photo: gabby conde

Power Stones and Healing Crystals for the Zodiac

Crystals can help serve as spiritual power tools to teach us how to bring the mind to a greater sense of peace, the body into a more stable, grounded state, and the spirit into connection with the infinite from which springs all creation. Our power gemstones can remind us of a higher truth and keep us centered in that light. When we become aware of the qualities of beauty, frequency, and color and their possible uses, stone “medicine” may help us explore what our current needs are and how we may transform certain situations by using a stone as a meditative focus and an inspirational power source. Gems and minerals have patterns and pictures on their surfaces that can transport you to another world, igniting your imagination. They are very tactile and soothing to touch and hold.

How are the zodiac signs and crystals related? The idea of healing with crystals was first popularized in the 1930s when the famous American trance psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that his visions revealed that, in the time of Atlantis, crystals were used as a source of energy. He even described a crystal capstone on a centrally located pyramid that could power airships. He also mentioned various specific stones when prescribing healing protocols for the people he read for.

When it comes to astrology and crystals, each stone becomes a meditative amplifier that can help you to transform your situation. Stones can keep you centered and reminded of a higher truth. By looking to the mineral kingdom for assistance in the healing process, we are connecting to tools that enable us to look deeper within so as to obtain an understanding of the cause of the distress that is creating disease. Distress can be caused by negative beliefs, by environmental factors, or by interactions with people, which can sometimes create havoc in our energy field. When we consume alcohol or drugs, we can also affect our energy fields and cause a disruption in our vibrations.

Always remember that crystal healing should be used in conjunction with—and not as a substitute for—conventional medicine. There are many factors that make up our well-being. Illnesses need to be tended to by a trusted physician, with yourself as your best advocate. As we all know, however, stress and distress can also have a profound effect on our health. All thoughts and actions have consequences, creating harmony or disharmony. Disharmony can cause illness. Working with ritual and with healing rocks and crystals help you to create harmony, handle your stress, and feel better.

The following healing stones for the zodiac signs offer a beautiful stability and can help you focus on your strengths so that you can use them to compensate for your weaknesses. When we use crystals or stones as healing tools, they have the ability to rebalance a disruptive vibration so that we can be aware of the reason behind the distress.

Below we describe the nature and special healing message of crystals for each sign of the zodiac. We have gathered the information for these astrological associations through working with them for many years, and below we suggest the perfect power stone for each sign.

ARIES: GARNET

The garnet takes its name from the resemblance of its deep red color to that of the pomegranate. It can help bring success in things you passionately believe in and, if appropriate, the sparks of sexual energy. This zodiac crystal may also be useful when wisdom and balance in this most important exchange of energies are needed. If this is so, look within to see if true love, tenderness, and genuine respect and caring are part of your romantic passion.

Garnet can help bring balance and self-awareness and destroy flightiness, leaving in its place love, romance, and sometimes lustiness, for those who need it. Because of its rich color and association with the root chakra, the garnet suggests a powerful influence for sensuality and sexuality. It may help put you in touch with your animal instincts, enabling you to act and react with their pure body wisdom. Therapists who believe in the power of gemstones use the garnet in counseling couples whose sexual chemistry has begun to wane.

For meditation and ritual purposes, the garnet is used primarily as a power stone, to enhance self-confidence and help to manifest personal and career goals. Garnet has properties useful for giving inspiration during times of confusion. The red garnet is a stone of profound love and helps to ensure fidelity in relationships. This astrology crystal is also known as a stone of patience and persistence and is emblematic of spiritual awareness and compassion.

Garnet is highly versatile—it encourages the wearer to search for answers—and the answers that come as a result of this search will be helpful and important ones. Worn on a regular basis, the stone is believed to boost energy and stimulate romantic love.

Garnet’s message: Because it has a bold energy, the garnet makes a perfect amulet for someone whose confidence or self-esteem needs bolstering. Because of its warm vibrations, it makes a good meditation stone for security and intimacy.

Other good gemstones for Aries are: bloodstone, red jasper and pyrite.

TAURUS: ROSE QUARTZ

Rose quartz is the stone that can help heal the heart, as it works on an emotional level. It can help you to become more aware of the love that is all around you and can assist you in getting in touch with your emotions. Rose quartz teaches us to love ourselves more, thus opening us up to a greater universal love. When we don’t love ourselves fully, we are wounded inside, and a wound will always cry out to be healed. Rose quartz heals emotional wounds by giving compassion and comfort. It can be used to help us to overcome grief.

Like other healing crystals for zodiac signs, rose quartz’s properties include inner peace, tranquility, and all matters dealing with giving and receiving affection.

Unlike the hard-edged, pointed crystals of clear quartz, the lovely rose quartz is found in great veins running through Mother Earth like her life’s blood. Use it when compassion and generosity need to be shown, or when healing and forgiveness are needed. Rose quartz may help those who have suffered through trauma and the pain of an unhappy childhood. If this is true for you, start by forgiving yourself and others. Be gentle with yourself and others; we have all suffered wounds. From forgiveness can come a path to true healing.

You can also sleep with rose quartz beneath your pillow. The pain of a difficult past problem may come up in dreams, but you can better handle this if you affirm before you go to sleep that you are ready to release the pain.

Rose quartz’s message: Self-fulfillment and inner peace require you to love and nurture yourself and those you care about. Work on how to give love as well as how to receive it. Remember to forgive.

Other good gemstones for Taurus are: emerald, malachite and selenite.

GEMINI: AGATE

Agate is a general protector of the entire body and the entire auric field. Agate can help us to focus on growth and healing. It attracts strength and vitality, and it has the ability to help bring your body into balance. A special property of agate is the blending and balancing of energies for power, protection, and organizational qualities, causing a stabilizing effect. Agate also can help reinforce the body’s connection to the Earth. It can give courage and dispel fears, all of which increase self-confidence. It gives you the strength to carry on, even when you feel weak or tired.

This zodiac crystal offers protection from bad dreams and also protects one from stress and worry. Agates with banded colors were placed at the head of a sleeper to give rich and varied dreams.

Since our earliest civilizations, agates have been prized gems. They were used in jewelry and as power tools in Babylonia. Conjurers in Persia used the crystal to try to affect the weather. In ancient Asia, agates were used to see the future. Studying the circular patterns helped open the pathway to receive guidance and messages by connecting the pathways between the conscious and subconscious minds.

Agate can also be enlisted for emotional healing, especially to resolve bitterness and resentments. It is believed to be a stone of harmony and therefore can help soften feelings of envy by grounding agitation. By bringing the elements of one’s being into harmony, it can improve relationships. Agate also enhances creativity and stimulates the intellect. Carry an agate when you have to make an important decision.

Agate’s message: Placing an agate under your pillow may aid with insomnia and can stimulate pleasant dreams. If you have to deal with numbers, an agate placed on your desk will help you be more precise. You’ll also be more analytical as well as creative in your approach to situations.

Other good gemstones for Gemini are: clear quartz, tiger’s eye and bi-colored tourmaline.

CANCER: CARNELIAN

Carnelian grounds energy and helps us to pay attention to the present moment, thus teaching us to focus and manifest our personal power. Use it to encourage strength and the courage to prevail. Carnelian helps to ease stress and anxiety and to improve memory.

Use this astrology crystal when barriers of time and space or discouraging news threaten to stop you on your path. If this is true for you now, it is necessary for you to look below the surface of things in order for you to know what is really going on, for things are not what they seem. There is no reason to give up unless and until you know exactly how things stand. Once you do, carnelian can help you regain your courage.

Carry carnelian with you to guard against those who try to use their power over you. This zodiac crystal can also help you regain the drive you need to pursue your goals or help to give birth to a new project or flesh out an existing one. Believed to prevent depression, carnelian helps to build courage by providing self-esteem and an optimistic outlook.

Carnelian stimulates energy, physical power, and courage, and helps to ground you on the physical plane.

Early Egyptians used carnelian for amulets, as it was thought to protect the wearer from evil, and to prevent anger and envy. Renaissance sages kept a carnelian amulet in the home to protect themselves from curses.

