Personal Development | Ascension Lifestyle

25 Dec 2021
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Distant Healing — The Heart-Opening Technique

Many meditators, healers and people of goodwill are attracted to the idea of distant healing — that in meditation, contemplation and prayer we can help relieve suffering and pain at a distance.

But how exactly do we do this? I will share with you one golden rule, briefly list the most well-known techniques and then describe the strategy that I prefer.

First, The Golden Rule

This is simple: Distant healing must always be done in a relaxed, calm and loving way. Otherwise, you may be sending agitated vibrations and energies. In particular, you need to monitor that you do not have any neediness that there be a healing.

If we are needy for healing, then we radiate neediness. Not useful. So stay calm. The keynote is compassionate equanimity.

The most well-known distant healing strategies are:

Kind thoughts
Sending healing energy (keep to the golden rule above and check you are not interfering)
Praying for help and intercessions from whichever tradition, gods, spirits, angels, saints, gurus, etc., who are in your culture.

Then there is the heart-opening strategy that I prefer to use.

I like it because it is relevant to both suffering and the causes of suffering. It is also realistic about the fact that some illnesses and distress are chronic and long term, and that death is an inevitability.

This strategy is simple. It is in a sense, a visualization, a calm expectation that the hearts open of those who are suffering.

In the same way, the hearts open of those who create suffering.

In a calm state of compassionate contemplation, bring any person or situation of suffering into your loving awareness.

May your heart be open. May your heart be open. May your heart be open.

When someone’s heart opens, they move into a different mood. They connect with the benevolent flow of the universe. Their emotions and minds become more accepting and kinder. Healing at all levels becomes more accessible. Space is created for waves of grace.

There are other ways of practicing this that may better suit you.

If for example you have a Christian background, then you may prefer some wording like this, which has the same effect: May the Christ within you awaken. Or May the Christ consciousness in you be fully awake.

From a Buddhist background, you might feel more at home with: May the Buddha within you awaken. Or May the Buddha consciousness in you be fully awake.

Of course, you are free to adapt the wording in whatever way works best for you.

Within the Buddhist tradition there is also the foundation prayer of Om Mani Padme Hum often translated as “the Jewel in the Lotus.” In many respects, this is a heart awakening mantra. Each of us is a lotus, a beautiful flower with stems beneath the water and roots deep into the earth. And within us is a jewel. Perceive it. Let it be fully present.

Again, this is congruent with the Hindu greeting of Namaste. I greet the soul within you. I greet your soul. I greet the Christ within you. The Buddha within you. The Goddess within you. All of these facilitate heart-opening.

Some people may prefer to work with the chakra system. You can sense-visualize-imagine the love petals of someone’s heart chakra opening with compassion and wisdom.

I use this heart-opening approach when, in meditation, I send healing to the dictators and politicians who are oppressing their peoples. I sense their hearts opening. May your heart be open. I greet your soul.

Similarly, I use this strategy when contemplating those who are suffering with pain and fear.

May your hearts be open. I greet your soul. Om mani padme hum.

Softly, gently, empathically, connect with suffering and sense heart-opening.

As always, you as an individual practitioner can explore and feel your way into the approach that is authentic for you.

Remember, too, to practice basic health and safety. Your fuel, inspiration and safety come from your connection with spirit, by whatever name you call it. At the end of any healing, bring your focus fully home to your own body and close your energy field like a flower at night closing its petals.

I honor and respect activists who work on the front lines to relieve suffering and create safe space for all life to grow and fulfill.

I also honor and support the meditators, contemplatives and prayer-workers who work with distant healing.

About the Author:

William Bloom is Britain’s leading author and educator in the mind-body-spirit field with over thirty years of practical experience, research and teaching in modern spirituality. He is founder and co-director of The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality and the Spiritual Companions project. Visit www.williambloom.com

Original article here

04 Dec 2021
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Want to Boost Your Creativity and Be a Better Collaborator? Think About Why the Sky Is Blue

It’s probably been a long time since you lay on your back in the grass, looked up and wondered, Why is the sky blue? Or since you took the time to consider a question as difficult as, Where does the universe begin, and where does it end?

In 2013, education innovator Sugata Mitra received the million-dollar TED Prize to develop an online learning platform for schoolkids, based around big questions like these. But the big secret is: It’s actually fun for adults. By tweaking Mitra’s idea, you can get in touch with your inner child — while building important skills. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Set aside an hour to recharge your curiosity.

At the heart of Mitra’s School in the Cloud is a simple method known as a SOLE session. SOLE stands for Self-Organized Learning Environment, and it capitalizes on two incredibly abundant commodities: curiosity, and information on the Internet. A session begins with an open-ended, thought-provoking question — for example, What would happen if insects disappeared? or, Why do languages die out? Kids spend 40 minutes doing online research in groups of four or five, sharing one computer and jotting down their findings. Then all the groups come together for 20 minutes and discuss their discoveries.

Why should a busy adult take the time to pursue a blue-sky question like this? Because most of us spend our days living in our own information silos, and it’s good to step outside of them. In pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, you’ll undoubtedly learn something new — or maybe you’ll revisit a subject you’ve avoided since high school (hello calculus!) and shake the cobwebs off your old learning, or reignite a passion you’d forgotten about. In doing research for the session, you’ll be forced to consult multiple sources and quickly find credible information — skills that are essential for critical thinking. And in the process of working with others, you could pick up tips, whether it’s a keyboard shortcut you never knew existed or a great YouTube channel to follow.

Step 2: To come up with a question, think big — really big.

By the time we’ve reached adulthood, we’ve long since stopped posing knotty, complicated queries — there are just so many more pressing professional and personal questions to answer. “Adults are more curious about the practical aspects of life,” says Mitra. “If somebody says, ‘Here’s a cheaper way to buy a house,’ we’re interested. But if the same person asks, ‘Why do we live in houses? What made us move out of caves?’ that isn’t as intriguing.”

So how can you find your own meaty questions to unpack and explore? The easiest way: Ask a kid, or think of the last stumper — Why do we hiccup? How does a car work? — that a child threw at you. What’s essential is to use a question that no one in the group can answer easily. It’s OK to pick one that’s related to your work, just as long as it’s not one that goes through your mind on any given day. For example, Mitra recently ran a SOLE for school principals in Hong Kong and their question was, What is the future of exams?

Step 3: Agree to disagree.

A SOLE is a safe space to practice what management expert Margaret Heffernan calls “constructive conflict.” Disagreement and friction, far from being forces to avoid, can fuel learning and innovation by making you consider alternate opinions and approaches. Before beginning a SOLE, participants should be reminded to speak their minds and not worry about butting heads, Mitra says. This prompting can help us adults transcend standard politeness, and get us over another potent fear: looking dumb in front of others. “With adults, there’s often an initial period where everybody’s stiff. Someone will say, ‘I’m not very tech-savvy’ or ‘I don’t know anything about this’ and takes a back seat,” Mitra says. Assure people that any and all answers are welcome.

Step 4: Draw on the wisdom of the crowd.

One other major obstacle you may encounter: competition. Many adults are simply accustomed to working solo — to us, working together often means doing our own tasks while colleagues focus on theirs — not, usually, all of us doing the same thing together. If we have the same duties, we tend to compete, consciously or subconsciously. A SOLE, on the other hand, is about discovering and deploying the expertise of the entire group of people. “When ants build a bridge, it’s not each ant working alone,” Mitra says. “It’s a thousand of them building it together.”

In a session that Mitra ran with a group of 15 professors at the UK’s Newcastle University (where he is a professor of educational technology), he spotted a problem right away: “After getting their question, they each took out their computer and started working alone.” His quick fix: He restricted the group to a single computer per small group — the same setup as in the eight School in the Cloud learning labs in India, the UK and the US — and the dynamic changed. “They appreciated the fact that in a group, they could get to a more nuanced answer more quickly,” says Mitra.

Step 5: Repeat as needed.

Besides using SOLE as a team-building exercise at work, you could focus a session on brainstorming potential uses for a new piece of software, device or tool, says Mitra. Another potential application that he is exploring: SOLE in senior centers. At a nursing home in the UK, the participants in a session impressed him with how adeptly they drew on each other’s strengths while researching the question, What will be the effects of Brexit? “In one group, there was one woman and three men. The woman had Parkinson’s and said, ‘My hand shakes too much to use the mouse, but I can read very well,’” recalls Mitra. “So one of the men operated the mouse, and she read out loud.” The group ended up having a lively discussion that pushed far beyond standard answers.

“It’s a strange thing, how our minds change over time,” says Mitra. “Life seems to take away that wild curiosity we have as kids.” This, he says, is a shame. “I’d rather hold on to the big questions.” Wouldn’t you?

Original article here

21 Nov 2021
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What We Get Wrong About Conversations

Can you chat your way to greater social connection? Five useful steps can help us strengthen ties and avoid mistakes.

“There is no such thing as conversation,” the novelist and literary critic Rebecca West famously wrote in her collection of stories, The Harsh Voice. “It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.” In her opinion, our own words simply pass over the words of others without any profound communication taking place.

Who has not been able to empathise with this sentiment at some point in their life? Whether we’re making small talk with a barista, or meeting up with a close friend, we may hope to make a connection, only to leave the conversation feeling that our minds have failed to meet.

The pandemic has surely heightened our awareness of these sensations. After long periods of isolation, our hunger for social contact is greater than ever – and it is even more disappointing to feel that a void remains between ourselves and others, even when rules of physical distancing have been lifted.

If this rings true for you, help may be at hand. During the past few years, psychologists studying the art of conversation have identified many of the barriers that stand in the way of a deeper connection, and the ways to remove them. Read on for the top five steps to better conversation.

Ask questions

The first step might seem obvious, yet it is often forgotten: if you want to have a meaningful dialogue with someone – rather than two “intersecting monologues” – then you should make the effort to ask some questions.

Consider the research of Karen Huang, an assistant professor at Georgetown University, US. While studying for a PhD in organisational behaviour at Harvard University, Huang invited more than 130 participants into her laboratory and asked them to converse in pairs for 15 minutes through an online instant messenger. She found that, even in this short period of time, people’s rates of question-asking varied widely, from around four or fewer at the low end to nine or more at the high end.

