2020-5HealingRituals&PracticestoHonortheSummerSolsticeBlog

5 Healing Rituals & Practices to Honor the Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice is coming up fast, and now is the time to decide how you want to celebrate…

On June 20, we honor this major celestial event in the Northern Hemisphere — a magical time when you can connect with the sun’s vital power and usher in spiritual initiation and CHANGE.

What exactly IS the Summer Solstice?

The word “solstice” comes from the Latin words for “sun” and “standing still.” On the 20th, the sun will reach its highest position as seen from the northern half of the Earth, and it will appear to stand still as it marks the height of long days and the abundant aliveness of Nature. Summer Solstice also marks the longest day and the shortest night of the year. And of course for folks in the southern part of the planet, the reverse is true: Winter Solstice comes at this time, bringing the regenerative darkness that nurtures the rebirth of life. (We are thinking of all of our students and friends Down Under)

In ancient cultures around the world, Summer Solstice was considered the turning point of the year. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna describes the solstice as the way out of the physical world and into the spiritual realms. It’s a time (as is the Winter Solstice) when the veil that separates you from nonphysical reality is so thin that it can be easily pierced. Especially if you’re highly attuned to the cycles of the Earth, you might be able to feel this shifting of energy. It offers a powerful opportunity for renewal that stays open for several days before and after the actual occasion.

Summer Solstice rituals & ceremonies

Just as the ancients held special ceremonies on the solstice, you too can connect to the sun’s heightened energy at this time, and take advantage of its radiance to shine light on whatever you want to transform in your life or the world. Plus, if you’re starting to shift out of shelter-in-place, this is an optimal time to explore more deeply what you’re thinking of stepping into.

So let’s take a look at some simple things you can do to celebrate your connection to the sun, and take stock of where you are and what you want to accomplish.

5 healing rituals & practices to honor the Summer Solstice

  1. Call in your highest intentions for your life or the world. As we birth a new consciousness across the Earth, harness the energy of this day to help usher in change for the better. Light your favorite yellow or orange candle. Call in your angels and guides. Journal about or pray for what you’d like to see come to fruition. Summer is the time of flowering, so let the warmth of the sun help you grow the seeds of your intentions into an abundance of health, happiness, wisdom, peace, and justice.
  2. Take a gratitude sun bath. Try watching the sunrise on solstice, or do Sun Salutations, and give our life-giver your gratitude for gracing the Earth, for bringing warmth and helping seeds grow. And while it can be hard to keep in mind that good things are happening on Earth, acknowledge a change that’s come that you’re happy about. For example, this week we saw a historic national ruling in the US that protects LGBTQ workers. Another example is that more and more companies are honoring Juneteenth as a paid holiday. While we’re bombarded by bad news left and right, it’s crucial to honor everything you view as positive. That’s one of the keys to uplifting consciousness — and higher consciousness uplifts our physical reality.
  3. Meditate on this: What role will you play in evolving your community and our global family? This is the time to ask yourself: “What can I do now to welcome the change I want?” This year more than ever, people have felt like everything is out of our control, but the truth is that you always have the power to start working with the universe toward meeting a goal. What steps — even if they seem small — can you take now to uplift your workplace, to change a law in your community, to ensure justice, to shift a broken system, to help someone who’s struggling
  4. Visualize yourself crossing a threshold. See the place you’re crossing from as what you’re ready to leave behind. See the place you’re approaching as what you’ve been longing for. With the sun shining brightly ahead of you, will you enjoy more nurturing relationships? Make a job change? Be more creative? Use this time when the sky is at its brightest to welcome more nurturance into your life!
  5. Recharge your life-force energy in nature. As a spiritual teacher and energy healer, I make sure my ties to the sun, the Earth, the sky, the wind, the stars, the plants, and our fellow animals are always intact. I have my favorite places in nature that support my spirit and strengthen my knowledge of the unconditional love and universal connection we all share. Are you making good use of the power of nature to soothe and guide you? Choose a favorite tree to hug. Lie on your back under the sun with your palms up in a receiving position and watch the sky. Marvel at the absolute majesty.

Most of all, enjoy this magical time of year! The more open you are to new energy, the more you’ll increase its presence within you. Remember that like the sun, you can shine brightly, and you have the power to help bring forth the great new growth that’s so needed on this beautiful planet.

