August Gusto

Note: All three photos are of my new workspace before I started getting it set up.

Saturday is the first day of August. Lammas, or Lady Day, is another jewel in the crown of the year. The year, that was born anew at Winter Solstice, is now a matron. In the northern hemisphere, the trees and fields, having lost their new, green growth sheen, stand like bronze statues in the heat of summer. We are half way between the Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. The projects and dreams that we set into motion at Solstice are about to come into form.

The days are beginning to shorten as the nights lengthen. The waning of the year progresses. Summer, although still hot, is turning toward fall. The crops are beginning to produce but the realization of a full harvest is not yet secured. The fates can still steal the bounty away from us before the time of gathering. This is a time of hope for positive outcomes. In some Native American traditions, it is the time of the green corn dances or first fruit harvest.

My teacher, Sai Maa Lakshmi Devi, celebrates her birthday this weekend also. She will be sending out a shakti, an energy, that is very high, positive and strong. Around the globe there will be groups of people from different spiritual beliefs celebrating and spinning promises of hope and completion out into the world.

I am moving my business this weekend also and give my first massage on Saturday, August 1. I'm thinking this is a very good day to start anew. Yes, a very good day indeed. This weekend stick your hand out and grab onto some of those rays of hope flying around as you would the brass ring on a merry-go round. Set your intentions for the next six weeks as you spin the wheel-of-the-year's-fortune toward Fall Equinox. May your needle land on the Grand Prize. Yeah!

Handiwork

Sample written with my chartreuse and teal Symbicort pen on computer paper

[Click to enlarge photo]

Styles of handwriting are as unique as snowflakes. Each person's is a combination of their physical, emotional and artistic make up. In this interesting meme passed to me by Leah of the blog Weather in the Streets, I find seeing a sample of each blogger's writing gives substance to their cyber-personality.

Here is a sample of mine. It is a quick and utilitarian style. I always wanted to have beautiful cursive like my friends: Jeanne, Cathy, and Julie. They all went to parochial school. The one thing I have noted over the years is that the nuns sure can turn out students whose cursive writing stands above the crowd. Like I said, I would love to write so beautifully but for that to become a reality, I would have to practice. Not gonna happen. I will never slow down long enough to spend that much time penning and really prefer the quickness of a keyboard these days. I'm getting old. Gotta maximize every minute.

If you would like to share a sample of your handwriting, just stop by and leave me a note that you've posted yours. I'll be right over for a peek. Curious as a cat, am I.

Healing Coning Script 2

I first read about coning in MAP: The Co-Creative White Brotherhood Medical Assistance Program by Machelle Small Wright, ISBN: 0-927978-72-5. I know it sounds like an Arian Brotherhood book but, believe me, it is not. Although these healing practices are quite ancient, they are new to many people. That is why I've decided to post about them. This is the last post in this series. I'll give it, and you, a rest for a bit, but I am trying to get the word out. Look around. Our world is in great need of as many warriors of light as we can enlist. I thank you in advance for your patience.

Nature Healing Coning for Human Beings or Animals-Part 2

For human beings that are strangers and wild animals

When you wish to do a coning for people, wild animals or other animals who are in need but with whom you aren't acquainted, use this outline. In these situations, all you have to offer is a coning for healing. The difference here is that you will not provide assistance with medications or medical visits as in Nature Healing Coning-Part 1. It is not appropriate. Therefore, you (your higher self) don't have to be a participant in the coning. If you are going to provide follow-up assistance in the healing process, use Nature Healing Coning Script 1. For humans, animals and wild animals that you do not know, all you do is set the coning in motion. This is how to do the healing.

Find a quiet place where you can sit or lie comfortably for a while. Get into a meditative, or contemplative, state. An easy way to do this is simply to focus on your breath. Close your eyes. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Visualize your inhale breath as one color and your exhale breath as another. Just watch the breaths for a few rounds as you allow all of your muscles to relax. As you feel more and more relaxed with each breath, your awareness and focus will expand. If odd thoughts pop up, simply observe them and let them pass through. Remain free of picking them up and getting caught up in them.