Throughout a series of follow-up studies, Huang found question-asking made a significant difference to people’s likeability. Analysing the conversations at a speed-dating event, for example, she found that the number of questions asked by a participant could predict their chance of securing another meeting.

Not all questions are equally charming: a follow-up that requires more information about a previous point is more appealing than a ‘switch’ that changes topic, or a ‘mirror’ that simply copies what someone has already asked you. Importantly, Huang’s findings suggested that most people did not anticipate the effects of question asking. We enjoy talking about ourselves, but we underestimate the benefits of letting others do the same – to the detriment of our relationships.

Beware empathy

We are often told to place ourselves in other people’s shoes – but our empathy is rarely as accurate as we think it is.

One reason for this is egocentrism. “It’s when I’m using my own experience, my own mental states, as a proxy for yours,” says Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago. “And we fail to differentiate sufficiently between the two.”

In its most basic guise, this egocentrism can be seen when we point to something in our physical surroundings and fail to recognise that it is out of the other person’s line of view, or when we overestimate someone’s knowledge on a topic that is familiar to us and fail to explain ourselves properly. It may also lead us to think that someone else is feeling the same mood as us, or that they hold the same opinions – whether a preference for a particular restaurant or their views on a controversial topic.

Interestingly, Epley’s research has shown that our egocentrism is worse when we are with an acquaintance, rather than a stranger – a phenomenon called the “closeness-communication bias”. “We often perceive close friends and partners to be similar to us, so we assume that they know what we know,” Epley explains. With strangers, we may be a bit more cautious about making those assumptions.

You might hope to solve this problem with some conscious “perspective taking”, in which you deliberately imagine what the other person is thinking and feeling, based on your existing knowledge of them. Yet Epley’s studies show that in many cases, this practice decreases the accuracy of our social perception, since it still relies on us making assumptions that may not be true. In general, it’s far better to ask someone what they actually think and feel, he says, than trying to divine it.

Favour familiarity over originality

How about our choices for the topic of conversation?

It’s natural to assume that people favour originality; we should always attempt to convey something new and exciting, rather than telling someone something they already know. But these intuitions are off kilter. According to research by Gus Cooney, a social psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, US, we suffer a “novelty penalty” when we discuss something new, compared to a subject that is already familiar to the listener.

During one experiment, participants were placed into groups of three. While alone, each member watched one of two short videos, which either described the intelligence of crows or the creation of specialist soda pops. The trio then met in their group, and one member – the speaker – was asked to describe the video he or she had seen, while the others listened for two minutes.

Surprisingly, the listeners preferred to hear the speaker describing the video they had already seen, while they remained distinctly underwhelmed if he spoke about the unfamiliar clip – despite the fact it was providing fresh information that they had not heard before.

Cooney argues that the novelty penalty arises from the “informational gaps” in our conversation. If we are talking about something completely new, our audience may not have enough knowledge to understand everything that we are saying. If we are talking about something already familiar to our audience, however, the listeners can fill in those gaps themselves.

The novelty penalty might explain why a description of an exotic holiday can often fall flat with your colleagues unless they have been to that location themselves. “When the experience is so vibrant in your head, and you can smell it and taste it and see all the colours, you just assume other people can do it too,” says Cooney.

Cooney suggests you might be able to overcome the novelty penalty with finely-tuned storytelling that helps to create a vivid impression of the events you’re describing. “When you are aware of this, you might try a little harder to bring that experience alive,” he says. Until you’ve perfected your patter, however, it may be safer to pick topics of conversation that lean on shared experiences.

Don’t be afraid to go deep

This need for common ground should not limit our conversation to mundane small talk. On the contrary, many shared human experiences can be incredibly profound, and Epley’s recent research shows that most people appreciate the chance to explore their innermost thoughts and feelings, even if they are talking to perfect strangers.

Epley’s team asked pairs of participants, who had not met previously, to discuss questions such as, “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, your future or anything else, what would you want to know?”.

Beforehand, most participants feared the exchanges would be painfully awkward – yet the conversation flowed far more smoothly than they had predicted. They also felt a greater sense of connection with their conversation partners than they had thought possible, and this was also accompanied by a happier mood following the exchange. In general, the participants were much more interested in their conversation partners’ innermost thoughts and feelings than each had initially imagined.

“In these deep conversations you get access to the mind of another person, and you get to recognise that the other person actually cares about you,” says Epley. And that can make for a touching exchange of words, even if you will never encounter that person again.

Value tactful honesty over mindless kindness

Imagine, for a moment, you were compelled to talk with complete honesty during every social interaction. How would your relationships fare?

A few years ago, Emma Levine, an associate professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago, and Taya Cohen, an associate professor of organisational behaviour at Carnegie Mellon University, decided to turn this thought experiment into reality. They recruited 150 participants, who were divided into three groups. The first set were asked to be “absolutely honest” in every conversation, at home and at work, for the next three days; the second set were told to be kind, caring and considerate for the same period, while the final third were encouraged to behave normally.

Most people predict the kind group would have the best experience – while the honest group would struggle to keep their friendships. Yet the honest participants scored just as highly on measures of pleasure and social connection throughout the three days as those who were told to be kind, and often found a lot of meaning in the exchanges.

“It seems like it would be awful,” says Cohen. “But the participants reported being happy to have had the honest conversations, even if they were hard.”

In follow-up experiments, Cohen asked pairs of friends, colleagues or spouses to open up about personal issues – such as the last time they cried or the issues with their current relationship. In each case, the honest communication proved to be far more constructive than people predicted – and the benefits of the candid disclosure on their overall wellbeing continued for at least a week afterwards. “These conversations were having downstream positive effects on the relationships,” Cohen says. “It was a valuable experience.”

It should go without saying that honesty is best served with a healthy dose of diplomacy. Cohen says that you should think carefully about the timing of your comments, the way they are phrased and whether the person will have the opportunity to make use of the information. “Five minutes before the wedding, you don’t need to tell the bride that she looks terrible, right?” There’s no excuse for being a bully, even if you think your insults convey the truth.

When practicing each of these five steps, you should always remain conscious of the other person’s mood and comfort, and be prepared to step away when your conversational gambits are not welcome. But with a little tact, sensitivity and a genuine interest in the people around you, you may often find that greater social connection is easily within your reach.

About the Author:

David Robson is a science writer and author based in London.

Original article here

16 Nov 2021
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How To Start Connecting With Your Higher Self

All over the world, people are awakening to the fact that we are more than bones and flesh. We sense that there is more to life than what we see. The word “consciousness” is losing its unreachable meaning, and we look for ways to go inside ourselves and find inner peace.

How do I connect with my higher self, you may be asking? There are different ways, I will tell you about a few here.

Practicing yoga is very good for your physical body, but also for your soul. There are different types of yoga; all work, and their benefits are widely known and studied by science. If yoga is not for you, practicing Pilates is an excellent alternative. It has helped me with my body and my soul.

Meditation is one of the most powerful tools that exists to connect us with our higher self, with divinity or God, if you want to call it that. I will teach you a very simple way to start meditating:

Sit comfortably, preferably on a chair
Close your eyes and start counting your exhalations every time you breathe
Breathe normally, count to ten and start again
If you lose count, start over
Let thoughts pass and keep counting
Do this for at least 10 minutes a day.

You will see that each time, your attention and concentration improve, and a sense of peace and calm comes over you.

Praying is another way to connect with the divine. Repeating a prayer every day will have the same results as a meditation. It does not have to be a formal prayer; it can be a deep conversation with the divinity. This is also a way of praying.

Mantras are words or phrases that are repeated as litanies to support meditation or to connect with the higher realms. They are used in Hinduism and Buddhism. One of the best-known mantras used by many spiritual leaders, who attribute numerous spiritual benefits to reciting it, is “Om Mani Padme Hum”.

Do you like to sing? Music is a powerful way of connecting with your soul. Of course I mean calm, joyful and restorative music. I know people who go around humming a tune all day, and coincidentally they are always optimistic people.

Activate your inner powers by learning different activation methods, like pineal gland activation and heart activation and breathing techniques. One good and simple breathing technique to start with is to sit down and inhale through your nose in a deep and slow way and exhale slowly through your mouth, relax your shoulders and expand your chest. Do this for 3 to 5 minutes.

What is most important with all of these tools is to stop in your daily life and reflect on where and what we pay our attention to. The important things are within us. We are energy beings, and it is from this knowing that we create our world. Becoming aware of it will necessarily lead us to correct mistakes and create a better world for ourselves.

Take that step ahead. The time is always now.

About the Author:

Veronica Sanchez De Darivas is Chilean-Australian, now living in the UK and a proud mother of teenage twins. A spiritual awakening teacher, bestselling author, pineal gland (third eye) activator and Certified Instructor for the Cyclopea Method, Veronica is currently the only instructor in the world teaching the Cyclopea Method in English.

13 Nov 2021
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Steadfast

There is so much angst in the air these days that we may all be feeling more sensitive, exhausted or even more despondent than usual. So much so, that I feel a lot of folks are at the end of their tether, overwhelmed by the vast onslaught of confusing emotions and free-floating anxiety in the telluric atmosphere.

Steady, folks! Simply ignoring what is unfolding isn’t optional. However, grounding and staying centered in our core Being is a choice we do have, hour by hour, and day by day.

This past Wednesday there was an unusual astrological alignment. At the same time our planet has been undergoing a mid-level geomagnetic storm from more solar flares that erupted last weekend. On Wednesday Saturn and the Moon met up at 7 degrees of Aquarius, and Mars and Mercury joined up at 7 degrees of Scorpio. The Mars-Mercury gang was also opposed by Uranus retrograde at 12 Taurus. This configuration is as rare astronomically as it is astrologically. The message in it is this: “…when push comes to shove”, or “enough is enough”, or “I am tired of this s**t”, or even “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

The manifestations of this seemed to erupt in synchronous fashion globally, but were more focused in the USA, UK and Europe. In the days leading up to this strange square in the sky between Mars in Scorpio (“I’m going to get to the bottom of things, and you can’t make me do what I don’t want to do!”) and Saturn in Aquarius (“You must submit to the mandates or lose your job.”) various unions representing the police, firemen, teachers and health care professionals in the United States started court actions against forced inoculations. Of course, to suddenly try to force anything on these folks, after they’ve been on the front lines for 16 months without the need for such an experimental medical intervention does not make much sense. Nor does it make any sense to risk losing these dedicated people by coercing them into having to choose between their ethics (and perhaps medical or scientific knowledge) and their livelihoods. The video below is about an RN in British Columbia, Canada who is going through this exact scenario.

