Looking for Guidance? These are your most powerful guides.
Mount Kailash: The Axis Mundi of the World
Mount Kailash: The Axis Mundi of the World
Newgrange: A Passage-Tomb to the Other Side
Newgrange: A Passage-Tomb to the Other Side
A Trip to Karnak: The Largest Religious Site in the World
A Trip to Karnak: The Largest Religious Site in the World
Glastonbury: The Heart Chakra of the World
Glastonbury: The Heart Chakra of the World
Real World Animal Farm (Pigs Still Get The Best Of It)
Real World Animal Farm (Pigs Still Get The Best Of It)
The Unique Balancing Power of Red Coral
Gemstones are resonant objects, objects that pulsate and vibrate with the resonance of specific planets and cadences, providing us connectivity and understanding.
A gemstone, at its very basic definition, is a mineral which has been cut or polished. These minerals are created through the rhythmic creation processes of Earth — from volcanic eruptions to intense pressure under the layers of Earth. It’s a beautiful process whose product – gems – reflect and capture the energies and motions of the Earth, and it is these captured rhythms which we strive to sync.
But not all stones come from those processes. In fact, one stone – red coral – comes from a unique and altogether wonderful process on Earth. I want to share this process with you.
Red coral comes from a life cycle. We’ve all seen images of the beautiful coral reefs in the oceans, or perhaps taken a snorkeling trip through the underwater forests. The coral that forms these reefs are the exoskeletons of living organisms.
Coral was alive. These small, precious living things live, thrive, and die in colonies. As they continuously grow and die, they deposit small amounts of calcium carbonate – the same mineral that makes up pearls and eggshells. These small deposits grow over time, building these magnificent underwater forests that we call reefs.
Within these mineral skeletons, new corals continuously grow, giving rise to coral’s nickname: living rock. This lifecycle is what makes coral so vibrant, so unique among the gemstones that we study and align with. It’s a powerful, deeply connective stone that is in tune with the oceanic circle of life.
Red coral, due both to its red color and its very deep and root resonance to life, aligns with the planet Mars. Mars, which we affectionately call the Red Planet, exists as a symbol of masculine virility, passion, and war throughout cultures in the East and the West — in both Vedic and Western astrology. When properly aligned, Mars’s energy brings vitality, strength, resolve, and passion. When overly charged, Mars’s energy can bring anger, irrationality, pain, and destruction.
The ancients knew this. The Greek thinkers specifically understood that Mars energy, whom they called Ares, ran the risk of becoming too aggressive, too warlike. They understood that Mars energy needed to be moderated. They understood that Mars energy could consume an unwary soul. In those days, they would call upon the wisdom of Athena — the goddess of wisdom and strategy — to moderate that passion. Today, while you still may call upon your higher divine wisdoms, I encourage you to also look to precious red coral. Remember, within this precious gemstone is an entire ecosystem of life, death, creation, and destruction.
This tether to life and death, unique to coral among all gemstones, imbues this stone with a profoundly moderating energy, which helps you filter out the aggressive powers that Mars can bring. This is the beauty of red coral. It strengthens you with the powerful gifts of Mars, while preventing you from falling into the throes of irrational passion.
When you connect with Mars, and I encourage you to do so, do remember that you are dealing with a powerful, primordial energy. Respect the vast, passionate, masculine power that flows through Mars, and understand that this energy should be moderated and mediated. You may also wish to call upon the strength and wisdom of the Pallas Athena. Her energy is best thought of as strong, even-tempered, intellectual, and righteous.
The beautiful and oceanic power native to red coral provides an excellent and protective conduit for this energy. I would love to teach you more about how to connect with the vibrational frequencies of gemstones and planets such as red coral and Mars. If you’re interested, please come and join me at the Shift Network, where I’ll soon be teaching a seven-week course on Vibrational Medicine.
The Science Behind Vibrational Medicine
You are a living, breathing field of energy. Your body is made up of molecules and atoms that produce energy, which is always in motion. So like everyone and everything else in the universe, you are creating energy through your vibrations.
My field of energy medicine is also called vibrational medicine because we use the energy within and around you to benefit your health.
Research has shown how the body’s electrical and magnetic energies kickstart the chemical processes of the body, and there is evidence that these energies definitely impact your health.
Vibrations work in a rhythm. There are big rhythmic patterns, like the ocean tides or the changing seasons. Inside your body, your beating heart, the rate of your breathing, and circadian rhythms can all be felt and measured.
But there are also much smaller vibrations happening inside your cells. Researchers have even been able to detect the nanovibrations of a single strand of hair!
All these big and small vibrations together generate waves of electromagnetic energy. The vibrations and the energy they create can change your cells, which in turn affect the way your body is working.
The molecules of your body vibrate at different rates, which can move faster or slower when things change. For example, a change in temperature can affect a molecule’s vibration.
