Deborah King, Author at Deborah King

That Old Mercury Retrograde

December 7, 2022

by Deborah King Astrological Events Energy Medicine Featured Planetary

We all know what Mercury retrograde is, right? It happens when the planet, Mercury, appears to be moving backward, relative to earth, but, in fact, is just slowing down, in a sort of “moonwalk.”

Communication snafus at this time of year are common and travel can be a nightmare. Your flight lands in New York City while your bag goes on to Chile.

There are usually three retrogrades every year, but in 2022, there are four. And this last one carries us into the new year – it starts on December 29 and ends on January 18.

In Vedic astrology, Mercury retrograde isn’t necessarily a bad thing. According to Vedic teachings, life is intended for spiritual growth and this growth is facilitated by karma, the idea that every thought, every action, has a corresponding reaction. Given this, Mercury retrograde is just another opportunity for spiritual growth. So it shouldn’t elicit an “Oh no, not again.”

As I mentioned earlier, communication and travel can be challenging. But there’s also an upside. Any place you travel to during a retrograde is a place to which you’ll return. So, if you’re planning to travel during the 3 weeks from Dec 29 to Jan 18, as I am, be sure your destination is a place you want to visit again.

Say What You Mean

As far as communication is concerned, say what you mean when you say it, especially during Mercury retrograde. One of my students really disliked her job but was afraid to quit. Then during a recent Mercury retrograde, she was told she had to take on the responsibilities of a colleague who was gone on vacation. It meant she would be working 10 hours a day six days a week and just thinking about it exhausted her. Without thinking she said no to her boss, telling her, “I’m underpaid as it is.”

She said her boss looked stunned and stared at her in disbelief as she picked up her purse. But before she reached the door, the boss offered her a promotion at over one and one-half of her current compensation. She had reacted viscerally, without censoring herself, and it had paid off. That’s classic Mercury retrograde: she said what she meant to say, it was the truth, and, in her case, it paid off.

Mercury also rules cars, computers, and anything with moving parts. So, the advice on that front is don’t purchase anything with moving parts during a retrograde. But suppose your computer crashes a week into the retro and can’t be fixed?

The computer is vital to your employment and you can’t wait.

Another one of my students faced this dilemma. She Googled around until she found a place that rented computers by the month. The price was reasonable. She rented her dream computer and at the end of the retrograde, she loved it so much she bought it. That part of the fiasco worked out to her benefit.

Mercury rules the conscious mind and any profession dealing with writing, teaching, speaking, books, or publication. Mercury is the messenger, the left brain is its vehicle, and it usually speaks to us in terms of logic and reasoning. In Vedic astrology, when Mercury is retrograde, our intuition deepens and the coincidences – the synchronicities – can be awesome.

As described in the Vedas, all of us, everything really, is under the control of time. Inexorably, we are pulled from one stage, or level, to the next, each step determined by our own karma. But, remember, our karma is totally under our own control, as we have free will.

In his book, The Astrology of the Seers, David Frawley says:

“What we call the planets are no more than points of light in a vast energy network, connected intricately by subtle lines of force, linking the entire solar system into a single organism. Though the planets appear like small points of light in the distance, their energy fields are present on Earth, and they are responsible for many of the formations of the Earth life and of our own bodies and minds.”

The Hidden Nuggets

So, with any Mercury retrograde snafu, don’t panic. Nearly always, there’s a hidden nugget or treasure. One of my new students owned a two-year-old American bulldog, Abby, who had developed a bad limp. My student told me he took Abby to the vet who determined that she had a torn ligament. He got a date for the surgery – the day before Mercury turned retrograde, when it was in the “shadow” period. The vet’s assistant left a sponge inside during the procedure, and the surgery had to be redone! Wisely, my student waited until after the period of retrograde, and the second surgery went without a hitch, plus the vet reversed the charges so it was a win/win after-all! Mars rules surgery, something to think about before you schedule one.

Vedic Astrology Show Coming Up

Mercury retrograde is a part of Vedic Astrology which is a big topic, and one I will cover in an upcoming Facebook/Youtube show right after the New Year, on January 10, 2023. All we need to know today, in order to understand Mercury retrograde in that system of thought, is that the stars and planets have a powerful influence on our lives. The ancient Vedic texts tell us that our karma is directly related to the stars and planets and that, in fact, this branch of their science is the very focal point of the Vedas. And I use the word “science” intentionally, as the study of astrology in the Vedas, or what is called “Joytish,” is both incredibly profound and highly scientific. Our scientists are just beginning to discover what the ancient seers knew over 5,000 years ago. We can only hope that our James Webb Space Telescope can begin to catch up to the Vedas one day soon!

The stars themselves have no conscious benevolence or animosity toward us – they are only sending out positive and negative energy that affects us in much the same way that the natural world we live on does. When I was a mountain climber, I knew that the mountains themselves had no attitude pro or con toward me; they just “were,” and if I incorrectly “read” them and journeyed into them in bad weather or on loose rock, to my peril, that was my mistake, not theirs. It’s the same with the stars and planets; they are inherently neutral to us; it’s up to us to use common sense about the effect of their movements on us each individually, and act accordingly.

Famous People Born during Mercury Retrograde

They include such luminaries as Prince, Buckminster Fuller, Steve Jobs, Madonna, and Lady Gaga! Not a bad lineup, right? If these people were able to shine as they have, then the rest of us shouldn’t feel daunted or intimidated by just 3 weeks of a retrograde.

The Three Rs

One of the standard pieces of advice you’ll hear about Mercury retrogrades is that you should stick to the three Rs: revise, review, reconsider.

In other words, don’t start anything new, don’t make submissions, and don’t sign contracts for anything – a sale, a purchase, a deal. What these bits of advice are really saying is give your dream home, creative projects and manuscript or screenplay, the best chance ever by waiting until after retrograde. Sign the contracts and deliver your project or manuscript when the energy whips through the universe without obstacles or challenges. But even when you don’t wait and sign during a Mercury retrograde, there can be unexpected nuggets. A writer student of mine got evicted during retrograde (not good), but while camping at her folks for a month, she serendipitously met a publisher guy through her parents, and, voila, got a good job copywriting for him right after the retrograde. That was the nugget she wouldn’t have received had she not had to move.

According to the Vedas, our futures are determined by both destiny and free will. Destiny, in fact, creates our free will. Her destiny to live at her folks’ house, briefly, created the situation where she had the free will to end up working in the publishing business.

Those Cycles

Mercury retrograde is just another astrological cycle – like a lunar phase, like the return of a planet to where it was when you were born.

It has its own protocols, its own guidelines. But because it rules the all-important communication, its effects spill over into many areas of our lives. Yes, there can be negative consequences, but the long-term impact is often quite positive, as you’ve seen in the earlier examples.

These retros last about three weeks. You can keep track of them on any number of websites and it’s definitely to your advantage to do so. They enable you to plan things in advance: trips, engagements, weddings, moving, the sale and purchase of a home or car or computer, and when to publish your book.

Yes, friends and family may remark that your reliance on astrology is a waste of time. Until they have a personal melt-down during Mercury retrograde.

During retrogrades, people you haven’t seen in years may suddenly reappear in your life – your ex, a childhood friend, a former partner, people you haven’t been able to find anywhere online. It can be a great time to mend fences.

Vedic philosophers and astrologers understood the power of Mercury retrograde long before Western science. In the words of Bertram Malle, a renowned social cognitive scientist at Brown University, the serious study of astrology “provides a powerful vocabulary” to understand “life’s challenges and opportunities.” I now want to turn to the Vedic perspective, as it has so much to offer those of us on our learning and spiritual journeys.

Yoga Asanas

The Sanskrit term for retrograde planets is Vakri, which translates in English as ambiguous, evasive, and indirect. It is not wise to meet a retrograde planet “head on” and try to power through the vibrations it releases. Far better to bend and be flexible in responding to this agitated energy. This wisdom is mirrored in the Vakra Asana beginner’s pose in yoga, which gently twists the spine to strengthen it and make it more flexible.

Vedas believe that we are driven by two forces – fate and individual will. If we are too passive during Mercury retrograde, all sorts of arguments, problems, and misery can occur. But if we insist on having our own way during this phase, and our energy is too forceful and arrogant, we are likely to bang our head against a wall, accomplish little, and might even find ourselves going backwards from our goals.

Better to keep in mind the wisdom of yoga and make a conscious effort to approach Mercury retrograde openly and flexibly. No one expects someone in Vakra Asana pose to twist so hard that they break their back. It is a gentle pose designed to open energy pathways and release negative tension. This same wisdom can apply to gracefully bending into a Mercury retrograde cycle. Go with the energy and surf it. Best not to try to master it or defeat it.

Individual Karma

Vedic astrology emphasizes the analysis of individual karma. It seeks insight into all the forces—past, present, and future—that influence one’s life path, and which collide or merge with the paths of others. The concept of karma—often misunderstood in the West—means that every thought and every action create a reaction that reverberates through time and space.

The Vedic tradition also holds that the point of life is spiritual growth. We may enjoy our pleasures, relationships, and dreams here on Earth, but a well-lived life is devoted to reaching spiritual Enlightenment. The Vedas believe that the position of the planets and stars exert a direct influence on our karma and, hence, our journey to Enlightenment.

Mercury, known as Budh, is one of 9 planets in Vedic astrology. The Sanskrit root verb for Budh is buddhi, meaning logic, intellect, and reason. Mercury retrograde throws our rational mind into disarray, distorting communication and increasing the likelihood of bias and misperception.

Cleansing Crystals

Yet Mercury retrograde also offers opportunities to cleanse negative energy and clear the ground for new initiatives and adventures. Several crystals—particularly when used in conjunction with meditation and breathwork—can help you to unlock the positive energies of Mercury retrograde. Labradorite is renowned for its calming and grounding effects, for example. Hematite is another grounding crystal that helps to pull negative energy from the body. Black tourmaline, a root chakra stone, helps to release anxiety and fear. Lapis Lazuli can be used to reconnect with your intuition and inner wisdom.

There is an ancient mantra that, with practice, can help to focus the mind and connect with the power of Mercury: Om Shree Budhaya Namaha. Om represents the Divine and the earliest emergence of sound. The next three words can be roughly translated as “Salutations, auspicious guru, I bow to you.”

The Vedas developed a system whose insights and tools for personal and spiritual enlightenment endure. With effort, humility, and self-reflection, this ancient wisdom can help you to use the power of Mercury retrograde for good. The stars and the planets influence our fate, but we have the power and responsibility to study these forces and make choices in our lives.

Reminders

Mercury retrogrades are our reminder to be present and to embrace epiphany. Don’t fear the retrograde. All Mercury’s “moonwalk” backwards is doing is, showing us our lives from a different perspective. That offers us clarity and a deeper level of consciousness, a better understanding of ourselves and our world.

Like everything else, Mercury is a part of an interconnected net of energy. That is why we are so affected by it. And there is great knowledge and wisdom that lies in the cosmos, but it’s only obtainable by those who have the skill to access it. If you’re interested in traveling beyond space and time, to gain access to this wisdom, and design the life of your dreams, consider joining our bestselling Astral Wisdom course by clicking here >>

One Healing Technique with 3 Powerful Results

November 29, 2022

by Deborah King Chakras Energy Healing Featured

You probably know how important it is to keep your energy field clear, balanced, and fully charged, and if you’re like me, you want to learn every effective energy healing technique you can. Hands-on healing is a wonderful modality to use at any level of your studies, but a particularly great place to start healing other people if you’re new to energy medicine. It’s so powerful, it accomplishes three vital healing components in one step.

Energy Medicine to the Rescue

Your chakras are the gatekeepers of energy between you and the universal field, moving old energy out and new fresh energy in. This replenishes your field and, in turn, your body, keeping you healthy. But when trauma occurs and is not processed or when emotions are repressed, they can become stuck in your body and cause blockages in your energy field and chakras as well. A blocked chakra is like a crimp in a hose—your energy will be prevented from flowing properly and that will eventually manifest as pain or illness in your body.