To learn more about tapping into powerful life-force energy, check out my master-in-training certification course here.

Work one-on-one with Deborah
Ground yourself

4 Healing Practices to Ground Your Base Chakra & Thrive in Uncertain Times

Whether it’s the global pandemic, racial injustice, or personal challenges you’re dealing with, fear can seep into your energetic system and wreak havoc.

With all that we’re experiencing, around the world and especially in the US right now, it’s hard to know what’s coming next — and that uncertainty can feel like walking blindfolded toward the edge of a cliff. Many people are struggling financially too.

If you know about your first chakra — also called the base chakra or the root chakra — you know that it’s the power center that deals with security and survival…

What you might not know is that the Earth has a chakra system too, and her base chakra is deeply off balance in all this upheaval.

People are feeling this profound disruption in themselves and the Earth whether they know it or not. Feelings of anxiety and being on edge are easy to blame on the nearest little thing, but in fact you’re absorbing the energy of everyone and everything on the planet, and everyone in every country is deeply anxious right now.

From jobs and health to finances, family, and groups we care about — these are all base chakra survival issues. So are disruptions in the Earth — tropical storms, wildfires, you name it.

The good news — and we REALLY need good news, right? — is that you can release fear and anxiety from your base chakra and replace it with useful energy… and stop fear from taking hold in your power centers and energy field.

You can also send healing energy right into Mother Earth. And when you do this, the positive effects reverberate, which can help ease the tumult that’s running rampant on our planet.

A quick word about fear: To some degree, fear is necessary to life on this physical plane. Fear can keep you safe from threats — whether it’s heights, snakes, water, or any kind of injury. Your ancestors relied on fright as a warning system to protect them from falling off a cliff, getting bitten by a poisonous reptile, drowning in a river, or being hurt by someone or something. Your brain continues to use thousands of years of programmed fear to shield your body from harm.

But what happens when you live in fear every day? All day? Fear of a world seeming to fall apart, fear of loneliness, fear of failure — these fears can burrow into your psyche and prevent you from helping to advance humanity or live a meaningful life full of positive relationships and experiences. These fears can damage your chances — and humanity’s chances, and the planet’s chances — of living in light and love, so let’s get some relief! It’s long past due.

The power of your base chakra for releasing unproductive fear.

Fear’s primal place to live is in your first chakra. This base chakra is located at the base of your spine and it’s connected to your security and survival. It’s your foundation, and it has the power to ground and connect you to the physical world. But when it’s unbalanced, you might not feel safe in your body or your place in the world. You might not feel grounded or present. You might find yourself stressed, to say the least.

Childhood traumas can stay stuck in your base chakra until you discover strategies to release them. Fear of illness, global calamity, brutality — the things we’re seeing in our world today — combined with personal fears about safety, security, and stability can disrupt or distort the free flow of energy in your base chakra.

Here are 4 Healing Practices to Help You Clear Blocks in Your Base Chakra — and the Earth’s Base Chakra:

  1. Do a Grounding Meditation
    When you’re ungrounded, you’re vulnerable to fear’s draining energy and you can get blocked. Fear walks right through those open doors of stress and strain and settles in your mind and body. Meditation is one of the best ways to ground yourself so you can keep those doors closed to fear and open to love.Meditate every day, and your fears — along with those fear-in-disguise feelings like anxiety and hopelessness — will start to subside.

    Start by sitting with your eyes closed — either in the traditional lotus position on the floor, or with your feet planted on the ground as you recline in a chair. Keep your hands on your knees — this in itself is very grounding.

    Focus on your base chakra, right at the base of your spine, and see a red cord from it planting itself firmly in the ground.

    As your cord drops down, visualize the energy of the Earth’s base chakra radiating in every direction and spinning rhythmically as it glows with ruby-red light. This base chakra of the Earth is usually thought to be located at Mount Shasta in Northern California, which Native American tribes considered to be a geyser of upward energy.

    Watch its radiating energy spread up through your grounding cord and into your physical body. Breathe deeply as you absorb the strength that the Earth always holds for you. Like the most resourced mother, the Earth always has the capacity to hold and nourish you — as she replenishes herself with infinite love and a profound connection to the whole of the universe.