Here in the U.K., on the very morning of said weird astrological event, the government announced that all NHS and care home employees would have to be vaccinated or be let go. By yesterday morning 60,000 care home staff had been let go, and the care homes informed the National Health Service that they would be unable to accept any patient transfers from NHS facilities. That was standard practice during the early months of lockdown in 2020. Now it is the turn of the NHS frontline staff to choose where they stand. I have spoken privately with some nurses from our local NHS Trust hospital, and they feel it is simply wrong-footed to make the jabs mandatory.

Of course, there are other aspects to these developments, and I although I would like to address them here like bullet points in a lecture, I won’t do that. I’m not here to lecture anyone or tell them what I think they should do, or not do.

After a relatively quiet weekend and beginning to next week, we have a few more rings of fire to leap through. Next Wednesday Mars in Scorpio comes into an exact opposition with Uranus in Taurus retrograde. This occurs at 12 degrees of each sign. The energy of any Mars-Uranus aspect is volatile, unpredictable and intense. I know because I live every day with Uranus square Mars in my natal blueprint. Saturn is also in an applying square to Uranus, which will be exact on December 24th, 2021, the last square between these behemoths in those signs for quite some time to come.

On Friday, November 19th, there will be a partial Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio-Taurus.

This lunar eclipse event may further galvanize and embolden those questioning the official narratives and mandates. The confrontation between Mars and Uranus squaring Saturn will alert those in charge that their tactics are having less of an effect than desired. This may result in further and perhaps more draconian restrictions in December, especially after the Total Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius (self-righteousness). I am still taking the long view and holding zero expectations as we move from now to the first exact Pluto Return station to the USA Natal Chart Pluto in February 2022. Now that will be a subject of deeper delving in January 2022!

The upshot of all of this from my perspective is that this is a time for steadfast resoluteness and preparedness. Lots of folks I know are “prepping”, something I’ve been meaning to do for a few months now since supply chains have been disrupted and fuel has gotten scarcer. However, the spiritual and soul-base perspectives are of primary importance in these challenging and confusing times.

Ever since Halloween and the November 4th New Moon I’ve detected an uptick in psychic interference and fatigue. Some of that is due to the fluctuations in the planet’s magnetic fields, but hey, the veils are still very thin now. People energy, including thoughts and emotions, seem to be bleeding through boundaries much easier than before. This is creating some personal friction that is straining working or friend relationships. Very touchy when it is someone close to you that you feel you need some space from. By extension I am also picking up on a lot of astral interference and other static. Clearing oneself daily is a useful activity, and only takes a few ticks to accomplish. Some symptoms to be alert for are undefined irritability, low-grade depression, self-talk, blaming, complaining, dissociative or addictive behaviours, a longing to be somewhere else, and general doubt or fear.

Although lower emotions like fear, guilt, shame and anger are generally to be eschewed, anger can be a creative energy when approached in the correct attitude. Anger is one of the most misunderstood and avoided emotions on the planet, or conversely, one that is over-indulged in far too often.

The one message anger can have for us is that our Soul Core is alerting us to some person, situation or thing that violates our sense of Self, or our core values. As such, anger is then your friend, and an ally in helping you in choosing and activating healthy boundaries. In a climate such as we have now, people’s right to say “NO!” is even being taken away. To someone experiencing physical, mental or sexual abuse, we would be appalled if someone were denied the inherent right to say “NO!, that is does not feel good and I will resist!” This is when anger can give us the courage to stand up for ourselves and by saying “no” we are saying “yes” to what feels right and good for us.

It will be increasingly essential to observe what is going down without it dragging you down with it. It is also becoming apparent that we may have to act in a firm and steadfast way to preserve the life we have chosen to live, and not acquiesce quite so easily to what others tell us to do. This Saturn in Aquarius cycle will be with us until March 2023, so we’ve still going to see this type of attrition carrying on for a while yet. By that time Pluto will be done with the transit to the USA chart and will be about ready to head into Aquarius itself. That should be of larger concern than what we currently are experiencing. Even so, it is vital that we look to staying as much in the now as possible.

There are many things to be currently thankful for, and to celebrate. If you have your health, good food, shelter and loving family and friends, then appreciate that…deeply. Hold fast to the vision you have for your life and choose the path that brings the most peace to you, not the most material gain or comforts. The pressures we are seeing have been designed by us, and for us, to awaken and galvanize us to take full responsibility for our happiness right now, and for the future.

This is also the Planet’s shaking and waking us out of the nightmare that is capitalism and consumerism. I recall when I was channeling Archangel Ariel that she’d remind folks that moving into 5D would mean no more Wal-Mart’s or McDonalds. We cannot blend our current culture or beliefs with a higher order society. Our technology is owning us, and we are slowing realizing that that is now so. We also can feel how dehumanizing our institutions have become (humans are NOT a resource). The good news is that we are at choice, and in fact that is where our true power resides.

Choice.

Don’t leave home without it, and refuse to submit your power of choice to another.

About the Author

Isaac George is an internationally recognized intuitive mentor/coach, evolutionary astrologer, conscious channel, self-published author and musician. After a life-altering spontaneous kundalini awakening in 1994 he explored various healing modalities, including hypnotherapy and Reiki. In 1998 he began spontaneously channeling Archangel Ariel and other dimensional intelligences.

Originally from the United States, Isaac currently resides in the UK and offers Spiritual Mentoring sessions and programs and Evolutionary Astrology consultations.

07 Nov 2021
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The 11:11 Gateway

by Gillian Macbeth Louthan

To me the Season of Light begins as November comes out of her multicolored cocoon, stretching her wings of light to become the beautiful season of Love. As the Light begins her descent upon the planet Earth we enter the true Season of Love. A season born of Timeless Miracles, myths and Magic, a season of Light that seeks to be embraced in the hearts of all humans. It asks humans to stop making excuses as to why one does not celebrate what is Holy, what is good, what is a Gift. Life has become virtually gridded creating a separation far from the One Heart. Too many reasons not to love or not to give, not to believe. This season of Light is thick with promises, filled with free-formed miracles. Miracles that take form and actively seek vessels to gift.

The number 11:11 was issued to earth in 1992 as a ‘Beginning Light’ activation. It is a doorway, a gateway into your greatest potential as a human. This activation number asks you to seek divine memory. The ‘One’ seeks itself through a mirror reflection. This 11:11 doorway offers an opportunity to surpass all limitations you have unknowingly set for yourself and others, to clear the slates of your heart and soul. One to one to one… we enter the Oneness we all share in common.

11:11 descends upon the Earth like the spirit of a dove that lands softly in the hearts of mankind. As the 11:11 energies are birthed let them purge you of what has been solidified and blocked. All of heaven known and unknown enters through this Gateway. Align with all you know to be love. A flooding of the heart allows you to rise above previous emotional tide lines removing the barnacles of the past. Holiness goes beyond religion and sacred teachings. It lives deep in the bones of every human on earth for it is through the very breathe of Holiness that earth is alive. Humanity has virtually lost part of their heart. It is easier to touch an emoji than to touch the wounded hearts of others. Like a training pigeon they swipe through the air with the greatest of ease hoping their heart filled characters will land in the cloud somewhere.

11:11 is a powerful number initiation sequence. It signals to the light-sequence within, that it is time to wake up and smell the cold brew coffee. Each time that you see 11:11 on a clock, a license plate or a grocery receipt you are being given an opportunity to walk into a ‘Gateway of Instant Manifestation.’ The universe has just taken a snapshot of your thoughts, which are manifesting into the physical realm per your thoughts. Every time I see 11:11 in any form I stop instantly and align with the light and the thought that needs to be birthed. Eleven-eleven is the number of Light Masters. It is an encoded light structure of Remembrance.

Life and day-light shortens itself like a dog on a lead, as the 24 hours of Earth time now shifts into a denser mode demanding more than before. Many possibilities come, invisible of nature, camouflaged like a hunter in the fall leaves. The heart demands complete opening in this powerful season of light. The Christ heart within humanity awakens with a holy dialogue. The light that comes is thick like a mist that actually has a shadow. This shadow dance comes to teach and redefine its light. This living 11:11 light comes to soften our shadow edges, sculpting and honing us, polishing us, asking us to shine brighter and more often. This Holy season asks you to stand up for light, to escort miracles down your street, to have lunch with the angels.

11:11 Gateway — Enter the Chamber of the Christ Light

In 1997 when we were still wild and woolly, I took a group of very powerful individuals to Egypt. It was a trip that broke all the preconceived rules of what Egypt was supposed to be, as a culture and spiritually. 24 years later those 26 people are still scratching their bald and solver head trying to figure out what actually happened to them in those lost 17 days in Egypt. After being held by the Egyptian government in Dendara Egypt We barely made our flight back to Cairo to get to the Great Pyramid by 11:11 at night to do ceremony. Our mission of light as a group of 26 was to go to the great pyramid bringing ‘our all-knowing light’ to this Great Pyramidal Light of Oz that needed our mere mortal essence to save the world (or so we thought) before the year 2000, which was a tipping point.

It was powerful beyond time to enter that great living pulsing stony timeless being of light. It was vast beyond my understanding, as it seemed to extend beyond the sky into the stars that night. As I stood in the entrance to the great pyramid giving thanks for being there I learned more in that 1 minute passing through the entrance of the great Pyramid then I had accumulated in my entire life. Everything was shown to me in an instant like a life review and then the slate was cleared empty, awaiting being filled again. I entered the Great Pyramid as pure as a Virgin stripped of everything she once knew herself to be. The empty chalice of me at that moment in timelessness was ready to fill with the gifts of the great pyramid, which were beyond my ability to fully consume.