This is where energy healing comes in. A qualified energy healer can remove blockages, increase your energy flow, and recalibrate your field. Attending healing courses and workshops and working with an energy healer is a great way to jumpstart your healing, as well as prepare for a healing practice of your own. As you continue to learn more about energy medicine and practice its techniques, you will be able to perform energy healing on others, beginning with chelation.

Clear, Charge, and Balance

One of the best qualities of energy healing is that it is flexible. There are many ways an energy healer can manipulate energy in order to heal themselves and others, and chelation is one of the most fundamental techniques.

Chelation is a form of hands-on healing, meaning that in this modality the healer touches the client with their hands in order to bring new, vibrant energy into the client’s body while clearing old energy away. This technique is often a good way to start a healing session as it accomplishes three essential aspects of energy healing: clearing, charging, and balancing the personal energy field.

From the Earth to Your Body—Energy Travels Up

Chelation has a very specific sequence of steps that emulate the way in which energy is naturally brought into your field. You start at the client’s feet because that’s where energy first enters the field, up from the earth and through the soles of your feet, and then fanning out through the rest of your field and your body.

Bringing in the universal energy this way allows the body to sense the energy as it rises and send it to where it most needs to go—to any distortions or pain or disease. Energy from the unified field is conscious, it has will, and it knows more than we do about where it is needed.

You are a conduit for the healing, so let the energy flow through you, and then let it do its thing. Through you, the energy will clear out any stagnant energy in the subject, recharge their chakras, and rebalance the field. It’s a lot of bang for their healing buck, so to speak, and a technique I highly recommend you learn.

Before You Begin a Chelation

Before you begin a chelation healing, be sure to attune yourself to the light and check in with your higher self, intuition, and your guides, just as you would for any energy healing session. Then, take a deep breath and use your intuition to sense which of the seven chakras is in the most need of clearing, charging, or rebalancing, and quickly write that feeling down.

Next, spend a few minutes asking your subject questions and gaining a little history from them. Jot down their comments and compare those notes to the observations you made with your intuition. If your intuition is not yet one hundred percent accurate, don’t worry! It takes time and practice to cultivate your intuition. Keep at it, and I promise it will improve. Meditation is one way to increase your intuitive powers, and a daily meditation practice provides dozens of other benefits as well.

Find the Right Height

Chelation takes place while the healing subject is lying on a table or another surface that is a good height for you to be able to stand comfortably next to the client without leaning over them. A kitchen counter with some blankets or pillows as padding can be a perfect option since they are usually just the right height for you to stand with your back straight.

How to Avoid “Push”

If you lean too far over the client’s body, you will be in “push” mode, which is something you want to avoid. In the push position, your own energy field and your own intention, rather than the intention of the healing energy, can interfere with your client’s healing.

Even as long as I’ve been an energy healer and spiritual teacher, I always make sure to ask myself before every session if I’m push, and if I’m present. It just takes a second to affirm that you are in the right space, that you are grounded and working from a foundation of light, and that your ego is subdued. Make this check-in a habit before energy healing sessions and you will have better results and strengthen your skills faster.

An All-Purpose Tool for Your Healing Tool Belt

Chelation is one of the best tools to have in your energy medicine tool belt because it is able to charge, clear, and balance with one healing modality. It is absolutely worth learning, and in my LifeForce Energy Healing Online Certification Course, I spend a whole week teaching you chelation step-by-step through readings and a video demonstration. This course also teaches you how to heal yourself and others, and certifies you in the field of energy medicine.

Meet Mystic Paramahansa Yogananda

November 8, 2022

by Deborah King Celebrities Energy Medicine Featured

Unleashing Your Inner Intuitive Power

I want to talk to you today about Paramahansa Yogananda, the mystic known as “The Father of Yoga,” who was born in the late 1800’s in India and died in the 1950’s in Los Angeles. Today, everyone knows Yogananda as the man who wrote Autobiography of a Yogi, the book that Steve Jobs read every year of his adult life. But more on that key fact in a moment!

Yogananda is one of those rare people who totally embraced his intuition. Because I know from personal experience just how hard it is to honor your intuitive hits, I’m sharing his story today to encourage us all to listen to our own intuition. His story is a blueprint we can follow.

Yogananda’s mother died when he was only 11 years old. Even then, his awareness of the spiritual was light years beyond the ordinary. His mother was instructed by a holy man to give a sacred amulet she had to her son, telling him to keep it close, until it disappeared. A few years later, Yogananda began his search for an enlightened teacher, and he met with many sages and saints on the way.

Finally, when he was 17, he met Swami Sri Yukteswar. That’s when the precious amulet his mother had left him simply vanished, having served its purpose, by identifying Yukteswar as his guru. Yogananda described his first meeting with Yukreswar as being the “sacred rekindling of a relationship that had existed across many lifetimes.”

He trained under Yukteswar for the next ten years; Yukteswar told Yogananda that he had been sent to him for the express purpose of spreading the concept of yoga globally, especially in the West. One day, while in meditation, Yogananda saw American faces pass before him, and he realized that was a sign that he was to go west and spread the word about meditation and yoga.

In 1925 he established his first center in Los Angeles. The first major Indian teacher to settle in the US, The LA Times called him “the 20th century’s first superstar guru.”

Hollywood was ready for him: he attracted celebrities like bees to honey. His ability to talk about the human spirit and God, without being dogmatic, was like a breath of fresh air – he was a spiritual prodigy, a spiritual genius. He loved to tell his audience that “God is in your spine!” The timing of his message couldn’t have been more perfect: with the world poised on the edge of an atomic revolution, he spoke of his beliefs of meditation and yoga being a “science,” and said that if you had sufficient meditation power, you could do anything.

At a time when the West was just beginning to wake up to the spirituality of the East, George Harrison of the Beatles was becoming more and more disillusioned with money and fame and began seeking a deeper meaning in his life. His search with Ravi Shankar, the virtuoso sitar player, led him eventually to Yogananda. As a member of the Beatles, the most popular pop music band in history, George helped to propel an entire generation of the western world into an awareness of Eastern spirituality. As Deepak Chopra put it, it happened “overnight.” George repeated the “Christ-consciousness” language that he picked from Yogananda, who urged his followers to find in themselves that same consciousness that Jesus exhibited, with compassion, equanimity, and love for all humanity. Yogananda’s embrace of Christ and His teachings made him even more popular in the West. George’s Here Comes the Sun album, and the single, My Sweet Lord, inspired by a two-hundred year old gospel classic, switches mid-way from “Hallelujah” to “Hare Krishna,” in the lyrics, demonstrating that they are one and the same; the lyrics acknowledge that Krishna and Jesus are the same energy. People loved the songs as they validated their own personal search for the God force. When George Harrison was invited to the White House to meet President Gerald Ford, he took him a copy of Yogananda’s book, telling the President it was his favorite gift to give.

And what’s really interesting is that the Beatles 8th album, and my personal fav, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, has bits of pieces of India in it, as well as Yogananda and his guru and his guru, on the cover! Seriously!

But Yogananda created a perfect storm for America’s worst issues, issues that, unfortunately, we still have today: media hype, religious intolerance, ethnic stereotyping, and blatant racism. It wasn’t long before he was put on a government watch list and kept under surveillance by the FBI as well as by the British authorities, who were concerned about the growing independence movement in India. Focusing on the fact that he was a person of color and attracting a lot of married women, whose husbands resented him, a confidential file was kept on him. Ahead of his time, Yogananda didn’t quite get it when he wasn’t allowed to speak in Miami, being the wrong color, and he flaunted convention when he performed a marriage between one of his male Indian students who followed him West and a white woman; that did not go over well at all.

After some years, he traveled to Europe where he visited Assisi, the home of St. Francis, the Athenian temples, Socrates’ prison cell, Palestine, and the regions of Jesus’s ministry, and of course Cairo, to see its ancient pyramids up close and personal. He also met with living western saints like Therese Neumann, the woman who manifested the stigmata, the wounds of Christ.

He traveled back to India, when his guru, Yukteswar, died, in the desired yogic tradition, sitting up; he simply allowed his consciousness to exit his body. While there, He met with Mahatma Gandhi and the female saint, Anandamoyi Ma.

Later, he had a supernatural visit from Yukteswar, who appeared to him in the flesh, while he was meditating, telling him that he was now guiding him from the astral plane. Wow, that must have been something!

Once Yogananda came back home from his travels, he was shocked to find that his best friend from childhood, Dhirananda, a man he had trusted like a brother, had betrayed him. Some years before, he had invited Dhirananda to the US to help him run his Center in Los Angeles. He made him a Swami and treated him like his “right-hand man.” He left Dhirananda in charge of the Center while he traveled extensively. When he returned home, however, after one long trip, he found that Dhirananda had opened a competing spiritual center close by and had attracted many of Yogananda’s students away from him. However, Dhirananda just didn’t have the personal magnetism that Yogananda had. Ultimately, Dhiranada abandoned the competing project, threw off his monk robes and Swami title that Yognanda had given him, married a Caucasian woman and moved to Michigan, no less, where he became a well-respected university professor. The ultimate blow was 6 years later, when he sued Yogananda. And then there was a second lawsuit, also from yet another of Yogananda’s disciples, again for money. Back at the Center, Yogananda never really recovered from what he perceived as these ultimate betrayals, calling these two disciples his “two Judases.” It’s important for us to acknowledge this side of Yogananda, the human side.

In 1946, Yogananda stopped traveling and wrote a memoir:

Autobiography of a Yogi. It launched a spiritual revolution, selling more than four million copies, has been translated into 45 languages, and is considered among one of the 100 best spiritual books of the 20th Century.

The Autobiography has been an inspiration for many, most famously, Steve Jobs. Jobs first read the Autobiography as a teenager. Later, he went to India and re-read it there, and, after downloading it on his iPad, he faithfully re-read it once a year.

When Steve was planning for his own death, he asked that the Autobiography be given as a parting gift to everyone who attended his memorial service. Imagine being handed that little package covered in brown wrapping paper as you left the memorial and headed to your car, to open it and find out it had Yogananda’s book inside – what a message to you that would have been to rely more on your intuition than anything else. Clearly, that was the message from Steve to his guests at his memorial – that we should actualize ourselves from our own intuition, since that’s what the book is about – the message would have been to look inside ourselves and realize what we find within. That’s what it means to become self-realized or self-actualized. Steve was big on intuition, and that’s one of the most important things I can teach you – use your intuition above all else; it never lies to you.

Yogananda, using his Yogic gifts, was about to foretell his own death, telling his followers when it was time for him to leave the world. That evening, he told his dinner companion that “it will just be a matter of hours and I will be gone from this earth.” He spoke at the dinner and then simply fell to the floor, and left his body, thus achieving mahasamadhi, or the conscious exit from the body. We should all have that kind of leave-taking be our goal!

Yogananda’s lessons for us as seekers include many key teachings: first, that we can have direct personal experiences of the divine, especially through daily meditation; secondly, that even though we have personal flaws, the purpose of our human life is the evolution, by way of our individual efforts, of our limited mortal consciousness into God consciousness; thirdly, that we are evidence of the complete harmony and oneness of Jesus’s original teachings as well as original yogic teachings, and that these original truths are the common scientific foundation for all truth.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Yogananda:

“The Western day is indeed nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of nature. This new age will see our minds… broadened by the now scientifically indisputable truth that matter is, in reality, a concentration of energy.”