Carnelian’s message: It offers patience while counteracting doubt and negative thoughts. It also assists in decision making by helping us ground ourselves in the present, and make decisions based not on our past, but on our present reality.

Other good gemstones for Cancer are: pearl, ammonite and moonstone.

LEO: CITRINE

The citrine’s sunny color helps restore the mind in much the same way that basking in the life-giving light of Father Sun does. Citrine helps one to maintain a positive outlook on life. It removes blocks and fears on all levels and helps one to better communicate with others. Citrine helps create a sense of stability, adds energy and emotional balance, and provides a rational approach to things, grounding us in the here and now.

Citrine’s energy means that a positive, optimistic attitude will produce a positive outcome. Use it when great self-confidence and self-esteem are needed. Stress and fatigue, either emotional or physical, can make life seem bleak and can make you unable to cope with challenges. Make sure to get enough rest and have some fun. Citrine can help you regain your emotional balance. We all stray from our path. How long it takes us to recover is what determines our successes and failures.

Citrine is one of the best crystals for all zodiac signs when it comes to manifesting power on both a practical and a magical level. Because it encourages a healthy ego, self-esteem, and feelings of worth, it empowers its wearer both emotionally and spiritually. New Age healers believe that the stone can increase the significance of dreams and open the mind to new and more positive thought forms. Due to its color, it is believed to strengthen the urinary and endocrine systems.

Citrine is known to clean toxic impurities out of the air and aura. On a supernatural level, it boosts willpower, happiness, and confidence, while reducing self-destructive tendencies. As a result of this, it can also bring good fortune, often in surprising and very unexpected ways.

Citrine’s message: Some therapists believe that people who are have lost a sense of identity because of an unhappy or abusive relationship can reclaim much of their personal power by meditating with citrine on a regular basis.

Other good gemstones for Leo are: amber, topaz and jasper.

VIRGO: JADE

This stone acts in a protective way, on both the physical and spiritual levels. Jade has long been believed to facilitate and fortify a long life. The Chinese have traditionally held jade in very high esteem, and it has a lovely history as a protective talisman.

Amulets of animals were carved to promote a healthier, longer life and would attract the protection of the spirits when needed. Jade was also used in rituals to attract wealth and fortune. Statues of this stone for abundance and protection were common. Dishes were often carved from jade. The gem was also believed to symbolize longevity, and therefore food or drink contained in jade vessels would absorb that energy.

Jade energy bestows peace, calmness, harmony, tranquility, and mental clarity, and encourages one to safely express one’s true feelings and emotions. It strongly influences the matters of the heart and can help to improve relationships. Jade is wonderful for repairing relationship connections and ties that have been lost or broken.

This stone also promotes a more unified environment so you may accomplish compromise with partners, family members, or co-workers. Jade inspires and promotes creative thought as a zodiac crystal.

For business matters, you can use jade to unite diverse individuals and get them working toward common goals. It aids in creating a harmonious atmosphere and a desire for success and abundance without materialism or greed.

Jade is also favorable for strengthening clear reasoning and in so doing stimulates excellent decision making. Because it has a balancing effect, jade motivates the wearer to believe that his or her plans and ambitions are worthy of success.

Jade’s message: This is a helpful stone for those who have a nervous temperament or who are easily overwhelmed. The loving energies of this stone will assist you in recovering from emotional trauma because it provides grounding energy and a sense of security.

Other good gemstones for Virgo are: Amazonite, sapphire and zircon.

LIBRA: TURQUOISE

One of the most ancient protection stones, turquoise is a sacred stone associated with sky energy because of its color. It also brings sky energy to Earth. Prized in Asian as well as Native American culture, it is known as a multipurpose stone, excellent for promoting a sense of self-awareness and the ability to communicate honestly and from the heart. The stone encourages creative thinking, as many do, but turquoise has the power to help channel that creative energy in a productive and useful way.

Turquoise is considered a lucky stone; it facilitates the attraction of abundance and prosperity. Turquoise has a balancing and grounding influence. Its properties include mental relaxation, stress reduction, confidence, attunement, and physical well-being., making it one of the most popular healing stones for the 12 zodiac signs in astrology.

The blue-green turquoise is a stone sacred to many tribes around the world. Use it when you feel the need to call on your spirit guides because you have reached an important time in your life or a crossroads. Turquoise is helpful when you need to restore communication with your Higher Self, and it stimulates your development on the spiritual level. If this is true for you now, it is time to take action to restore your faith. Life often appears meaningless when our faith in the unseen forces that surround and sustain us is weak.

Turquoise can help us not to be distracted by our sorrows. It can help restore our sense of humor so we can enjoy life’s gifts as well as its challenges, for we cannot have one without the other. Miracles can be seen every day. Turquoise is a favorite stone among New Age healers, who believe that it has the power to energize the body and spirit, as well as to balance right brain–left brain disparity.

Turquoise’s message: True communication is about more than words, and turquoise can help achieve this. Carrying a piece of turquoise will help keep you centered, and wearing it improves all the senses, including the sixth sense.

Other good gemstones for Libra are: diamond, chrysoprase and lepidolite.

SCORPIO: OBSIDIAN

Obsidian is a stone of protection that prevents one from becoming emotionally drained by others. It can work as a shield against unwanted vibrations and help protect you from physical or emotional harm. Native Americans keep this stone on them to protect them from negative energies or psychic attack.

Obsidian tends to give emotional stability in times of high stress, in part by preventing the draining of energy from the body. The energy to help with grounding is the strongest attribute available in this stone. Keeping obsidian with you helps prevent negative thought patterns and can also be used for space clearing by removing the vibrations of unhelpful or distracting entities.

Obsidian is an excellent crystal-gazing tool. Some practitioners have better luck peering into obsidian’s black depths to reach their subconscious messages than into a traditional clear quartz crystal ball.

The black, glasslike obsidian is forged in the fires of volcanoes, Mother Earth’s way of clearing away the old to make way for the new. It helps with transitions, so use it when you realize that the old must be completely released before the new can enter your life. It may also be useful when obsessions and negative thoughts and actions are blocking you. If this is happening to you, try to let every negative thought and action you encounter in yourself or in others remind you to think and act positively.

This gemstone may help you recover forgotten abilities within yourself. Obsidian can help you to become more aware of your true place in the universe by sharpening your inner vision. It will also help you become more aware of your imperfections and at the same time provide constructive solutions and insights.

Obsidian’s message: Do not give in to the desire to think and act negatively, even if others do. This is a difficult but most powerful teaching. Our negativity comes back to us in unpleasant ways. Obsidian may help you cope with negativity and keep centered in unstable times. Do not resist change.

Other good zodiac crystals for Scorpio are: onyx, ruby and black opal.

SAGITTARIUS: AMETHYST

The amethyst’s purple color, the color of pure spirit and the seemingly magical things connected with it, is rare in nature. Use it when you need approval from the universe, or when peace and calm are needed. If this is so, try this basic meditation: Take a few moments to breathe calmly and focus your attention on your breathing. Let all thoughts drift away like clouds. After a while you may sense the small voice of your Higher Self. Be aware of the natural fear of not being in control or not knowing exactly what to do next on your path. Amethyst can help you trust in yourself and “let go and let God/Goddess.” Holding an amethyst may help ease the pain and sorrow of a loss or defeat.

Easily recognizable for its beautiful color, this stone is known to promote personal serenity and feelings of peace. This specific astrology crystal derives its reputation for being a healing stone from ancient and medieval times when it was used as an amulet against drunkenness. The amethyst is a power stone on many levels; holds the intention to heal the body as well as the spirit. The amethyst has long been used to open one’s psychic centers.

In folklore, this stone is believed to have a soothing and relaxing effect. Holistic healers sometimes use amethyst to ease toothache and bruising. It calms an overactive mind and brings a sense of tranquility to those who are frazzled by overwork. It is used as a dream stone and to help insomnia. For those who are psychically sensitive, it can improve the ability of second sight. As an amulet, it can be worn as a protective talisman against jealousy, envy, and deception.