1. Connect to the stranger's or the unknown animal's higher self. Do this just as you would connect to your own higher self--simply by asking to be connected. Using kinesiology, if you know it, test that connection. If not, don't worry.
   
2. Ask for permission. This may seem confusing, but given that you don't know these beings, you must ask their higher self if it is appropriate to initiate the nature coning healing. If in your awareness, you get a sense that the answer is "no", STOP. The being does not wish your assistance or to be disturbed. Under this circumstance, to continue is meddling. Do not go any further. Continue only if you get a "yes" answer.
   
3. Ask that a healing coning be opened. Invite the following guides to activate the coning.
   
   1. Deva of Human and Animal Healing
      
   2. Pan and any nature spirits or other spirits working with the human or the animal
      
   3. The human's or the animal's higher self.
      
4. Relax, breathe and allow about 15-20 seconds for the coning to fully activate and come together.
   
5. You don't need to do anything else right now but sit quietly for 30 minutes. The coning will know what to do for the being.
   
6. At the end of the 30 minutes, if you know kinesiology, you can perform muscle testing for the proper flower essence to use in the healing. If not, don't worry. You have already done great work for what is to be the highest and best good for the being. Sometimes, to continue life is not the best choice. Just set your intention for what is best and let the gods and the beings take care of the rest. If you do use flower essences, do not give orally. Just put them anywhere on the body. In most instances, it will be unsafe or impractical to apply the tinctures so skip this step.
   
7. The session is over. Now it is important to dismantle the nature healing coning. This is done by asking the participants to disengage, one- by -one (the guides/the being's high self) from the coning. Honor them as you give each participant approximately 5 seconds to depart. Test yourself with flower essences or divine guidance to make sure you are clear.
   

A lot of beings DO need this work. It is important to remember that the energy utilized in the coning is not your energy. I am showing you how to use healing energy...energy that comes directly from the creator. If you choose, at any time or place, you can become a conduit of unconditional love and healing for another being. This work is truly easy to do. You will do no harm. You don't have to go to medical school to have an impact on wellness in the world. After all, we've only had educated doctors for a hundred to two hundred years. So, let your energy soar!

Healing Coning Script 1

 

In this post, I had planned to script a coning for an animal. But in response to a number of questions I received in my last post, I have decided to write it for either human or animal healing. I will attempt to make the process as simple as possible. It is truly a lot easier to perform than it is to read. This work is based on that of Machelle Small Wright.

 

Nature Healing Coning for Human Beings or Animals

For family, friends, companion animals or pets

 

Find a quiet place where you can sit or lie comfortably for a while. Get into a meditative, or contemplative, state. An easy way to do this is simply to focus on your breath. Close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Visualize your inhale breath as one color and your exhale breath as another. Just watch the breaths for a few rounds as you allow all of your muscles to relax. As you feel more and more relaxed with each breath, your awareness and focus will expand. If odd thoughts pop up, simply observe them and let them pass through. Remain free of picking them up and getting caught up in them.

 

1. Open a healing coning by simply asking, aloud or to yourself, to be connected to:
   
   1. For Human Healing: Yahweh, Jesus, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Devas (gods/deities) of Human healing, Goddesses of healing such as Hecate, Panacea or Mercy, any of the angels, the Elementals, or any other spiritual beings who guide you.
      
   2. For Animal Healing: Pan and/or spirits of nature working with the animal, the Deva of Animal Healing, or any other spiritual beings who guide you .
      
   3. In both cases: To your higher self
      
   4. In both cases: To the higher self of the human being or animal.
      
2. Relax, breathe and allow about 15-20 seconds for the coning to fully activate and come together.
   
3. Explain to the guides, as completely as possible, what you know or observe about the person's or the animal's situation. Let the coning work for about 30 minutes while you relax and think about the being you are helping. The information you give the guides lets them know how much you understand about the problem. Since you will be helping in the healing, they need to know your level of knowledge.
   