If you’d like to learn more about the “Father of Yoga in the West,” and how he made ancient Vedic teachings more accessible to a modern audience, check out the video, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, produced by Gaia. You can sign up for membership and access this documentary (along with tons of other valuable content) right here >>

What lies in the shadows: The true meaning of Halloween

October 24, 2022

by Deborah King Energy Medicine Featured

It’s Halloween 2022, where we mock danger and death in an attempt to master our fear of both. Many make popcorn, grab a chair, and join friends or family to engage in the ritual of looking for the scariest possible thing on TV.

During Halloween, the squeamish need not apply.

But beneath the bravado and misleading attempts at mirth, other emotions and acknowledgments stir: the very real sense — and the rock- solid belief, in many cases — that disembodied spirits do move restlessly among us, looking for ways to connect. But to what end? That’s what gives a lot of people pause.

Who are these disembodied spirits? Do they wish us well … or not so much?

Today, I’m going to address that question. And the answer won’t necessarily pacify. Because there are indeed some spirits who are not nice. In Germany, they’re called poltergeists, “pelting ghosts.” But the good news is that most spirits are more likely invested in the wellbeing of the loved ones they left behind.

It all depends on the lives those departed spirits led and how well they learned the lessons set before them while they were on our side of the veil, and how prudently they navigated the adventures, activities, and relationships of those lives while living them.

Some of them are sad, some are angry, and a few are even malevolent. But again, malevolent spirits are in the minority, but that fact doesn’t make them any less problematic.

We live in a world of duality. Both good and evil, light and darkness coexist. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the same conditions exist on the other side. Not everyone makes it out of here “healed and happy.” Sadly, some leave in worse shape than they arrived because of influences that sabotaged their psyches and twisted their perceptions to create self-defending, ego-directed fortresses against further scarring. Trapped inside the resulting inner darkness, some souls succumb before they can rescue themselves from the torment and terror of their troubling incarnations.

What is inner darkness? Basically, it’s our resistance to knowing the truth about ourselves. It is only when we can admit that nobody is perfect that we can begin to tear down the walls we erected because of ham-handed influencers in our lives who made us feel we didn’t measure up. Those who view themselves as failures or no-good develop blockages that stifle the free flow of cosmic light and energy, the lack of which creates the darkness that encompasses them.

Souls on both sides of the veil can be impacted by erroneous concepts of themselves. So, today, I want to help you overcome any unhelpful beliefs and attitudes that you may have about yourself, because I don’t want anyone in my tribe transitioning to the other side and remaining trapped in regret, misery, anger, or shame. All lower emotions.

The first step is to recognize what’s going on inside you. What mind tapes are repeating in your mind? Whose voices do you hear when you castigate yourself for a perceived misstep or failing? A negative, caustic parent? A sibling or teacher? Or is the voice, gasp, your own?

As women in this culture, we have been indoctrinated to support and serve everyone else in our spheres of influence without feeling indentured or complaining. We are trained to have false expectations about the ways in which we should show up and serve.

But men don’t have it a whole lot easier. They’re indoctrinated to walk off pain, tolerate emotion (rather than express or share it), and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

When we agree to embrace and abide by these burdensome conditions, jealousy, envy, unhealthy competitiveness, pettiness, insecurities, judgments, hatred, and false pride can show up. And when they do, we castigate ourselves for having them. It can become a never-ending circle of dysfunction and quiet despair.

When you desperately desire an outcome, dark forces can beguile you with a tempting offer. Just how far will you bend your ethics to get that inheritance, that big promotion, that top prize? Whenever you resort to lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating, or trampling over someone else, the dark forces celebrate, while your essence grows dark. And the most damage occurs when you lie to yourself and employ ego and pride to cover your tracks.

Every time you ignore, hide, or deny your negative feelings, the darkness gains the upper hand. So, the best way to deal with your unhelpful feelings is to acknowledge them so you can process and let them go with loving-kindness.

To maintain your personal positive power, remember the Biblical command from Phillipians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

And a warning about the evil and violence that comes by way of entertainment venues. If you are vulnerable, it can slip into cracks in your energy field because of unprocessed traumas you’ve endured and pull you down.

Darkness can also take advantage of you when you don’t take good care of yourself. Abusing alcohol or prescription drugs, doing recreational drugs, eating junk food regularly, or not getting sufficient sleep and exercise can be all that dark energies need, to get hold of you.

There are three categories of dark energies that are most prevalent. I’ll identify them and give you some tools for dealing with them.

The first category is psychic attack. This happens when people aim their shadow or dark side at you. You’ve heard of “the evil eye,” “the stink eye,” and other expressions of malevolent mental maligning. Whether you can recognize them outright or not, you have “frenemies,” people who may say and do all the right things when you’re with them and then stab you in the back by maligning you or sabotaging you after they depart. Parents who are jealous of their children instead of being proud of them for exceeding their growth and reach, and stalkers and abusers are among those most likely to engage in psychic attack.

You know the signs of being under attack here. You feel off-balance. You feel like you’re walking on eggshells around them, measuring each of your words as if any of them might cause an explosion or backlash of some kind. And you pretty much can’t stop thinking about that person, which is exactly what they want. You are corded to each other in a dysfunctional relationship because of the prevailing negative energy that they are sending out.

Cords are streamers of light that connect us to each other, chakra to corresponding chakra in our bodies. And cords are connected on the 4th level of the universal energy field, so even when someone dies, our cords to them can continue on.

Some cords, of course, are good, but a negative cord can be established by any kind of abuse. In my case, I had a negative cord to my father, who sexually abused me, but a positive cord to him because otherwise he was by leaps and bounds my best parent; he did indeed love me, and I him. When I was able to “cut the negative cord” by forgiving him for the sexual abuse, the positive cord allowed me both to forgive him and to do my best to understand the kind of compulsion that drove him to interact with me in inappropriate ways.

Cutting negative cords can be relatively easy in most cases. One of the methods I use and teach is called The Sweeping Breath, and I teach it in this Program: LifeForce Energy Healing® I

The next category is energy vampires. These dysfunctional folks use a form of psychic attack that drains you of your energy. They make mountains out of molehills, and they are drama queens and kings. Everything minor mishap becomes an overwrought major catastrophe in their retelling of the tale. They complain about everything, especially their illnesses. Usually, they blame everyone else for their problems.

Sometimes, we can be too nice to energy vampires. We can give them as much as they want in the way of attention or help, which only makes us co-dependent and increasingly weary and dispirited.

It’s up to you to stop it. And it’s easy to do! Spend as little time as possible with them. Call off their telephoned monologues with “Gotta go, my dog is asking to go out” or something else — anything else — that requires your immediate attention and positive energy.

Remain as calm and detached from their negative energy as possible. Don’t try to fix their problems; leave them empty and unfulfilled. If you can, just walk away. And do your best not to be in enclosed spaces with them, like cars, small rooms, or elevators. Avoid eye contact. Assert your boundaries.

When the energy vampire in question is someone you simply can’t avoid, figure out what type of energy vampire they are. There are five types:

The betrayed energy vampire (also known as the psychopathic mind/body type). The fear-based energy vampire (also known as the schizoid mind/body type). The insecure energy vampire (which is the oral mind/body type). The passive-aggressive energy vampire (also known as the masochistic mind/body type). And, finally, the robot energy vampire (the rigid mind/body type). For more on body-types, check out my Inner Secrets of You course.

And then there is the slimer. The slimer energy villain will hit you with one of the most common types of low -level psychic attack. They will cut you off in traffic, treat the souls in customer service poorly, you know the type. If your energy field is vulnerable, even the briefest online or phone encounter with a slimer can do it.

You end up feeling lousy and don’t realize why. You may start coming down with a cold, or old issues may surface, or you’ll have a sudden urge to eat a huge serving of junk food. If the hole in your energy field is near your heart chakra, you may revisit grief as old feelings of betrayal surface. If the hole is in a lower chakra, you may turn to an old, addictive pattern of behavior. Usually sliming isn’t conscious on the part of the attacker, but that doesn’t make it less powerful and harmful.

Here’s what to do when you feel slimed: take a clearing bath. Add one pound of baking soda and one pound of sea salt to comfortably warm bathwater and soak in it for up to 20 minutes. After draining the tub, rinse yourself in the shower and wash your hair. Notice how fresh and clean you feel afterward! Then follow that up with a good night’s sleep to fully recharge your energy field. The resulting smile will remind you that you’ve handled the situation wonderfully well.

Other ways to dislodge psychic slime are to go for an ocean swim (the saltwater will work wonders) or sunbathe nearly nude for twenty minutes.

Let’s wrap this up with a few reminders. Remember, your toxic emotions make you vulnerable to dark energies. The more you live in the light, the less you’ll hear from dark energies; they really can’t bear the light! So protect your personal energy and power at all times. Keep your energy and emotions clear. Ask your spiritual guides and divine mentors for guidance. And finally, clear your home of unwanted energy by smudging with sage, sweet grass, cedar, or juniper. When you smudge, open every closet and cabinet door and make sure to smudge around every opening and the mirrors in your home.

Another easier and faster way to clear your space is to sit there and take slow breaths to center yourself. Then picture in your mind a white tablecloth or sheet that covers the entire floor beneath your feet. Using your energy and with focused concentration, start to raise the white sheet off the floor. It will go up right through you because it’s energy. Raise all the dark energy above the sheet up, up, and away! Let the white sheet take away anything that is depressing, negative, sad or anxious within your space and within you.

Would you like to experience the energy and power of this time of year by reliving a powerful retreat? You can, by gaining access to our Highlights of Hallowed Retreat video series. You will get the full retreat highlights live from the spiritual vortex of Ojai, California. Click here now to learn more >>

Healing vs. Curing

October 18, 2022

by Deborah King Be Your Own Shaman Featured

One of the most important questions you will deal with in your quest to walk the path of the shaman has to do with who gets healed versus who gets cured. And it’s not an easy one, as it can derail your faith in yourself.

While wandering through the woods in the winter of 1858, a shepherd girl named Marie-Bernarde Soubirous saw a beautiful lady in a flowing white robe near a small grotto along the banks of the river Gave de Pau in France. The daughter of devout Christian peasants, the 14-year-old known as Bernadette eventually saw the lady a total of 18 times. The woman told the young girl to advise her village priest to construct a chapel on the site of the encounter. On March 25, 1858, on the occasion of the 16th visitation, the lady revealed herself to be none other than the Blessed Virgin. In an ecstatic trance, Bernadette rose from her knees, walked a few steps, and fell back to the earth, where she began to scrape the ground until a small rivulet of water formed a puddle in the dirt. In the days that followed, the puddle formed a sacred spring and pool that is now the famous healing shrine at Lourdes.

Although Mary told Bernadette that the waters would heal people, the spring did not cure this sickly girl, who suffered from debilitating asthma until her death at an early age. And yet, for 30 years after she passed, Bernadette’s corpse did not decay. To this day, Lourdes is the most visited shrine in all of Christendom, with some six million people making the pilgrimage each year. Within the first 50 years, roughly 4,000 miracle healings were recorded.

Of the 10,000 people who visit the spring at Lourdes each day, why do some dance away from the sacred waters while others depart still dependent on crutches? Why is one woman relieved of alcoholism, never to drink again, while another person who also attends her 12-step group religiously and stays sober for many years suddenly falls off the wagon, stays drunk, and ultimately dies of liver failure? Why do some people get the message, grace, miraculous reprieve, or spontaneous remission . . . and others do not?

As shamans and healers, we make a distinction between a cure —physical recovery and elimination of a disease condition—and a healing, which can occur on spiritual and emotional levels and may not involve a correlating physical resolution. Ideally, both will take place.

The Mystery School I attended taught that the higher self or soul of an individual ultimately makes the choice as to whether or not someone will physically heal. To an extent, I believe this is true. However, I saw that students often took the low road when a physical cure didn’t manifest. Many of them would step back and accept too readily that a tangible result had not occurred, rather than work diligently on raising their own vibratory ability to bring more juice—a stronger connection to Source with a higher potential for healing—to their work. The explanation provided in that environment was: “Your client’s higher self knows best and will decide whether or not to be cured. You, the healer, are not responsible for the choice of the client’s soul.”