Amethyst’s message: Amethyst is believed to be helpful in the treatment of insomnia. By putting an amethyst under the pillow, the troubled sleeper should experience better REM sleep, with less chance of fitful slumber.

Other good gemstones for Sagittarius are: sodalite, sugilite and tanzanite.

CAPRICORN: AMBER

Amber is the oldest geological specimen to be used in jewelry. Archeologists digging primitive sites near the Baltic Sea have found evidence of amber jewelry that is approximately forty thousand years old.

This good-luck zodiac crystal brings the purifying, revitalizing force of the Sun and the absorptive, transmuting energy of the Earth together to create a powerful tool. In mythology, Apollo cried amber tears after being banished from Olympus. Medieval housewives would burn amber to bring good energy into their homes. Native American tribal healers used it in fire ceremonies.

Ancient Greeks discovered that if they rubbed a piece of amber vigorously, it became electrically charged. The early name for amber was electron, which is the root word for today’s electricity. Amber’s use as a power tool reaches back to man’s earliest history.

Amber absorbs negative energy, helps to ground one to the Earth plane, and protects the sensitive person. It helps to distribute vitality to our aura, and it centers a person during meditation. Amber can be worn or carried to help calm the nerves. Amber allows a person to receive from the universe, yet assists one in remaining physically alert.

Amber is not technically a crystal but is an organic compound. Some 360 million years ago, extinct pine trees oozed thick sticky resins. As these resins flowed, a variety of living and decomposing matter became trapped inside. Then the resin was made to fossilize under the great pressure from the Earth’s changes. Many ancient traditions associate amber with the universal life force because, essentially, actual life has been trapped inside.

Amber’s message: Amber is excellent at removing self-imposed obstacles on any projects you are attempting to create. It enhances a constructive way of behaving, fueled by self-confidence. It can attract new friendships and aid in focusing your intentions for manifestation, helping you to reach your goals.

Other good gemstones for Capricorn are: jet, smoky quartz and chrysoprase.

AQUARIUS: LAPIS

Mother Nature seems to have used the deep blue lapis to capture the sky in solid form. The glittering pyrite inclusions against the deep blue backdrop of this splendid stone create a striking likeness of a galaxy. Lapis is an excellent stone to help with peaceful sleep and psychic dreaming. It can bring matters more clearly to the mind. The stone will allow for cosmic communication with other dimensions of reality. Sleeping with this gemstone can help you see the meaning in your dreams more clearly by allowing you to interpret and understand the messages or information that your subconscious is providing.

Use lapis to help with success in business and other worldly pursuits. It is good to use for humanitarian quests and interests, as it has far-reaching effects, just like a galaxy. Early cultures valued lapis lazuli more highly than gold. In Egypt it was customary to bury a lapis lazuli scarab with the dead, as it was believed to offer protection. It is also believed to enhance higher love, powers of intelligence, and concentrated intention.

This zodiac crystal can help you focus on universal brotherhood and sisterhood cooperation to produce abundance. Some other properties of lapis are illumination, wisdom, mental insight, and clarity of thought. It may also help when systems of information exchange, transportation, and communication are blocked. Lapis can help you to communicate your deeply felt beliefs and put them into practice in the outer world. It can help shy, introverted people express themselves. Expressing your true self can free energies you would otherwise waste repressing. Lapis helps to release old, buried emotions, thereby helping to dispel depression.

Lapis lazuli’s message: Meditate with lapis when you need all methods for moving people, services, and facts to be as direct and simple as possible. Use it when you need a higher perspective on your situation. When blocked channels are cleared by lapis, expect energies to be a bit chaotic initially, before they calm down.

Other good gemstones for Aquarius are: fluorite, azurite and labradorite.

PISCES: OPAL

The opal owes its fiery beauty to the refractions of tiny imperfections and water trapped within its crystalline cells. The dance of color in opal is the result of light being radiated by microscopic silica spheres. Watching the colors flash when luminous sparkles flicker within an opal gemstone leaves you with little doubt that this is a beautiful and powerful crystal.

This astrology crystal may bring you enlightenment, integrity, or even the fires of romance. It enhances the emotions and amplifies personal traits. Opal can assist you with almost any aspect of your life, such as joy, love, or success. Let your opal fire up your heart’s desire and make your wishes come true. Opal helps magnetize opportunities for things to happen in exciting new ways. Use opal to call in good luck and good fortune, to initiate prosperity consciousness, and to encourage new ideas.

Opal acts as a magnet by helping to illuminate your interests and ability to see great possibilities. It encourages you to dance your life by amplifying your emotions and heightening your experiences.

There are two main opal categories, common and precious. Precious opals are those with the famous rainbow sparkles. Common opals are stones without fire.

If you are bored or in a rut, either type of opal can spark a flame of passion and ignite your imagination, helping you see solutions to mundane problems. It turns up the power in everything.

Adding this gemstone to any prayer, ritual, or creative work will strengthen your intention and affirmation. Shamans used opals in important ceremonies such as vision quests. For divination and oracle use, you may want to wear or hold an opal. It will enhance your attunement to the messages of the Tarot or other psychic readings.

Opal’s message: It magnifies your thoughts and feelings and promotes all intuitive abilities. In ancient times the opal was thought to be a very powerful healing stone and was believed to open up the senses of the third eye. The opal can be a doorway to your spiritual awareness.

Other good gemstones for Pisces are: aquamarine, coral and pearl

This excerpt has been reprinted with permission from Astrology for Wellness: Star Sign Guides for Body, Mind & Spirit Vitality by Monte Farber and Amy Zerner.

About The Authors

Monte Farber was born in Brooklyn, NY. He studied comparative religion and became interested in astrology in 1974 when he met his future wife and artistic collaborator, Amy Zerner. “Amy was studying astrology and I was studying Amy, so I learned astrology! It became our language of love.” Farber’s desire to make astrology understood and accessible to a broad audience led him to devise “Karma Cards: A Guide to Your Future through Astrology,” having sold over 250,000 copies in twelve languages. Farber and Zerner went on to create books, book/card sets, and unique kits that also made other esoteric systems accessible, such as the tarot, alchemy, The Goddess, talking boards, meditation, shamanism, psychic development, and relationships. Farber is now the world’s foremost creator of interactive personal guidance systems. Learn more at TheEnchantedWorld.com.

Amy Zerner is one of the leading collage artists in the world. She uses an appliqued palette of found materials, vintage textiles and amulets to make her worlds of wonder rich with layers of meaning and imagination. For forty years she has used her prodigious talent to create thousands of works of art which embody and convey the inspiration and healing power she has experienced through her study and personal application of ancient sacred teachings. Learn more at EnchantedWorld.com and AmyZerner.com.

photo: nicolasberlin photocase.com

Understanding Dreams: Core Techniques

The saying goes that “eyes are the window to the soul.” The same thing can be said of dreams. There are many types of dreams and they reveal to us the state of our soul; they mirror our feelings and preoccupations by painting a cinematic picture of how we are experiencing life at that moment. Dreams don’t lie. They are not concerned with pulling the wool over our eyes and going along with our preferred version of the truth. Dreams are honest mirrors. We just need to work out what they are reflecting. An ancient Jewish proverb says, “An unexamined dream is like an unopened letter.” Although our emotional response to a dream may be immediate and obvious, until we work with a dream and unravel its symbolic imagery, its deeper message may be lost to us. Dreams speak in a fabulous mixture of images, metaphors, and emotions that can be felt in the body. Have you ever woken up in the morning feeling sad, anxious, or insecure? Chances are you had a bad dream. And maybe you sometimes wake up laughing, or feeling unimaginably good? Dreams can powerfully influence our waking moods. There is only one universal language in the world, and that’s the language of dreams. When we understand dream symbolism, we open the door to our inner life. All over the world, dreams express themselves in rich, emotional imagery. This imagery may differ due to cultural context, but the symbolic meaning is conveyed in the same way. This article shows how to decipher the symbolic language of dreams, to give you an idea of how images can reflect specific feelings, events, and attitudes. We’ll look at five different types of dreams and you’ll learn core dreamwork techniques for what different dreams mean.