    It’s now time to visualize this energy saturating the entire planet and flooding your own base chakra with life. As you visualize this vibrant red energy,, observe how its healing flow flushes away fear, old systems and ways of life that need to be released, negative thoughts and patterns, and stale energy. Watch stuckness release from your body and the Earth’s body — into a vacuum of light, where it’s being transmuted into golden love.

    Now visualize the Earth’s base chakra as a red flower. Watch that flower bloom. Visualize its radiant energy travelling up your grounding cord until your own red flower blossoms at the base of your spine. Try to spend about 5 minutes visualizing the flowers spinning and radiating stability, comfort, and safety. Watch fear, negativity, and everything you and we don’t need fall away.

    After a few minutes, rest your hands on your heart chakra and feel the corners of your mouth raise as you smile with a sense of security that you and the Earth are well.

  2. Work with affirmations
    Affirmations are powerful chakra-balancing tools. Consciously repeating positive declarations while focusing on your base chakra helps you cement its natural power to ground you and make you safe..Affirmations also have the added benefit of rewiring your brain. Chronic negative thoughts (“This world is insane — we’ll never have equality,” “The virus is still rampant — it’ll never go away,” etc.) are not only symptoms of an unbalanced base chakra, they can also add to stress and blockages. Productive affirmations help you more easily replace fear-focused thoughts with love-focused thoughts.

    To use the following affirmation, meditate on your base chakra, and either out loud or in your mind, repeat the words:

    I am safe, secure, and deeply rooted to the world. I belong here.

    Repeating this affirmation throughout the day will help you feel protected and secure. Write it down and post it on your mirror, refrigerator, or dashboard. Another idea is to set reminders on your phone to repeat the affirmation every couple hours. You can even write it down on a slip of paper you tuck under your pillow at night. Let its power seep into your sleep and dreams. After all, your sleep connects you to Spirit, which, like the Earth, is always there to nourish you.

  3. Play With Color
    A simple way to restore your base chakra’s balance is to use color. Red is the color of your first chakra, so wear more red. Incorporate ruby hues into your home environment — get a red lampshade, pull out that red blanket for a cozy nap, or paint your living room a warm, deep red. Wear a garnet ring, a coral necklace, write with a burgundy pen. Sprinkle rose petals in your bath water, paint your nails the color of red wine, try a bright red lipstick, trade in your yellow tea kettle for a red one. The important thing is to consciously work with the red items you choose, linking them with your base chakra. To do this, just repeat the affirmation to seal the connection.
  4. Eat Healing Base-Chakra Foods
    Since your base chakra is all about grounding you to the Earth, adding root vegetables to your diet can help strengthen your connection to the physical world. For an easy, delicious grounding meal, try roasting any of the following with salt and olive oil: beets, rutabagas, potatoes, garlic, ginger, turnips, onions, parsnips.If you eat meat, earthy stews and bone broths can be very nourishing for your base chakra. Don’t forget about grains like oats, mineral drops from the Great Salt Lake or elsewhere, red fruits like berries, or spices like paprika for extra flavor and rich, red goodness.

    Again, think of sending nourishment to your base chakra as you eat the healing foods. Perhaps include the affirmation in your prayers, thanking Mother Earth for sustenance. This will infuse the foods even more with nurturance for your base, filling you with a greater ability to thrive even in these times of tremendous transformation.

Feeling Rooted, Firm, and Secure in the World Is Your Birthright.

Always remember that it’s natural for your base chakra and ALL your chakras to be in a state of balance. It can take a short time or a while to restore that natural balance — depending on a lot of factors. No matter what, you deserve to experience the safety, security, vitality, and JOY that comes from practicing these exercises. As you spend more time grounding yourself in your base chakra and that of the Earth, you’ll begin to develop a deeper feeling of security on this beautiful planet that’s been troubled for a long time, but is rife with potential.

2020 June Eclipse

3 Practices to Embrace Hidden Aspects Through June’s Full moon + Lunar Eclipse

This month’s full moon is INTENSE — but there’s hope…

Are you feeling it? Tensions are mounting, personally and collectively — and here in the US we’re seeing this energy play out with strong reactions to deep-seated issues with racial injustice and police brutality, to name just a few of the conflicts that have been erupting.

Full moons in and of themselves are all about illumination — both literally as the moon brightens the night sky — and figuratively as it lights up different aspects of our personal and collective lives…

And this month on June 5 or 6 (depending on where you live), our full moon is also a lunar eclipse. I’ll tell you about the significance of the lunar eclipse shortly, but first I’ll tell you that this week’s full moon is also in a T-square with Mars and Neptune.