I have given this a great deal of thought over the years, and I am bothered when the explanation serves as an easy way out for the healer when a cure doesn’t take place. For a period of time, it was convenient for me to excuse my own failures to effect a cure based on the idea that the client had decided at a soul level not to accept the help. But some part of me remained unconvinced, and I continued to grapple with the issue.

What I’ve come to believe, after working on many tens of thousands of people, is that it is uncommon for someone who is seeking to be cured of a physical condition to be at the point where his or her soul has said, “Time’s up—I need to leave.” So I’ve swung back to my original training: I believe that it’s the healer’s job to make it happen. In my early apprenticeship with Christian healers, I was deeply impressed by the work of Agnes Sanford. In her book The Healing Light, she explains: “Let us understand then that if our [healing] experiment fails, it is not due to a lack in God, but to a natural and understandable lack in ourselves.” This puts responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the healer.

Suppose I decide to try firewalking and several people in front of me make it across the burning surface without so much as a blister, but my attempt forces me to jump off the red-hot coals with third-degree burns. Are the coals at fault? Self-responsibility requires that I look at my state of mind and heart at the moment I took my first step.

Invariably, in the world of healing there are many individuals who are not physically cured even though they might be emotionally and spiritually healed, and I am constantly humbled by these failures. Fortunately, thanks to those who have successfully walked across the coals ahead of me—Mary Baker Eddy, Agnes Sanford, and Kathyrn Kuhlman, for example—I’m reminded that miraculous healings are indeed possible. This brings me back again and again to focus on my responsibility to forge a stronger and more reliable connection with Divine power.

EDGAR CAYCE & MEDIUMSHIP

October 13, 2022

by Deborah King Celebrities Energy Medicine Featured

So, let’s talk about mediumship, Edgar Cayce, and contacting our love ones on the other side, a very fun subject! Connecting to “the other side,” or what’s commonly called “mediumship,” is the practice of communicating with the dead. During a typical reading, the medium conveys messages from the deceased to the living. There are two types of sessions with a medium: in the mental type, the spirit supposedly takes over and controls the speech of the medium. In the physical type, the communication may claim to include voices, rapping on walls and tables, and movement of objects. Wild for sure! The practice can be traced back to early times when shamans in our communities provided guidance to the tribe by talking to the spirit world. The heyday of mediumship was back in the late 1800’s, when spiritualism, a movement that focused on mediumship, was in vogue. They didn’t have TV or internet back then, so this was evidently their form of entertainment. Mediumship is generally frowned upon by most modern religions but is mentioned in the Old Testament. Mediumship has seen a real rise in popularity recently, that’s why I want to address it today.

So, the question is – why talk to the dead, is it helpful, and is it safe? I can assure you that when someone on the other side weighs in during one of my healing sessions with a client, to offer insight or direction, I pay attention, so yes, it can be helpful. However, I teach that guidance from the other side be allowed to come to you, the practitioner, naturally, in the course of the session with the client, as opposed to you, willy-nilly, reaching out to the other side. Further, I believe that any information received should be used solely for the purpose of helping that individual heal. Here’s why:

A common problem I have seen with individuals who make a practice of regularly reaching out for information from the dead, is that individual medium’s third and sixth chakras, that is, their power center and their third eye, get blown all out of proportion by doing this work, to their ultimate detriment. You don’t want to have that kind of imbalance in your energy field as it can affect your body, mind, and spirit, in negative ways. Again, I distinguish the limited practice of occasionally receiving information or advice from a loved one who reaches out to you, the practitioner, during a healing session, to aid their loved one back here on earth. When these fairly rare occasions occur, you, the healer, quietly, and with no fanfare, gently guide your client based on the information received. That way, you don’t fall into the old ego trap, and try to impress with your abilities.

Another problem I’ve seen over a lifetime of practicing and teaching energy medicine, is that spending too much time in the areas beyond this realm in order to connect to someone on “the other side” is a risky endeavor: it’s not uncommon to pick up undesirable connections “out there;” some of these connections may be just minor annoyances that a qualified practitioner can later clear for you, but other connections I have seen can be as serious as outright possession. My experience is that it takes a lot of skill and self-awareness to know when you are “out there,” when you are safe, and when you are not. It seems like it never fails that when someone tells me they feel like they have “picked up” some dark energy, they will also volunteer they have worked with a medium. Even more problematic, I’ve found, when I’m asked for help by a medium, is that they are often quite bound up with negative energy and spirits they’ve accidentally encountered.

Now that I’ve laid out the dangers of mediumship, whether practicing it or receiving it, I want to distinguish the time-honored and valid practice of you personally connecting, whether alone or under the umbrella of a trusted teacher, to your ancestors, to animal guides, to ascended masters, and to the divine, which I do daily, and encourage you to do also. We can all benefit from continuity beyond this earthly realm, and that continuity can help heal ourselves, or someone who has requested our help. At the same time, however, we want to accept the wisdom that spirits beyond the veil can impart in a state of humility and quiet devotion – never use it to impress.

So now, with all those provisos, I want to tell you about the life and legacy of a man with the most amazing abilities in the area of obtaining really valid guidance from beyond this realm. I’m talking about Edgar Cayce, of course. I discovered him when I was in my 20’s and devoured everything I could read by him and about him. I was ultimately invited many years ago to his campus in Virginia Beach, to his Center for Research and Enlightenment, to teach there.

When Edgar was a young man, he totally lost his voice; he couldn’t speak at all for a whole year. Desperate for a cure, he let a traveling hypnotist, and hypnotism was very big back then, put him in a trance, and, for as long as he remained in the trance, he could speak, but as soon as the trance ended, he couldn’t talk again.

After that, another hypnotist offered to help him, but when Cayce got hypnotized by him, he was able to diagnosed himself and found he was suffering from a psychological paralysis and then suggested to himself a treatment that worked. That’s when the local hypnotist said that Cayce should offer trance healing to the public, that clearly, he had a gift. A secretary recorded Cayce’s readings after he had already done about 8000 of them; eventually some 14,000 of them were memorialized in writing. I have read many of them. They are available online and today I’ll share a thumbnail version of some of his most profound insights.

Cayce said he got all his information for the requested readings from the Akashic Records, a term he coined, by the way. His subjects didn’t have to be present for him to do his work. My experience in this field has been the same: you can see from my work with guests who call into my Facebook Live show on Tuesdays that the call-in need not be physically present for me to get the information I need to help them. I’m getting the info from the same place that Cayce did, that is, the Akashic Records. And I can train you to get information from the Akashic Records too, in a safe way.

When Cayce was asked to explain the Akashic Records, and I just talked about them at length on a recent show on FaceBook and YouTube, he said they were “the record which each individual writes upon the thread of time and space.” Cayce said that, after our death, each of us is presented with our personal Akashic Record, an accounting of our karma. Cayce’s readings indicate that we each write our own life story with what we think, what we do, and how we interact with everyone and everything. Just as an aside, my own experiences with Near Death Experiences, which I talked about a few Facebook shows back, along with all the studies I’ve done on the NDE’s of others, establishes that we do often go through a life review during the NDE.

Cayce usually couldn’t recall later what he said to a client during the trance state, and when I’m in the slightly altered state that occurs when I’m getting information for you and helping you, I can’t usually recall much of it later either. It’s as if the information just flows through you, but doesn’t stay in your consciousness, and Cayce’s experience was the same. Nevertheless, I am 100% present when the info comes in, which is an important distinction: One of the things I want to be sure to mention is how dangerous it was for Cayce to not be conscious and present during his readings; another man, John of God, by the way, also followed that risky practice of not being conscious. When I worked with John of God in Brazil some 20 years ago, I saw with my own eyes just how dangerous it was to have another consciousness take over your mind and body. And we all know how sadly John of God’s life has turned out, my heart goes out to him, despite the horrific nature of his crimes. But we’ll talk about John of God another day. The important thing to know is that you need to be fully awake, aware, and present whenever you’re working to help heal someone or in contact with the Akashic Records or souls beyond the veil for someone else. I am always fully conscious of myself and my guest, and what I’m saying and doing during every reading and healing. That old style of reading and healing where the practitioner allowed their consciousness to leave their body is dangerous because negative entities can enter your body, mind, and spirit, and take over.

Another classic mistake that Cayce made was that he overworked, and consequently died young at 67, as do others who can’t seem to say “no” to the needs of others. When I see that personality attribute, I recognize it as a need for approval that isn’t healthy; it means the healer is out of balance. Been there, done that. In case the shoe fits ☺

Edgar Cayce’s immense library of readings has been grouped into six categories: (1) health; (2) philosophy and reincarnation; (3) dreams; (4) ESP and psychic phenomena; (5) oneness; and (6) spiritual growth, meditation, and prayer. In the decades since his death in 1945, many terms that he invented — including Akashic Records, spiritual growth, auras, soul mates, and holistic health—have become an integral part of our language.

Edgar Cayce made a number of prophecies that are of interest to us today:

First, he predicted, long before they occurred, the stock market crash of 1929, World War II, and a shift in the electromagnetic poles of the earth that started in the year 2000 and is still going on and is likely a major cause of us moving into the New Age.

As for the future, he also made these prophecies that have yet to occur:

When asked if human life would be extended beyond what was happening in his day, he said yes, it would be extended considerably longer.

When he was asked, “Will we discover the design for a self-fueling machine?” Cayce said we would, which offers hope when it comes to the climate crisis and ways to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, since they are devastating our ecosystem right now.

Cayce revealed that since humanity’s consciousness has evolved and expanded over time, a New Age and a new understanding of humanity’s relationship to God would appear right about now; that each of us must work with our own soul development to resonate with this new consciousness. He also said that an ancient “Hall of Records” from Atlantis would be rediscovered that would signify the manifestation of this new level of consciousness.

Cayce prophesied that eventually China will become the center of true spirituality. In light of what’s going on right now in the world, this is an especially interesting insight.

He also had plenty to say about reincarnation and karma. His readings essentially counseled those fascinated by these subjects that one’s past lives should be of considerably less concern than one’s present life. I couldn’t agree more: I’m always telling my students to focus on this lifetime, since this is the one where you can make changes. He said that although we retain skills and lessons from past lives, it’s important to understand that the value of this life is to evolve further by adding skills and lessons by living, growing, and being of service in the present. Our abilities from past lives are provided to help us fulfill our purpose in the here and now. He also said that we pre-select our surroundings before each incarnation (parents and family, location, time period, etc.) that will best help us learn the lessons we need for completeness.

Cayce stressed that prayer (talking to Source) and meditation (listening to Source) affects your consciousness and your vitality and that the survival of our planet literally hinges on those of us who view life in all its diversity as crucial elements of a sacred whole.

And now — to answer the question that nearly everyone asks after they’ve learned that we survive death — ‘’What are our loved ones doing on the other side?” Edgar Cayce had this to say: “When we die, we merely change form and are very much alive. Death is only passing through God’s other door.” I very much agree with this – so let’s make the most of ourselves while we have the advantage of a physical body!

If the idea of tapping into wisdom from beyond this Earthly realm is of interest to you, think about enrolling in our best-selling Astral Travel course. It will teach you to safely go beyond what we experience here in physical form, to attain knowledge and guidance that isn’t otherwise available. Click here to learn more now >>

Eating with the Seasons

October 4, 2022

by Deborah King Energy Medicine Featured Health

Your Ayurveda guide to healthy eating for your body type

Ayurveda is an ancient energy medicine protocol based on the idea that the universe is composed of five elements — air, fire, water, earth, and ether — and so are humans, and all other life forms and matter, as living progeny of the universe.

The rishis (accomplished and enlightened seers) proclaimed that, as microcosms of nature, all five elements exist in each of us and are represented by three doshas (energies).