Cracking the Code: How to Understand the Symbolic Language of Dreams

We use metaphoric, symbolic language all the time in daily life. Every culture has its own collection of wise sayings, or idioms, which paint a picture of a situation: she has too many eggs in one basket; he let the cat out of the bag; every cloud has a silver lining; she got a taste of her own medicine; he’s missed the boat; we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Different dreams may have different meanings but they all love this picture-language and it is one of their preferred ways of communicating with us. But when we first look at a dream and what it means, it can seem completely mystifying. It’s actually good to approach the dream from a standpoint of not-knowing. This keeps us on our toes. It helps us to be flexible and open to the dream’s possible meaning. When we slap an instant interpretation onto a dream and cling stubbornly to this interpretation, we risk suffocating the dream. Dreams need to breathe, just as we do. This is why dreamwork is a process: there are often questions to be asked; associations to be made. The dream can be unwrapped, revealing its heart as we peel back the layers. Getting to know the language of dreams and what they mean is so exciting. It’s exhilarating to crack the code of a dream that’s been troubling you and experience that rush of recognition that dream therapists call the “Aha” moment. If you’re tempted to rush out and buy a dream dictionary, remember that although they can offer interesting perspectives, many give a simplistic, blanket meaning for each image. Yet every dream image will have different associations for different dreamers, and it’s vital to remain open to possible meanings. A cow will have a hugely different personal meaning for a butcher than for a Hindu, for whom cows are sacred animals. To understand our dreams, we need to speak their dense symbolic language. How do you know what certain dreams mean? In dream language, a tidal wave often relates to feelings of being overwhelmed, and a dream of taking an exam with no idea of the answers often connects to feeling unprepared in a waking life situation. A dream of being naked in public may relate to having revealed too much of ourselves. Only the dreamer can know the true meaning of their own dream, as associations are so personal, but familiarity with the language of dreams is key to understanding their possible meaning. The good news is that learning the language of dreams and what they mean is much easier than you may think, and you’ll quickly get the hang of it. Sometimes it gives clarity to a dream to see which category (or categories) it falls into. Let’s take a quick look at five types of dreams.

Five Types of Dream

Dreams can be roughly divided into five categories: physical, emotional, archetypal, lucid, and soul dreams. Many dreams will contain elements of more than one of these categories. 1. Physical Dreams These relate to your body: are you cold, hot, or exhausted? Do you need to pee? (We’ve all had those maddening dreams of hunting for a bathroom.) Are you ill or in pain? Physical sensations, pain, and illness that we are currently experiencing in our body can be woven into our inner movie in the form of unpleasant imagery, but if we manage to change any negative imagery while we’re in the dream, this may help to relieve the pain. A friend of mine went to sleep with a headache that she’d had for two days. She dreamed she was wearing a tight metal band on her head. In the dream, she managed to take it off, and when she woke up, her headache was gone. In a far more serious case, journalist Marc Barasch dreamed he was being tortured with hot coals beneath his chin, and it turned out he had thyroid cancer. 2. Emotional Dreams We are bound to dream about what concerns us, frightens us, or makes us happy. This is among the many important reasons why studying the types of dreams and what they mean can be of great help. Emotional dreams tend to have a psychological and personal focus. They involve clearly identifiable feelings such as sadness, happiness, loss, disbelief, surprise, horror, fear, and so on. For example, a friend of mine dreamed she was furiously smashing plate after plate in the kitchen while her husband watched helplessly. In such dreams, the setting and the action serve to illuminate the emotion that is hidden in our unconscious. The dream shows us how we really feel. When dream emotions are this extreme, they are calling out to be worked with. 3. Archetypal Dreams Dreams can contain archetypal symbols—universal images, characters, and themes that appear in all cultures throughout time in anything from legends and myths to cartoons and comic books. Archetypes are universally present in individual psyches. The “psyche” is the soul, mind, or spirit. Carl Jung believed that archetypes embody basic human experiences and universal meanings. They are the heart and soul of many of our favorite stories, from fairy tales to blockbuster movies: we all recognize the archetype of the Mentor (for example, Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars) who trains the Hero for a quest, or the archetypal Old Hag (the witch in Hansel and Gretel), or the Trickster (Rumpelstiltskin). Archetypes can be both positive and negative, and they embody energies that are deeply familiar to us. In dreams, they often transcend the mundane level of our waking life to reveal something deeper. 4. Lucid Dreams  This is one of the most popular types of dreams. These dreams may fall into any of the other categories shown here, but the difference is that lucid dreamers know that they are dreaming while they are dreaming. Lucid dreams are often especially vivid and memorable. The lucid dreamer can also guide the dream and choose to respond to the dream scenario in a particular way: to face a fear, for example, or to realize impossible fantasies, like flying to the stars. 5. Soul Dreams  These are dreams of the higher; of spirit and soul. They often involve light, beautiful nature, or luminous beings, and have a spiritual quality. A woman I know dreamed of a glowing, energized female Buddha floating above her bed. I once dreamed of columns of blue light that seemed wise beyond belief. Such dreams connect us with a deep source of light and knowledge that we all have somewhere within.

Examples of Dream Interpretation

The following are simplified examples of dream interpretation, to give you an idea of the way how different dreams can communicate, and the importance of context and analysis in what do dreams really mean. Only the dreamer can truly know what his dream is about, and it’s important to be respectful of this at all times: never impose your interpretation of somebody’s dream onto them. The dream belongs to the dreamer! The radiator cap explodes off my car. Could this mean that the dreamer will have car trouble this week? Does it indicate that something is wrong in his body? This dream is a riddle until the dreamer tells us that he lost his temper badly the day before. Now it makes much more sense! We even have an idiom very close to this that expresses someone losing their temper, “He blew a gasket.” This dream is likely to reflect the man processing his out-of-control behavior from the previous day. A dying dolphin is out of the water and is completely drying up. Why would anyone dream of a dying, drying-up dolphin? To discover more about the dream, we need to find out the dreamer’s associations, life situation, and insights. This is why “the dream belongs to the dreamer”: only the dreamer can really know what the dream is about. This dreamer was a blocked artist who felt that his creative inspiration (aka the dolphin) was completely drying up. Dreams are deep, but they’re indirect. This indirectness is exactly what can make them so opaque sometimes, even to their co-creator, the dreamer. Each of the dreams we’ve just looked at addresses deep issues and concerns, holding up a mirror to show the dreamer how he or she experiences life events.

How to Unwrap a Dream: Core Techniques

Dreams are like onions; their heart is hidden under many layers. Some dreams can be unwrapped over weeks, months, or even years, continuing to reveal rich new layers of meaning. Here are some quick and easy ways of reaching the heart of a dream and what they mean. Practice # 1: Re-enter the Dream  Carl Jung developed a technique called “active imagination” to focus on any inner imagery, such as memories or daydreams, or even a mood or emotion, in order to discover more about it. In terms of dreams, active imagination means that a dreamer imaginatively re-enters a dream while awake.

1. Find a quiet space where you can relax and close your eyes.

2. Bring the memory of your dream vividly into your mind. See the colors, feel the emotions again, notice the details. Take a moment to conjure up the dream scene and relive it. This is applicable to all types of dreams.

3. Now you are ready to engage with your dream; for example, by focusing on the imagery and watching it move and transform.

Practice # 2: Ten Key Questions for Unwrapping a Dream

1. Who are you in this dream? (A younger self, an observer, an animal, a different person, or yourself as you are today?)

2. How do you feel in your dream? What are the strongest emotions?

3. Do these emotions resonate with any situation in your life, past or present?

4. What is the core image or scene in this dream? (“Core” means the central, most arresting, most energized or emotional image.) This is considered as one of the most important elements in understanding one’s dreams and what they mean.

5. What are your associations with this core image or scene? Note down keywords or phrases.

6. If every dream figure and symbol represents a part of you, which part would the core image represent? Use your keywords to make it easier to connect with the core image.

