water rising. How many times have I dreamt of a flood during this life? Sometimes, biblical in scale. Water seeps through the folds of gray matter, pushing open pathways as life searches for air and sun to grow. It is the element that holds our fear and also our courage.

To find courage, take a deep breath in, then bow to the element. Lift your head through its surface to face the sun, and release your fears with the sound of Whoooo.”

Almost daily, I cycle through the five elements of Chinese medicine while I read about the chaos of this world. In particular, the collapse of democracy in this stolen land that is also my home. How much overwhelm can a body endure? How many lies founded on hypocrisy can the mind decode?

To temper the anger inside of you, grab ahold of its roots before you release it into submission. “Shhhhhhhh!” Repeat as needed.

What will tomorrow look like? I haven’t yet tried to pull the cards, relying instead on the prophecy of dreams. The repetition of metaphors and the tug-of-war between nightmares and bliss. The overshadow of darkness can overwhelm the body as it waits for the light to break through.

Soften your jaw.

How do you always know? A participant asks. I can only guess at probability. The continuous strain of the levy. Sometimes the strain pushes to the point of extreme discomfort. Creating an excess of heat in the body.

To release anxiety, transmute the combustible fire in the body. Haaaaaaa! Becomes a balm to the nervous system, softening the flame inside. Turning the wheels of life with the gentle hands of creation. Haaaaaaa! Allow the light of the sun to fill the body, softening the internal fires.

Relax your forehead and shoulders.

To find faith, I must soften the fortifications of structure. My body knows the programming of words. Call it scripture if you will. I’ll call it a cult because it was the guru mantra chanted by the Hare Krishnas that brought my body to the seat of its traumas.

To free the body’s traumas, dig into the center of the heels with your fingers, or roll a marble under one heel and then the other while standing. Don’t overdo it, fifteen seconds is enough.

In this search for trust after trauma, the body must find a way to release its armor so that the soul can dance with its origins. Joy is not always without sorrow. Hug the inner child close in love first.

Cross your arms over your ribs and hug yourself. Bring the breath inside the body and cradle the infant-self who is close to the place of your origin. This light of life is yours too. Allow yourself become the beloved. Keep the breath cycling inside the body and allow it to feed your inner light.

Almost always, when I hug my inner child, I weep. Coming back to the sea of life, water finds its release in the form of rain to feed the roots of being. Here, rebirth is possible. Here, new life can find more stable roots as it reaches its face to the sun. Haaaaaa!

Usually, we are most protective of our hearts. This vital organ of life that pumps the energy of our bodies is shielded by our ribs, but also by whatever fortress we create in our metaphorical worlds of self- preservation. This is where we hide our grief through lack of trust. The breath, held in density, becomes shallow. The shoulders slump forward in protection. The lungs and heart strain against restraint.

To soften your armor, rake your fingers across your sternum as your move them down your chest. Be gentle, but deliberate. To free the density of the breath, breathe into the bottom of the lungs and allow your grief to find that thread of life that is your light of origin with an “Ssssssssss.” Cross your hands over your heart center (the top, center of your chest) and strengthen that thread of light with two more breaths into the lungs and exhales into the sound of “Sssssss.”

Repeat as needed.

The techniques in this blog are adaptations of the 5 Element practice of EMYoga (energy medicine yoga), of which I am a Foundations Instructor. These techniques are not intended to replace psychological care. If you find yourself struggling to lead a balanced lifestyle, please seek out the care you need. Calling or texting 988 will bring you in direct contact with a metal health Lifeline at no cost to you.

What our dreams may tell us in our search for service during these troubling times #dreamsymbolism #peace #healing

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Reflections, yoga14 Comments
How to use our dreams to find direction, purpose, healing and maybe even joy during challenging times
A recent photo of me taken by my husband. A reminder that when we live through our heart we find the thread of joy.

Last night, as so often happens, I found myself churning through scenes reflecting my fears and insecurities. Few would argue the fact that we are, collectively, living in challenging times. The upheaval that is occurring in our global community can be overwhelming to the point of feeling helpless. Many are wondering what to do. How to be of assistance to those in need. How to find their own inner sense of peace and wellbeing.

Last night, as so often happens, I found myself back at school. Each time I would wake from the dream-state, I would fall back into the same scene of unease. No more! I tried to convince my subconscious. I have had enough! And, then, finally, a scene of peace, healing and transformation. Out of the chaos, I had found my hope.

