Tag: crystals

Reiki Share and Crystal Wands

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Uncategorized, wellnessLeave a comment
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Crystal wands – from L-R: Tiger Iron, Ruby in Zoisite, and Fluorite

Last night, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to lead a Reiki share event at The Empowerment Factory, a non-profit organization working to help the underprivileged in the Providence, RI area. This was the second such share in what we now expect to be a monthly series.

At the beginning of last night’s share, we entered into a sort of group meditation…only instead of the more typical variety of meditation you might expect to encounter at an event like this, everyone indulged me in my desire to experiment with our ability to perceive different varieties of energy. I had brought along the three crystal wands pictured in the accompanying photo, and I wanted to see if any of the group might be sensitive to the different energy-signatures of these three very different substances.

I asked everyone to close their eyes and link hands, and then I picked up the first of the wands. I described its characteristics, and then I asked the group to take note of any changes they might be experiencing in terms of their incoming impressions while I was holding the wand, including any sensations, thoughts, and emotions that might be cropping up.

After a minute or two of focusing on that first wand, I let the group know I was setting it down, and I gave us all a minute to sort of cleanse our energetic palates of the “taste” of the first wand. Next, I repeated the process with the second, and then the third wand.

It was a very interesting exercise! I, myself, am not extraordinarily sensitive to input of this nature, but as it turned out, some of the people in the group are, and they had some very vivid and significant responses to the different wands. Because we were all connected by touch, it had seemed possible to me that this could be a possible outcome, but it was fascinating to see it play out with real feedback from real people!

After the exercise, we held the share itself, and it was a terrific session. We had several newcomers to Reiki joining us, and as always, it was very gratifying to see people coming together with positive and selfless intentions. It was also fun to pass the wands around during the Reiki share to see if anyone could sense greater stimuli through the wands (like the difference between listening to someone’s heartbeat with your unaided ear, and then trying it again with a stethoscope), or if the wands might enhance the ability to channel the Reiki energy outward. Again, some of the attendees got really good results from this technique! Reiki and crystals do tend to play well together…

Our next share is scheduled for the evening of Feb. 15th, and it will again run from 6:30pm to 8:00pm at The Empowerment Factory. Reminders to follow, but if you’ll be in the area, please mark your calendars now, and make plans to join us!

Dream with the Fishes…

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Shamanism, Uncategorized, wellness6 Comments

I’ve made it a sort of on-again, off-again practice to post about some of my weird dreams in my social media outlets whenever those dreams feel like they might have some connection to metaphysical topics…or even just a more vague but definite overall metaphysical vibe about them (you know…more so than dreams already have).

And I’ve decided that in the spirit of this being a “new year” and all, I’ll not only revive the practice, but hereby pledge to write up as many of my odd dreams as I can in 2017. Sometimes doing this helps me to pull the messages from out of them, and sometimes, I can get behind the idea that maybe the messages aren’t even meant for me – maybe I’m just the delivery system, and the messages are meant for somebody else out there. Like maybe you, for example, reading this right now…

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My piece of Shattuckite…

Before I detail my weird dream for you, it may be important to note that I sometimes like to try to affect my dream-experiences by putting a crystal under my pillow. The variety of crystal is subject to change depending on my prevailing mood and any cues I feel I’ve been getting from the Universe. Last night, I used a piece of Shattuckite that I got just a couple of weeks ago. This stone is believed to stimulate the Third Eye Chakra, thereby greatly enhancing any perceptive abilities, both sensory and extra-. People inclined to this type of thinking might say that Shattuckite can beef up your psychic input.

Your mileage may vary, but I can say that almost every time I’ve slept with this particular piece of Shattuckite under my pillow in the last two weeks or so, my dreaming has increased in both quantity (i.e., I’m dreaming more than I was in the last few weeks prior to my Shattuckite purchase) and quality (my dreams have been more vivid and more agreeable about allowing me to remember them the next morning).

Anyway, here’s what my dream-self got up to last night:

I was standing outside somewhere, possibly behind the house that I live in now, although in the dream, the weather was warm and balmy, not all frosty, and choked with half a foot of snow as it actually is as I type away at this post. There were a few other people with me, although they didn’t seem to have exact identities – no names, no faces, and they weren’t people that I know in my waking world.