7. If you were to ask the most negative or scary part of your dream if it has a message for you, what might it say?

8. Is there any light or beauty in your dream? This might be moonlight on water or a vibrant animal or person. Close your eyes and focus on it. Ask it, “What do you want me to know?” It might respond, or change into something else.

9. What does the dream want? Different dreams have different meanings but what is your dream really about? Consider the actions and emotions within it, along with any surprise events or unexpected feelings. Sometimes stepping back from your dream and viewing it as if it were a movie can help you to pinpoint what the dream is attempting to convey to you.

10. If you could go back into your dream and change the ending, what would happen?

May these 10 key questions help you uncover what certain dreams mean. Excerpted from Mindful Dreaming: Harness the Power of Lucid Dreaming for Happiness, Health, and Positive Change by Clare Johnson, Ph.D. Reprinted with permission from Conari Press, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser

About The Author Clare R. Johnson, Ph.D., is a world-leading expert on lucid dreaming. She is Vice President and Board Director of the largest dream organization in the world, the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Her work on lucid dreaming has been featured in documentaries, magazines, radio shows, and television. She is a regular speaker at international dream conferences, and she leads lucid dream workshops and courses on how to unlock the creative and healing potential of dreams. Learn more at deepluciddreaming.com

photo: hal gatewood

Let’s take a trip back in time, and then do some fast-forwarding—to give you some idea of the way our technology has grown over the past fifty years and why we’re so overexposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and their potential dangers. If you’re forty or older, close your eyes and think back to your childhood home. If you’re under forty, think back to your grandparents’ house when you were a kid. Now take yourself on a mental tour of the house. As you walk from room to room, take a quick visual inventory in your mind of how many electric and electronic appliances and gadgets you see. If your family was typical, here’s what you’ll likely come up with:

+ Master bedroom: A clock-radio or alarm clock, unless it’s a windup clock

+ Bedroom #2: A clock-radio or alarm clock, unless it’s a windup clock

+ Bedroom #3: A clock-radio or alarm clock, unless it’s a windup clock

+ Bathrooms: No appliances, or maybe an electric razor

+ Family room: A TV, a stereo (maybe), phone

+ Living room: No appliances

+ Kitchen: Stove, refrigerator, dishwasher (maybe), blender, can opener, electric knife, toaster, phone

+ Total inventory: 15

And if you were to take a similar tour of your own home today?

+ Master bedroom: TV, TiVo, cable box, DVD player, remote control for TV, remote control for TiVo, remote control for cable box, remote control for DVD player, cell phone, cell phone charger, iPad, iPad charger, Bluetooth headset, Bluetooth headset charger, computer, monitor, wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, printer, scanner, air purifier, alarm clock, cordless phone

+ Bedroom #2: TV, TiVo, cable box, DVD player, remote control for TV, remote control for TiVo, remote control for cable box, remote control for DVD player, cell phone, cell phone charger, iPad, iPad charger, Bluetooth headset, Bluetooth headset charger, laptop, alarm clock, cordless phone

+ Bedroom #3: TV, TiVo, cable box, DVD player, remote control for TV, remote control for TiVo, remote control for cable box, remote control for DVD player, cell phone, cell phone charger, iPad, iPad charger, Bluetooth headset, Bluetooth headset charger, laptop, alarm clock, cordless phone

+ Bathrooms: Rechargeable electric toothbrush, rechargeable electric razor, curling iron, hair dryer, digital scale/body fat monitor

+ Family room: Home theater system (including monster-size flat-panel TV, TiVo, cable box, DVD player, surround-sound speaker system), remote control for TV, remote control for TiVo, remote control for cable box, remote control for DVD player, remote control for speaker system, computer, monitor, wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, printer, scanner, digital thermostat, cordless phone, wireless router

+ Living room: Digital picture frame, cordless phone, wireless security system

+ Kitchen: Stove, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, blender, toaster oven, food processor, wall-mounted security system panel, coffeemaker or espresso machine (or both), water filtration system, cordless phone, rechargeable flashlight, rechargeable mini-vac

+ Total inventory: Over 100

So what’s really going on here? We’re getting zapped. If you pay close attention to your activities for just one typical day, you’ll quickly realize that a new form of invisible pollution is all around you and, as you’ll learn, within you, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Granted, you probably don’t have all those electronic gizmos in your house, and not all of these modern-day wonders are emitting dangerous EMF radiation. Plus, let’s face it, how much time do you spend sitting in front of your electric coffeemaker anyway? How long you’re exposed to EMF dangers often means more to your health than the actual strength of the electrical, magnetic, or radio frequency (RF) field. But I used this long list to give you some idea of how much life has changed in the digital age—and how many more electromagnetic fields we’re exposed to than our grandparents were. Think about what you did today and what electromagnetic radiation dangers you may have been exposed to: Perhaps you woke to the smell of coffee brewed exactly the way you like it by your electric coffeemaker, which you set on a timer the night before. Maybe you went downstairs, flicked on the fluorescent lights in the kitchen, pulled a frozen breakfast out of the refrigerator, popped it into the microwave, and sipped your first cup of coffee while you waited for it to heat. If you couldn’t wait until you got to the office, you pulled your smartphone or cell phone out of its holster and checked your e-mail and then pulled up local traffic and weather reports. And after all of this, you took a hot shower and were thrilled that the new water heater let you take a long, luxurious one. You might have taken an electric train or subway to work. If you drove, you probably paid no attention to the power lines strung on the ubiquitous wooden poles that are as much a part of the landscape as trees, or the huge transmission poles lumbering across the countryside like sci-fi giants. If you happened to glance over at the car or passenger next to you, you likely saw someone else, like you, on a cell phone, starting the business day before it officially opens. At work, you might walk through an automatic door, take an elevator to your office, flick on the overhead lights, and boot up your computer. Then, at the end of the day, you reverse it all. Maybe you stop at the supermarket on your way home and buy a few things for dinner, which the checker whisks through a price scanner and tosses in a bag for you. If you’re cooking from scratch, you preheat your electric oven, defrost the chicken in the microwave, and put it in to bake. You’ll mash the potatoes you boiled on the range with your electric mixer and open the canned green beans with an electric can opener. Maybe you’ll sit in a comfortable automated massage chair before you finish up a report on your laptop computer, or huddle with your eight-year-old while he does his homework and then challenges you to an online game of Scrabble. You might watch a little satellite TV before climbing into bed, where you root around for the remote that controls the firmness or angle of your mattress. Everything you did, from making coffee to taking a shower to taking the train to buying groceries to going to bed, exposed you in some small or large way to the adverse health effects and dangers of EMFs, which are invisible force fields that surround all electrical devices. For many people, these invisible energy fields appear to be benign. They have no symptoms—at least, none that they recognize. But others seem acutely attuned to what others can’t see, touch, or feel.

From Electricity to Electropollution

The widespread use of the light bulb—one of the most life-changing events in the past ten thousand years—was how it all began. In October 1882, Thomas Edison built the first electrical plant that lit just thirteen hundred street lamps and homes in New York City. What followed was an unprecedented avalanche of inventions that harnessed electric power to make Americans more productive and prosperous, as well as safer and healthier, than ever before. In just the first half of the twentieth century, Americans were introduced to everything from conveyor belts, printing presses, electrocardiograms, and X-ray machines to radio, radar, television, and computers. In the last fifteen years alone, the latest modern electronic wonder—wireless technology—has expanded like a sponge in water, as have the potential health effects and dangers of electromagnetic radiation. Today, 84% of Americans own cell phones, and the wireless industry is expected to become a larger sector of the U.S. economy than agriculture and automobiles. About 89 million of us watch TV shows beamed to us by satellite—sports, music, comedy, and drama captured by a metal dish on the roof or outside a high-rise window. And you can’t have a cup of coffee at Starbucks without being subject to Wi-Fi, the wireless network that allows you to surf the Internet as you sip your latte. Yet we may not understand the potential EMF health effects and consequences of our latest discoveries any better than our earliest ancestors understood the perils of fire. For the last ten years in my clinical practice as a researcher, author, and educator, I have been seeing a strange constellation of EMF exposure symptoms in my clients that defy diagnosis and resist even the most tailor-made diet, evidence-based supplementation, state-of-the-art exercise, clinical testing, or even significant lifestyle changes. Consider these very different, but equally puzzling, case histories:

+ Fresh out of college, a newlywed moves with her husband to what ought to be the healthiest place in the world—a farm in America’s heartland. Yet within six months, this 23-year-old has become so weak, she can barely walk up the stairs. She has developed daily headaches, circulation problems, and hot flashes. She wakes up every morning feeling like she has been “hit by a Mack truck and then run over by a train.” Her doctor tells her she has chronic fatigue syndrome.