Our inner worlds reflect our outer worlds, and vice-versa. We are microcosms of the macrocosm. In each of us exists the universe the holds us together. I’d like to share the plot of my seemingly endless dream last night with you in the hope that perhaps it will be of use to not just myself.

As I mentioned before, I was at school in this dream. Being is school is a common theme for me. I believe I have these “school” dreams because my subconscious is literally asking me to learn something. Quite often, these school dreams are frustrating for me. I find myself back in high school, college, or graduate school often struggling with something I am holding onto. Last night, I was back in summer school, at the St. Paul’s School Advanced Studies program. I think this is significant because during that summer before my senior year in high school, I not only met my husband, but I solidified a career trajectory that I would later discover felt inauthentic to who I am and why I am here in this lifetime.

In the dream sequence(s), I discovered that in order to pass my course of study, advanced biology, I needed to complete a short, one page or more, essay on who or what inspired me to fall in love with this field of study. I was in a panic. I had forgotten the assignment until the very last minute. The dream turned incredibly chaotic as I tried to figure out a way to write the essay, literally at the last minute. I knew I could write fast, that was not the primary problem. Other obstacles kept being thrown in my way, including my inability to find my true source of inspiration for choosing this field of study.

And then, suddenly, before I could write this final essay to pass the class, the dream shifted. I found myself in the future with some of the people I work with in my per diem job. We were in a bus on a field trip. As we drove in this open-air bus, we traveled through beautiful coastal scenery. In reality, I find this job mostly unfulfilling and irksome. I stirs up my ego’s insecurities that I have not done enough with my life, and it is, more importantly perhaps, not soul-fulfilling. Yet, in the dream, I was given an opportunity.

Suddenly I found myself standing on this open-air bus holding a young man battling cancer. Beside us was his finance, and other members of the staff, including one of the physicians at the practice. As the bus moved along its journey, I stood in my brilliantly blue shirt holding steady this young man against my body. Healing and peace infused us. Amid everything that was going on around us, I stayed focused on this young man in need, fully present with him. I knew this was what I needed to be doing, holding this young man against my body. Blue, it is worth noting, is the color of the throat chakra; the color that represents our truth/purpose in life.

The messages here may be quite obvious, whether you know me or not, but I would like to extrapolate to a more universal meaning. In this chaotic global time, I have been searching for how best I can use my skills to be of service. My insecurities (that I have clearly not completely released) reside around this struggle between my ego and my heart and the feeling that choosing one over the other may not be enough.

The dream provided me clarity and guidance. It reminded me of who I am and why I am here, and that the essence of who I am is enough. None of us can do it all, or even perhaps, more focus on more than one facet of need. So if you, too, have been searching for how you can be of service in these difficult times, I hope you come to the realization that what your heart is calling you to do is enough. That you don’t have to try to do too much, or do something that doesn’t feel authentic to you. And if you are still uncertain, take a look at your dreams. What are they showing you? And if you can’t remember your night dreams, take a look at where your daydreams take you.

Five Healthy Energy Travel Tips #travel #wellness

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Travel Adventures, yoga12 Comments
Photo Credit: Pixabay

For many of us, traveling evokes feelings that range from excitement to dread. Some of us don’t like to fly. Others have trouble adjusting to new time zones and dietary delights. When we travel, we often do a good job of checking off our lists of “what to bring,” and “what to do,” but we’re not always great at ensuring we keep our energy as balanced and healthy as possible.

Since everything is, in essence, energy, including our bodies, it behooves us to do what we can to keep it flowing on the right pathways and in as much harmony as possible. As an energy healer and EMYoga teacher, I incorporate many of these simple tricks and tips into my classes and teachings. They can be great tools to take along with your travels:

  • Spoon Your Feet: I learned this one in my EMYoga training. It’s simple and effective, and it works wonders. Take a stainless steel spoon and rub the rounded part of it in circular motions, or figure eights, on the bottoms of our bare feet. The magnetic property of the spoon will help balance your body’s polarity, as well as calm your nervous system. It’s a great way to both start and end your busy travel days and can help you sleep better.
  • Energy Shields: Our bodies are complex networks of energy systems, one of which is our auric field. This energy field can extend about six feet out from our physical bodies. It is in constant communication with the energy around us. Therefore, it only makes sense to keep it protected. A simple visualization of an energy bubble around your body can help keep your aura vibrant. I like to use either gold, white, blue or a mixture of all the colors in the rainbow to wrap around my body.
  • Weave Your Eights: This ties into the first two techniques I’ve mentioned. Donna Eden, the creator of Eden Energy Medicine, often talks about how our energy bodies use the repetitive pattern of the double helix (down to the level of our DNA and as large as our auric field). We use this weaving of figure eights a lot in EMYoga, which is based on Donna’s teachings. One way to incorporate the pattern into your energy body is to use the spoon technique on the feet mentioned above, but you can also use your arms to weave figure eights around your body, or simply visualize your energy body weaving together in this pattern.
  • Hook Up Your Energy: Another favorite of Donna Eden’s, hooking up your central and governing meridians will give your energy a nice boost when you are feeling depleted. Simply put the middle finger of one hand in your belly button and the middle finger of the other hand in the space between your eye brows. Gently press them in and pull up for three cycles of breath (ideally in the nose and out the mouth). Here’s a fun video of Donna demonstrating this technique during a workshop.
  • Calm the Nerves: There are so many great techniques to calm your nervous system. My favorites were learned during my EMYoga training through Lauren Walker, who trained under Donna Eden. All of them involved calming your Triple Warmer energy system, which is associated with your fight-flight-freeze response (among many other things). When we are nervous, we can calm Triple Warmer by wrapping one hand around the opposite elbow, and the other hand in a self-hug around our opposite low ribs. It’s an easy technique to use on a plane, train, etc. without drawing unwanted attention to your self.

If you are interested in learning about EMYoga, as well as simple techniques you can incorporate into your daily life to strengthen, balance, and cleanse your energy body, I will be teaching a Spring Equinox EMYoga workshop at Sharing Yoga in Concord, NH on March 20 from 1-2:30pm EST. The workshop is also being offered via Zoom. To learn more about the workshop, and my weekly Zoom EMYoga classes, please visit my website.

Trimming Trees #givingthanks #gratitude

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections17 Comments
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

It’s that time of year, again. At the end of the driveway, the machine is parked. The man who drives it has had to move it twice. First for my daughter on her way to class, then for my husband on his way to work. Each time the bucket descends and the engine roars back to life. It’s now blocking the entrance and exit, again. Parked at the end of the driveway it has better access to the maple whose branches are threading the electric wires.

Who was there first? It doesn’t matter. We humans have taken over time and place to claim them both as our own. I have been reading a lot of nonfiction these days. Books about the land and our relationship to it. Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer took much longer than its short length would insinuate. It was not an easy read, just like Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass was not. The words both beautiful and heart-wrenching, reminding us that we are a part of this living land. Stewards, if we choose to be, but always Earth’s children.

I can see the workers outside the dining room window. They lay their tools on the snow bank. A red metal can holding gasoline lifts to fill the chainsaw. I can hear its whine getting ready to work. I recall Sue Vincent once remarking, “I like to think of it as a haircut” when trees and bushes are being trimmed. Her comment was filled with empathy, but also reason. When we take away the guilt and the sorrow, we can move into the space of gratitude and abundance. Limbs grow back, just as hair does.

Yet, we also know that plants, in their own way sense pain. They send out warning signals to their neighbors when they are in danger. Their energy spikes into a wavelength that indicates panic. We cannot truly know what a tree feels. We can only guess. We can take scientific readings of chemical reactions. Infuse our own emotions upon their bodies.

And, we can always move into the space of gratitude and love. Science has shown us what we already know, that all life responds to love. And so I find myself residing with intention while the maple outside my window is getting its branches trimmed. I am thinking of the tree, but also of those tasked to trim it. They are both worthy of my love and gratitude. Working, in their individual ways, to support life. I am grateful it is winter here. The live force within the maple less active than during the growing season. Hibernation, I hope, is a type of anesthetic to the cut. And, perhaps, so is my love.

What A Whale(s) Taught Me About Love #yoga #emyoga #whalemessenger #motherlove #motherwounds #selfhealing

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Energy Healing, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections4 Comments

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Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by ArtTower from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

There’s a pose in EM Yoga that I call the “mother hug.” Lauren Walker, the creator of EM Yoga, refers to it as “cradling the baby.” The pose is simple, in essence. The arms are lifted to the sky, then wrapped around the waist, one crossed over the other. Eyes close while the body gently sways in its own embrace. The first time I hugged myself I wept.