Light markings within the Great Pyramid showed themselves as the red granite continued to alter us, allowing doorways that appeared silent and invisible to open. We saw the many lives of the Great Pyramid as she lifted her veil of secrecy. We all saw within the great Pyramid a vast hidden room of light, secreted in plain sight. This room was referred to as the ‘Christ Chamber’ by the energies that escorted us there. It was many years later that the actual Christ chamber itself was discovered but not entered. It is this place, the invisible place the sealed place within each of our own Pyramid of light that awakens as the vibration of 11:11 begins the holy healing matrix.

After that night everything in Cairo changed it rained and the Sphinx cried for the first time in years, the locals knew it was an omen of something to come. As soon as we left Egypt the Great Pyramid was shut down for over a year. They kicked the camel police off the Giza plateau and the lost boys had to find new tourists to charm. The Egyptian government had there own reasons for shutting everything down, but no one is talking or telling. The reason I bring this up now at this 11:11 gateway is that starting November 11th, Great Planetary Light activation will transpire in the Great Pyramid, within the unseen Christ Chamber of Light. This inner planetary healing light that comes from the heart of Mother Earth moves upward and outward thru the Christ chamber within the great Pyramid and activates the most High Heart of humanity.

11:11 and the Master Numbers

In 1992 the number 11:11 was issued to humanity as a trigger number. That powerful numerical vibration escorted us as a planet safely into a new place of Higher Light. The numerical signature of 11:11 still follows us to very this day. 11:11 is a doorway a gateway an old friend in the form of a star-portal. The ‘oneness’ seeks itself through a mirror like reflection of the world around it. This doorway offers an opportunity to surpass any limitations you have unknowingly set for yourself. One to one to one, enter the light that lives in the center point of your soul.

Everything on earth is defined by a numerical configuration. All life can be reduced and explained by numbers. The currents of these numerical sequences bring into alignment a series of new considerations that will help earth to adjust and balance. Each numerical infusion is tailored to fit the needs of each human. As the brain adjusts to these new energies a lifting occurs allowing the individual to exit the human/animal ratio and be lifted into the human/light equation. Numbers and humans go hand in hand. From the beginning of time known we have been defined by a numerical equation whether age, birth date, weight, or the number of wives and camels we have. Numbers have always seemed to be our not so silent partners.

MASTER NUMBERS accentuate the meanings of single digits (111,222,333 etc.).

When a number shows itself in double and triple digits they are then considered to be a numerical oracle.

00, 000, or 0000

This is the ‘The Great Void’, the unknown what is yet to be, that which has not been birthed; that which holds all possibility. This numerical pre-configuration as you to move thought into a higher dimensional fluidity. This is the portal of Creation before Creation. A reminder you are always one with the universe. Feel yourself within the center embraced by the Creator as you are held and loved unconditionally. Walk around the inner circle of self-completing what needs to be completed.

11, 111, or 11:11

This is ‘The Gateway to All’ that is riding within a hair of instantaneous manifestation. This master number asks you to let go of man-made expectations and manifestation and move your creational thoughts up the ladder of light. Doorways open, doorways close, and you are in-between all dimensional shift. This is conscious creation with 11-second intervals of thought; holding your thought long enough for the Universe to take a snapshot of it, escorting it into manifestation.

22,222, or 22:22

This is an important numerical vibration coming up for earth. 222 is the highest number of manifesting without the frustration. All words thought deeds and intentions will take seed within this number with or without rain to help them grow. This number asks you to acknowledge your soul light in all of its forms. It asks you to move out of the neighborhood of polarity. This vibration shows one Time moves forward with or without them. This powerful creation sequence tells you ‘Do not create by default.’ Do something, anything, have a say so in your life. Keep a holding pattern with your resolve, know and trust what you have planted by your words, deeds and actions. Trust they will heal and bloom in accordance with the heavenly seasons.

33,333 or 33:33

This powerful number offers you a choice. The holy trinity is activated within the tetrahedron (3 sided pyramid) in your early DNA structure. This number offers an opportunity to connect with highly evolved spiritual beings/ masters/Angels. The trinity is the holiness within all of your choices. It is Your body, mind, spirit in agreement with your Soul’s evolution. Within 333 you are not allowed to straddle the razor blade fence of indecision. This number asks you to stand in your soul light without fear of falling, Allowing you to see the sacredness in all of your choices no matter what the outcome. Three is the holy trinity of heaven and soul.

44,444 or 44:44

Four is such an earthy number, strong and balanced, it fortifies what needs reinforced. To me it is a masonic number decreeing a foundation of light is being cemented for you. With this vibration new opportunity comes without being asked. It allows you to Build your future thought by thought, brick by brick. Do not allow those of too much wind to blow down your dreams with their negativity. Believe deeply until you see the proof. Hold on through all choices and deviations. Stay balanced in what you know to be divine truth and the platform of light will solidify.

55, 555, 55:55

This numerical powerhouse is all about humanity and how it interacts. This vibration is about movement and adjustment. The universe that is driving this big ole cosmic wheel is making changes for your betterment whether you ask for them or not. The heavens are changing your course with love. This change may be an answer to some long forgotten prayer. The future is hidden for a reason Allow the currents to take you into a new future full of possibilities created just for you.

66,666 or 66:66

The vibration of 6 has changed into a vibration that is fully aligned with the heart healing of the earth. For too long now humanity has been branded with the thought that anything associated with the number six is negative, dark, dense and inner earth. Look at the beauty on this magical planet. Look all that she has given you since you were born. The number 6 is asking you to come back to the original seed and blueprint of light and life with a reverence. There is a beautiful holiness to the number six as its extension asks you to move your awareness upward in a grand sweep of expression. By aligning with the true beauty and healing of the number six you will find a softness and coherence in your special time on earth.

77, 777 or 77:77

This unassuming number asks you to take a high dive into your life. This is the vibration of the spiritual warrior. One who walks a narrow path within self and soul. Seven works for the light, by the light and with the light. Their vows are laced in time. Sevens eat drink think and speak what is deemed holy within the cosmos. They embrace the spirituals aspect of everything. Sevens are not permitted to stray outside the boundaries of light for more than a fleeting thought. They know all about cosmic 2 X 4’s, having learned the hard way. Seven escorts your awareness into a place where miracles are an every minute event. The Seven energy is a place where wonder, magic and miracles live. Seven is your natural state of being.

88, 888 or 88:88

The vibration of this energy takes you places you didn’t even know you wanted to go. It is made of continual cosmic movement, ‘As above so below. This configuration gives to you the infinity portal escorting you past all pervious perceptions. It asks you to fly to the moon and stop by the Milky Way on your way back. It is pure spiritual atomic energy, an atomic power source. This energy gives to you well earned prosperity with the added flavor of universal blessings. Eight is a Star-gate a place of intersection and crossing. Like two starry lovers meeting in the center of time.

99, 999 or 99:99

This energy displays Cosmic and personal completion, the end of one experience the being of another. Entering the next level of love of heart, of soul and service to the planetary evolution through healing self, a place of vast opportunity; Free-falling from the height of the nine into a new dimensional understanding. Enter and exit all in the same breath. A substantial leap into the unknown. Are you ready to see and be more than you are at this minute of time? Nine is the photo finish on the heavenly track of multiple choices. If you believe you have won, you have.

About the Author:

Gillian Macbeth Louthan is a Visionary, a Seer, born with the gift of knowing. She is a clairvoyant psychic with advanced channeling abilities since an early age. She has been a Metaphysical Teacher, Messenger and world known Trance-Channel, for over 40 years She works with the Councils of Light, Mary Magdalene, Merlin, White Buffalo Calf Woman, Mother Mary, the Pleiadians and many other energies of the Christ Light.

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03 Nov 2021
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Aunt Allie’s Full Moon Ritual

Last year, I met an extremely gifted medium in California: Allie Barkalow. If you don’t know what a medium is, it’s a person who communicates with spirits from the other side. I heard about Allie from my dear friend, Carolyn Miller, who is a psychic and known for her amazing tarot and aura photography readings. Carolyn told me that Allie is one of the best psychics she knows, and I figured if she’s anything like Carolyn I had to meet her.

I was immediately drawn to Allie with her bold and honest demeanor and witty sense of humor. She reminds me of a favorite aunt or wise-woman that calls the shots as she sees them with practical, straightforward advice. After the reading (which was astounding), we struck up a conversation and she shared some really useful information. She told me how to clear a house of negative energy using her sea salt smudge recipe and how she protects herself energetically during a psychic session. She told me why it’s important to sage your pillows every month since, apparently, we dump a lot of psychic stuff into our beds when we sleep!

At the end of our talk, I mentioned the full moon coming up and how I could really use a simple ritual to do with some friends (it was right before the pandemic when we could still gather). Of course, she had one. In fact, she shared with me a tried and true ritual she’d been doing for over 40 years. I was giddy with excitement and needless to say my friends and I had an amazing little shindig that weekend under the full moon in my backyard with Aunt Allie’s recipe.

I’d like to share her full moon ritual with you here — Allie said it’s okay. This ritual is specifically for letting things go. I hope you tuck it away and enjoy it for many moons ahead.

I was reminded that not everyone knows about rituals and how to do one. Rituals are an ancient way to honor the sacredness of high holy days and important moons — full and new — and to clear and to invite.

The full moon is the time of ending and releasing. It is the perfect time to end cycles, release old patterns, habits, behaviors, and thought-forms. If you are working on your ascension, such as trying to elevate your vibration, be a better person, etc., the full moon is a fabulous opportunity to let go and use your consciousness to move forward, get lighter in being, and take back your power. This is not the time to ask for anything!! That is the new moon.

This ritual is a simple one, in accordance with the native way of honoring this sacred time. Feel free to use your own prayers, words, and/or name of God.