VATA (air and ether) is the force that directs nerve impulses, circulation, respiration, and elimination.

PITTA (fire and water) is the force that governs digestive metabolism and organ and tissue systems.

KAPHA (water and earth) is the force responsible for growth and structure (protection and integrity of the being or element).

These three energies are where your body connects with your mind—the place where your thoughts turn into matter that affects how well balanced you are as a being. When any of these three energies go out of whack, Ayurveda offers specific lifestyle and nutritional guidelines to help reduce the turbulence so your body and mind can be restored to balance. In Ayurvedic terminology, a healthy person is defined as “she whose doshas are in balance, appetite is good, all tissues of the body and all natural urges are functioning properly, and mind, body, and spirit are cheerful.”

Your unique mind-body constitution is called prakruti, which means “nature”— your individual nature and body type. It is immensely helpful to learn what your mind-body nature is — which of the three energies are most prominent in your make-up — so you know how to keep them in balance.

TAKE STOCK OF YOUR MIND-BODY BASELINE

By looking closely at your tongue, face, eyes, nails, and lips over a period of time, you can learn which of your energies need to be adjusted. Ayurvedic practitioners can also determine which of your energies are on overload by taking pulses similar to those acupuncturists consult to determine how strong, weak, flat, fast, or shallow these indicators are.

DIET, EXERCISE, DAILY, & SEASONAL ROUTINES DETERMINE LEVELS OF WELLBEING FOR ALL THREE MIND-BODY ENERGY TYPES

If you’re principally Vata, your key to optimal wellbeing is regularity. If you’re experiencing poor digestion, if you catch colds easily, or if you develop insomnia and fatigue, you’re likely experiencing excessive oppositional energies.

If you’re quite Pitta, your key to optimal wellbeing is moderation. When you find yourself flying off the handle or experiencing inflammatory conditions, or if you’re a super-stressed workaholic or overachiever, your energies are out of balance in this area, and need a tune up.

If you’re mostly Kapha, your key to optimal wellbeing is stimulation. When your energies are out of balance, you will most likely experience sinus congestion, poor circulation, and sluggish digestion which can lead to obesity and depression.

Ayurveda outlines a set of seasonal guidelines known as Ritucharya. The guidelines serve as prescriptions for diet and lifestyle changes throughout the year to help keep your mind clear, lift and fulfill your spirit, and help ensure vibrancy within your entire body.

According to Ayurveda, each year is divided into two periods, each covering three seasons:

Uttarayana, the cold months, containing the seasons Sharath, Hemanta, and Shishira

Dakshinayana, the warm months, containing the seasons Vasanta, Grishma, and Varsha.

Why eating for the season is crucial to greater wellbeing

If you’re a nature lover, as I am, you have probably noticed how differently wild ones behave and eat during the four seasons we usually think of: spring, summer, winter, and autumn. Their bodies, like our own, instinctively recognize and respond to seasonal environmental cues and conditions by processing nutrition so their bodies can prepare for the upcoming span of time that lies directly before them.

Meat-eating mammals become voracious as the cold winter months begin to announce their arrival. The bodies of bears, raccoons, wild cats, and wild dogs in their hemispheres begin to fill out as some species ready their bodies for hibernation and other species prepare their bodies for days or weeks of starvation. It’s almost as if Nature/Source has placed a calendar in their craniums that prompts them to consume as much as they can find.

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise (as Gomer Pyle would say)! We humans have the same internal promptings. As the cold months approach, we begin to crave foods that help calm us even as they pack on extra fat, even though you aren’t environmentally bound to seasonal deprivation, as were our ancestors, not long ago, before refrigeration and mass transportation. But our bodies are still designed to operate the way they were back then, so eating in opposition to your promptings can set you up for a compromised immune system, unhealthy weight gain or loss, less healthy and robust skin and hair, and some illnesses. So, eating with the seasons does two things: It makes you feel good and it’s a powerful way to help ensure your wellbeing physically, mentally, and emotionally.

In the West, the Ayurveda practice of Ritucharya is characterized by four seasons, unlike India where there are six. In both countries, though, the energies go through a cycle of accumulating, aggravating, and palliating during the seasons, so our goal is to keep them as balanced as possible by way of lifestyle and diet.

In the U.S. and in Canada, Vata season runs from autumn to early winter, mid-September to January, Kapha season happens from February to May, and Pitta season goes from June to mid-September. But, depending on where you live in the U.S. or Canada, always take your cues from your natural surroundings and fellow creatures. Up against and above the 54th parallel (the border between the US and Canada), the winter season is considerably longer.

Balance your diet by way of opposing energies. What I mean by this is that, during Pitta season, as just one example, the weather is frequently hot, dry, light, and sharp, so counter those with cool, heavy, and bland foods; avoid sour, spicy, salty, and overpowering foods.

DIETARY INSIGHTS AND INFORMATION

Meat

Beef increases Pitta and Kapha but reduces Vata. It is heavy, thick, tastes sweet and its post-digestive effect is sweet. Eating beef heats your body. Beef increases Pitta and Kapha and reduces Vata.

Chicken is moderately okay for all three mind-body types. Sweet and astringent, its post-digestive effect is pungent (stimulating). It is strengthening.

Fish increases Pitta and Kapha but reduces Vata. Eating fish heats your body.

Dairy

Unsalted butter is sweet, astringent and cooling. It promotes intestinal absorption. It increases Kapha and reduces Vata and Pitta.

Unsalted cheese is sweet and sour and cooling. It increases Pitta and Kaphs and decreases Vata.

Cow’s milk is sweet and cooling. It increases Kaph and decreases Vata and Pitta.

Eggs are sweet, astringent and heating. Post digestively, they are pungent. Eggs increase Pitta and Kapha and decrease Vata.

Ghee is sweet and cooling. Taken in excess, it increases Kapha. Taken moderately, it is good for all three energies. It promotes digestion and strengthening.

Goat’s milk is sweet, astringent, and cooling. Post digestively, it is sweet. Increases Vata, decreases Pitta and Kapha. Relieves cough and fever.

As always, consult your health care provider before you undertake any new health regime.

It’s important that your routine, diet included, fits your doshas – the combination of three energy sources that create your unique makeup. When you don’t align with the energy that is unique to you, that is when you feel out of balance. To get started on a deeper exploration of Ayurveda and the wisdom it holds for your health and well-being, take my Dosha quiz to find out which doshas are most prominent in you >>

St. Francis: Why We Celebrate this Early Activist

September 27, 2022

by Deborah King Advocacy Celebrities Energy Medicine Environmental Featured

I want to tell you about one of my favorite people of all time and talk about the environment at the same time. If you’re an animal lover and nature lover, like I am, and you’re as worried about the state of our environment as I am, then this guy and his energy is for you. I’m talking about Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals and the environment. Francis’s journey from rich spoiled kid to one of the most amazing people who ever lived is a story worth hearing about.

As a child born into a very wealthy family in the late 1100’s – his father was a landowner and a cloth merchant and his mother was royalty from France, so an upper-class family, — Francis was far removed from the daily grind that the rest of the world had to face to survive at the time. It reminds you of Buddha’s early days, doesn’t it.

By age 13, Francis had a serious drinking problem, he was into gourmet food, and, if there were drugs back then, I’m sure he did those too. If you have ever had addiction issues, like I have, you’ll relate to him big-time. He dropped out of school at 13, a rebellious kid who ignored the city curfew and drank himself into a stupor every night. He managed to get away with this behavior because of his charm and his father’s wealth.

As he got older, Francis became highly skilled at archery and on horseback. And although his father expected Francis to go into the textile business, he dreamed instead of becoming a knight. He clearly wanted to achieve hero worship status, which is why he honed his skills as an archer and rider. Ironically, he became a major hero for very different reasons.

Soon, a war broke out between Assisi and Perugia, and Francis leapt on that moment and joined the cavalry. However, during his first big battle, he was captured and, because his family was wealthy, held for ransom rather than killed. It took his father almost a year to pull together the enormous sum required for his release.

It was during his time in prison that Francis began having visions. After he got out of prison, he told everybody he could hear the voice of Christ, who told him to redeem the church, which was, of course, corrupt, (what’s new), give up his profligate lifestyle, and live like the poor.

The defining incident that separated Francis from his father forever was the time he stole a bolt of cloth from his father’s shop and his father’s horse to raise money to rebuild a fallen-down church. Upon discovering the theft, his father delivered him to the local bishop and reported the theft. The bishop told Francis to return his father’s money. He did so, but at the same time he also stripped off his clothes, stood there nude, and declared that God was the only father he would recognize henceforth. The bishop gave him a rough tunic to cover his nakedness, and Francis headed out of town. He was attacked almost immediately by a bunch of thieves and badly beaten, but he took it all in stride, feeling elated because he had finally been fully freed from the expectations of others. If you’re one of those people who had to fight your father or mother to become the person you really wanted to be, you’ll relate to him. After this incident, the Francis that so many of us have come to know and love, embarked wholeheartedly on the road to his true destiny.

Francis’s radical embrace of poverty wasn’t mainstream at the time (any more than it is today). The church itself was enormously rich, as were the people at its helm. This wealth didn’t sit well with Francis; he felt it diverged from the original ideals Christ had decreed. So, he went on a personal crusade to change this, visiting up to five villages every day. His charisma and the purity of his message drew thousands of adherents into his orbit. These became the very first Franciscan friars. He even preached to animals, how cool is that!

By the time he died on October 3, 1226, at 44 years of age, many predicted he would be canonized as a saint. As his health deteriorated, he returned to Assisi to die. Knights were sent from Assisi to guard him and guide him safely home since, at the time, the body of a saint was viewed as a valuable relic that would bring glory to whichever town it rested. He was canonized as a saint on July 16, 1228, and in 2013, nearly 800 years later, the current Pope honored Saint Francis by taking his name and becoming Pope Francis.

Because of visions he had, or actions he took which were counter to the sensibilities of his times, some regarded Francis as crazy, while others considered him as close to Christ-like as they had ever encountered before. One example of his counter-cultural inclinations was his care for and kissing of lepers, whom he said were really Christ in disguise.

Clearly, Francis was an early activist. If you’re obsessed, as I am, by prejudice or unfairness or the assault on the natural world that’s happening, you will relate to Francis.

Now another important point about Francis: Once he found his path, he was obsessed with nature and animals and the environment. He was so attuned to the animal world he could easily hear animals speak to him. If you’re totally into animals, like I am, I bet you can hear them too – I still remember the first time a horse ever spoke to me – I was on my boy, Influence’s back one hot morning, when I clearly heard him say “it’s too hot and my feet hurt.” I jumped off, looked him in the eye, and could see he was really laughing it up – horses have such a great sense of humor!

So back to Francis: his annual feast day is coming up soon, and it’s a custom in many cities to bring your dog, cat, hamster, horse, or you name it from the animal world, to the steps of a local church for a blessing. It’s a very cool ceremony, I used to ride my horse down to the local church, with the dogs following, for us all to get a blessing.

Francis totally wore himself out, fasting and living in rough conditions, in abandoned churches, without any heat. That’s why he died so young, at 44. Now, here’s a really interesting point: he got the stigmata of Jesus, that’s the wounds that Christ got on the cross, making him the first person to every have that happen. Wow, what an achievement!

So, how does Francis relate to our present-day environmental crisis?

For those of you who live in rural or suburban areas of the world, I’m sure you can remember driving in the countryside where your windshield was smeared and spattered with the massive remains of bugs that collided with you. How long has it been since you’ve encountered that? I simply can’t remember the last time it happened to me it has been so many years. That tells an ominous tale about what has been happening just during our brief lifetimes. Insects feed countless other creatures that fly, swim, crawl, and burrow. Given fewer insects, fewer species survive.

