Magic Anklet - #12

Format: Experiment. I figured I'd give it a week.
Goal: Have more and better social interactions, using a cord set with intentions.
Goal met? Holy effective, Batman.
Terms you should know: 
Intention: Pretty much what it sounds like. An intention is an intention. In energy/spiritual work, the idea of the intention is more concrete and there's a general idea of spiritual power behind it.

So here's what happened:
After the third solid week in a row of feeling like a friendless loser (because I am generally anti-social, at least when I'm at school, and have been spending a lot of time in my room instead of the rest of the apartment in order to avoid my roommate and her awkward relationships with her four awkward almost-boyfriends), I decided enough was enough. I wasn't exactly ready to go out and Meet People (so not my thing), but figured the least I could do was to start changing the way I was looking at this whole playing-nicely-with-others deal. 


Which is to say, I wanted to use a ritual or other physical action that had a chance of tangibly changing my thoughts. The goal was to move from a general attitude of "Why are you looking at me, @*&@#?? Back off before I punch your #*%&#(* teeth in, *#&%*;@!" to, I dunno, something less confrontational and antagonistic. Like "Hi," maybe.


I remember reading something in a novel (probably by Juliet Marillier) about working magic into cords. I thought that was a poetic idea, and I was in a crafty mood, so I dug out some embroidery floss. I used sparkly red to symbolize my root chakra (which relates to security, feeling grounded, and having basic needs met), orange for my sacral chakra (which relates to creativity, sexuality, and romantic relationships), and sparkly green for my heart chakra (which relates to universal love and general relationships). Put on a TV show that made me happy and started braiding.


The whole time I kept in mind the intention that I wanted to have more positive relationships, romantic and platonic, with everyone around me, and wanted to go back to operating from the place of love that I bring to my relationships back home. I wanted to have friends because I liked them and they liked me, not because I was lonely and needed someone to fix my loneliness. And I wanted to become interested in people again, because I'd hit this place where everyone I didn't already know seemed insufferably boring. I knew that was off but I hadn't been able to make my mind change courses.


I happened to do this the night before the full moon (see Supermoon/Equinox video), and set the intentions about wanting positive, enriching relationships/interactions. The night of the full moon I did it again, and again the next day, which happened to be the spring equinox. Then I let the little charm do its thing.


Now, I don't know that the anklet itself had any special energy voodoo going on. Maybe it did -- I'm certainly not ruling the possibility out -- but maybe it was the intention and reminder of having a cord tied around my ankle that helped me change courses, like having a reminder string tied around your finger or a purple anti-complaining bracelet. I fall into the camp of "if it works, use it," and boy, did it work.


Three days later, I had gone from being tired, antisocial, and unable to make small talk to:

• chatting for four hours with girls from my class during lab; they turned out to be completely awesome and exactly the kind of people I like being around;
• somehow or other magically getting on the good side of a teacher who hadn't seemed particularly interested in me most of the semester;
• getting hired on the spot for my job next semester, despite a mix-up with applications and someone already having been hired for my position;
• being flirted with by a guy from a class who is super-interesting and cute (and literate while texting, which is one of my holy grails);
• having a fantastic conversation about religion, totalitarian states, and Rocky Horror Picture Show with two awesome people, completely out of the blue; 
• having acquaintances and casual friends approach me and strike up interesting, below-the-surface conversations;
• being helped way above and beyond the call of duty by a charming woman at the post office;
• being involved in an awesome theatrical/musical production in town; and
• being chatted up by a rather interesting stranger who ended up asking for my number (which hasn't happened in way more than I'd like to admit).

I mean, how cool is that? Something about having that intention wrapped around my ankle as a reminder appears to have done something to my mojo and made me attractive to all sorts of people and interested in them back. I suspect it's switched around a bunch of my subconscious beliefs and habits and in turn switched around all those subconscious body language/tone of voice signals I didn't realize I was giving off, and people respond to that.


Pretty sweet. Also, my anklet's cute.

Try this:
Make an anklet. Or find some other craft or project that feels good. Think about your intentions while you're working on it -- and make sure they feel 100% good to you -- and then wear whatever you make or put it somewhere you'll see it often. 


I can't emphasize the "make sure they feel good to you" thing enough. I originally had this idea in my head that the reason I was being so touchy was because I wasn't being feminine enough or something, and I was convinced that I needed to make a pink bracelet and embrace my inner girl. But my subconscious knew better and gave me a loud "Nope!" feeling, so I eventually ended up going with the chakras and focusing on openness to interactions with people and operating from a place of love, which was a way better decision. 


If your subconscious beliefs and emotional responses can't get behind the intentions you're setting, you're only going to sabotage yourself. I believe you always get what you really want, so make sure you know for sure what that is and find a way to bring it to the surface and work with, not against, it.

Coming Soon...
It was going to be a plants experiment but my nasturtiums aren't agreeing. Suggestions, post 'em in the comments.