4. During this time, you may hear, see, feel or sense that there is something you are to do or check. If you get such a message, ask the coning if your intuition is right.
   
5. At the end of the 30 minutes, ask the coning any questions that may have arisen during that time. Do you need to assist the being in any way? Does the being need medical attention? If so, does another coning need to be done after the visit? Does the being's nutrition need to be changed or assessed? How, when and for how long? If the being doesn't need to go for medical attention, do there need to be additional healings? How many and how long? Keep asking questions until you have all the information you need. Ask the questions in basic yes or no format. Wait for the answer to come to mind. This is not your imagination. Trust your instincts, although, I know this is hard in the case of a novice healer. If you know kinesiology, you can perform muscle testing.
   
6. Using kinesiology, if you know it, test for flower essence administration. If not, don't worry. What you have already done is completely beneficial. It will take several subsequent posts to explain muscle testing and flower essences.
   
7. The session is over. Now it is important to dismantle the nature healing coning. This is done by asking the participants to disengage, one- by -one (the guides/your high self/the being's high self) from the coning. Honor them as you give each participant approximately 5 seconds to depart. Test yourself with flower essences or divine guidance to make sure you are clear.
   

It is important to remember that the energy utilized in the coning is not your energy. You are not doing anything to anyone. This healing energy belongs to us all. It is our birthright. You are simply a willing conduit of unconditional love and healing for another being. This work is easy to do. You are not tampering with free will or Voodoo. You will do no harm. Give your healing side a chance to express itself. We all
have the ability and you will help another in the process. A-ho!

Next up: Coning for individuals you don't know or wild animals

The Cone of Power

In my last post, I wrote about a healing technique called coning. This is how coning works. The cone of power is raised to collect, form, concentrate and send psychic energy. Without direction, energy either dissolves without outcome or deteriorates into nervous tension. Energy can be raised in many ways such as meditation, prayer, chanting, music, or dancing. Coning can either be done with a group or by an individual. It strengthens the transformation of the events and the Be-ings for which it is raised.

Basically, the cone is a visualization. A highly charged thought-form, the cone gains power and life during ceremony or worship. It is the focus of the group power or individual mind. It is a force that can change things in the world. The cone contains all the energy and focus that is generated during the ceremony and, as an image, is directed toward making the change that is desired. This image is directed by visualization into such shapes as cones, spirals, bubbles, fireworks, or waterfalls. The cone is then sent out into the universe, or to God/Goddess, or sent out and brought back to serve the receptive individuals.

In the first stage, the energy is concentrated and raised. There are a number of ways this is done. Sound is one of the ways. The sound is created with drums, rattles, chants, singing, or toning. The energy is also raised to high frequency through meditation, prayer and visualization. As the tension of the energy increases, the cone raises and the intensity and speed of the sound escalates. The energy is raised to its highest pitch, and before it begins to fade, the sound is quickly stopped. The cone is then visualized as going out into the universe. Alternately, the cone's energy can be visualized as going out, coming back and entering into the forms of those who have need. Visualize the purpose and wishes that are in need of enhancement as the cone's energy enters the body. To allow the transformations to take place, with willing acceptance, draw the energy within.

During the visualization, the cone is seen as fireworks or rockets spraying out into the universe and then the colors being drawn into the heart or chakras of the participants. If the cone is seen as a waterfall, the energy rising and falling is absorbed inward. If the cone is viewed as a bubble, the orb of light surrounds and is breathed by the recipients. The energy of the cone as a spiral aspect sends swirls from the Earth to the Universe and back again, holding the wishes for transformation and transmutation.