In a nutshell, the T in T-square stands for Tension. Some of the manifestations of Mars include energy, action, and drive — and the tenser manifestations include violence and upheaval. Some of the manifestations of Neptune include oneness and deep sensitivity — and the tenser manifestations include deception and emotional turbulence.

In Vedic astrology, eclipses herald change. Combine that with Mars’s energy for making something happen, and Neptune’s energy for oneness, and we have a recipe for people gathering to create necessary change that’s long overdue.

This applies especially in America right now, but you’ll likely be able to see it wherever you live on one scale or another — perhaps with families and educators coming together to change the way we teach our children, or maybe in your personal life with a job or a relationship.

After all, we know that tension and conflict drive action, right?

As I shared in a post about transforming your perspective during the pandemic, there are different levels of perception — and with the God brain, we can see this as the potential to make the necessary changes that need to happen for us to grow, to change, to step ­up in consciousness, and to progress to higher levels of being.

Which is something we ALL need, right? You’re very likely seeking to step up personally, and I bet your intention — like mine — is to help humanity rise up from its current state.

As individuals, and society as a whole, if we make racial bias a moral issue, then no one will want to embrace their bias, because most people don’t want to be a “racist.” However, the truth is, we all exist in a society with inherent bias built into the system, therefore, we all carry bias — consciously or unconsciously.

The path forward is in embracing our bias… which means digging into our inner work and exploring our shadow aspects.

Fortunately, there’s tremendous opportunity for positivity that we can reap from this moon, which has the potential for great transformation — a potential driven by tension and drive, determination, and resolve.

Harnessing the Power of the Strawberry Full Moon Lunar Eclipse for Healing and Transformation — and Embracing Your Shadow

The strawberry full moon lunar eclipse? You read that mouthful right — the June full moon is traditionally called the strawberry moon or the rose moon — because strawberries are abundant and roses bloom in June. (There’s a little opportunity for some vibe-lifting, chakra-clearing gratitude!)

Because emotions are heightened during a full moon, it’s a perfect opportunity to acknowledge and release them.

Try these full moon cleansing strategies to access the full spectrum of healing energy from this cycle’s moon.

Journal to release racial bias and inherited imprints & beliefs
Want to see big benefits during the full moon? Journal to express your inner feelings and observations, write out your intentions for change, make decisions about what to do next, and channel tension into positive action.

Try these journal prompts to help you get started:

  • What does Black Lives Matter mean to me?
  • Do I hold any pain my ancestors experienced through racism? Do I hold any responsibility? (If you feel you do, call on your guides and the Violet Flame to help you release old wounds.)
  • What did I learn about race from my mom, dad, or family in general?
  • What is hidden or eclipsed in me? Are there experiences or beliefs I can release?
  • What are my deepest desires when it comes to racism and humanity?
  • What actionable steps can I take to help heal racism?

Meditate, meditate, meditate
In Vedic astrology, eclipses are caused when the North and South Nodes of the moon, Rahu and Ketu, swallow the sun and the moon. The moon at these times is not actually auspicious to watch with the naked eye, but going inward and meditating is extra beneficial.

I recommend meditating for 20 minutes twice a day with a mantra I give you. If I haven’t taught you yet, here’s a link to learn. Use this contemplative time to receive messages from your inner guidance, spend extra time grounding and connecting to the creative and generative power of the Earth, and open to the wisdom being revealed to you.

Your meditation and prayer time is also vital to helping every other sentient being on the planet. Dedicate your practice time to amplify vibrations of higher consciousness raising the unified field around all of us. Our world needs healing more than ever right now, and by consciously sending healing intentions into the universal field, you’ll help create the healing our planet needs so desperately.

Protest peacefully
If there are protests taking place in your community and you feel called to join, do so, guided by your heart. If you’d prefer to stay at home and drop in to the reflective time that lunar eclipses call for, watch this TedTalk with Damon Davis. Courage is contagious, he says, which could not be more true.

In everything you do this week and always, know that you can navigate turbulence with grace, and your thoughts, prayers, and intentions will help make this a turning point for upleveling consciousness — yours and the people in your life and the planet’s. You are never alone; call upon Spirit and your guides to help you harness this moon’s power for personal and collective upliftment.