Sacred Space, Sacred Time

If you really want to feel some powerful energy, skip the vortexes in Sedona and go straight to any old, stone cathedral in Europe! With their soaring ribbed vaults, pointed arches, flying buttresses and stained glass windows, they truly awe, inspire and humble us. The men who built them were expressing their relationship to Spirit and God. Each cathedral took decades to be completed. Can you imagine how much energy was expended in terms of time, money, physical labor and human lives to gather the materials and construct these monuments, many of which have withstood the forces of time and weather? After construction was finished, these cathedrals were consecrated as holy places of worship and service. When I have entered several old cathedrals, I have deeply felt all of this powerful energy of the sacredness of being in communication with spirit. Sometimes I meditate on evoking this energy within me. It is amazing to sit in such a space of communion with one's self and with one's God-of-Your-Own-Heart. It is a space of total presence and certainty.

Most of us spend very little time in Sacred Space. That's because no one ever told us that it even exists, much less how to create it. We rush through our busy lives distracting ourselves from finding the real meaning of life, while wondering if we will ever stumble upon it. Well, you get there a lot faster when you consciously create it. For me, "It," the meaning of life, is being in spiritual communication with yourself, with others, and with our Divine Essence, the life force energy that animates us, that makes us be alive.

If you are reading this, you probably already have some kind of spiritual practice. Do you need to bring it into present time and renew your enthusiasm for it? Have you done a consecration ritual asking Spirit to bless your sacred space? Also ask the Forces-That-Be to bless and make sacred the time that you spend in your sacred space. Write times your datebook for your spiritual practice and let no one intrude on it, or take it away from you. If you have an artistic nature that needs to be expressed, furnish the room to your liking. If you have an ascetic nature, all you need is a chair and your body. Some people take a walk out in nature, or visit cathedrals, temples and other holy places. Aim for those deeper feelings of aliveness and remembering who you are while on this physical plane. If these deeper feelings sometimes seem elusive, remember that it is a human process of experimentation and discovery. The thirty to sixty minutes you spend in deep connection with yourself is what gives meaning to the other twenty-three hours.

Exercise for discovering creating sacred space: Make a list of the places of worship for several religious denominations in the city where you live, or a nearby large, metropolitan area. Try to find those with sanctuaries that are over one hundred years old (both large and small). (Hint: Look in a phone directory and you will find some unique and interesting spiritual centers, as well as the dominant ones.) Visit these places at a time when the main sanctuary is empty. Many places of worship welcome people to enter the sanctuary during the day. Feel into the energy of each of them and notice how your body feels. Does it feel like the people who worship there come out of love, or out of obligation? Can you feel if a particular place offers its congregants a rigid or flexible dogma of how to communicate with spirit? Which of them have a feeling of holiness about them? After visiting a variety of spiritual centers, churches, temples and mosques, stop by a bookstore or library for books on creating space with rituals, decorations, music and feng shui. Go home and create your own sacred space. Let me know what you find there.

Blessings for a Joyous and Peaceful Holiday Season.
Madeline

http://www.psychicawakeningsseattle.com/

Book Recommedation: Temples of Light

Hello!
I would like to let you know about a new, wonderful book written by a good friend of mine. Danielle has been leading trips to Egypt every year for several years. We are very lucky that she is now sharing her incredible spiritual information and experiences in this very worthy read.








Temples of Light by Danielle Rama Hoffman, is being offered along with $3000 in bonus gifts (including gifts from Psychic Awakenings), beginning on December 8th at 12:01 am. We invite you to visit www.thetemplesoflight.com/promotion and then click on the "order" link, order the book on Amazon and return to the promotional page. Enter your name and email address to reach the bonus page. The bonuses will not be available until December 8.

"The Temples of Light guides the reader, as the initiate, on a spiritual journey through thirteen of Egypt’s sacred temples--a journey into the sanctuary of the open heart. Each sacred site is a portal to ancient wisdom that can assist the modern-day pilgrim with everyday life issues and struggles--love, purpose, money, and health--and the deeper questions of enlightenment and our divine origin."

Danielle Rama Hoffman opens up sacred rites of passage that historicallly have been kept secret to forge a relationship with the temples of Egypt as allies and spirit guides. For example, the temple of Sakkara is associated with abundance; the temple of abydos with remembering. The initiations in this book awaken intuition and the Sahu--the fully realized self--allowing connections to the power, magic, and wisdom of such sacred symbols as the Flower of Life, the Djed Pillar (the backbone of Osiris), the Ka, and the energy body. Hoffman's guided meditations, rituals, and exercises also raise the reader's vibration level, as we move from the Piscean to the Aquarian age. Embodying the wisdom of the open heart of these temples imparts a shift in consciousness from fear to bliss, from powerlessness to empowerment, opening the body, mind, and spirit to the infinite possibilities within. The book also includes a 60-minute CD of a guided journey of the Sphinx.