Weeping is a natural side effect to the pose, as Lauren points out. Not many of us love ourselves unconditionally, and the act of self-hugging requires a surrender to this love of the self despite our perceived imperfections. It also requires the willingness to love the self despite not feeling wholly beloved. It’s as profoundly vulnerable as it is healing. The asana represents the element of Earth. The Mother energy.

In the pose, you are both the baby and the mother. You are the beloved and the one who gives love unconditionally.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself on a (different) massage table  inside the belly of a whale. As you may have guessed, it was no ordinary massage. While I lay upon a heated mat of amethyst, crystal bowls sang around me and tuning forks hummed into my cells. I was easily transported, and how I found myself in the belly of a whale, I cannot wholly say, but there I was cradled inside its womb.

I was not merely the baby, I realized, as I lay there listening to whale’s song humming inside each cell of my body. I was the child in the womb, but I was also the mother (whale) who rocked the child within. The mother inside the great mother, swimming in belly of Earth. There was no separation, only union. Three hearts beating as one. I never wanted to leave.

When I was a young child, I fell in love with the song of whales. Around my neck I sometimes wore pewter chiseled into the curve of a humpback whale and listened to recordings of its haunting song echoing through Earth’s waters. Whales pull us back to the womb to feel the unconditional embrace of the Mother.

It seems the whale has returned to me again. A few nights ago I dreamt of a beluga, and since that night it has appeared to me in images each day. When an animal messenger appears to you at least three times, it’s a good idea to pay attention to what it has to tell you.

Beluga whales live in Arctic waters, and perhaps it has appeared to me, in part because I am planning a trip to Iceland. They are white, an unusual color for whales, and are related to the narwhal or “unicorn” whale. They are also related to dolphins and can imitate the human voice.  Belugas are fascinating, as all creatures are. And I have been wondering why the one has chosen to appear to me now, and not the beloved humpback whale of my childhood.

There is a solitary nature to humpbacks, which contrasts the more gregarious personality of the beluga. Each time I saw the beluga, in my dream and in the photographs that randomly appeared in the ensuing days, it was raised up vertically, peering at me, as though in greeting. The humpback, in turn, swam through my childhood alone in the dark depths of the ocean, its voice an echo unreturned. As a young child, I felt a kinship to the humpback whale and its song.

Perhaps the beluga is heralding a time of transformation. In my efforts to accept that I will not receive unconditional mother love from my human mother in this lifetime, I have slowly come to the acceptance that the mother love is always within. I am both the mother and the child.

This year has brought another layer of unfolding and acceptance. For the past five years I have made an annual trip to England, a land where I have felt Mother Love like nowhere else. It is a pull that travels though lifetimes, deeply encoded in my cells. Yet, circumstances have unraveled so that a trip this year seems unlikely. I have found myself somewhat surprised that this does not discomfort me more. And, so, I have found myself unwrapping not just the hold of one mother, but of the Mother. Not to reject it, but to feel the knowing that I am whole without the need to be held by the arms of another.

I suspect I am not the only one who finds the “mother hug” as complex as it is simple. I suspect that I am not the only one who has difficulty surrendering to the realization that the beloved is within. Whole and complete. The child and the mother in one form. To wrap your own arms around yourself takes trust in the knowing and a giving into love without conditions. To realize there is no need to look outside, but only within. One hug will not, in all likelihood, render you feeling a complete, unbroken circle. But, perhaps it is worth it once in awhile to give into the physical embrace of the self. To wrap our arms around our wombs and rock the mother and the child whole.

The Ever-Present Guide that is You #innerwisdom #innerguid #dreamhealing #dreammessages

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Reflections2 Comments

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Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

There was one workshop at the fair  I attended last weekend that I found to be truly genuine. The speaker wasn’t trying to sell us anything other than the belief in ourselves. He was an unassuming man. A geriatric physician dressed in understated clothes. He had no props, not even a poster. It was just a man beyond middle-age, standing before us talking about death. And life. Mostly life. Life that goes on despite death. That inner Life that is ever-present but not often heeded amid the cacophony of every day “life.”

He had pretty much seen it all. As a caregiver of the elderly, this sixty-five-or-so-year-old physician had born witness to many a death, but also the transition stages before the body dies, and to people who had “died” and come back to life. Despite his work experiences, the doctor was not there to convince us about any specific type of afterlife, instead he was there to demonstrate that we all have an essence within that is never lost.