+ While on the job, an emergency room physician suffers from blinding headaches, dizziness, and muscle weakness that make it impossible for her to intubate a patient or even smile for a photo. At one point, her arms and legs turn blue, her vision begins to fade, and her heart begins to squeeze “as if it was empty.” One doctor diagnoses her as mentally ill.

+ Out of the blue, a high-powered editor, who has been commuting for years to her New York office by train, suddenly begins to feel nauseous during every morning and evening ride. She blames it on stress, but it’s becoming so debilitating, she considers quitting the job she loves.

+ The parents of a young Wall Street trader—who spends most of his working day with a cell phone stuck in each of his ears—are concerned as his health declines over a three-year period, during which he is diagnosed with a host of conditions including autoimmune disorder, parasites, and mercury toxicity.

+ A recent engineering school graduate working for the Canadian Navy experiences fatigue so severe, he needs to take naps on his lunch hours. As time goes on, he develops chronic respiratory infections, nausea, digestive distress, heart palpitations, and trouble focusing. His diagnosis: stress.

+ A normally well-behaved 13-year-old boy who is doing well in school suddenly develops a behavior problem. Oddly enough, he only acts out at a specific time each day, which mystifies his parents and doctors.

Unraveling the Mystery of EMF Health Effects

In the past decade, I have experienced some of these same baffling symptoms for which I too found no relief. In 2005, I was diagnosed with a (thankfully) benign tumor of the parotid, one of the salivary glands located just below the earlobe. Why I got it was a mystery that puzzled even my doctor. It’s a very rare tumor, most often caused by radiation exposure. I didn’t live near a nuclear plant, I hadn’t been exposed to an inordinate number of medical X-rays or other screening tests, and, except for a brief time I spent working as a nutritionist in a hospital, I hadn’t even been near a CAT scanner or MRI machine. But, on a hunch, I began my investigations with a theory: What if what these six people and I were suffering from was an environmental condition, one caused by something we’re exposed to every day but consider harmless? There are several historical connections that supported my suspicions of electromagnetic radiation dangers. Many well-respected historians believe that the Romans were the first society to be destroyed by environmental toxicity. Wealthy Romans painted their walls with lead-based paint. They used the heavy metal for everything: water pipes, toys, statues, cosmetics, coffins, and roofs. But in an article written for The New England Journal of Medicine, lead poisoning researcher Jerome Nriagu, Ph.D., D.Sc., an environmental chemist at the University of Michigan, says that it was their consumption of copious amounts of wine that may have given them their heaviest dose. The Romans flavored their wine by simmering the grape juice in lead pots or lead-lined copper kettles, which not only affected taste but made the wine last longer. Lead has a sweet taste, so it enhanced the sweetness of the wine—which earned the metal the reputation as the sweet poison. The acidic nature of the grapes extracted large amounts of lead from the utensils, and then the Romans quaffed the drink out of lead cups. They may have been taking in as much as 20mg of lead a day just from wine alone, enough to cause chronic lead poisoning, diminish fertility, and cause mental and emotional impairments. After more than a year of research, I’ve come to the conclusion that we, like the ancient Romans, are being exposed to an invisible type of “new” pollution that is making our life “sweeter”—certainly more convenient—but which comes with formidable and unforeseen side effects. It’s called electropollution. It’s odorless, colorless, and invisible, and it’s probably enveloping you right now. As writer Sara Shannon writes in her 1993 book, Technology’s Curse: Diet for the Atomic Age, about low-level electromagnetic radiation dangers: “It cannot be seen, felt or heard. It is tasteless and odorless. It is in our food and in the air; it is in our blood and in our bones and can remain in our ashes to go on to contaminate someone else.” Our “sweet poison” is the EMF dangers produced by our cell phones, wireless networks, cell and broadcast towers, power lines, fluorescent lights, even the electrical systems that power our appliances, TVs, computers, and bedside alarm clocks—all those technological devices that make our lives easier. We are affected 24/7 by an unprecedented number of frequencies and wavelengths. By some estimates, we’re exposed daily to as much as 100 million times more EMF radiation than our grandparents were. It flows around us, in us, and interferes with the body’s fundamental electric forces of life, including the communication between our cells that tells them how to grow, develop, divide, and even when to die. Remember those six people I just told you about? They ultimately unraveled the root cause of their mysterious ailments, as I did. They had been zapped.

+ The newlywed’s symptoms were finally traced to a current of electricity that was traveling along the ground and hitchhiked into her home via her own electrical system and water pipes.

+ The ER doctor, exposed to toxic mold in her home, had developed multiple sensitivities to common everyday chemicals an EMF sensitivity.

+ The editor discovered by accident that if she sat every morning in the train’s designated quiet car, away from the cell phones, BlackBerrys, and laptops of her fellow commuters, her EMF exposure symptoms disappeared.

+ After months of research, the 13-year-old’s mother found that his sudden behavioral changes coincided with a radar beam sweep of their home from a nearby naval station. The family moved away from the radar beam and the young man’s behavioral problems disappeared.

+ The Wall Street trader was forced to quit his lucrative job to get away from the buzzing hive of techno-gizmos on the trading floor. Today, he may make less money, but he’s also symptom-free.

+ The engineer was able to stay in his job because his employer—the Canadian government—provided him a shielded office to provide EMF protection for him from the radar and other devices that caused his chronic illness.

In my case, years tethered to a computer and cell phone while writing a myriad of books and promoting them on the road had sensitized me to the very tools I depended upon for my career. My parotid tumor turned out to be one of several kinds of tumors linked to cell phone use—and I developed it after several years of traveling constantly and literally living on my cell phone in cars, trains, and planes, unknowingly exposing myself to the dangers of EMFs. While I haven’t given up my cell phone or my computer, you won’t find me spending hours on either of them. I’ve learned to work around—and live well and happily with—modern-day technology.

Why Do I Feel This Way?

Perhaps you have strange symptoms, like the people I’ve described here, and wonder if they might be EMF or radiation symptoms. Perhaps you’ve wondered about the health effects of EMFs and radiation. Perhaps you’ve suspected all along that modern-day maladies like sleeplessness, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, and rising rates of cancers and brain tumors, particularly in young people, may have an underlying environmental cause. One eminent researcher has already made that connection. Samuel Milham, M.D., M.P.H., of the Washington State Department of Health, wrote in the journal Medical Hypotheses in 2009 that he traced the rise in degenerative disease, cardiovascular disease, and suicide in the United States to the spread of electrical power to urban and rural areas, which was completed around 1956. He compared government disease and mortality statistics before and after electrification and found what is, in essence, the tipping point. When agricultural areas became electrified, rates of these lifestyle diseases started to match that of urban areas, where electricity was introduced in the late 1800s. “I hypothesize that the 20th-century epidemic of the so-called diseases of civilization, including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes, and suicide was caused by electrification not by lifestyle,” writes Milham. “A large proportion of these diseases may therefore be preventable.” I agree that they are preventable. If you had enough curiosity to start reading this in the first place, then I’ll bet you have the courage to be proactive, powered by the knowledge to take the necessary steps to start and EMF protection protocol and become healthier, happier, and to regain your peace of mind.