Please do click on the link above and take a look at this book on Amazon.com. It's a trove of useful information for those of us interested in spiritual and personal growth.

Madeline

December Expectations

The day before Thanksgiving (“On your mark…”),
Thanksgiving (“Get set…”),
The Friday after Thanksgiving (“GO!”);
and we are off and running the countdown to Christmas day (well, in our society December is mainly Christian-focused, but there’s several other worthy holidays: Hanukah, Kwanza, Yule and the Winter Solstice). For most adults, the thirty or so days go by quite quickly. At the end of the race, are you left with fulfillment and satisfaction, or disillusionment and disappointment? The first few days of December are a good time to clarify your intentions for the remainder of the holiday season.

Being that I live in Seattle, where there is perhaps one or two days of snow in December, I’m always amused at the winter-themed decorations that appear during the week of Thanksgiving. Snowmen and snowflakes appear everywhere. That’s when the department stores and radio stations turn up the volume on the Christmas carols too. They want to get you into the “Christmas Spirit” so you’ll spend your money more freely. That’s because merchants and businesses are setting the energy for a profitable December. There’s a theory that most businesses “operate in the red” (i.e., red ink on their income and expense reports indicate financial losses) from January through November, but make up for their losses during the Christmas season which traditionally starts on starts on Black Friday (they change to black ink on their reports to indicate profits). If you adjust your energy to match the energy that the businesses set, you may behave the way they would like you to behave and buy things that neither you nor your friends need. It’s a good idea for you to set the energy of Christmas and December to where it means something to you. You’ll be much happier setting expectations and intentions that you are capable of manifesting.

Present Time Exercise:
Here’s an exercise to help you create a more satisfying, enjoyable December. Get a fresh December calendar page. Preferably one without any pictures on it (if you don’t have one handy, you can Google “printable, December, 2009.”) Draw pictures, or use store bought stickers, to mark the holidays you want to celebrate. Also indicate any parties, family get-togethers, gift shopping, performances and religious services you want to attend. Next add enough quiet time or self-pampering. Finally, create time for connecting with a few individual friends one-to-one. Be sure to decorate the borders of the page, and some of the empty spaces too.

Now it’s time to energize, or “work the energy of” your December. Take your calendar page and sit in a straight back chair, with your feet flat on the ground. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Imagine sending down a grounding beam of energy from your body down to the center of the earth. Now imagine a grounding cord of energy from your December page down to the center of the earth. Use it to drain off everyone else’s attention, energy and expectations from your December. Just see that energy being sucked down the grounding deep into the earth. Keeping the page grounded, now fill it up with your highest creative essence. See your favorite color spreading across the page. Set the intention that you will be in present time as each day unfolds so that you will fully enjoy each activity. Bless it and ask your Spirit Guides or Angels to bless it also. You’ve now given yourself the best gift of all: Present Time. Enjoy your December!

Blessings of Peace,
Madeline
http://www.psychicawakeningsseattle.com/

From Wishful Thinking to Manifestation

There is a very well established school of thought supporting the idea that you can manifest anything and everything you desire and bring it into your life. Another corollary of this is that one can always be happy, and that happiness should be your ultimate goal. In seemingly equal force are the critics and nay-sayers of this kind of thinking. They say that we believers are naïve and narcissistic, refusing to see the limits of the physical laws that govern physical life. We need to grow up and stop being so self-centered.

So are we being self-centered and juvenile with our wishful thinking? On a spiritual level, this isn’t an issue of “he who dies with the most toys wins.” It’s about learning that what you have in life is a result of how and where you direct your attention and intention. On a deeper level, it’s about growing from a space where you create things to satisfy your shallow ego needs to a space of creating with authenticity and meaning.

This shift happens when you receive validation. You need validation for being a spirit in order to feel real. In fact, it’s the only thing you need. If you are not getting this need met, it is reflected in your ego becoming needy. You (your ego) will need attention and things. But things will never resolve your neediness. When you receive the right kind of attention in the form of recognition and connection, then you mature psychologically and spiritually. You learn how to validate yourself. Life is no longer about creating things to make you happy. You realize that “unhappiness” is just another fleeting emotion that’s part of the growth process, usually indicating the layer of the onion that you get to work on next.

Mastering being able to manifest your desires is a life-long process (actually extending through several lives!). Part of the process is in not getting everything you think you want, and figuring out what that means to you. Another part of the process is increasing your awareness of how your creations affect the well-being of other people around you and the whole planet. You realize that mastery and responsibility are intertwined.