An essence that comes from the place of a wisdom and greater knowing that many of us choose to forget to access. As a proponent of meditation, the physician did nothing more than demonstrate the inner wealth that can flow from a mind stilled into the place of greater knowing. There is no cost, but much to gain.

It was a breath of fresh air.

Thousands of individuals had flocked to that fair over the course of its two days, and my guess is that most were seeking some sort of outer validation, a special elixir to fix what ails them, or a message from outside of them that they could, if they chose to, find the answer from within.

The night before the fair, I had a dream. I was in a room with a healer who told me three things. First she told me that my body needed more calcium and magnesium, and then she demonstrated how I could energetically heal my thyroid. When I told my husband the next morning that I needed more of these two minerals in my diet and why, he laughed. “At least you’re listening to someone.” You see he knows how stubborn I can be, and he also knows how wise the body is. The wisdom we seek is always within, we just need to learn how to listen to it.

The answers I seek or need often come to me in my dreams. My higher self, or inner wisdom, which took the form of the “healer” in my dream, knows how to reach me. Yours does too, or at lest it’s trying its best to. As the physician at the workshop demonstrated to us, that wisdom is always there, but the mind needs to tune into it. It needs to quiet the outer chatter and find the frequency of the truth that is you. Amazing things can happen when you listen to it. Miracles unfold. Life becomes not only meaningful, but magical. It all just starts to make sense.

I’ll confess, I don’t always tune in. Every day. Mediation is not a habit for me. I have dreamtime, but in the waking hours I’ve learned to listen to. When I go for walks, nature speaks to me with birds and animals. Even plants carry messages. So do our computers, TVs, phones, and radios, which can be tuned into the frequency of our inner wisdom. Have you ever turned on one of them and found the answer you were seeking in a song or image? Or maybe it was a word spoken just at the right time.

Although there are oh so many benefits to engaging in a daily meditation practice, where the body and mind are sitting in silence, open to receive, life itself can be a mediation. Each breath, when breathed with awareness becomes open to receive. Each moment, a lesson to learn and engage in the classroom that is life. Your life. Not your neighbor’s, yours. That inner voice is speaking to you, always, trying to get you to tune into it and listen. It is beautiful and wondrous because it is always in the frequency of truth.

I dream again of flying, this time to free joy #Dreams #freesoul #flyingdreams #joy #healingdreams #dreamhealing

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Reflections4 Comments

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Photo Credit:<a href="http://Image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”> Pixabay

On the night of Halloween, I went to sleep, once again, to fly. The dream began in a fairytale landscape inside a forest of haunting beauty. Light glowed golden upon trees dancing with vines as my footsteps led me further into the heart of the wood. There was no fear, only wonder inside of me until I reached my destination. An old victorian house turned into an inn stood in the middle of the fairy woods. I went inside and felt the golden light of the forest disappear with the closing of the door.

“Come with me,” the inner keeper urged, “I will show you to your room.” I followed with reluctance. Each room, when I peered inside, looked old and drab. The bedroom I was offered was not only filled with old things, but it was in need of a good washing. I turned down the bedclothes to show the inn keeper how dirty they were. “I cannot stay here,” I said.

So we moved on. Each room we entered was little better than the one before. “Could you stay here?” he asked of a room that was neat and tidy, but still filled with old things. “I suppose it would do,” I offered in concession.

When he left, the room still felt occupied. I noticed a man and a woman in the corner. Ghosts of the past? I could not say for sure. Except I knew they had to go. And the room, well, I was not going to allow it to contain me. Left alone, I began to fly, clearing the darkness into light with great gulps of air expelled from my lungs and out of my mouth.

And as I flew and expelled the darkness, the house began to expand and grow into an endless maze of rooms. Skipping the lower levels, I zipped up the stairway until I reached the top floor. Here I found a scene of exquisite beauty painted in a mural upon a ceiling the color of a cloudless sky. I flew with joy, following the arch of the sky-like ceiling through an ever-expanding house.

On and on I flew, until I realized they were coming for me. Fear began to creep its darkness over joy. I could hear them approaching. Their angry words filtered up the stairway ever closer in their need to capture the woman who flew when she should be walking. I had no choice but to go down. And so down I went, floor by floor.  But as I flew each level through endless rooms, I exorcised the darkness with my breath.