Back when I was a kid, it seemed like every few rhododendron leaves hosted a green tree frog. Not anymore! And garter snakes, salamanders, pollywogs, bullfrogs, dragonflies, and bees, not to mention rattlesnakes, were easy to find just about everywhere if you kept a sharp eye out for them.

The environmental crisis that we find ourselves in today didn’t happen overnight, but for a lot of us, it certainly has escalated enough that even we can remember multiple “before and after” scenarios that are disquieting.

For at least the past 75 years, environmentalists across the globe have been sounding the alarm about the destruction of Earth’s natural habitats.

You have certainly heard of some of the earliest ones: Rachel Carson, whose book “Silent Spring,” served as the first canary in the coal mine was a big wake-up call for all of us. First published in 1962, the book documented the damage that man-made pesticides were inflicting on the environment. Its publication is considered by numerous historians to be the genesis of the modern environmentalist movement in America.

Fast forward to today. Let’s visit with a few latter-day Saint Francis types from across the globe who have made saving the earth and all its inhabitants their life’s work:

Jane Goodall, the late Dian Fossey, and Dr. Mary Galdikas, have studied and worked closely with chimpanzees, mountain gorillas, and orangutans respectively in their natural habitats in Africa and Borneo, becoming the world’s foremost authorities on these great apes. They have documented each species’ social networks, amazing skillsets, intelligence, and the ever-present challenges that face them as humans continue to invade and negatively impact the places they count on to continue as viable species.

One gorilla, Koko, raised and taught sign language by Penny Patterson, made it clear to those of us who are paying attention that these magnificent beings experience pleasure, pain, sadness, and deprivation every bit as much as we do. When Koko’s pet kitten died, Koko became very sad and signed to Penny, “My heart hurts.” And when Fred Rogers of the show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, visited Koko, she immediately took off his shoes, as she had seen him do so many times on her favorite TV program. The look they shared with each other was priceless.

On September 23, 2019, Swedish teenage environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, spoke at the United Nations about climate change, angrily and tearfully accusing world leaders of half-measures and outright inaction. If you haven’t seen her speech, I encourage you to google it. In it, she makes no bones about the fact that the environmental crises we face right now are the direct result of the powers-that-be looking the other way or placating us with inadequate half-measures, despite the fact that what whole industries are doing to the earth right now is unsustainable — and lethal not just to us, but to every creature that shares the planet with us.

I’m sure David Attenborough is familiar to you: his documentaries have been shown on TV for years. Check out his Extinction: The Facts (2020), which depicts how the world is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, where human poaching, illegal wildlife trade, and overfishing are pushing one million out of eight million species on the planet to the very edge of extinction.

Hans Cosmas Ngoteya: This Tanzanian conservationist has lived in the Serengeti since his childhood and has always had a passion for wildlife and the environment. But instead of becoming a ranger or tour guide, he has opted to protect the Serengeti environment and its irreplaceable wildlife.

Julia Hill: Between 1997 and 1999, Julia Hill (nicknamed Butterfly) decided to live on the branches of a 180-foot redwood tree for over 700 days to keep loggers from cutting it down. The tree in question, which Julia named Luna, was estimated to be 1500 years old.

Considered among the most fiercely committed environmental leaders, Julia Hill has continued to fight environmental shortsightedness by being involved in the writing of a number of books on saving the environment. Interestingly enough, her passion for the environment began after her near-death experience in a car crash. Ever since, she has since been a devoted advocate for the environment and natural habitats.

These are just a handful of the environmentalists whose ethics and activities recall to mind Francis’s efforts to consider all God’s creation sacred and worth preserving.

And here’s a poem that is often set to music, Make Me a Channel for Your Peace, also called the St. Francis Prayer:

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there is doubt true faith in You
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul
Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we are born to eternal life
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy

In keeping with the spirit of St. Francis, we encourage you to take the time and explore which environmental cause really speaks to you. Whether it’s animal-related, global warming, whatever it may be…research which non-profit organization you think is worthy of your support and donate. Even if it’s a small amount. If we all play our part, together, we will move the needle forward.

How Will YOU Celebrate the Fall Equinox?

September 20, 2022

by Deborah King Astrological Events Energy Medicine Featured Lunar

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

The Celts and Buddhists know how to celebrate this annual planetary event.

Scientifically, in the northern hemisphere, the Fall Equinox is the date when sunrise begins to happen later every morning and nighttime begins to fall earlier every evening. It is the halfway point between our longest and shortest days of the year.

During the Fall Equinox, the sun appears immediately above Earth’s equator (located at 0 degrees latitude at Earth’s widest girth) and our planet in both hemispheres receives roughly equal amounts of daylight and darkness.

This is also the date when plants begin to die or go dormant and hibernating animals start heading for their wintertime dens or nests. Autumn officially begins in the Northern hemisphere on September 22nd most years and will last until December 21st this year.

The Fall Equinox Affects Our Spiritual Essence

These days in both hemispheres, it’s easy to forget the inherent risk to human survival that autumn played in bygone eras. Like the rest of nature’s environment-supported beings, millions of humans had to begin preparing in advance for several months of slim pickings, keenly aware that it would be months before the first signs of spring edibles would begin to peek above the frozen ground and animals could again be seen wandering around in abundance, promising an end to months of isolation and privation.

So, it’s no surprise that most cultures honored the changing of seasons by celebrating spring and summer and by focusing their common spiritual energies on celebrating harvests, thanking their Creators, and praying for their deliverance through the far more challenging fall and winter seasons. With the ravages of global warming, we may be returning to this mind-set in the future.

This equinox was equal parts celebration and supplication in a great many cultures

Various cultures celebrated the abundance of their agricultural and hunting harvests at this time even as they prepared to survive the upcoming months-long season of wintertime darkness, deprivation, and death. They also considered this equinox a special opportunity to connect with the divine and to seek continuing providence during the forthcoming months of lack.

Your Genetic Memory Hasn’t Forgotten

For many of us who are intimately in touch with our essence, the Fall Equinox stirs something elemental in the heart, mind, and spirit. What is this special time of the year communicating to you?

Following are just a few possibilities!

At the Heart Level …

Tune into your unique rhythm. Slow down sufficiently to listen to your inner guidance system (your intuition).

What is your heart asking of you? Is it asking you to donate to the less fortunate, with winter just around the corner?

Is it asking you to let go of the things that you don’t value or use anymore, knowing someone else will benefit from acquiring them?

What other things is it asking you to let go of, or to recover from, by way of some action, not to benefit others, but to benefit your own heart, mind, and spirit?

There are no wrong answers here. Your heart knows what your spirit needs to boost your vibrational frequency!

At the Mind Level …

Celebrate the fruits of your labor. Make a list of the things you’ve succeeded at doing since this time last year. Acknowledge them in all their glory. Pull out all the stops. Feel the joy!

During this equinox, Mother Nature begins preparing for a type of death, and you, too, may feel inclined to let things go. Is there anything right now — anything at all — that you know you will benefit from by putting it out of its (and your) misery? Regrets? Missteps? Toxic relationships?

At the Spirit Level…

Consider planting your own vegetables or herbs (if you’re in a lower part of the hemisphere that will allow) for an upcoming spring harvest. Planting for renewed life during this “season of lack and death” (especially during a global pandemic) signals to the universe that you are intentional about surviving and about fostering survival, despite the multiple challenges that accompany living.

Consider building an altar, or placing pumpkins on your doorstep, or hanging an autumn wreath on your door. (Whatever works with your spirit to acknowledge and celebrate the equinox.)

Consider meditating on the equinox and how this one differs from ones you acknowledged and/or celebrated a few years ago (pre-pandemic).

Alternately, your spirit may simply direct you to release your attachment to taking any kind of action at all, or making any decision, so you can simply observe how things unfold and resolve on their own. Again, there are no wrong choices here!

Whatever you decide to do or to refrain from doing, whenever you do it with intentionality, you will gain clarity as you unite your mind with your spirit and nature.

How Other Cultures Celebrate the Fall Equinox

CELTS & NEOPAGANS

The Celts, skilled astronomical observers, recognized various points in the solar year as times of change and shifts in Earth’s productivity, considering them of immense spiritual and practical significance.

Three stalks of barley tied up with rafia represent the cutting down of John Barleycorn during Mabon, the Celtic celebration of the Fall Equinox.

The ritual of John Barleycorn is a folk tale and song evoking the sowing, growing and harvest of corn.

To the Celts, Mabon is also a time to honor the Spirit World and address their own spirits. It is when Celts stop, relax, and enjoy their personal “harvests” from whichever projects they have been working on all year long.

On this date, the Druids honor The Green Man, God of the Forest, by offering sacrifices to trees. Ciders, fertilizer, herbs, and wine are all appropriate offerings.

Mabon focuses on balance because on this date (and only one other all year long) true balance is observable in nature. Day and night are equal in length.

Mabon Symbols, Colors, Foods, Herbs, Stones, Flowers Deities, and Animals

Symbols: cornucopia (horn of plenty), pinecones, seeds

Colors: brown, copper, dark green, yellow (light and dark), orange, red,

Foods: apples, beans, cider, corn, root vegetables, pomegranate, pumpkins, squash, wine

Herbs: mugwort, rosehips, rosemary, sage, yarrow

Stones: amber, aventurine, cat’s eye, citrine, jasper, sapphire

Flowers: marigolds, sunflowers, thistle

Deities: Demeter, Green Man, Inanna, Mabon, Morgan, Persephone, Pomona

Animals: blackbird, Owl, salmon, stag

THE ROMANS

Romans held an (undocumented) Festival of Pomona, linked to the goddess Persephone in Greek mythology, during this equinox.

Despite the lack of a documented festival in her honor, Pomona was considered a wood nymph. The Goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards, she was believed to watch over and protects fruit trees and care for their cultivation.

BUDDHISTS

The origin of Higan dates from Emperor Shōmu in the 8th century. It is a Buddhist holiday exclusively celebrated by Japanese sects for seven days; three days before and after both the Spring equinox (shunbun) and Autumnal equinox (shūbun). It is observed by nearly every Buddhist school in Japan.”

During this time, many Japanese visit the graves of their ancestors to thank them and to pray to go to the world of enlightenment after their own passing. Some Buddhist temples hold a memorial service and festival during Higan.

Perhaps now is a good time to consult your spirit guides to discern what resonates with you about this equinox and how you would like to acknowledge it.

Think back as best you can about your ancestors, especially the ancient ones, and consider how they viewed this time of the year, when there was only home, hearth, and, hopefully, an amply stocked below-ground root cellar to sustain them during the upcoming dark, cold months.

Before electricity was available for refrigeration and heat, isolated in small villages or more distant farms, this was a time of thanksgiving for adequate harvests of various kinds, as well as a time to seek favor and continuing provision from unseen helpers, known and unknown, in the world and beyond it.

Consider creating the story of one of your ancestors who was alive in the 1700’s or 1800’s; before radio or TV, before flight, before any of our modern conveniences (most of which we take for granted). What was cooking like? What was washing clothes like? What was hunting or gathering like? If you can get inside someone from another era and begin to see what this month’s equinox represented to them, you may be able to find ways to honor both your ancestors and their ways of coping with the next several months of early darkness, increasing coldness, and less available food except for what they’ve painstakingly gathered and stored that will keep for months on end (heavily salted jerky meat, canned and dried fruits, roots, nuts and vegetables).

An Emergency Services Manager once told me that the great earthquake that is anticipated in Southern California will take us from the Space Age to the Stone Age within minutes. Without our modern conveniences, what would the next few months of life be like for us?

It was like that for your ancestors. They survived. They even thrived well enough to have offspring, who had offspring, who resulted eventually in your existence right now.

What kind of thanks were they giving this at time of year? What kind of prayers were they saying? What were they doing, and what had they been doing, to prepare for the coming months of lack?

Meditate on how fortunate you are to be living right now, even with all that seems to be going sideways in the world right now.