I would like to leave you with one of my favorite little ditties that I remember from childhood: May you live as long as you Wish, and have all you Wish as long as you live.
Manifestation Exercise:Sit in a straight-backed chair at a table, with paper and a pen. Put your feet flat on the floor and close your eyes. Send a beam of energy down into the center of the earth, and take a deep breath. Feel deep into your heart and pick one thing you would really, really like to bring into your life. Write a very clear, detailed description of your chosen item. Think about color, size, function and the feelings having this thing will give you. Draw a picture of it. While you are doing this, feel yourself enthusiastically really, really, really wanting the item. When you are done, you can do one of several things with the paper: burn it, sleep with it under your pillow, put it in a family bible, tear it into tiny bits and scatter them in the wind, or bury them in your garden. You can even make copies of the paper and do all of the above! Now here is the key part: Be sure to let go of all the feelings you were generating and your attachment to having the item. Totally forget all about it. Then when it appears in your life, you can be delighted and amazed.

Peace Begins With Each of Us,

Madeline

www.PsychicAwakeningsSeattle.com

Remembering What Has Been Forgotten

Several cultures have a concept of the “Veil of Forgetfulness.” In exchange for having a human experience, you agree at birth to forget your spiritual nature. Having forgotten who you really are, you take on other people’s ideas and concepts of who to be and how to act. Most people are subjugated to their body’s emotional reactions to various situations, never learning how to properly express their needs. Perhaps during your lifetime, you might have glimpses of awareness, your true self. But without learning how to nurture and sustain this awareness, you remain asleep or lost. The phrases “waking up” and “finding myself” are commonly used to describe the process of discovering your real self. It is our life’s lessons to remember ourselves, and each person has their own path to this truth.

You live your incarnated life, for better or for worse, depending on the family and situation you were born into. You take on the “family agreements” as to whether you’ll be rich or poor, clever or mediocre. When one is unconscious, one lives his life from the body chakras, the first, second and third chakras. His main focus is his own survival, and he is controlled by his emotions, unable to see the bigger picture. At some point he suffers the consequences and wakes up one day wondering “How did I get here?” This actually often happens during adolescence. At first it may be an intellectual process and the person tries on different personalities to see which one fits the best or feels the most “natural.” You may be in this stage for several months, or several years. But if these various personalities and situations are not the “real” you, you’re left feeling unsatisfied or empty. So how do you find the real you. The authentic self that brings you a deeper sense of knowing your truth? How do you re-connect with your spiritual nature – the one that you agreed to forget about when you were born?

First, you have to be amused that you agreed in the first place to play the game. Amusement is a necessary element for healing yourself.

Second, you have to release the energy from other people’s concepts, demands and expectations out of your space. You may have spent many years playing this game. It is a process that usually takes many years. As you move up, out of the lower three chakras, you’ll find yourself in your fourth chakra. The fourth chakra is the bridge between your body and you the spirit. You move out of the concepts who you think are and what you think you need and can start to validate yourself and accept yourself just the way you are now. People who have difficulty liking themselves have much fourth chakra work to do. Processing the information in your fourth chakra paves the way for doing the work in your upper chakras where your spiritual information resides. Of course, the process isn’t linear, and you will often be working on several chakras at the same time. All of the chakras have important information that you need for your lifetime. Knowing yourself reaches deeper levels as you learn to balance your chakras, using the spiritual wisdom of the upper chakras to make the best decisions for the care of your body (the lower chakras), and knowing in your heart (the fourth chakra) that you are working from a space of beauty and truth for the highest good of all. As you remember more of yourself, the Veil of Forgetfulness will become more permeable, allowing you better access to your spiritual gifts and awareness.

One Energy Exercise for starting to remember your authentic self:
Sit in a straight back chair, put both feet flat on the ground, and take a deep breath. Send a strong beam of energy from your body deep into the earth for grounding yourself. Be aware of sitting in your own personal space, pulled in close around you. Put your attention in your heart area. You can't know yourself through thinking. So just be. Just be in your heart and fill it with your favorite color until it is full and spinning freely. Give yourself permission to do this and to know yourself. If any doubts or negative thoughts come up, just release them down your energy beam and refocus your energy on your heart. As you heal your heart chakra more and more, your other chakras will come into balance also.

Bless You on Your Path,
Madeline
http://www.psychicawakeningsseattle.com/

From Beginners to Professionals

Whether you are just recently curious about things metaphysical, or have been doing professional readings for years, the simplest, most useful and efficient way to be psychic is to be in your body! It's your body that is your sensitive receiver of energy. If you are not focused in your body, then you will not be able to pinpoint the psychic insights or subtle perceptions that your body is picking up on, much less be able to put it into words that will be helpful to someone. Everything we teach at Psychic Awakenings! is about being in the body. I could almost say that the only thing we teach You, the spirit of that body, is how to bring your presence in and inhabit your body! It doesn't matter what visualizations you use to access your clairvoyance, nor what your beliefs are, nor if you spin your chakras right-to-left or left-to-right. Do whatever works for you so that you can easily stay in and own your body and your personal space.