In the next stage, after the cone of power is raised and released to do its work, the energy is grounded. In this powerful silence, bend, or sit, and touch the palms of the hands to the floor or ground. Hold them there for a few minutes. The forehead can also be touched to the ground. This is sometimes called "earthing the energy." The reason is to discard any energy that remains. There is no harm in losing energy that is desired or positive, but it can get uncomfortable if not cleared. One can become emotional, have trouble sleeping, or even become tense or angry for no apparent reason.

Extra unreleased energy can manifest as nervous tension. Grounding is a good way to prevent overloading the circuits as there is a huge amount of energy that passes through the bodies and Be-ings during a coning session. Nothing needed is ever lost and grounding is a good way to bring energy back into balance. Sometimes a small amount of food is used by participants to fully bring them back from between worlds and to this Earth plane. But touching the ground with the hands does the same thing and should always be done. See or feel the energy leaving your hands and entering the Earth. Direct the energy to heal the Earth.

In the final stage, any gods, God, Goddess, Devas, elementals, directions, or guides that answered the invitation to assist, are thanked and released. Coning is a simple, harmless and profound way to work many miracles. If you initiate the ceremony of coning or prayer with good intent and a sense of humor, as well as a sense of reverence, all will be well.

Give it a whirl.

Up Next: Outline for performing an Animal Coning

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Stinky

It's about 11 p.m. on a weeknight. I'm sitting, here, at the computer reading a few blogs. I hear the laundry porch door slap its closing. The husband must be done working on his car. Footsteps. Footsteps stop. I wait for the familiar sound of the fridge door closing and a glass of milk being poured. Or the plink of the remote control as he tunes into the poker tour, the golf channel or the Giant's baseball game. Silence. A big, fat, loud silence follows his footsteps. His sharp and jagged presence pierce my calm. I'm trying not to show annoyance--he's harshing my mellow.

I turn toward him.

He gives me "the look."

No, not the late night, boudoir look that is usually paired with a coaxing pat to my rump roast!

The other one. The one that says stop what you are doing. I need your help now!

Doing my wifely duty, I ask him what is wrong.

He tells me that Maaco just got sprayed by a skunk in the back yard. Maaco the Thunder Dog has been on a roll lately--and not a good one.


Every so many summers, the skunks decide that the best way to get to the field across the street from our house is through our back yard. They are headed for the neighborhood run-off water that is captured in a culvert. My older dogs tangoed many a losing dance with the skunks when they were pups. They got sprayed so frequently in a short span of time, that the dog groomer gave me the recipe to her secret de-skunking potion. I like to think she took pity on my finances, but it was probably out of self-defense. I can only imagine what her clients thought when I towed my two protesting, malodorous canines into her shop. Bless her, she was a patient woman.

They finally learned not to mess with critters that looked like large black and white kitties with big tails. But not Thunder Dog. He came to us a couple of years later. Until tonight, he's never seen a skunk. His tailgating the south end of this one ended in a skunk-cident. So at midnight, I gathered up the three magic ingredients and we set about washing one putrid four-legged in the garden. Skunk spray is so toxic at close range that it makes your eyes and mouth water. It is nauseatingly noxious. They should use the stuff for chemical warfare. Skirmishes would end quickly. Saddam would wave the white flag.


As we were drying Thunder Dog off, B.B., one of our other dogs, commenced with a barking and pouncing fit. The husband went to quiet her down and discovered that the skunk was still in the yard. We couldn't tell if he was dead, injured or just playing possum so the dogs would leave him alone. We weren't about to go close enough to find out. After getting the dog and ourselves clean, we snuggle into bed for the evening. Still worrying about the fate of poor skunky, I decide to perform a coning.


Coning is a raising, concentrating and directing of psychic energy. On Thursday, I will go into the process of coning but for today, you have enough information. The technique I choose to use this night also employs the help of nature in the healing. Before going to sleep, I visualize the skunk and get into a meditative state. I appeal to the appropriate guides to help with that which is for the highest and best good for the animal. How long I linger in that state, I do not know. I just keep focusing on the well being of skunky. After several hours I experience something new--even to me.