Let the energies of this equinox and your own sense of balance guide you to make this year’s Fall Equinox a lasting memory!

The Autumn Equinox represents an “end” of sorts. A perfect time to say goodbye and let go of the things in your life that are holding you back. And endings make way for new beginnings. So, this Autumn Equinox makes the perfect time for you to focus on healing and letting go of past traumas, to make way for a new beginning where you step into your most powerful self. LifeForce Energy Healing is one amazing path to do this. If you are new to it, consider joining our Level I program to start getting into the basics.

If you are more experienced, we still have just a couple spots left for our year-long Master-in-Training program (which starts this week). It’s is the most transformational program we offer, and is truly a path towards a new beginning, a new life, and a new you. Learn more and register by clicking here >>

Who’s In Charge Here? 3 Ways to Reclaim Your Personal Power

September 14, 2022

by Deborah King Chakras Energy Healing Featured

I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my own ship. ~Louisa May Alcott

How are you personally feeling right now? Stressed? Overwhelmed? With everything going on right now, reinforce by a 24-hour news cycle, no one could blame you. It’s easy to focus on the external. And you won’t be alone if you are looking around for excuses (and easily finding them).

Look for a new job? Tell my partner I want to make some changes? Devote time, energy, and resources to my own personal well-being and spiritual growth? Who, me?

If this sounds familiar, the time has come to reclaim your vital feeling of personal power.

Over time, there are many reasons why you may have let go of your personal power, your ownership of the real, authentic you. Your parents knew better about how you should live. Your teachers insisted that you think and act according to their views. You didn’t want to challenge or confront someone else’s overpowering will. Whatever caused you to let your personal power diminish, it’s time to regain the precious gift of knowing who you are and what you want.

Your body’s third chakra, the source of will, purpose, and action, is the seat of self-esteem and personal power. Located at the solar plexus midway between the navel and the sternum, the third chakra corresponds to the center of your metabolic fire—that which fuels you and gives you vitality. From this center you harness your energy and convert it into action. If your third energy center is compromised, you may feel doubtful, indecisive, and lacking in self-confidence. You might suffer from low energy, lack the ability to follow through, or always feel like a victim of circumstance, a pushover. Loss of personal power makes you unable to interact positively and powerfully in the world or even to simply show up for life each day.

When your third energy center is fit and healthy, you feel able to take action. Your intentions are clearly focused. You are able to claim your personal power with no need to demand or ruthlessly take power from someone else. Power flows to you because you know who you are and feel ready to accomplish all that you dream of.

Use these 3 steps to take to regain your personal power:

Free your spirit of toxic energy.
Let go of the old. Examine your life for anything or anyone that diminishes your personal or spiritual power. That includes old messages in your head from your parents or other authority figures, echoes of self-doubt and discouragement, beliefs that you are not worthy or undeserving of love. It includes people who put you down or “love” through control or abuse. As an energy healer and spiritual teacher, I always tell my students to protect and preserve their personal power. You need your personal power to heal yourself and the world.

Decide your direction.
After you have released all your old crippling patterns of thought and behavior, energy will flow back to you. Your inner strength and power will be replenished and ready for new direction. It’s time to set intentions for this new phase of your life. What do you truly want? Use your journaling and meditation practices along with walks in nature, proper rest, and good self-care to help you discover your hopes and goals. Give your newly regained personal power a strong focus.

Begin to take action.
Now that you have let go of all that was holding you back and decided what your soul wants to accomplish, take the necessary actions to reach your goals. You have the power, the will, and the self-awareness you need to move forward. Allow the joy of regaining your personal power, your spiritual energy and inner strength to propel you forward. You are ready to manifest your dreams.

Using your personal power in service of the light is never selfish. Any action you take will help to raise your vibration and therefore raise the vibration of the planet. When you are acting from a place of love, being your true self, and living the life you came here to live, you are putting your personal power to the highest and best use.

Bonus: Surround yourself with a community that supports you and lets you step into your most powerful self. Our year-long Master-in-Training program provides just that, along with guidance and healing that empowers you to live the life you were meant to live. Learn more by clicking here >>

Five Ways to Prepare for Your Next Great Spiritual Adventure

September 7, 2022

by Deborah King Energy Medicine Featured

“Miracles come in moments. Be ready and willing.” –Wayne Dyer

So how does the future look to you? With change coming toward you at an ever-faster pace, does it sometimes feel like you are standing on quicksand? Or maybe on a giant log rolling along in a turbulent river? Is that sinking and swirling sensation part of the ride? Is it meant to feel overwhelming and scary or is it meant to feel exciting and exhilarating? Actually, the choice is up to you!

How you choose to meet a fast-changing future is in your hands. Will you let yourself shrink with fear or grow with love? Both as a physical and spiritual being, you are already programmed to learn and grow. Just as your body and mind have matured over time, your spirit has been seeking ways to expand, to move closer to the light, to develop more understanding and awareness. Your spirit longs to keep that outward and upward movement going, to advance in knowledge, to increase your well-being, your happiness, and your power to help and contribute. Growth feels good and sends reverberations of hope and possibility into the world around you.

The excitement and joy you feel when pursuing spiritual growth is natural. When you work at expanding your awareness, bringing yourself into balance, experiencing greater peace, raising your consciousness, and connecting with the Divine, you are actually assisting every other person and creature on the planet to do the same. How you meet life’s challenges matters—with every thought and emotion you have, you’re sending out a wave of energy that makes its way into the fabric of humanity’s consciousness. By embracing growth and facing change with your best self, you contribute to the well-being of all.

Here are 5 ways you can prepare to meet whatever spiritual adventures lie ahead with courage and joy:

Build your meditation practice — The first step is always to open and strengthen your channel to Source. Preparing the way for growth and change begins with this universal practice to still the mind; calm, cleanse, and refresh the body; and increase your connection to the infinite Source of all information, love, and light. Meditate to improve your ability to focus your consciousness. Building your ability to connect with the Divine will help you absorb and understand the knowledge you receive. Learn to meditate with an experienced teacher and build a practice that will stay with you and support all your future endeavors.

Discover who you are — Will you be ready to face the future with a balanced and light-centered self? Begin at the heart of matters. Examine yourself to see if you know who you really are and what you really want. What are your beliefs and values? Your hopes and fears? What do you love to do and whom do you love? Because you are a unique being, there is much knowledge about yourself that only you can discover, much work that only you can do. Start a program of self-study that has proven helpful for others. Be open and willing to accept what you learn about yourself. Your willingness to receive information and make peace with all aspects of your being will help you use this new knowledge to move your life toward harmony and joy.

Embrace prayer — You’ll find a world of healing information in the study and practice of prayer. Common to every culture and every people, prayer is about joining to the light, Source, God, or whatever name you have for the energy of unconditional love. Forms of prayer can include contemplation, affirmations, music, art, being in nature, and physical activities like dance and yoga—all used to connect to the Divine. Try forms of prayer that are new to you. Use affirmations to declare a shift into your higher-self qualities. “I am able to heal.” “I am an instrument of peace and love.” You can also connect to the Divine through creative activities you love by asking to be a channel for the divine light as you work.

Record your truth in your journal — Keeping a daily journal of your thoughts and feelings can support your spiritual growth in several ways. If you haven’t kept a journal before, you’ll discover a wonderful opportunity to express yourself, explore your feelings, be authentic, and tell the truth in a safe and private setting. It takes practice to dig deep into your experience and express your authentic self openly and honestly. When you learn to be truthful on the pages of your journal, you learn to be truthful in the world. You step into a new level of self-awareness and self-trust, opening the door to future accomplishments.

Join a group of like-minded friends — Taking a class or workshop with others who are seeking spiritual growth can be the ultimate learning experience. Finding out what others are working to achieve and striving to understand can help you realize your own gifts and imagine ways to develop them. You may only discover the true possibilities of your own future by seeing the example of other lives and by connecting with others in spiritual practices like meditation and prayer. When you develop a compassionate regard for yourself and others who are now experiencing life on the physical plane, your capacity to grow and serve expands. All spiritual beings having a human experience face similar challenges. Working toward spiritual growth together empowers you to meet those challenges with love, joy, and a deep feeling of unity.

Will you be ready to meet the future with an open heart, an open mind, and a joyful knowing that adventures beyond imagining lie ahead? Begin to use your spiritual resources to move away from fear and toward love today!

Right now, the doors are open for our most intimate, exclusive, and transformational program: the year-long Master-in-Training program. It will put you in the middle of a group of like-minded healers and seekers of truth and light. You will have guidance, a support group, and connection. It’s exactly the right program for the right person – the person that is ready to embark on that next great spiritual adventure and evolve by leaps and bounds over the next year. If that’s you, there are still a few spots left for the program. You can learn more here >>

Access Higher Realms for Guidance: Your Leadership Role Right Now (Part 2)

August 29, 2022

by Deborah King Energy Healing Energy Medicine Featured Life Coaching

Are you ready to step into your purpose as a leader — so you can LIVE your soul’s deepest desires, and help us heal our world?

In Part 1, we started exploring how you’re being called to step into leadership right now and I shared a quick, powerful practice for tapping into the guidance of your eighth chakra.

In Part 2, we’ll build off of the foundation we created together, and I guide you to tap even beyond your eighth chakra to find the unique mission of your soul — your true life purpose that’s calling you to step into action now…

We’ll start with a revisit to your 8th chakra — the epicenter of your entire chakra system. Then we’ll tap into your 9th, 10th, 11th, and we’ll even discuss the 12th chakra — the seat of all-knowing awareness.

The 8th chakra for wisdom & higher perception

In the video below, you’ll sense your 8th chakra as a light-filled orb. This is the first transpersonal chakra, associated with the origin of enlightenment and ascension.

Here you can sense that you’re connected to a large community of higher beings, because this chakra takes you beyond your singular self. The 8th chakra connects you with higher spiritual perceptions and wisdom. Here you develop a new spiritual awareness that can bring great changes to your professional and personal life as you go beyond yourself and into your desire to help heal the planet.

Your 9th chakra for tapping into your karmic blueprint

Next I introduce you to your 9th chakra, where all the abilities that are related to the Christ light energy are waiting for you, to be used in both your inner and outer worlds. This chakra is about four feet above your head — and it’s a joy-filled center that sparks the light in all the cells of your body.

The ninth chakra holds your karmic blueprint, as well as the key to the destiny of your soul. You become aware of all the knowledge and the various skills you have acquired in all your experiences and in every lifetime.

As I guide you into this chakra, you’ll take a look at three principal life blueprints: the creator, the healer, and the teacher. You’ll see which one you hold as your main blueprint — the one that you’ve developed the most throughout your lifetimes. As you’ll discover, your karmic blueprint determines your destiny!

Your 10th chakra for tapping into your deepest, highest skills

The power to manifest is within your own subtle energy body. It’s not about affirmations or visualizations — it’s about drawing Divine, Soul energy from the higher realms, into the physical realm.
Through your 10th chakra, you can start to manifest your desires and bring into the world the skills and knowledge you learned in your past incarnations.

The 10th chakra is also responsible for divine creativity — the ability to bring all facets of your life into harmony and to bring manifestation into every area of your life.

In this video practice, I guide you in a meditation to heal your 10th chakra. I show you how to release the energy blockages by dissolving fear. I also share a mantra to use for balancing the masculine and feminine within your 10th chakra and your entire energy field.

The 11th chakra for going beyond the physical world

At the level of the 11th chakra, you start to go beyond the laws of the physical world, like gravity or space/time, and start to use other siddhis—advanced powers.

This chakra contains your spiritual library — everything you need to be both human and divine. It holds all the connections you need to activate higher spiritual abilities such as teleportation, telekinesis, the instant manifestation of thought into matter, and bi-location and travel outside the limitation of time and space. Of course, this is a very advanced chara, and these gifts will not manifest until the 12th chakra begins its opening.