There are lots of physical activities you can do to get into your body: dancing, skiing and jumping into a cold body of water work really well. Anything that gets your blood moving or helps you to feel more alive will work well also. The real trick is staying in your body while you are doing more sedentary activities. You have to be in your body in order to focus, think clearly and be aware of what is going on around you.

Energy exercise for finding your body:
Sit in a comfortable chair, with your feet flat on the floor. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax. Put your attention up in the corner of the room and pretend as if you are looking back at your body from there. Try out different corners of the room and see if it's easier to do from another corner. Now put your attention right in the middle of your head, and notice if if it's easy to stay there, or if you feel like you are bouncing right out. Alternate the corner of the room and the center of your head a few times. Now move into the center of your head, and expand your attention to fill up your whole body. Imagine that it's like slipping into a sweater that fits you snuggly. Postulate that you own your body. Postulate that you are going to stay in your body and be more aware of your psychic insights. Anytime you catch yourself being "spaced out," just slip right back in and be amused.

Pray for Peace,
Madeline
www.PsychicAwakeningsSeattle.com

Have You Been Here Before?

Have you ever had the feeling that you've been here before? That you've lived one or more lives previous to the life you now lead? The first time I ever flew into Heathrow Airport, I saw an old, historic building from the air, and decided that I definitely wanted to visit it. I would remember it by the long, tree-lined road leading up to it. In front of the entrance was a large pond with a very tall spire arising from the center. I was picked up at the airport by the people for whom I was going to be an au pair, and whom I had never met before. As soon as we were in the car, they told me that they lived very close to Hampton Court (think Henry VIII), and they would take me there to see it on the way to their house. Yes, sure enough, we drove up the very same tree-lined road to the pond with the spire that I had seen from the plane. Inside the castle, the living quarters seemed familiar to me, and I could easily imagine myself as a lady-in-waiting, or a domestic, who spent much of her life at the court. No wonder I had always been fascinated by English history.

The current 14th Dalai Lama was not chosen but "found." He is believed to be the same soul who was the 13th Dalai Lama. The senior monks looked for cosmic signs which led them to the small village where he reincarnated two years after leaving his previous lifetime. They were sure they had found the right child after he identified several of them by name. He was also able to identify several possessions that he had owned in that lifetime. A wonderful fictionalized account of a search for a reincarnated spiritual teacher can be seen in the movie "Little Budha" (1993).

Here is a link to a story about an eleven year old boy who clearly remembers his last lifetime. He visited the place where he had died and healed his grief from that death:http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/184158/Reincarnation.html.

I would enjoy hearing about your memories of, or feelings about, any of your past lives. Please share with a comment.

Peace Be With You,
Madeline

Developing Your Psychic Abilities

Hello! Psychic Awakenings is a safe haven for sensitive souls to explore their own psychic abilities. You already are psychic. If you have a body, then you are psychic. Your body very sensitively perceives energy. It's your body that feels how different a library is from a grocery store. It's your body that feels the difference between when a friend is angry or happy. Learning to be conscious of how your whole body feels in different locations and situations is one of the first steps to developing your psychic abilities. By learning to use your different chakras (energy vortices within your body - much more about chakras in later posts), you can become conscious of the more subtler energies around you, such as someone's feelings, beliefs and emotions . At Psychic Awakenings, we focus on using the ability of the sixth chakra to read energy. The sixth chakra is located in the center of your head, and this ability is called clairvoyance, which is French for clear seeing.

Now that I've gotten the basics out of the way, the intent of this blog is to give you a variety of short lessons on using your clairvoyance in your daily life. It might be in the form of simple meditations, energy exercises or tips of the trade. Some posts will be geared towards beginners, other posts will be quite esoteric. There may be days when I just offer some ideas to mull over regarding my take on the nature of reality. I always share with the intent of furthering spiritual awareness and peace on planet earth.

Today's lesson: The Space Around You Is Not Empty - Your Personal Space

Before you look at other people's auras, it's a good idea to have a good sense of what is going on in your own space. Sit down, put your feet flat on the floor, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax. First get a sense of the size of your space. Is it dense and in close to your body, or is it scattered and open wide? I'm sure you know people who can fill up a whole room with their energy! Some of them you might admire, or some of them you might find obnoxious. Whatever size your aura is, imagine that it has a well-defined border all the way around you. Now you can experiment with pulling it in closer, or making it larger. Which makes you feel more comfortable? If you are a visual person, do you see colors or symbols? Does your energy feel chaotic, or peaceful? It is important to know what is going on in your own space because you have to know yourself well before you are able to be helpful to others. Also, other people are already psychic too! They can tell when you are feeling peaceful or chaotic. Healing your aura's energy is a lesson for another day.

Bless You! and Pray for Peace!

Madeline

www.PsychicAwakeningsSeattle.com