Full Moon Ritual

What you’ll need:

Paper and pen for yourself and extras for friends if doing this as a group
1 tea light candle and a fireproof container, such as a cast iron skillet
4 extra tea light candles and 4 small bowls to place the candles in to make a sacred circle on the ground
1 stick of incense
Cup of water
Pinch of tobacco
Handful of cornmeal
Smudge stick such as sage, cedar, or palo santo
Lighter or matches
Compass to determine the directions

Directions:

Make a list of what you are ready to let go of in your life. This may be personally, professionally, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc.
Make sure you know when the exactitude of the full moon is. Go outside one-half hour before with everything on a tray. If you cannot go outside find a quiet place in your house where you will be undisturbed.
Light the smudge stick and smudge yourself, fanning the smoke from the top of your body and going downwards, getting the back of your body and under your feet. If doing this in a group, have your friends do the same. (This is important to do at the start of any ritual).
Make a rough circle, then place the four candles in the four bowls at the four points: north, south, east and west. Pour a tiny bit of water into the bottom of the bowls.
Cast the circle by lighting each of the candles at the four cardinal points and invoke the angel/guardian of each direction. When done face west, the direction of endings.
Ground yourself, bringing attention to what you are about to do. Invite your highest self, teachers, guides, and angels to witness.
Smudge the four directions, starting first with the east. Next, smudge Mother Earth, and make a tobacco offering. Smudge to Father Sky / God / Goddess
Turn to face west. Hold your hands up and face the palms out. Take a deep breath and say: “At this time of endings and completions, I now release <insert list.>”
When you are finished with your list you might also include war, hunger, pollution, ignorance, poverty, lack, and loss, fear, etc. for yourself and the entire world.
Make a cornmeal offering to the Earth spirits and devas. Make a water offering to the water spirits and devas. Light your incense and make it an offering to the air spirits and devas.
Finally, light your tea light. If it blows out after you light it, just put it down. It has been accepted by the fire beings. If it stays lit, make sure it is in a container that will not tip over or start a fire.
Ground yourself again. Make sure you have included every area and everything you are ready, able, and willing to release from your life experience.
Thank the angels, teachers, guides, devas, Mother Earth, and divine self for witnessing. Ask their help in releasing and clearing those vibrations from your life and your aura. Ask their assistance in keeping those things away from you re-taking them back.
Bless yourself, Mother Earth, and your life. Release the circle by walking from the east counterclockwise one full circle and ending in the west.

Turn around, and do not look back. You can go out tomorrow to pick up the candleholders. Your magic is now set and working! Blessed Be! Love, Allie

Kristen Bala is the founder of the Deep End, an online community that supports spiritual learning and well-being. She enjoys writing about her many passions including astrology and holistic healing. To learn more about her work, visit www.findyourdeepend.com or contact her at kristenbala@gmail.com

Original article here

28 Oct 2021
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Moldavite: Extraterrestrial Stone On Earth

Moldavite is a member of the tektite group, a glassy mixture of silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide and other metal oxides, with a hardness of 5.5 to 6. Its crystal system is amorphous. The color of most specimens is a deep forest green, though some pieces are pale green and others, especially those from Moravia, are greenish brown. A few rare gem grade pieces are almost an emerald green.

Moldavite’s formation coincides with the crash of a large meteorite in what is now the Bohemian plateau of the Czech Republic, approximately 14.8 million years ago. Most specimens are found strewn throughout that area. For many decades, farmers in southern Bohemia have turned up pieces of moldavite when plowing fields, and moldavite miners sift and dig through loose sand and gravel from depths of up to twenty meters. Some of the richest finds have occurred at the towns of Chlum and Slavce. A very delicate, lacy form of moldavite has been found near the village of Besednice, although this location is now exhausted. In recent years the moldavite fields have become depleted, and the stones are becoming increasingly rare.

Moldavite is the stone that initiated me into awareness of the spiritual properties of crystals and minerals, and it has been a catalyst for several of my most important spiritual experiences. It has, over the 33 years I have worked in this field, had similar effects on thousands of other people with whom I have spoken and corresponded. From my perspective, it has a special role to play in the awakening of humanity now underway.

Scientific theorists differ on hypotheses regarding moldavite’s origin. Some contend that moldavite is earthly rock melted by the heat of the meteorite crash, while others suggest that the material is of extraterrestrial origin, possibly a type of obsidian ejected by a lunar volcano.

A third theory holds that moldavite is a fusion product of meteoric material and earthly rock vaporized in the tremendous heat of the impact explosion, with the resultant gas being propelled high into the atmosphere. This gaseous material would have then cooled and condensed into a liquid glass that rained down on the crater and surrounding areas. Regardless of which, if any, of these ideas is correct, it is known that moldavite indeed fell from the sky, because of the aerodynamic shapes of certain pieces. Most scientists associate it with the meteoric collision that formed the Bohemian plateau and surrounding mountains.

The event that gave birth to moldavite was one of tremendous power. The force of the impact explosion has been estimated at six trillion megatons, far more than all the atom bombs on Earth. The heat, as mentioned above, was hot enough to vaporize rock, and the main body of the meteorite is believed to have passed completely through Earth’s crust, penetrating into the liquid iron at the planet’s core. This deep impact was described in a New York Times article as having disturbed the currents of rotating liquid iron enough to cause a reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles.

Throughout history, and even into pre-history, moldavite has been regarded as a spiritual talisman. The Neolithic peoples of Eastern Europe wore moldavite at least twenty-five thousand years ago, and the famed Venus of Willendorf — the earliest known goddess statue — was discovered in a digging site that contained a number of moldavite amulets. People of that period also used moldavite for arrowheads and cutting tools.

Feeling The Moldavite Flush

In modern times, moldavite has emerged as one of the stones most prized for metaphysical purposes. Its effects vary widely, from mild to almost overwhelming, from physical cleansings to spiritual breakthroughs — yet the common denominator seems to be the revitalization and acceleration of one’s path of evolution.

People who hold moldavite for the first time most often experience its energy as warmth or heat, usually felt first in one’s hand and then progressively throughout the body. In some cases, there is an opening of the heart chakra, characterized by strange (though not painful) sensations in the chest, an upwelling of emotion and a flushing of the face. This has happened often enough to have earned a name — the “moldavite flush.” Moldavite’s energies can also cause pulsations in the hand, tingling in the third eye and heart chakras, a feeling of light-headedness or dizziness, and occasionally the sense of being lifted out of one’s body. Most people feel that moldavite excites their energies and speeds their vibrations, especially for the first days or weeks, until they become acclimated to it.

Moldavite’s energies can activate any and all of the chakras. Its vibrations tend to focus in areas where one has blockages or wounds, first clearing these areas and then moving into resonance with one’s entire energetic system. Resonance with moldavite can take many forms — chakras can open; synchronicities can increase in frequency and significance; one’s dream life can become dramatically more vivid and meaningful; one can connect with spirit guides; physical, emotional or spiritual healings can happen; jobs and relationships can change; meditations can become deeper and more powerful — yet all these can be viewed as symptoms of a shift in one’s own energies. This shift is what moldavite can catalyze. With its high and intense vibrations, it can resonate with one’s energy pattern in a way that creates an intensification of spiritual vitality and an acceleration of progress on the path of one’s highest destiny.

Moldavite is a powerful aid for meditation and dreamwork. In both cases, taping a piece of moldavite to the forehead can have the effect of creating a much more vivid and visionary inner experience. Moldavite increases one’s sensitivity to guidance, and one’s ability to discern the messages sent from the higher realms.

Used As A Spiritual Talisman

Moldavite can be a powerful catalyst for self-healing, clearing blockages and opening the meridians, as well as energizing the interconnections among all aspects of the subtle body. It is a talisman of spiritual awakening, transformation and evolutionary growth.

In addition to use in meditation and dreamwork, moldavite can be worn as jewelry. This conveys the advantage of being able to keep its energies in one’s vibrational field throughout the day, for further strengthening of its effects. Doing this also draws an increased incidence of beneficial synchronicities into one’s daily life. Some people will have to accustom themselves gradually to wearing moldavite because of its energetic intensity, but most will make the adjustment in a few days.

Moldavite also offers an energy of spiritual protection. When one is in resonance with its high-frequency vibrations, negative energies and entities cannot connect with or hang onto one’s field. In alignment with its transformational properties, moldavite tends to disconnect one from unhealthy attachments and to magnetize the persons and situations most needed for evolutionary progress.

Moldavite tends to quickly attract whatever one’s spiritual metamorphosis requires. It also seems to cause whatever parts of our lives no longer serve our highest good to be discharged, whether we realize the need for that or not. This reminds us of Hermes, especially in regard to the speed of the changes that occur. Hermes was a being of great speed. He had wings on his feet, and was the messenger of the gods.

One phenomenon that displays a Trickster quality of moldavite is its apparent ability to disappear and reappear. I have experienced this many times. In a typical instance, I put my moldavite away on a dresser or in a box, only to find it gone the next day. Then, sooner or later, the moldavite will reappear, usually in a ridiculously unlikely spot. In one instance, I left my moldavite on top of my dresser in the bedroom, discovered the next day that it was gone, and found it again weeks later — in the container of one of our house plants in the living room! In the longest of these disappearances, my most treasured moldavite disappeared for fourteen years, only to be found eventually in the pocket of a pair of pants that I had never worn! For a long time, I doubted my memory, but this occurred over and over. And through the years, many people have told me their own very similar stories. There are numerous disappearing moldavite stories online.

What is the reason that moldavite performs these disappearing acts? I have thought at times that the intention behind moldavite’s disappearances may be to show us that the physical world is not necessarily as solid as we think it is. If that were proven to us, and if we accepted the evidence, the knowledge could be very liberating.

Moldavite Is A Stone Of The Heart And Dreams

When a person first holds a piece of moldavite, he or she often feels heat, especially around the heart. As this experience unfolds, the person frequently flushes red in the cheeks. This can be accompanied by tears, signifying an emotional release. I have witnessed people holding a moldavite and being surprised by the fact that their hearts began to beat in a different way. It is not a painful event; I compare the heart’s behavior to a dog wagging its tail when it is happy. I believe the heart responds to moldavite in this way, communicating its recognition and pleasure in the presence of this stone. And of course, moldavite is green — the color of the heart chakra.

In my first powerful moldavite experience, the sensation of energy began in my right hand where I was holding the stone. Then the current went straight up my arm and into my heart. At that point, my heart chakra opened, like a blooming flower of light. And in the next moment, the light surged both downwards and upwards from my heart, opening all of my chakras.

As an incubator of dreams, this is true of moldavite more than any other stone I have worked with. If you tape a small piece of moldavite to your forehead at the location of the third eye chakra before going to bed, I guarantee that you will dream! A lot! I have tried this many times and recommended it to others for over thirty years. Almost all of us find that the quantity and depth of our dream life increases immediately. And the dreams are often spiritually significant ones.