I notice that I have become very expanded. Thin. I don't mean body weight wise. I mean thin as in substance.

Like atmosphere or steam. I am not a liquid or a solid so I must be a gas.

Oh, stop! I wrote "be a gas" not have gas.

I'm serious. I become the space between the cells. The stillness between the breaths. The quiet between thoughts.

No body. Pure space.

I feel like I still have eyes and can see. At one point, I go quite a distance out from my center, turn back and look at myself. I see that I am as thin as vapor--with stars, planets, and galaxies for eyes. Universes are my face. I stay in that cosmic, stretched state. I feel calm. I feel comforted.

Eternal.

Without Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, I disappear into myself.


In the early hours of morning, I venture outside. Skunky has gone. I hope that when we left and all settled down, that with our help, he got his bearings and, uninjured, headed back to his family. I honor all of the helpful guides, Devas, and the animal's higher self and ask them to end the coning by disconnecting one by one. The coning ends. So does my evening in the garden of good and stinky.

The Chiaroscuro Effect

On this night noir, the grapefruit moon cuts a chiaroscuro effect. His low-key, back light gives a shimmer to the vapors schoonering across his Swiss cheese face. With my hair flying around my head and lifting against my arms, I press the button.




John F. Kennedy's voice, echoing off the concrete dam, fills the void of nearly 50 years. Fills my ears with the recording of his dedication speech. He was here. Here--dedicating Whiskeytown Dam--less than two months before his assassination in 1963.




It feels like he never left. Like a ghostly part of him remains in the peace of this post-card-worthy valley. A part that never went to Dallas. A part that is still married to Jackie. A part that comforts his son, John Jr., as he drowns in the ocean a few miles off the island of Martha's Vineyard. A part that visits his grandchildren born of Caroline.


I jump as I feel his hand lightly brush mine. Is it my imagination? The logical part of my mind tells me it is but all of my other senses, including my eyes, tell me that he is right here in front of me speaking.

Ribbon Bridge

Quick post today. This morning's walk to the "first of its kind" ribbon stress bridge in North America. This bridge was opened in 1990 and spans the Sacramento River. It is very close to my house. We have a wonderful trail system here that you can walk or bike for miles and miles and miles.

The Trinity House

Claws

At the Trinity House

I don't like moving. I live in the same house that I moved into when I married 33 years ago. But that doesn't mean I don't like change. I do. I like change a lot. My work environment is changing. It makes me sad that I am pushed to move, but once decided, my excitement for new experiences is climbing.


I have been very happy with all the ladies I work with, there are over 40 of us. It is rare that so many women can work together with minimum conflict. Note I wrote conflict, not drama. Drama is an integral part of such a large grouping. But my dissension is not so much with the drama as just needing to be in a place of stable ownership. My days of trying to help owners overcome their self-destructive patterns seems to be at an end. I am most certainly glad to help. But over the years, I have put my own desires and interests behind others in the name of helping them run their businesses successfully. To heck with what I want. Time and time again. The last time, nearly five years ago, I said never again. From now on, I run my business for me alone.


What happens next? Immediately I find myself in the same situation. What kind of karma am I trying to burn? What is up with the same scenario over and over. I have walked a way from three businesses with nothing while leaving the owners with what I have added. A great opportunity presented itself to me once I started looking, and I am going to take it. This time it is for me. Maybe this is the lesson of my karmic Groundhog Day.

I like this house. It is very similar to the one in which I live. The energy is calm and peaceful even though it is a bustling little business. The mighty Sacramento River runs to the back side of the building. My massage room is upstairs, on the river side of the house under the shade trees, where you see the windows on the roof. They are screened windows that can be opened when the weather is nice. And plants. I can have plants because they will get some light. I am looking forward to being in this space. I am looking forward to all of the great healing and energy work I can do here. Oh, yeah, it suits me!