Allergic to the Digital World

How have we become allergic to a force that has been with us since time began? Even if you could turn back the hands of time to before 1882 when Edison’s electric plant triggered a social, scientific, and industrial revolution, you would still have been exposed to electromagnetic energy but not necessarily to EMF dangers. We, and the universe we live in, produce and operate in a sea of both natural and unnatural electrical and magnetic fields. The earth, for example, pulses at about 10 Hz, like a small engine. Our bodies are really electromagnetic machines. We simply can’t move a muscle or produce a thought without an electrical impulse—and wherever there is electricity, a magnetic field is also produced, which is why we link the two together into one word: electromagnetic. Over eons, our bodies have grown accustomed to the low energy of those natural electromagnetic fields and the wavelengths and frequencies they produce. In fact, they play a positive and important role in all life on earth. Humans have lost most if not all of our awareness of it, but animals still dance to its silent orchestrations. You can see it in their behavior and their ability to foretell earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis—not through any supernatural power but by their acute sensitivity to the earth’s electromagnetic hum and electrostatic charges in the air. You can see it in the migratory patterns of birds and animals who seem to be innately directed with some unknown internal antenna. Many scientists now suspect the secret of their mysterious know-how may be magnetite, a mineral that is a million times more magnetic than iron and is found in the tissue of every living thing: in the eye area of birds, the lines on the bodies of fish, the teeth of sea mollusks, and the abdomens of bees. It links them to the electromagnetic fields of the earth, keeping them plugged in, so to speak, to the earth’s energy. And it’s in us too. Small amounts of this magnetic substance are also found in the brain tissue, blood-brain barrier, and the bone above the eyes and sinuses of humans. What effect this internal compass has in us is unknown. We do know that there is a very narrow range of electromagnetic frequencies to which the brain cells of animals and humans respond favorably, and it roughly matches the frequencies produced by the electromagnetic fields produced naturally by our world, but at what point do we need to consider electromagnetic radiation dangers? What we are also beginning to understand is the EMF health effects that the proliferation of technology, while it has taken us many strides in social and economic progress, may have finally created a toxic load that is too great for some bodies to handle, just as the rapid rise of toxic chemicals such as pesticides, plastics, and heavy metals in the environment has overwhelmed the ability of some bodies to neutralize them In fact, many experts believe, like I do, that these invisible fields are contributing to making us sick. I am totally convinced that they made me sick.

Coming to Terms

The language of electromagnetic fields, much of it from physics, is difficult to navigate, so I’ve tried to minimize my use of jargon. However, there are certain terms, particularly related to the measurement of electric, magnetic, and radio frequency fields, that are impossible to avoid. Here are a few simple definitions that you need to know:

Wave/Wavelength: Electricity is delivered to our homes in alternating current (AC), which means that the electrical charge that flows through the wires periodically reverses direction (cycle), and it’s usually shown as an undulating wave, called a sine wave. Wavelength is the measurement of the distance between two peaks of the wave.

Frequency: How many cycles a wave completes in a period of time is known as its frequency. If you live in North America, electrical currents flow to your wires at 60 cycles a second; in Europe, it’s 50 cycles a second. This is termed alternating current, or AC for short.

Gauss: This is the measurement unit for magnetic fields. Most prudent scientists today recommend that safe exposure for humans to an AC magnetic field is 1 milliGauss (mG) or less at any single exposure, though other agencies recommend 2 to 3 mG. The earth’s magnetic field measures about 0.5 mG.

Hertz: This is a newer term for cycles per second that was awarded to Heinrich Hertz, an early researcher in electromagnetism. The electricity that comes into U.S. homes is 60 Hertz (Hz). Our brainwaves can even be measured in Hertz. For instance, when you are asleep, your brain hums at 1 Hz, or one cycle per second. When you’re thinking, whether it is problem solving or being creative—it revs up to as much as 40 Hz.

Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (ELF): These are the electromagnetic fields in the frequency range of 1 to 30 Hz. Our entire electrical power system and our appliances produce 60 Hz magnetic and electric fields. These fields are a form of non-ionizing radiation, which won’t detach electrons from atoms or molecules. Only ionizing radiation or energy from radioactive substances and cosmic rays are thought to do that: The X-ray you had at the dentist’s office and the CAT scan (which uses X-rays) that found your kidney stone both emit ionizing radiation.

Radio Frequency (RF) Field: Another form of non-ionizing radiation, these high frequency EMFs are generated by the equipment that transmits wireless signals, such as cell towers, broadcast towers at your local radio or TV stations, and the equipment that receive those signals—your cell or cordless phone. Wireless operates in the microwave band of radio frequency radiation.

Why We Get Zapped

Why are we so vulnerable to EMF dangers and health effects? The human body, which is 75% water, conducts electricity. It’s also an effective antenna that picks up energy from the surrounding environment. If you’ve ever adjusted TV rabbit ears, you know that just the touch of your hand can bring in a better picture. That’s because at that moment, the RF waves carrying the image are broadcasting them to you. For that moment, you are the antenna. In fact, humans are literally walking conversations, cells chattering to one another and interacting with the natural world using electrical charges and chemicals to make the connections. But when you add artificial electromagnetic forces to the mix, we are starting to learn, these quiet conversations suddenly become cacophony, as though a flash mob has arrived, shouting and screaming and with boom boxes blaring so loudly you can’t hear yourself think. And, in essence, that’s exactly what happens when you’re exposed to the ever-expanding web of electromagnetic forces of varying sizes and strengths that our bodies aren’t used to and lack EMF protection against. Humans have as little protection from this kind of pollution as we do for toxic chemicals, though we do have some. For example, the voltage from low-level electrical fields, a form of ELFs, produced by your appliances or overhead power lines, have a limited ability to penetrate the body. Your cell membranes block electrical fields, though not completely. But your body will pick up whatever electrical field you’re exposed to, even if it’s just the 60 Hz field of your electric shaver or hair dryer; the magnetic field that accompanies it is absorbed entirely and can sometimes pose electromagnetic radiation dangers. As New York Times writer B. Blake Levitt points out in her landmark book Electromagnetic Fields: A Consumer’s Guide to the Issues and How to Protect Ourselves, this may disrupt your internal electrical field as well as interact with magnetic metals like iron and copper and charged particles in your blood to affect your health in still little-known ways.

Cells, Interrupted

So what might happen when your own electromagnetic field encounters one outside your body, one that’s louder than the ambient levels with which we have evolved? For one thing, it may interfere with the messages your body’s cells send and receive—what the late scientist W. Ross Adey, M.D., of the Pettis Memorial Veterans Administration Hospital in Loma Linda, California, referred to as “whispers between cells.” In his experiments, Adey, who chaired the National Council on Radiation Committee on Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields, found that both very low frequency fields, such as those produced by our electrical system, as well as the higher radio frequencies utilized by cell phone and broadcast towers may interrupt that cellular chatter or drown out the electrical impulse that carries messages across the cell membranes. You’ve probably had the experience of losing a radio station or even picking up another when you drive under a high voltage line or near broadcast towers. Likewise, your cells, exposed to the same electromagnetic forces, may drop their conversation with one another or pick up outside interference that could muddle their messages. It’s one thing to miss the chorus of your favorite song, another to have an important thought—watch out for that car—get lost in translation because brain cells become confused.