I believe that this happens because of moldavite’s affinity with the deep self, the part of us that creates our dreams. When moldavite lends its power to one’s deep self, a flurry of inner communication comes to us through a cornucopia of dreams. Another rather surprising symptom of moldavite’s effect on our dreaming is that most of us have to remove the moldavite during the night, because we are dreaming so much that we need to take a rest from it and sleep more deeply!

For virtually all of us, the path of spiritual evolution involves healing. In alchemical terms, we need to cook ourselves so that the impurities in our energies — the disharmonious patterns in our subtle bodies — are burned away. And moldavite just loves to do that!

Moldavite resonates with the pattern of our highest good — our full spiritual awakening and development. Thus, its influence moves us toward dispelling all patterns that are not in alignment with our wholeness, clearing the way for profound good health. However, the ride may sometimes be uncomfortable, just as it can be on the psychological level.

Something I experienced several times during my first years with moldavite was the onset of physical problems that turned out to be rooted in past lives. As people who work with past life therapy often observe, my physical ailments expressed similarities (at least symbolically) to traumatic past life events. Hypnotic regressions were helpful in completing my review of these patterns and letting them go, but I am convinced that the presence of moldavite is what brought them to the forefront.

Sometimes, especially when one is already in the throes of an apparent illness that stems from long-held unhealthy patterns in the subtle body, the introduction of moldavite can trigger a direct and rapid healing effect. It can seem as if the stone has cured a physical illness, but in my view, the presence of moldavite has simply dislodged the stuck pattern, allowing the subtle body to clear itself and bring the physical body back to health.

If one wishes to work with moldavite as a healing stone, it is often a good idea to bring another beneficial stone (or stones) into the mix. Heartenite, seraphinite, healerite and healers’ gold are good, overall healing stones that can stabilize one’s subtle body and work to soften the intensity of moldavite. In my own past, during a time when my healing was focused on the emotional body, I found that charoite and moldavite felt best to me. I urge you to work intuitively in these types of situations, and let the stone beings tell you which ones are most appropriate.

Robert Simmons has been working with crystals and stones for over 35 years. He is the cofounder of Heaven and Earth, a company offering gem and jewelry creations for self-healing and spiritual and emotional development. The author of several books, including The Book of Stones, The Alchemy of Stones and Stones of the New Consciousness, he lives in New Zealand.

15 Oct 2021
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How to Cope with An Existential Crisis

Has the world gone grey? Are you wondering what life is for? Kierkegaard’s philosophy could help you rediscover your zing.

by Skye C Cleary

Need to know

Are you exhausted from rushing through life doing the same monotonous things over and over again? Perhaps those things that were once meaningful now seem vacuous, and the passion has burned out. Do you feel that pleasures are short-lived and ultimately disappointing, that your life is a series of fragments punctuated with occasional ecstasies that flare up and then, like a firework, fade into darkness and despair? Perhaps you are lonely or pine for past loves. Or you feel empty and lost in the world, or nauseous and sleep-deprived. Maybe you are still looking for a reason to live, or you have too many confused reasons, or you have forgotten what your reasons are. Congratulations – you’re having an existential crisis. Sometimes, the questions ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘What’s it all for?’ haunt you gently like a soft wingbeat with barely a whisper, but sometimes they can feel as if they are asphyxiating your entire being.

Whatever form your existential crisis takes, the problem, as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) saw it, was that living without passion amounts to not existing at all. And that’s bad for all of us because, without passion, rampant waves of negativity poison the world. Kierkegaard thought that one of the roots of this problem of a world without passion is that too many people – his contemporaries but, by extension, we too – are alienated from a society that overemphasises objectivity and ‘results’ (profits, productivity, outcomes, efficiency) at the expense of personal, passionate, subjective human experiences.

In his journal, Kierkegaard wrote: ‘What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do, not what I must know … the thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.’ Finding this truth, this passion, was what Kierkegaard thought could unite an existence, overcome melancholia, and help you to become more fulfilled. Kierkegaard had some ideas about how to harness the anguish of what we have come to think of as an existential crisis. Reading Kierkegaard won’t necessarily solve all problems, but it can help you understand some of the sources of your malaise and to see new possibilities for your life.

Sometimes, Kierkegaard is called the first existential philosopher because of his emphasis on the individual and subjective experience. Existential philosophers stress freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of your choices, and certainly one of the quintessential existentialist philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), found this vein of thinking in Kierkegaard’s writing. For existentialists, it’s up to you to decide the kind of person you want to be and how to live your life meaningfully. But these choices leaven despair because of the pressure that comes when you realise you’re free and responsible and have no one else to blame, no excuses for your behaviour. Anxiety, or despair, Kierkegaard wrote, is the ‘dizziness of freedom’. Despair is a kind of vertigo we get when overwhelmed with possibilities and choices. Kierkegaard described it as a similar feeling to standing on the edge of an abyss. You might be afraid of falling, but anxious when you realise that jumping is a possibility.

We are forced to make choices all the time, whether we like it or not. Consider toothpaste: there are so many types and it’s difficult to choose the one that’s best for your teeth. Whitening or stain-removal? Cavity protection, anti-plaque or enamel repair? What’s the difference? Why isn’t there one that does everything? It’s hard to know what the outcome of choosing one over the other will be. While choosing the wrong toothpaste probably won’t devastate your life, when you face more profound choices – such as what to study at college, whom to marry, whether to end a relationship, which career to pursue, whether to try to save someone who is drowning, if you should turn off a loved one’s life-support system – the closer you come to the edge of the abyss, the dizzier you will feel about your possibilities and responsibilities. Sometimes you live in ignorant bliss about your options but, once you become aware of them, wooziness is inevitable. As Kierkegaard wrote in The Concept of Anxiety(1844):

He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down.

Sometimes, the dizziness of your freedom is so overwhelming that you might feel compelled to step back, to shrink from making a choice. Making no choice, or letting someone else choose for you, can feel easier. The greater the stakes, the deeper the abyss, and the further you have to fall if you misstep. But your personal growth depends on your ability to handle big choices yourself and not to shirk them. For Kierkegaard, bravely facing up to our choices and learning to channel our anxiety in constructive ways is vital: ‘Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.’

During his lifetime, Kierkegaard made authorities nervous because he was an iconoclast who encouraged people to think for themselves. He challenged readers to break themselves free from the brainwashing of churches and community groups that preached what to do and what to believe, particularly the Lutheran Church of Denmark, with which he was at loggerheads for much of his later life. Kierkegaard also might have been deeply suspicious of today’s social media and advertising that tells us where to spend our money and time in the elusive pursuit of happiness. In a criticism that seems to have pre-empted online trolls, he proposed that ‘the crowd’ or the public is ‘untruth’ because it enables people to be anonymous, irresponsible, cowardly, and creates an impersonal atmosphere.

Kierkegaard was a Christian, ‘albeit a maverick Christian’, as the philosopher Gary Cox put it, because Kierkegaard emboldened people to develop a personal relationship with God instead of unreflectively assuming what the clergy sermonised. For Kierkegaard, living the truth is infinitely more important than objectively knowing it. At Kierkegaard’s funeral, the archdeacon who gave the eulogy told the huge crowd not to misunderstand or accept what Kierkegaard had written because he went too far and didn’t know it.

But you don’t need to be religious to glean practical wisdom from Kierkegaard’s work. He inspired many atheist philosophers. Sartre, as I’ve mentioned, deeply admired Kierkegaard. He called him an ‘anti-philosopher’ because Kierkegaard sought ‘a first beginning’ by pushing back against boring and abstract philosophies, such as G W F Hegel’s and Immanuel Kant’s, which were very popular during Kierkegaard’s time.

Kierkegaard wrote in unconventional ways. He was witty and came up with quirky pseudonyms such as ‘Hilarius Bookbinder’. Kierkegaard wrote pseudonymously not because he wanted to hide his authorship – pretty much everyone knew which books he’d authored – but to distance himself from his work; to challenge us to question the ideas he presents; to take responsibility for interpreting the text’s meaning; to inspire us to come to our own conclusions; and to create our own subjective truths. The strategy is called ‘indirect communication’. The effect of Kierkegaard’s work is that, instead of dictating and moralising, he provokes – because you can’t tell if he’s being serious or not – and invites readers to dance with ideas.

Kierkegaard uses indirect communication in one of his most famous works, Either/Or (1843), a fictional collection of letters and essays written by different characters and presenting different points of view: aesthetic, ethical, and religious. These three views, or phases, provide a possible framework for how to endure and overcome an existential crisis. The phases are not rigid steps, but rather offer a scaffolding of possible experiences on an existential journey to reinvigorate our passion for life.

Think it through

Enjoy the aesthetic elements of your life

Kierkegaard suggested that the first mode of living is the aesthetic sphere. Aesthetic living is fun and impulsive, focused on sensual satisfaction, like a child who is discovering the world with awe and wonder. The aesthetic sphere is a beautiful phase of life, passionate and sparkling with possibilities. Consider the thrill of falling in love, the delight of seeing your all-time favourite musician live in concert, the elation of sharing a delicious bottle of wine or meal with a good friend, or the exhilaration of skinny-dipping on a whim. These experiences can be intoxicating, extraordinarily interesting, and make you feel like your life is transformed if you submit to them.

Don Giovanni – the protagonist of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1787), a legendary seducer who is also sometimes known as Don Juan – is, Kierkegaard suggested, the ultimate archetype of the aesthetic mode because he lives for immediate sexual gratification and sensuality. Don Giovanni is a player. He is handsome, seductive and exciting. Women find him irresistible: he has slept with more than 2,000 women whose names he records in his not-so-little black book. Don Giovanni seeks pleasure above all else, and dances through his hedonistic life.

How can you live aesthetically? Make your life as interesting and enjoyable as possible. Fall in love a lot. Rotate crops – meaning that, if you’re bored with your life, don’t be afraid to leave behind what doesn’t serve you and start planting seeds for fresh projects and new relationships that energise you. Be impulsive. Live for and in the moment. Cultivate arbitrariness for the sheer pleasure of it: go to the theatre but watch only the middle of the performance; pick up a book and read a random passage. Enjoy experiences in disruptive ways, different than what others are spoon-feeding you. Practise the art of remembering the joys of your past. Practise the art of forgetting unpleasantness by focusing on the silver linings of your misfortunes. Burn the candle of your life at both ends.