As my feet touched the ground floor, I realized gravity once again. Although I had evaded capture, surrounding me were the familiar markings of the mundane. All was brown and drab. Ordinary and old. My eyes searched until they found my feet upon the floor and I smiled. “Ha,” I laughed in realization. “Even here I can fly.” And so I lifted my feet and flew, once again, into joy.

Hour later, I walked into my friend Deb’s house and sat at her kitchen island with our friends, Sophia, Adrianne, and Jane. Dressed as a dragon in a purple and green onesie borrowed from my daughter, with silver fairies dangling from my ears, I was filled with a childlike giddiness. “What’s going on, Alethea?” Deb kept turning to look at me with a smile. “Why are you so happy?”

“I don’t know,” I returned her smile. “Maybe it has to do with my dream last night.”

Sometimes we heal in the day time, sometimes we heal at night. Thousands of years ago, we built temples for dreaming and inside we slept to heal our bodies, give clarity to our minds, and find a deeper understanding of the truths of our beings.

For as long as time has been recorded, poets, sages, and inventors have dreamt masterpieces while their bodies slumbered. I wonder how many people really believe that dreams are simply random, nonsensical ramblings of a mind left to wander with abandon?

Even as a young child I was fascinated with dreams. For awhile, I kept a dream journal. Sometimes I would dream an event before it would happen, and wonder how that could possibly be. There is so much more going on while we sleep than many of us realize. Although I cannot say with certainty what every dream means, nor can I recall them all in vivid detail. But, I am certain we dream with purpose. In the landscape of night we live out our fears and our joys, and sometimes we transform through them.

A month ago I felt as though I might be consumed by a fear I could not wholly define. It felt old and deeply rooted, its origins extending beyond this lifetime. The dreams of this past week have felt healing and transformative. There now exists inside of me a core of strength in the place that held that irrational fear. A sense that despite the demons that might howl around me, I will be okay.

 

 

Simple Mindfulness Techniques for Kids in the Classroom or at Home: Part 1: The Bubble of Joy #mindfulness #kidyoga #energyshielding

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, yoga3 Comments

This post will be part 1 in a series designed to help cultivate mindfulness practices in the classroom and at home. It’s based on techniques I use in my mindfulness workshops and yoga classes for kids. We’ll begin with the “Bubble of Joy.”

The Bubble of Joy

Ideally mindfulness is a way life, and cultivating it as a daily practice becomes easier to do if you start and end your day with a mindful activity with your child or children. I begin almost all of my yoga classes for kids with an exercise that I call the “Bubble of Joy.” The Bubble of Joy uses the technique of pranayama (breathing), combined with visualization to generate a sense of calm and strength. It is also a form of empathic shielding, which is especially important for children who tend to unconsciously exchange and absorb energy from their surroundings. It is beneficial to children and adults alike, and is a great way to share a mindful exercise to begin your days together. If you are in a classroom setting, you can either have your children sit in a chair or on the floor in a circle.

Steps to Creating a Bubble of Joy

  • Sit in a comfortable seated position. For children, I ask them to do “criss-cross applesauce” legs.
  • Close your eyes and rest your hands on your lap, one hand on your belly and one hand on your heart, or use Namaste hands in prayer position at your heart center.
  • Visualize in front of you a beautiful rainbow. Spend some time seeing in your mind’s eye all of its beautiful colors.
  • Keeping your eyes closed, take a deep inhale from your belly all the way up to your heart and breath in all the colors of the rainbow.
  • Imagine those colors filling your heart and your whole body with joy.
  • Exhale as you bring your arms up and around you and imagine the rainbow now wrapping you in a Rainbow Bubble of Joy.
  • Repeat two more times. Inhale the hands down to the heart, bringing inside the colors of the rainbow. Exhale arms up and around to wrap the rainbow bubble of joy around you.

Empathic shielding for children
Simple Steps for Creating a Rainbow Bubble of Joy

Through this simple exercise, you and your child have created a beautiful shielding energy inside and around you that will help ward off negative feelings and instill a sense of joy and wellbeing. It can be repeated throughout the day, and is also a good practice to use before falling to sleep. The arm movements can be omitted, especially for a bedtime practice.