The 11th chakra has all the connections you need to activate the higher spiritual abilities, such as teleportation, telekinesis, the instant manifestation of thought into matter, bi-location and travel outside the limitation of time and space.

Of course, these will not manifest until the 12th chakra begins its opening. These skills are meant to prepare you for your existence after ascension. It is the new path your soul will follow in its newest form, while still in your physical body.

The 12th chakra for merging with the cosmos and all-knowing awareness

At the Monadic level of the 12th chakra, you are merged with Cosmos and all-knowing awareness. You will be thrilled by the brilliance of this 12th chakra, located about 20 feet above your crown chakra; it’s like a sun vibrating with swirling colors.

And like the sun, it burns hot and bright, since it is the source of your power and strength as well as your capability of manifesting change in both physical and nonphysical reality. All the energies of ascension reside here, which can speed up the ascension process in all the chakras below the 12th. You can also develop control over the elements when the 12th starts to open.

Here is the entrance to the vastness of the cosmos. If the 11th chakra is not wired correctly it can cause problems in the 12th chakra. And blocked energies here can cause issues with out-of-body travel, random healing skills, spontaneous inner visions in the midst of normal living, and even being able to have objects appear and disappear. This happens when the blocked energy is strong enough to bust out and pours too much energy into the 11th chakra where these skills reside.

In this video, I guide you in meditation to help balance the 12th chakra and calibrate your entire energy body at a high spiritual vibration.

If you are interested in guidance, so that you can find balance in all aspects of your life, reveal your life’s true purpose, and become your most powerful self, the doors are currently open for our exclusive Lifeforce Energy Healing® Master-in-Training Certification Course.

How are you being called to step into leadership right now?

August 23, 2022

by Deborah King Energy Healing Energy Medicine Featured

With all that’s going on in the world, do you feel called to help change the world?

Do you feel called to really step into the life you were meant to live so you can bring your gifts where they’re so needed?

Maybe you have spiritual gifts awakening inside you… perhaps energy healing or telepathy or clairvoyance…

Or maybe there’s a creative project you’ve been meaning to tackle — it could be anything — perhaps a book you were meant to write that will help shift people’s thinking and change old systems that don’t support humanity or the planet…

You might feel a call to be an activist or to step deeper into activism — for women, for children, for immigrants, for endangered species…

Or a game-changing idea for addressing climate change, reducing plastic, or guiding companies on ethical practices…

People around the world are awakening to the need for change, and maybe your gift is igniting them into action, giving them hope, counseling them, or giving them guidance to grow.

Whatever you’re called to, if you’re getting little nudges, it’s no wonder…

The “global pause” has not been easy for many, but it’s certainly brought a lot of time for reflection on what needs to change.

While these times we’re living are certainly “unprecedented,” they’re transformational times…

… catalytic times, rife with potential, calling you to action to help birth a new Earth.

For all we know, we could look back on 2022 and think of it as “The Year We Seized the Chance to Make Gigantic Changes.”

Now more than ever, it’s time for you to step into leadership. Because when you achieve the life you were meant to live, you lead others by example, but you also lift as you RISE.

Are you ready to be who you’re meant to be, to become a leader in your sphere of influence?

To be an agent of powerful, positive change in the world?

To create the life you want for yourself, your family, the Earth?

One of the keys to creating this needed change — and stepping into leadership in your life, your community, and beyond — is through raising your frequency and connecting to your higher guidance.

In this 12-minute video, I will lead you through a powerful practice to raise your frequency and connect you to your higher guidance — and the unique mission of your Soul to be a leader.

Remember you have infinite power to help make the changes we need in our world.

Remain open for messages from your heart… it always has guidance for you, and may send you “nudges” in the most unexpected ways.

And stay tuned for the next part in this series where we will access the wisdom of your upper chakras and higher realms for more guidance and grounding for your leadership role.

For more information on stepping into your role as a leader in every aspect of your life, you can check out my Lifeforce Energy Healing^® Master-in-Training Certification Course.

Initiation: Spiritual Evolution at a Whole New Level

August 17, 2022

by Deborah King Energy Medicine Featured Master-in-Training

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo. And with a wave of her magic wand, the fairy godmother transforms Cinderella, the lowly servant of her stepmother and stepsisters, into the belle of the ball and the beloved of Prince Charming. But there are rules: if you don’t get home from the ball by midnight, your gorgeous gown turns back into dirty rags and your handsome coach turns back into a pumpkin. But somehow you have managed to hold onto the glass slipper—a reminder that the “real” you is actually a sparkling star.

I’m not really promoting a Disney princess as an ideal you should be trying to emulate, but it’s interesting how fairy tales so often mimic deep spiritual truths.

Like Cinderella, you may have fallen on hard times. It was the death of Cinderella’s mother that brought the wicked stepmother into her life. For you, it may have been a nasty divorce, or the death of a loved one, or a difficult disease or accident, or a financial crisis that brought you to your knees. Whatever the cause, you find yourself feeling “less than” who you know yourself to be.

Did Cinderella whine and fret and complain? No, she managed to keep making lemonade out of the lemons in her life. She shared song and laughter with her animal friends. She did the chores she was handed, no matter how unfair. And her underlying goodness, her ability to rise above her circumstances, brought the fairy godmother and the power of transformation to her . . . because Cinderella was ready.

What makes you ready to transform? Doing whatever is in front of you to do, while maintaining your ability to turn obstacles into challenges and not giving in to despair (at least not too often). And if you can sing with the animals, or connect to nature in whatever way you can, that can help keep you balanced. Beyond that, you can develop a meditation practice. Learning to go inside and find the joy and peace that bubbles up from the inner silence can help you get through any pain or difficulty, as well as laying the foundation for initiation.

Initiation is both an experience and a process. It may be that magical moment when a master healer or spiritual teacher looks at you and “sees” initiatory energy waiting to be brought down into you. And if you are open enough, if you are ready, you may feel waves of bliss entering your body, or a powerful vibration shooting up your spine and out your fingertips, or see beautiful colors or hear angelic voices. You will be suffused in love. You’ll light up from within and radiate bliss. Of course, after the ball is over and you’re back to sweeping the hearth and doing the laundry, you will still have that glass slipper in the pocket of your apron. You will remember the experience of initiation and know that somehow your life is going to change—the prince will knock at your door, the check will arrive in the mail, you’ll find a new job that suits you so much better.

Because initiation goes beyond the magical moment. It is the process of reaching higher and higher levels of spiritual energy and abilities. It’s part and parcel of spiritual evolution, like going from kindergarten up through grade school and high school and then into the rarified realms of college and graduate school. Your Ph.D. will be self-realization. You may get left behind a grade if you don’t pass the tests that naturally arise—like pride in your initiations, or greed for more initiations, or jealousy of others who are having these experiences—but the process will eventually lead you to greater awareness and your ultimate transformation into an enlightened master.

Does this sound like a fairy tale? It’s not. But it is the stuff that dreams are made of.

Do you dream of being able to make the right decisions in your life by listening to your intuition? Do you have fantasies of being a powerful speaker or blogger, standing up for the rights of others? Do you wish you could do something meaningful with your life, like helping to heal others? What is your life purpose? Your destiny?

Become that person you’re meant to be by initiating more fully. The best place to do that is on my LifeForce Energy Healing^® Master-in-Training year-long program; check it out here. And may your spiritual guides, like a trusty fairy godmother, turn that pumpkin into the handsome coach that will carry you forth into the realms of higher awareness

Three Ways to Celebrate the Sturgeon Moon (and The Bounty of Nature)

August 8, 2022

by Deborah King Astrological Events Energy Medicine Featured Lunar

August’s Sturgeon Moon (aka Green Corn, Fruit, Barley, Grain, and Red Moon by other tribes) is the last supermoon of 2022. It is a time for reflection and gratitude for the many ways in which nature provides all of the essentials to sustain life in all its diverse forms in every season on our home planet.

It is called a Sturgeon Moon because it was during this time of the year in eras long past when the sturgeon in the Great Lakes were plentiful enough to provide ample sustenance for indigenous people. Native tribes caught, ate, and dried sturgeon in sufficient amounts to carry them through a series of the harsh fall and winters that followed on the heels of summer. The Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Great Lakes region followed the fish, which were a major food source. Sturgeon were so plentiful that the Potawatomi and Ojibwe tribes’ legends “tell of rivers so full of sturgeon that a person could walk across the water on their backs.”

Every ounce of the sturgeon was used by Indigenous tribes. It provided fresh meat. Later, when it was dried, it tasted similar to pemmican and could be kept for years. Bones were used for spears for hunting and needles for sewing; parts were used to make paint and glue for teepees; their oil was used for healing; bags and containers were made from the skin of the fish; and the stomach lining was used as drum coverings. So critical was the lake sturgeon to the Indigenous people that they called it “Buffalo of the Water.”

The August Sturgeon Full Moon testifies to the final days of summer and signals the beginning of harvest season. This is the perfect time of year to acknowledge and celebrate the rewards of your hard work.

Indigenous peoples on all continents generally have a far healthier respect than Industrial Age cultures do for the provisions that nature provides entirely without help or management by humanity. August’s Sturgeon Moon gives us the chance to meditate on Nature’s provisions and on our responsibility as stewards of the planet to do as much as we can to maintain its ability to continue to provide for all of the beings who live here.

Now is the perfect time to harness the natural energies that surround you during the Sturgeon Moon and focus them on taking care of yourself, your family, and all the other beings who contribute to your well-being across the globe, from honey bees to blue whales.

3 Ways to Celebrate the August Sturgeon Full Moon

Soak in a relaxing, spirit-soothing herbal bath.

Use chamomile, lavender, rose, and peppermint in your bath if peace and comfort are immediate goals. Add in heather, jasmine, or lemon balm to receive an extra dose of relaxation.

Light candles and play your favorite songs. Let your mind be quiet. Rest and recuperate so the tasks ahead can be undertaken with a renewed mind and spirit.

Participate in the Feast of New Bread Ritual

The Feast of New Bread was celebrated by ancient peoples after they had harvested their grain. They were celebrating the fact that there would be a storehouse of available food during the upcoming harsh winter and early spring months.

Bake a loaf of bread like your ancestors did (over an open fire or in a clay oven, if possible) and meditate with the intention of taking yourself back to simpler times, when modern day hassles didn’t exist, and artificial stressors were few and far between. Create something from scratch in memory of them and then thank them for persevering, for without their successful navigation of natural and manmade challenges, we wouldn’t even be here today!

Erect an altar, visualize your goals

An altar space is crucial if you believe, as I do, that putting positive, loving energy into the world can help you achieve your most cherished goals. The August Sturgeon full moon is a sign of empowerment, of creating and saving nutritional stores for an adequate abundance during leaner times.

Choose a small table, a shelf, or a windowsill to transform into your altar for August and beyond. Its very existence will remind you to meditate on your gratitude for the adequate provisions that frequently arrive in your life, either “just in time,” or for a less-plentiful time in the future.

Create a dream board, or pin images of places you hope to visit on your altar. Or simply scatter onto it positive quotes to remind yourself about the happiness and inspiration that are available to you at a moment’s notice.

As long as you remember to embrace the fact that you are powerful and worthy of ample provision, you will receive everything the August Sturgeon Full Moon offers you.

If you have a big vision for your life, but know that in order to achieve that vision you must first heal and invest in self-transformation, to become the person who is worthy of that vision, our year-long Master-in-Training program provides exactly the life-changing education and support that you are looking for. You can learn more about it by clicking here >>

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Your 10th chakra for tapping into your deepest, highest skills

The 11th chakra for going beyond the physical world

The 12th chakra for merging with the cosmos and all-knowing awareness

3 Ways to Celebrate the August Sturgeon Full Moon

Soak in a relaxing, spirit-soothing herbal bath.

Participate in the Feast of New Bread Ritual

Erect an altar, visualize your goals