Make existential commitments to live ethically

However, an aesthete’s actions can be self-sabotaging, because, as Kierkegaard pseudonymously writes:

As when one skims a stone over the surface of the water, it skips lightly for a time, but as soon as it stops skipping, instantly sinks down into the depths, that is how Don Giovanni dances over the abyss, jubilant in his brief respite.

Don Giovanni gets his comeuppance in the end when a ghost in the form of a statue of the Commendatore, the father of one of his conquests and a man whom Don Giovanni has killed in a fight, drags him down to hell. You might not be dragged to hell by a ghost, but living purely in the aesthetic mode – though it might offer temporary respite – puts you on the fast track to a further existential crisis.

Why is this? The answer is that the aesthetic lifestyle demands a high price. Aesthetic living can be a source of existential despair when you become overly dependent on its distractions to fill the voids in your life. The aesthetic mode is dangerous when you live in a state of immediacy and instant gratification, constantly overindulging in such pleasures as social media scrolling, shopping, television, busyness, alcohol, drugs, serial romancing or casual sex. At a certain point, these activities cease to offer the enjoyment they promise, and the world turns grey.

Wallowing in such distractions only entrenches your alienation more deeply and pushes you more squarely into dungeons of unhappiness. As soon as you’ve satisfied one pleasure, you’re chasing the dragon of newness for the next high. Sometimes you’re so excited about taking risks on new possibilities, so in love with starting new projects and relationships, that you’re constantly flitting from one to the next, never finishing anything. Constantly on the move, you are like an ocean wave, surging powerfully, cyclically, with raw primal energy.

But waves froth and fizzle away indefinitely. If you’re constantly and busily churning through life, your existence amounts to a sum of moments without any real cohesion. Excitement fades and leaves in its wake disappointment and loneliness. The aesthete in Either/Or is envious of insects that die after copulation because they are able to indulge in the pinnacle of sexual ecstasy and then escape life’s greatest anticlimax – the ‘petite mort’ becomes a real one. An aesthetic life will inevitably leave you morbidly tired.

Kierkegaard’s aesthete is plagued with such soul-crushing tedium and torturous despair that he is numb. Because he isn’t truly engaged in life, he lives as if he were dead. Living void of passion makes him feel both chained by his anxieties and also cast adrift, like a spider plunging and flailing around, unable to grasp hold of anything:

What is to come? What does the future hold? I don’t know, I have no idea. When from a fixed point a spider plunges down as is its nature, it sees always before it an empty space in which it cannot find a footing however much it flounders. That is how it is with me: always an empty space before me, what drives me on is a result that lies behind me. This life is back-to-front and terrible, unendurable.

So if living aesthetically can only be a short-term solution to an existential crisis, how can you go beyond that and live ethically? Stop skimming over life like that stone. Slow down and do what you can to carve out pockets of time for reflection. Cultivate the space to become less robotic. And stop using aesthetic activities as a distraction from facing up to your existential despair.

‘Despair!’ Kierkegaard’s pseudonym writes. Despair is the entry price for transitioning from the aesthetic to the ethical sphere. Learning to love despair is an adventure in moving to a higher mode of self-development. Don’t hide from your existential crisis because choosing despair means choosing yourself. To cosy up to your despair is to choose against being beholden to your animalistic, aesthetic impulses, and towards becoming a definite and solidly grounded individual. Choosing yourself means making meaningful commitments, such as dedicating yourself to a vocation. It means setting goals and sticking to them. Dodging commitment means you’re simply hovering over life, not truly living, and as empty of substance as those waves.

To choose despair also means to choose humanity. In the ethical mode, you recognise that you live in a world with other people, that they matter, and that every choice you make must reflect a responsibility towards them. You act with honesty, open-heartedness, understanding and generosity. You focus more on what you can give to others and less on what you’re getting out of them. To cultivate your humanity, go people-watching for an hour and consider the beauty in each individual. Appreciate every person you meet in their particularity – their tasks, challenges and triumphs. Join a club and build a community of friends. Act more charitably. Help people. Commit to making the world better for others.

Choosing this kind of despair also prepares you for marriage in a way that a life of seeking sensual gratification is unlikely to. Getting married – ideally to your first love, in Kierkegaard’s analysis – reflects an ethical decision because marriage is a serious, definitive and life-changing choice. Marriage calls for a more sophisticated awareness of your existence than a life driven purely by sexual instincts. Sure, you can always get divorced, but Kierkegaard’s ethicist suggests getting married helps people take love more seriously than an aesthete would, by focusing on creating a relationship that’s stable and constant. In the ethical sphere, you actively rejuvenate the love with your partner, instead of skipping to the next relationship for thrills and a confidence boost as soon as your first one gets tough.

Face your existential abyss bravely because, Kierkegaard suggested: ‘Anxiety is the organ through which the subject appropriates sorrow and assimilates it,’ and ‘indeed I would say that it is only when the individual has the tragic that he becomes happy.’ The key to the ethical sphere is to use your despair to galvanise you to overcome your sorry dark states, refresh your enthusiasm for living, and arouse your appetite for something more meaningful in your life. You develop yourself by being patient with existence, seeing the beauty in stability, and recognising that you are your own source of happiness and creativity. You don’t need to seek excitement constantly from new external stimuli as the aesthete does. You don’t need a dance floor to dance, to enjoy life; your dance floor is inside of you, wherever you are. You nurture the ethical attitude by living intentionally (not accidentally, like the aesthete), and living each day as if it were your Judgment Day.

Leap to faith

The ethical mode can help stabilise you, but it might not be enough to resolve your existential crisis. Living ethically might even be another source of existential calamity because fulfilling your social duties can be onerous. Kierkegaard’s ethicist says of the duty of marriage: ‘Its uniformity, its total uneventfulness, its incessant vacuity, which is death and worse than death.’ Marriage doesn’t make love stay. People change and break promises, making any commitment insecure. Given how many other people are unjust and immoral, being ethical might also throw you deeper into despair. And sinking too heavily into reflection can thwart your enjoyment of life. Philosophers tend to be guilty of overthinking, and Kierkegaard’s aesthete quips: ‘What seems so difficult to philosophy and the philosophers is to stop.’

The only way truly to conquer an existential crisis is with a leap. A leap is what Kierkegaard calls an ‘inward deepening’, which recognises that the world is uncertain, but you can make a bold choice about the kind of life you want to lead. A leap is beyond the realm of feelings (aesthetic sphere) and commitments (ethical sphere). A leap is an act of will to transform your life. It’s the decision to design an existence to which you can enthusiastically devote yourself and that will uplift and sustain your being.

Kierkegaard’s leap was guided by the commandment to ‘love thy neighbour’. In Works of Love(1847), written under Kierkegaard’s real name, he proposes that universal love, or agapē, is the secret to happiness because it overcomes the fleetingness and insecurity of aesthetic and ethical relationships. Love is Ariadne’s thread of life because, as long as you love, as long as you commit yourself to being a loving person, you’ll be safe from being hurt and alone. Kierkegaard thought that this sort of unwavering faith reflects a supremely developed human being.

Perhaps you live in the aesthetic or ethical modes of life, and you’re perfectly happy and see no need to leap. Or perhaps you inhabit these realms and find comfort in your melancholy. But the rub with existential despair is that, once you have caught a glimpse of it, intentionally or not, it’s extraordinarily difficult to unsee it. If that’s you, Kierkegaard’s ideas might be a way to help you find your footing. But the only thing that will alleviate an existential crisis is to find the truth that is true for you, the subjective truth, the propulsion to leap that lies in the innermost depths of your heart. If you’re not sure what your subjective truth is, Kierkegaard suggested: ‘Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer.’

Ultimately, though, a passionately lived life isn’t about an either/or choice. You can’t be all frivolous or all serious all the time. A fulfilling life is about enjoyment and ethical commitment and leaping. Your life needs some of the sort of energy, pleasures and possibilities that Don Giovanni’s life exhibits (though not necessarily indulging these in the ways he does), otherwise the world would be very dull. And the world is boring without him. You also need something of the ethical: you need to acknowledge how your choices affect other people and to take responsibility for your actions, otherwise you’ll end up alone and sad. You also need a leap to find that thing that you can devote yourself to that unites the splinters of your life, even if, for you, that isn’t a leap into religious faith. The point is to see these different dimensions of life, the ruts you might be falling into, the potential sources of ennui and malaise that stem from the way you live your life. But, ultimately, it’s up to you to choose how you juggle these spheres and how you spark your own fire to bind the fragments of your life together into a coherent synthesis. That’s the point. It’s for you to shape your life.

Key points – How to cope with an existential crisis

Living in the moment can be fun for a while but can also be a source of existential despair if it becomes a distraction from reflecting on our lives.
Avoiding existential despair doesn’t bring happiness.
Overcoming an existential crisis calls for bravely facing up to our melancholy, looking at its roots, and using that understanding as a platform to build stability.
Slowing down, cutting back on busyness, and cultivating idleness or novel perspectives on the world are vital steps in creating space for inward reflection.
Existential despair can be a force for good when we galvanise it to overcome our sorry dark states, refresh our enthusiasm for living, and arouse our appetite for a more meaningful life.
A fulfilling life calls for playful enjoyment, ethical engagement and a leap to something that can fuse together the fragments of our existences.

Why it matters

One of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms writes: ‘For a book has the remarkable property that it can be interpreted any way you wish.’ You might very well interpret Kierkegaard differently, and that’s what he wanted. Maybe. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym also suggests that, whether you do something or you don’t do something, you’ll regret it either way. So read Kierkegaard or don’t read him. Perhaps you will regret both, but perhaps you’ll also find a path towards edification.