As we milled about, enjoying the sunshine and the warmth, there were these large fish drifting around near us through the air. In the dream, this was completely natural.

What was not natural – even in this dream-scenario – was what happened next…

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A Barracuda (clearly not the kind with wings and fur that floats in the air and comes when you call it)…

The fish all looked a lot like the real-world creature that we call the Barracuda. They were long and substantial, and built for speed. In the dream, though, this air-version had wings that were blurred to near-invisibility like a Hummingbird’s, they had tufts of fur, and they were mostly colored a deep, rich, striking shade of blue that doesn’t happen too often in nature out here in consensus reality.

And for some reason, I got it into my head to try to call one of the fish over to me, even though I knew in the dream that these were untamed creatures, about as likely to come when summoned by humans as a Squirrel or a Deer or a Robin would be in the flesh-world.

But here’s the weird part: the fish I was addressing floated over to me when I called it. It hovered before me, and it let me reach out and begin scratching it gently with my fingertips beneath its “chin.”

I was astounded by this, there in the dream-space, and so were my vague dream-friends, who began expressing their own various versions of astonishment while they watched me pet this floating fish.

I continued to commune with the air-fish for a while, until the dream sort of ushered me back out of it, and I woke up, still feeling the firm pressure and mass of the fish against my fingers…

And so there you have it: this morning’s edition of “Crystal-Spawned Dreaming.” Maybe some of it means something to you: the Barracuda, a flying/floating fish, a wild creature choosing to relate to a human, the Shattuckite… If so, I hope the message is a helpful one!

More weird dreams to follow as they happen… And I heartily recommend the crystal-under-the-pillow trick to any and all of you! Give it a try and see what dreams may come…

Tarot Card Meanings: The Lovers

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, Uncategorized1 Comment
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The Lovers (“L’Amoureux”) – Card VI

After being introduced to a string of solo players, we arrive at the first of the Major Arcana cards to feature a multi-character drama on its face. Who are these characters? What do they represent, individually and as a collective? How do we factor all of them into a reading when this card appears???

You can get the answers to these and other Lovers-related questions by taking a stroll through today’s addition to this site’s burgeoning TAROT CARD MEANINGS section!

TAROT READING: The Week Ahead

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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If you’re reading about this reading, then this reading is for you. Here’s what’s on tap for this upcoming new week:

King of Swords * The Hierophant * Knight of Wands

It looks like everyone will be conspiring to have you gazing back into the past this week. You’ll be inclined to fixate on the way things were: what you were once like, how the world used to be, what you did, what you failed to do. Past passions and former ideas making up your worldview will rise to the forefront of your consciousness again and again. And when you’re not dwelling on these things, other people will be there to do it for you.

But you can’t live in the past. You can learn a lot from it, but then you need to apply those lessons in the present, and you also need to leave some bandwidth available to start addressing the future. As we all know, the future will march inexorably toward us, join us in the present for a split-second of intimacy…and then fall behind us as more of that ever-growing past.

So this week, while you and everybody in your vicinity will seem to be extra-focused on yesterday…look for that one person who stands out with their more forward-looking approach. If you can spot the individual who points out your own road into tomorrow, then you just may have found your next important teacher, mentor, or inspiration. Soak up some of their knowledge, and put some of it to use in sowing some seeds for your future.

Learn Tarot with me! Through PRIVATE LESSONS or via the TAROT TOOLKIT ONLINE COURSE, I can teach you Tarot card meanings, deck structure, and how to interpret interactions among the various cards as you read for yourself and others!

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Weekend Tarot Reading

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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L-R: The Ace of Books * The Lovers * 7 of Swords – from the Epic Tarot published by Lo Scarabeo

If you’re reading about this reading, then this reading is for you. It’s what’s up for the weekend just ahead!

🔮  Ace of Books (= Wands) 🔮  The Lovers 🔮  7 of Swords 🔮

This weekend affords you opportunities for interacting with the people you love the most. This is great news! A theme will evolve throughout the weekend, though, of you being confronted more than once with the need to choose how open versus how closed you should be with those loved ones.