 

 

Finding Home in the Body #Yoga #PastLives #Healing

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections, yoga3 Comments

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I am finding my way home through the body. Again, perhaps, but the path always changes as we circle into untouched avenues of the labyrinth of self. There has been the lingering question of home as a physical landscape calling me back. I have labeled it Albion, or what once was Albion, but I have been lying to myself. It is not a mere physical place that draws the deep longing out of me, it is the pure, boundless joy of being.

It is true I find home in the stones that hold the memories of long ago. They speak to me of a time when the stars touched Earth without dimension. I have called it magic, because that is what it feels like inside of cells that have learned to forget. Yet, it is simply the true state of the boundless self that knows that the one self is home only when there is no self defined by matter, space, or time.

We can live attached to concepts of structure as we walk a linear path to a false destination that can never be reached, and I have found this path to be lonely. I have struggled to free the desire to gather the lives around me into my arms and dance us all awake before Earth destroys us in her need to heal the wounds we have inflicted upon her.

The ancient stones remember what we have forgotten and that is why they draw me home to where the hearth fire inside is kindled in a landscape that does not judge or reject. There is only the embrace, welcoming the return.

It is not enough to return, temporarily, to sites that hold the memories of truth. These places are not outside my physical doorstep where I find myself tethered to a life that feels artificial in more ways than I can count. There are thousands of footsteps between me and the stones that call me home. I go to them to return, then turn back again to this physical place I must call home as I search to define it in a language long lost to our tongues. Too often I feel the structure of  nailed together wood painted on the outside to keep the self contained behind walls as though the boundless needs protection.

At night I find the freedom I seek in the daylight, flying through the glass that looks inward and outward. I soar easily to the ceiling and will myself back to the knowing that this too is false until the molecules of division give way and rejoin in the opening. Why, I ask, am I allowed to fly boundless only in the dimension of dreams? Why do a live in a time that has chosen to forget?

Days stretch false minutes and I find myself speaking the rote words of the mundane least others think me insane. Sometimes, I ask out loud, “When will this nightmare end?” Because, I must admit, there are days that feel like nightmares. The computer screen pulls me into the vacuum of humanity’s created chaos and I become entrenched in the darkness until I pull myself back to present surrounding me. The living, breathing pulse of the now where chaos becomes a complicated dance of cause and effect; of shadow and light; of the endless cycle of life. Each moment passing into the next, asking only to be let go.

Yet, sometimes we must circle backwards to go forwards. I have found myself once again traveling through lives passed to feel the chain around the black man’s neck before it can release the body’s constricted voice. My womb aches with the rape of the priestess, and so many more that I am surprised that it bore life. I breathe in love to release constriction as I look at the fence of bodies stretching back further than the eyes can see. How long will it take, I wonder, to free them all? Until I remember this pain that becomes a memory for cells constantly renewing themselves need not find a home in my body that wants to remember only joy.

Outside the structured walls of my physical home, I am drawn each day to the weeds beneath the blooms. Digging these hands of mine into the body of Earth to release the tangles of life that suffocate growth. I am not immune to the knowing that life must be taken to feed new life. It is equally cruel and beautiful. This surrender of death to birth.

I find a harmony in the cycle I help to create. Sometimes active participation is required to free the ties that bind, and so I move this body I also call home. I listen to its urgings, feel the lick of its flames as they rise through the belly. Summer allows the shedding of shoes, and I walk barefoot on the body of Earth to feel her heartbeat and the knowing that I am her child too. My cells are made from her elements. Pieces broken to be reformed. I cannot neglect this vital part of me.

Chaos lures the mind to disorder and the body to dance free. Yoga has become a necessity for balance. If a day passes without the body stretching the mind free as it heeds the call of release, I feel the fires inside smolder for lack of air. It is not easy for light to creep through dense layers. Cracks must open. Air must be let in. Prana follows the breath into the labyrinth as the body becomes the dragon raising its wings.  And that is when the soul soars home to itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gifts of the Stones #WaylandsSmithy #uffington #england #sacredsites #castlehill

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Energy Healing, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, Travel Adventures11 Comments

It was yet another place I didn’t want to leave. Whereas I had felt the exhilaration of life at Castle Hill, the more I immersed myself into the energy of Wayland’s Smithy, the more I felt at peace. As the sun wove its golden light through the guardian trees, I walked over the long barrow and around it. Time slipped away and the veil thinned. The air was gently electrified, and I could feel the elemental kingdom and all the guardians of this sacred site watching, but also welcoming us. Below my feet, amid the last year’s fallen leaves, white feathers appeared on the path.