Sensing Chakras/Auras - #9

A few weeks ago, I went down with my friend Bekah to visit our friend Erin in Utah. Erin and I have been discussing chakras and energy fields for some time, and so we decided to see if we could do a bit of sensing.

Dang cool.

I wasn't intending to do it for this blog, but it fits great, so I'm sticking it in the usual format.


Format: One evening of playing around

Goal: Try to sense other people's chakras (I can already sense my own reasonably well)


Goal met? Yes yes and yes!


Terms you should know:

Chakra: Energy center in the body. Literally means "wheel" or "turning." More information can be found at Wikipedia or by doing a Google search.

Aura: Field of psychic energy surrounding the physical body. More info at Wikipedia.


So here’s what happened:

It all started when Erin started talking about problems she'd been having with her solar plexus chakra (which is located two or three finger widths above the bellybutton). We'd been texting about it for a couple of days and she'd ask if I'd feel around and see if I could do anything about it. I had her sit down and began feeling the air around her. 

I was half-expecting to not find anything -- I had no idea what I was doing, after all, and chakras haven't been scientifically proven or anything. It took about thirty seconds, though, before I started feeling stuff clearly. It felt like tingling or pressure in the air surrounding her, and after a while I started getting impressions of colors and textures. Her solar plexus felt kind of brownish and thick, and so I used some techniques I'd read about in a Chios Energy Healing manual to clear it out. I held one hand out to channel clean energy and then worked on scooping the dark color out of the chakra. I don't know how else to explain it... it's all very intuitive and you have to turn your brain off and just go with the flow. I could feel energy passing clearly through my arms and to the hand that was working on her, and after a while it felt like I could stop.

Then we took turns lying on the ground and feeling one another's chakras. While we were working on Bekah we did a few experiments to see if we were making this up or what. I would hold my hands over a  chakra (which had gotten very clear at this point) and would ask Erin, "All right, what do you feel here?" And then she would say, "It's huge!" or "It feels like the energy has diffused all over this area," or "Bekah... your chakra is caffeinated." Her comments, with maybe two exceptions, matched my impressions.

We also experimented with auras. We closed our eyes and started with our hands several feet above Bekah's body. We brought our hands down, left hands to mark where we felt the aura, and then opened our eyes. We discovered two interesting things:

1. Our impressions were consistent. When we opened our eyes, our hands were always within inches of one another. 

2. There are multiple aura levels. I'd never heard this before, but it was very clear that we all had at least three. When I got home I looked this up, and it turns out that yes, auras do have layers. Seven of them. We felt them at different spots on each of us, but it was always one in the outer few levels, one in the middle levels, and one really close to the body.

Then they worked on me, which was also weird. I could feel a lot of what they were doing. At one point, Erin was making a sweeping motion over my solar plexus and sacral chakras to sweep energy down and hopefully remove a block I had there. I couldn't see what Bekah was doing as my head was resting facing Erin. Erin asked if I felt anything, and I said, "No... Well, it feels like my heart area's being pulled like taffy." There was a moment of silence, and then, from the other side, Bekah said, "I've been pulling it."

Weird, eh?

We also discovered that my chakras were low-lying in the body (which I haven't been able to find information on -- has anyone heard of this before?), and that I as the person being worked on could feel when they felt my auras. I'd close my eyes and say "There" as Erin and Bekah felt for levels in my auras. When I opened my eyes they said that I'd registered "there" at within inches of the point they'd stopped their hands. We also discovered that I'm very sensitive to the auras closest to my body -- even with my eyes closed I felt ticklish and pulled back into the carpet when they got near my closest aura -- and that I use them as a shield. Erin had to tell me to let her in, and I had to focus on softening and letting people get close before she could actually sense anything. Don't know if that's normal but it's consistent with what I know about myself.

Double weird.


What I learned:

I don't even know, honestly. I'm at such a beginning point with all of this, but it's fascinating. I was surprised by how clearly I could feel it all. I was particularly sensitive to whatever Bekah was doing -- I'm not sure if we're more psychically compatible or if we were more in tune because we'd been roommates for the past several months. It was very, very cool. I'd like to have a session with someone who really knows what they're doing; perhaps my friend Kendra, who's a massage therapist and has done some effective energy work on me before. I'll keep you posted.

So is it real? Or is it just our minds playing games? No clue. Sure is fun, though.


Try this:
1. Check out the Chios manuals/course. I found them really helpful.

2. Also check out this and this by Erin Pavlina (not the Erin I was doing this experiment with). Normally I'm hesitant about psychic claims and the like, but Erin's blog is pretty no-nonsense and approachable, and it's a good place to start.

3. Start playing around. Get into a meditative, open state -- whatever helps inspiration and spiritual impressions come through most clearly for you -- and have at it. I'll be more helpful as I figure out more...


Next Experiment: Inspiration. Online dating. Manifesting relationships. Manifesting, period. Don't know yet. Any suggestions?

Images by YOUscription, Spirit-Fire, makelessnoise, and mangpages.