On the face of it, this should be a no-brainer, right? Our society teaches us that being open and honest is the virtuous path, while keeping secrets is “bad.” But should we all vomit forth every bit of Truth, no matter how harsh those bits might feel upon receipt by the party on the other end? Questions such as “Does this haircut look good on me?” and “What did you think of my kid now that you finally met?” and “How do you like that song I just wrote?” can put us in a very uncomfortable spot if the true answer would be something along the lines of, “Frankly, he/she/it sucked…”

But then what if we do hold back? What if we tell a “white lie” so as to not hurt someone’s feelings? Does every untruth and every lie by omission constitute another straw on the camel’s back of trust in a given relationship, no matter how well-intentioned those untruths and lies may have been? How open is open enough, and how closed is too closed?

Maybe use the following formula as your guidelines in these dicey situations this weekend (attributed to the Buddha, but refined by the Victorian Era poet, Mary Ann Pietzker):

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

Happy Friday, everyone!

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Tarot Reading: The Week Ahead

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Death * The Chariot * 4 of Chalices (cards from the Epic Tarot, published by Lo Scarabeo)

If you’re reading about this reading, then this reading is for you! This one looks at the week ahead.

Where I am, Autumn is already in the air. The trees will soon be shrugging off their leaves in a very “Out With The Old!” kind of move. Do you feel a similar impulse? This week, you may experience stronger than usual urges toward scuttling things that suddenly feel like sandbags. Things have a way of accumulating, of accreting, and building up layer upon layer of crusty, cocoon-like sheathing around us. This can make it hard to move, to grow, to see the light and breathe the air.

And you do need to move, that’s no joke. This happens to be a time during which you can make leagues of progress, as it happens. Cut loose all that dead matter around you, and that Chariot is waiting to take you to some fabulous new locales. Exfoliate your life properly now, and you can really make some serious tracks!

A cautionary note, though: don’t cut away too much, too fast, or you’ll risk tearing off some of the healthy tissue along with the dead outer layers. And don’t try to race off too far or too quickly, or you’ll only end up exhausting yourself. How helpful will it be to reach exotic new shores that are filled with promise if you’re too worn out to do anything when you get there? Be smart and be realistic as you streamline your life, and as you roll on toward the Land of “In With The New”…great things await you there, for sure, but it’s on you to arrive in tip-top shape so you can get the most out of them!

Learn Tarot with me!  I offer PRIVATE LESSONS, and you can also purchase the TAROT TOOLKIT ONLINE COURSE, which includes 10 webinar sessions and a 120-page PDF Workbook:

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Mother Nature in Tarot

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Shamanism, Tarot, Uncategorized1 Comment

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Yesterday, I did myself the solid of heading over to a local nature preserve so I could be out of the house, off-line, unplugged, and out in the same forces that have been washing over humankind since we crawled up out of the primordial muck. I hiked around with the sun and the wind on my skin, the clouds and the trees in my eyes, gurgling water in my ears, and the naked earth and rock and twisty tree-roots under my feet. I saw more wildlife in a few hours than I usually manage to catch in a week (and I’m usually looking for it, too, so that’s saying something!).

And now today, I was trying to fit a Tarot card to the experience. That is, which card would best encapsulate the concept of the natural world – of Gaia, Mother Earth, flora and fauna, the elements?

I landed pretty immediately on The Empress. It’s true that many decks have her portrayed as a standard humanoid ruler-type, a female authority figure, sort of like an uber-Queen. I think my own favorite versions of her, though, are more like this one, from the Shaman Tarot, in which The Empress is deeply and inextricably connected with the natural world. She’s about fertility, creativity, abundance, and growth, and casting her as a Mother Nature analogue feels like a natural fit to me. I mean, you could make a case for, say, the Queen of Pentacles representing the natural world as I’m defining it here, or maybe the Ace of Pentacles, but if I have to stick to one card, I’m choosing The Empress.

How about you – do any other cards jump to mind here, and reference the natural world or advise a trip to the great outdoors when you pull them in a reading?

Learn Tarot with me!  I offer PRIVATE LESSONS, and you can also treat yourself to the 10-session TAROT TOOLKIT ONLINE COURSE, with accompanying 120-page PDF Workbook and a few bonus freebie handouts:

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