What those of us in energy medicine have long known, and researchers are now studying, is the way your body’s rhythmic vibrations, and therefore your health, are affected by your thoughts and emotions. Anxious thoughts, for example, trigger stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which speed up or slow down your heart rate. A continued change in vibration over time can affect your health.
Your personal energy field and its chakras are powered by your emotions. That’s such a key point – let me repeat it: your thoughts and emotions affect your field and your rate of vibration. If you are inundated with negative thoughts, you will vibrate at a lower frequency. If you are exposed to an ongoing low frequency energy, you will feel negative and may eventually become ill.
Think of the way the vibrations of music can affect how you think and feel, and thus affect your body. You know how the music in the movie amps up the intensity of what you’re seeing on the screen. The soundtrack for action movies, for example, pumps up the tension and your sense of excitement at key points with a rapid tempo, while chick-flics inevitably have a string orchestra playing love songs to lift you into a heart space.
If you change your thoughts and emotions, and even your environment, you can slow down or speed up the vibrations that are happening at the cellular level. A change in even the smallest nanovibrations can influence how you feel and the health of your body. It’s the mind-body connection.
Science doesn’t yet understand how vibrational energy does what it does in your body, but in vibrational medicine we see how a change in your body’s vibrations can shift your mood, improve your health, and help you realize your goals and dreams.
You are very susceptible to changes in frequency – the rate of vibration. There is plenty of evidence that links positive patterns of thoughts and feelings to better health and overall well-being. A high enough frequency, created by vibrations of joy, peace, and forgiveness, and you feel good, happy to be alive, and grateful for your spiritual awakening and your community. If your vibration dips too low, you may feel fearful, confused, angry, or in despair.
My goal, as a teacher of vibrational medicine, is to help you elevate your frequency, so you vibrate at a higher rate and be filled with positivity, wellness, and light.
The higher your frequency, the more likely you are to experience an initiation, those illusive step-ups in spirituality that I’m famous for helping occasion: spiritual breakthroughs in which you are admitted to the higher planes. Just as initiations are forms of higher consciousness, so too their existence is predicated on higher frequency wavelengths.
When our atoms vibrate together – or resonate – they form a connected consciousness. That is why when you resonate with another being, you feel less like a solitary figure and more part of the whole. Raising your individual consciousness requires raising your vibratory resonance, so you can connect with others and with the universe at large. Your field must oscillate faster and more intensely to resonate with the manifest beauty the universe has to offer you.
Want to experience a higher frequency? Come join me this coming Saturday, June 5, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, on Shift Network, as I go in-depth on this topic and lead a guided meditation to do that very thing!
Follow the Light
Your eyes are closed. Warm, humid air nestles on your cheeks. The air feels palpable. You lie still, rocking on what feels like water, yet, oddly, you remain dry.
You open your eyes. It’s dark. Warmly dark. Enveloping dark. Above you: a warm darkness. Below you: darkness. In front and to the behind, more dark.
It’s pleasant. Like a warm summer’s night, just as the breeze dies down when the sun finally sets.
Where are you? Where are we?
We are at the beginning. The beginning of where all consciousness begins on the journey to enlightenment. In the dark.
You blink once, twice, three times for good measure. A small dot in the distance. A dot that stands out against the darkness. You can see it. In fact, it’s the only thing you can see. It is, in fact, light. Illumination. Unsure why, you find yourself drawn toward the light. Pressing forward. Pushing through the darkness.
As you lean into the illumination, your own body becomes apparent. You can feel your legs walking forward. You can now see the ground beneath your feet. Behind you: shadow. You turn your head around and see that the darkness has grown more pronounced. More defined. Delineated between what is light and where there is no light.
For the first time, you feel fear of this dark. Even though, before, the dark was all-encompassing. Now, split by the light, the dark feels stronger. You can even see yourself reflected in the dark.
This is your shadow. Notice how it grows larger as you walk forth into the light. Notice how the shadows of all the lit rocks, hills, trees, and people grow greater as the light shines forth.
The light illuminates all. That is what light does.
From the ancient religions of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Orthodox Christianity, great teachers have understood that light is divine. Light, is the source of all life and consciousness. Thousands of years before scientists understood how stars fused hydrogen to helium – releasing tremendous energy and life-bringing light, primitive humans knew that the light was life.
And it is. Without the brilliance of light, we’d have no home for life. We’d have no plants to photosynthesize and produce oxygen. We’d have no warmth. We’d be cold and in the dark – huddled around the few sources of heat our planet produces.
But we have light, and we give thanks to the light. We celebrate Diwali, the festival of light that honors the victory of light over darkness. We celebrate Easter, where Christ, light incarnate, arose from the dead, having gained victory over death and Hades.