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More white feathers. Gifts of spirit. If you look closely you may see faces in the leaves.

I was, without a doubt, walking holy ground in a landscape of the dead that was very much alive, revered and protected by forces more felt than seen.

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The flowers beneath the guardian trees

“Look at the trees,” Larissa remarked. “Each one has a patch of white flowers.” Not planted, but growing as though in nature’s reverence. It felt like magic, in the purest sense. Each piece a deliberate part of the whole. And, as I walked, I could hear the whisper of the ancient stones.

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Each stone has a personality filled with the history of its purpose. Even the smaller stones show the faces of the past.

Pairs appeared in stasis, like long married couples set in their ways, yet determined to protect the love they hold.

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This pair of guardian stones look as though they are reaching for a kiss as Sue peers from the beyond.

It’s quite something to think of the work and care that went into the construction of this long barrow. A tomb to house the dead whose bodies were prepared with care that rivals that bestowed upon the pharaohs of Egypt. A tomb supported with carefully selected and placed stones. Huge sarsens, like that of Long Meg, mark the entrance to the inner chamber of the long barrow. All this work, including the massive stones, once covered entirely in earth. A house built for the dead, 196 feet in length and 50 feet at its widest point.

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Standing at the end of the long barrow, you get a sense of the immensity of its size and the undertaking it took to build it.

“You need to leave a piece of silver for Wayland,” Sue revealed as we gathered before the entrance. “To shod your horse.” I didn’t question her words. I had silver in my pocket and I crawled inside the chamber to find a place for it.

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Ani stands guard over the entrance to the chamber

“Can you find Wayland, the spirit stone, the totem stone?” Sue continued as we peered at the massive rocks before us. The faces on their surfaces morphing and changing with each angle. All for the dead…

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Ani runs before the sarsens

Then Sue began to tell us the story of a visitor before us who had asked a question of one of the sarsens. Within moments his answer had appeared in physical form and still holds true to this day. While she spoke, I watched a bee circle around me. A February bee, but I had already seen two butterflies during my visit to England, so perhaps it was not too unusual…It made me think of the buzzing I had heard, low, but constant, as we were walking the path from the car to Wayland’s.

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My chosen stone, guarded by a great bear

I chose my stone, as the bee continued to circle my neck, and pressed my forehead upon its surface. I didn’t have a question. Instead, I wanted only to receive whatever might be revealed to me.

The mound appeared before me in the full splendor of summer. Upon its green back, a white horse emerged, strong and sure. It stopped in wait as a figure cloaked in white descended and began to walk toward me. The landscape opened to beyond the barrow, to where people long passed gathered inside a great womb. I saw the path weaving in union between the land of land of the living and the land of the death. It became a processional of people coming towards the barrow. In the middle of the trail I saw a small circle of stones.

The visitors gathered around the mound of Earth, upon which the white horse stood with the figure cloaked in white. I could not see her face, but I knew her energy to be both feminine and strong.

The vision turned inward, and I felt as though I had entered an inner chamber. A shadowed form of a great bear appeared beside me, then morphed into a great serpent whose head rose behind mine. In front of me, a hawk of the sun passed before my vision, circling until all disappeared and I felt my body again. Each cell buzzing with renewed life, as though in those few moments of connection I had been washed with light.

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The capstone of the chamber resembles a serpent.

It was soon time to leave, but before we left we placed more offerings for the spirits of the stones. It has been a true gift of a day. Full and complete in and of itself, even though it was just an hour passed noon.

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It’s hard to deny the magic of Wayland’s Smithy

As we collected ourselves back into the car, even Ani appeared withdrawn into her own thoughts, refusing the small bits of sandwich we offered her. Each one of us quietly processing our return in our own way as we paused before our descent back into town.

To read the rest of the posts in this series, please click the links below:

Part 1: The Blindfolded Girl in the Hallway

Part 2: Keats and the First White Feather

Part 3: The Eye Opens: Long Meg

Part 4: I Journey from Long Meg to Little Meg

Part 5: Castlerigg at High Noon

Part 6: A Walk in the Woods with Tess

Part 7: A White Horse Appears (well actually two) and I Make a Stone Sing

Part 8: The Castle on the Back of a Dragon

Part 9: The Other Eye Opens: I Meet the White Horse of Uffington

Part 10: Wayland’s Smithy: A Temple of Trees and Stones Worthy of Reverence