It’s worth remembering, though, that not even Kierkegaard followed this advice completely. He never married, for example. He broke off an engagement with Regine Olsen, who was devastated. Kierkegaard was melancholy and didn’t know how to love her and God at the same time. He said he felt ‘a divine protest’. Instead of being an adult and trying to explain his feelings to Olsen, Kierkegaard thought it would be better if she hated him. So he told her he was breaking off the engagement in order to sow his wild oats. He said, condescendingly, that he was awful to her for her sake, although it seems he thought this was the easier option for him.

Kierkegaard wrote Either/Or shortly after the breakup, and the book included a fictionalised account of the relationship. He portrayed the incident in the section known as ‘The Seducer’s Diary’ in terms of a psychopathic sexual predator conniving to seduce a beautiful and innocent young woman. Olsen went on to marry someone else, and Kierkegaard obsessed over her for the rest of his life. Only later did he realise, after all his thinking and writing about existential crises, how he might have reconciled his aesthetic, ethical and religious lifestyles with Olsen. Kierkegaard saw himself as a philosophical midwife, like the goddess Diana, who could guide people to give birth to more fulfilled versions of themselves. Let us let Kierkegaard’s wisdom inspire us on our own journeys.

Kierkegaard’s journey was a definitive leap to religion. He went into great depth about different modes of religiousness in works such as Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) and Sickness unto Death (1849). Kierkegaard worried that atheists won’t know if they’re right until it’s too late, but other existential philosophers made very different leaps. For example, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) leapt into writing literature and political advocacy.

How do we figure out where we might leap to? One tool that Kierkegaard hinted towards, for seeking possible leaps, is poetry. Music vanishes in time, painting is static in time, but poetry, Kierkegaard thought, is a higher artform because it exists both in the moment and beyond the moment. It exists spontaneously when you read and write it, and it exists across time because you can return to it and develop it. The most important role of poetry is that it can remind you to be both the composer and the composition of your life.

Poetry can be a tool to help you to stop and reflect on your being, to sit with unhappiness, to process existential dread. Poetry can act as a conduit of aesthetic beauty, preserving flavours and textures of love and frivolity in language. Poetry can teach you to be patient with your life, and to create an internal history for yourself. Your history is part of who you are but doesn’t determine who you are becoming. Poetry can help you to not forget your misfortunes (or to remember their silver lining) like the aesthete would, and to come to terms with your past. Poetry can also help you to explore possibilities for your leap, by encouraging you to turn inwards to clarify that thing that can unite your existence in a genuinely passionate upsurge of being.

Original article here

06 Oct 2021
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Japan’s Unusual Way To View The World

Withdrawing my hands reluctantly from the slowly spinning bowl, I watched its uneven sides slowly come to a stop, wishing I could straighten them out just a little more. I was in the ancient pottery town of Hagi in rural Yamaguchi, Japan, and while I trusted the potter who convinced me to let it be, I can’t say I understood his motives.

Smiling, he announced, “it has wabi-sabi” – and whisked the bowl away for firing. I sat, contemplating the lack of symmetry and wondering what on Earth he meant.

As it turns out, failing to understand this phrase is not unusual. A key part of the Japanese Aesthetic – the ancient ideals that still govern the norms on taste and beauty in Japan – wabi-sabi is not only untranslatable, but also considered undefinable in Japanese culture. Often muttered in moments of profound appreciation, and almost always followed by the word muri! (impossible!) when asked to expand, the phrase offers an unusual way to view the world.

Originating in Taoism during China’s Song dynasty (960-1279) before being passed onto Zen Buddhism, wabi-sabi was originally seen as an austere, restrained form of appreciation. Today it encapsulates a more relaxed acceptance of transience, nature and melancholy, favouring the imperfect and incomplete in everything, from architecture to pottery to flower arranging.

Wabi, which roughly means ‘the elegant beauty of humble simplicity’, and sabi, which means ‘the passing of time and subsequent deterioration’, were combined to form a sense unique to Japan and pivotal to Japanese culture. But just as Buddhist monks believed that words were the enemy of understanding, this description can only scratch the surface of the topic.

Prof Tanehisa Otabe, professor at Tokyo University’s Institute of Aesthetics, suggests that the ancient art of wabi-cha, a style of tea ceremony established by tea masters Murata Juko and Sen no Rikyu from the late 15th to 16th Centuries forms a good introduction to wabi-sabi. By choosing common Japanese pottery over the popular (and technically perfect) imported Chinese examples, the men challenged the rules of beauty. Without bright colours and ornate designs to rely on as signifiers of accepted beauty, guests were encouraged to study subtle colours and textures that would previously have been overlooked.

As to why they sought imperfect, rustic pieces, Prof Otabe explained that, “wabi-sabi leaves something unfinished or incomplete for the play of imagination”. This opportunity to actively engage with something considered to be wabi-sabi achieves three things: an awareness of the natural forces involved in the creation of the piece; an acceptance of the power of nature; and an abandonment of dualism – the belief that we are separate from our surroundings.

Combined, these experiences allow the viewer to see themselves as part of the natural world, no longer separated by societal constructs and instead at the mercy of natural timelines. Rather than seeing dents or uneven shapes as mistakes, they are viewed as a creation of nature – much as moss would grow on an uneven wall or a tree would curve in the wind.

“The aesthetics of wabi-sabi opened our eyes to everyday life and gave us a method of handling what is common in an uncommon, aesthetic way,” Prof Otabe said, highlighting the importance of acceptance in Japanese culture, a society forced to contend with devastating natural disasters on a semi-regular basis. Rather than casting nature solely as a dangerous and destructive force, it helps frame it as a source of beauty, to be appreciated on the smallest of levels. It becomes a provider of colours, designs and patterns, a source of inspiration, and a force to work alongside, rather than against.

It is the inevitable mortality embound in nature, however, that is key to a true understanding of wabi-sabi. As author Andrew Juniper notes in his book Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence, “It… uses the uncompromising touch of mortality to focus the mind on the exquisite transient beauty to be found in all things impermanent”. Alone, natural patterns are merely pretty, but in understanding their context as transient items that highlight our own awareness of impermanence and death, they become profound.

This idea brought to mind a story a Japanese colleague told me when we discussed wabi-sabi. Visiting Kyoto as a teenager, she had hurried through the grounds of Ginkakuji, a wooden Zen temple with quiet gardens, eager to see the more famous Kinkakuji, an ornate temple covered in gold leaf and perched above a reflective pond. Bright, stunning and glamorous, it lived up to her expectations, a far more impressive beauty than its traditional sister temple.

A few decades later, however, she returned to find the gold garish and, while it was certainly eye-catching, there was little beyond the immediate gratification of the gold leaf. Ginkakuji, however, offered a new fascination: the aged wood held countless hues and patterns, while the Zen moss and dry sand gardens offered a frame for nature’s many shapes. Unable to appreciate these things as a child, she had grown to see the ravages of time as a deeper source of beauty, far greater than a two-dimensional flash of gold.

Intrigued by the personal element of this appreciation, I contacted artist Kazunori Hamana, whose unique pieces are often considered to have an element of wabi-sabi. As we walked through the grounds of his tumbledown farmhouse in the rural idyll of Izumi in Chiba prefecture, he agreed with the need for age.

“You have different feelings when you’re young – everything new is good, but you start to see history develop like a story. After you’ve grown up, you see so many stories, from your family to nature: everything growing and dying and you understand the concept more than you did as a child.”

This appreciation for the marks of time is a key feature in Hamana’s works, which he chooses to display in derelict Japanese farmhouses. Explaining that the wooden doorframes have been blackened by years of smoke from the irori (an indoor hearth) and pointing out how the mud walls have started crumbling, he says he feels the history of the houses lend a fitting backdrop to his pieces, avoiding the cold duality of impersonal white gallery spaces.

Creating sculptures with natural clay from Shiga, an area with a reputation for high-quality clay and a long history of pottery making, Hamana embraces the important wabi-sabi concept of mutual creation between man and nature.

“I design a little at first, but clay is a natural thing, so it changes. I don’t want to fight with nature so I follow the shape, I accept it,” he said.

Not only does he allow nature to aid in the shaping of his pieces, but in their later appearance too. In an overgrown bamboo forest in the farmhouse grounds, he showed me the pieces he’d chosen to leave outside, buried in the undergrowth for years at a time. There they’ve developed unique patterns from extreme temperatures and surrounding plant life, as well as being occasionally broken. Studying them closely, I found that this simply added to the beauty of each piece, with the cracks offering another opportunity to add to the story.

Often associated with wabi-sabi is the art of kintsugi – a method of repairing broken pottery using gold or lacquer. The process highlights, rather than conceals, the cracks, allowing them to become a part of the piece, too. When his daughter accidentally broke some of his work, Hamana said, laughing, he decided to leave the pieces outside for a few years, allowing them to be coloured and shaped by nature. When it was repaired by a local kintsugi specialist, the different colours created a contrast so subtle, so uneven, that could never have been intentionally created. Embracing the effects of nature and allowing family history to be visible in a piece creates a unique value for something which would, in many cultures, simply be discarded as worthless.

In fact, the term ‘perfect’, which stems from the Latin perfectus, meaning complete, has been placed on an undeserved pedestal in many cultures, especially the West. Prioritising flawlessness and infallibility, the ideal of perfection creates not only unachievable standards, but misguided ones. In Taoism, since no further growth or development can take place, perfection is considered equivalent to death. While we strive to create perfect things and then struggle to preserve them, we deny their very purpose and subsequently lose the joys of change and growth.

Although seemingly abstract, this appreciation of transient beauty can be found at the heart of some of Japan’s most simple pleasures. Hanami, the annual celebration of cherry blossoms, involves parties and picnics, boat rides and festivals, all beneath the often already-falling petals, considered as beautiful in their haphazard patterns on the floor as they are on the branches. The pure acceptance of a fleeting beauty that would garner no more than a few photos in the West is something of an inspiration. While the appreciation may be tinged with melancholy, its only lesson is to enjoy the moments as they come, without expectations.

The dents and scratches we bear are all reminders of experience, and to erase them would be to ignore the complexities of life. By retaining the imperfect, repairing the broken and learning to find beauty in flaws – rather than in spite of them – Japan’s ability to cope with the natural disasters it so often faces is strengthened. When my bowl from Hagi arrived in the post months later, its uneven edges were no longer a defect, but instead a welcome reminder that life is not perfect, and nor should I try to make it so.

Original story here.