I love these celebrations. And I love that we celebrate these victories of the light over darkness yearly. Because while the religious events that we celebrate may have occurred once, the journey of light over darkness is continual.
And that is because the darkness is but the absence of light. And the greater the light expands, the more darkness we are able to see.
Return, for a moment, to our warm, humid darkness. Imagine you hold but a single candle. It extends a circle of light around you – just one foot wide. Around that: darkness. But how much darkness is there? It’s hard to say. From where you’re standing, it appears to simply be where the light stops – 1 foot away.
But grow that light. When the light grows to ten feet wide, we can see so much more. We see so much light! But we also see the limits of that light. And we see that the darkness expands far more than we originally understood. Now, darkness surrounds our circle for 10 feet instead of 1.
This is why we always celebrate the victory of light over the dark – because the light’s illumination is continually expanding. And as the dark retreats, more is uncovered. Our shadows grow longer. This growing darkness may give us pause – may make us yearn for the days when our light was smaller – when the world was simpler.
When these moments feel overwhelming, when the pull of the darkness feels so warm, I want you to do one thing: find the light. Find the tiny, pin-drop light that was there at the beginning. And hold that light true. That light is your compass. Stand in the light. Sit in the light. Lie down in the light. Bask in that one dot of light, until it overwhelms you with safety and security.
And when you’re ready, walk toward it once again.
It’s a long journey, and the shadows the light raises may be imposing. But the light is life, and by journeying through the light, your true self will be illuminated.
Follow the light, bathe in the light. Come celebrate the light with me.
If you’re a guy or a gal ready to bring more light into your own world, and into the world of those closest to you, join Deborah for a transformational seven week journey as she helps you Awaken the Divine Feminine – an energy source essential for light…and enlightenment. Click here to join the journey now.
Embracing the Liminality of 2020
I want to talk with you about liminality. About thin places. Thin times.
Liminality refers to a state of transition or of a rite of passage. It is an innate quality present within a space, a time, or a person.
Perhaps the most popular date of liminality would be Hallowtide – the three days making up Hallowe’en, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day, which I wrote and spoke about at length last Fall.
We see the liminality of Hallowtide reflected in our celebrations. We embrace our fears of death as we cuddle on the couch watching the latest horror film. We embody our fears as we dress in the clothes of our monsters and ghosts. We commune with death as we make offerings to our departed loved ones.
Hallowtide is a thin time. I want to talk about another thin time.
Friends, this year has been (for all of us) a very trying time. Many of us have lost loved ones. Many of us have had close calls with death ourselves. Destruction, anxiety, and illness have been more present this year than in many generations.
It appears that this year itself has been a thin time. The veil between our worlds feels gossamer where it once felt heavy.
It’s an uneasy time. This feeling of thinness between our worlds has made everyone feel uneasy.
As we depart from Hallowtide and move toward the Winter Holidays, it can be tempting to try and ignore the thinning of the veil. The Winter Solstice has always been a spiritual and natural “reset” for our world, bringing new vitality as the sun begins to increase in strength again.
So many have thought “2020 is going to be a year not to repeat. 2021 is my 2020 do-over.”
What you’re hoping for is to simply “patch up” the veil between our worlds. It’s a natural reaction to such a complicated time. It’s not fun being uneasy. You want that unstable feeling to end.
But these thin times are rare, and it is important to understand the opportunity, wisdom, and enlightenment that thin moments and thin places can offer.
Just as on Dia de Los Muertos, you commune with your ancestors, during the waning weeks of 2020, you must commune with the energy flowing between our worlds.
I know that is a difficult choice. After all, it sometimes feels that far more energy has flown from our world to the spirit world this year. It can be vulnerable to open yourself up to the other world. But embracing the power of liminality allows you to cultivate understanding and enlightenment, helping you start the new year on the right foot.
So how do you embrace liminality?
Find thin places. Thin places are physical, real places where the distance between our world and the spirit world is at its closest. These places may not be the same for everyone.
For some of you, these thin places might be as simple as a hill in an empty forest. For others, a grand ruin in a far-off country might be the thinnest of places. It’s a place where there is an immediate sense that a greater power is present. You feel connected to a force, an energy, a divinity that you can’t discern elsewhere.
Stand still in the thin places. Don’t interrogate. Be present, and allow yourself to become a vessel, a conduit for wisdom and light. Imbue yourself with the energy that crosses over.
As you approach the Winter Holidays of Christmas, Hannukah, Yule, Kwanzaa, and many others, fully enmesh yourself in the ritual of these holidays.
Ritual without meaning is ceremony. Fully realized ritual allows you to tap into the energy of this thin time.
Your rituals, whether it be lighting advent candles, burning the yule log, or baking Christmas cookies, further thins the veil between our worlds. Use your rituals to glean insight from the thinness of 2020. Use this insight to position yourself for 2021.
Let the thin times roll!