Electromagnetic Science—What Happens in Your Body

Here’s a little bit of the science of what happens when you’re overexposed to EMFs (and a glimpse into potential EMF radiation health effects): Your cells get overwhelmed by messages from inside and outside your body. One way these artificial fields may disrupt normal electrochemical communication and pose an EMF danger is by increasing the number of what are called receptors on the surface of your cells. Receptors are often described as a keyhole into which the key—a chemical messenger called a neurotransmitter—fits perfectly to open the cell, allowing outside information from your brain or other parts of your body to get inside. These receptors and neurotransmitters help transfer those messages from one cell to the other, like a game of Whisper down the Lane, but without the garbled transmission. For example, if you’re sick or injured, you want your cells to send out an SOS to your immune system so healing starts right away. And if you’re otherwise healthy, that’s what happens. The number of receptors you have varies widely, and some cells have so many that they’re likely to attract more activity than those with fewer receptors. If overexposure to EMFs boosts receptor numbers, more of your cells become increasingly open to all kinds of messages from your body and from the environment outside. Suddenly, while trying to send its vital 911 call to your immune system, your cells start listening to and responding to other voices and directions. It’s like an old-fashioned party line—too many callers talking so the wrong messages—or no messages at all—get through. Your cells become unglued. Provocative new research has uncovered another health effect of EMFs involving the way cellular transmission is interrupted. Studies have found that even low-level EMFs may rupture delicate cell membranes, releasing calcium from cells as well as changing the way calcium ions—electrically charged calcium atoms—bind to the surface of the membrane. For example, Adey and his colleagues found that exposing newly hatched chicks to a 16 Hz frequency caused their brain cells to leak calcium ions. Since calcium ions are the glue that holds together cell membranes, which are only two molecules thick, the membranes are likely to weaken and tear, allowing toxins to enter and contents to spill out. They literally become unglued. Obviously your cells need some calcium. There’s even a natural system in place to make sure they get the right dose. But what happens when there’s a flood of calcium ions from a torn membrane in the main part of the cell? It depends on what your cells are doing at the time. If you’re sick or injured, your cells are in the process of healing you, so these extra calcium ions help speed the process. When calcium ions pour into one or more of your one hundred billion brain cells, which use calcium in small doses to make neurotransmitters, they may release those chemical messengers too soon, too often, or at the wrong time, creating false messages that tell you that you’re in pain or bring on neurological symptoms, such as headaches, an altered sense of taste or smell, tingling, or numbness. Those are just a few of the EMF exposure symptoms experienced by the people we just met and part of a collection of problems experienced by people who are hypersensitive to EMFs. Too many calcium ions in your brain cells may also impair your lifesaving ability to assess a situation correctly—like when you’re at the wheel of a car. Noted British scientist Andrew Goldsworthy, Ph.D., honorary lecturer at Imperial College of London, suspects that the increase in accidents among cell phone users (in one in four crashes, a driver is on a call) has less to do with distraction than with delayed response caused by the flood of calcium ions into brain cells. This flood creates what he calls “a mental fog” of false information, obscuring the ability to react to, say, a child on a bike pulling out between two cars or a deer bounding from the woods at twilight. After all, we’re often distracted at the wheel when we’re talking with a passenger, listening to a radio talk show, or engrossed in an audio book, none of which have been linked to increased accident risk. There’s obviously something more, something physical related to phone use. And, in fact, a study of young adults aged 12 to 14 in Australia found that those who used their cell phones the most suffered from poor memory and delayed reaction time—yes, even when they weren’t on the phone, raising awareness and concern for the dangers of EMFs on youth. Chemicals pouring from your ruptured cells damage your cellular DNA. Our bodies have an amazing defense system. Just as cell membranes offer some EMF protection (though not enough), a healthy cell membrane will also self-heal. But, before it repairs the tear, it may release a digestive enzyme called DNAase, which can destroy or damage DNA, potentially turning your genetic material into a precursor to disease by altering its important directions on how and when to grow, divide, and die. Studies using cell phone signals have found evidence of just that effect. For instance, in one Greek study of EMF dangers on fruit flies, whose short life span makes them the perfect subject for basic genetic research, researchers found that exposure to mobile phone signals for only six minutes a day for six days actually fragmented the genetic material in the cells that produced the flies’ eggs, and half of the eggs died. EMFs may disrupt normal cell division. Electromagnetic fields may strike danger at cellular DNA in other ways too. Scientific research has found that exposure to ELFs, for example, speeds up cell division and reproduction. During the cell division process, known as mitosis, DNA is reproduced, chromosomes line up in pairs, and then pull apart to create a daughter cell that should be the spitting image of its mother. Exposing cells to ELF disrupts that orderly process of chromosome matching and detaching, so that the two new cells don’t get equal amounts of the genetic information. This can result in scrambled messages. The consequence? Damage to fertility or a developing fetus. EMFs create oxidative stress that further damages DNA and other physical processes. Evidence from animal studies suggests that exposure to the level of electromagnetic force that’s produced by something as mundane as your refrigerator may create free radicals, unpredictable molecules whose unpaired electrons seek to attach themselves to electrons in other molecules. Those most fundamental things we do—breathing and eating—cause our body to react with oxygen. It’s perfectly normal. But it’s a process that can go awry. When metal becomes oxidized, for example, it develops rust. When you slice open an apple and leave it in the air, it turns brown. Oxidation can turn fats rancid, which is why you’re advised to keep oils tightly sealed and in a cool, dark place. The same thing happens in your body. Fat becomes rancid—scientists call it lipid peroxidation, and it sets your cardiovascular system up for the buildup of hardened lumps of fat and other debris on your arteries. Those clogs can cause heart attacks and strokes. Free radicals contribute to arthritis by oxidizing joint fluid, making it less lubricating. They can cause DNA damage to your cells, making cell membranes so rigid that nutrients can’t get in and ultimately make the cell so fragile it breaks, allowing toxins to come in and fluid to drain out before it finally collapses. This process is considered the root cause of aging and disease, from cancer to Alzheimer’s. At the University of Washington, scientists Henry Lai and Narendra P. Singh found that free radical creation at a 60 Hz alternating current—typically found in homes that have no wiring problems and are not located near power lines—caused breaks in the DNA of brain cells of rats exposed for only 24 to 48 hours. The rest of us are exposed 24/7.

Science Takes Notice

The evidence is accumulating regarding the dangers and health effects of EMFs. One of the first studies linking magnetic fields from power lines to adverse effects on human health was published in 1979 by two Denver researchers, the late Nancy Wertheimer, Ph.D., and physicist Ed Leeper. Based on Wertheimer’s field studies of childhood cancers in the Denver-Boulder area, the two reported that children who lived one or two houses from what are called step-down transformers (the barrel-shaped devices mounted on the power poles in your neighborhood) had a two-to-three-fold increase in childhood cancers, specifically leukemia and brain tumors. In 1986, a similar study conducted at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, confirmed their findings. Although a number of studies regarding EMF radiation and health effects since have disputed the leukemia-EMF link, there have been at least 30 studies not only confirming the original 1979 work, but expanding on it to associate transmission power lines, hair dryers, common household appliances, video games, and microwave ovens to children’s cancers. In fact, David Carpenter, M.D., dean of the School of Public Health at the State University of New York, has been quoted as saying that he believes up to 30% of childhood cancers stem from EMF exposure. And it doesn’t take much EMF radiation. In several of these studies, the risk was elevated when children lived near magnetic fields that were 1,000 times lower than the existing safe exposure limit established by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. Since the Leeper-Wertheimer study, hundreds of studies have found that exposure to magnetic fields (EMFs) may be associated with a variety of conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), heart disease, miscarriage, birth defects, infertility, and mood disturbances such as depression. To add to this, some experts are now saying that proliferating technology is overburdening our aging electrical infrastructure, exposing us to high frequency EMFs in our homes, offices, and schools. Surges of high frequency voltage or electromagnetic radiation from radio waves, currents that run along grounded lines or water pipes, or high frequency spikes and harmonics (distortions in the current or wave) from our appliances and other electronic sources are contaminating the low frequency lines, creating a hybrid now being called “dirty” electricity. Studies suggest these “freaky” frequencies may be the cause of sick building syndrome—a constellation of EMF exposure symptoms including headaches, allergies, fatigue, skin irritation, depressed mood, and disruptive behavior in children—and some cases of attention deficit disorder (ADD). There’s also evidence that it may raise blood sugar in diabetics and increase symptoms in those with multiple sclerosis.

The List Goes On

In just the past five years, new research has painted a more detailed picture of the health and environmental effects of electromagnetic pollution. Here are just a few highlights from the hundreds of studies I’ve reviewed regarding EMF radiation health effects:

+ In 2006, a study of the cell phone habits of 900 people with brain tumors, conducted by the Swedish National Institute for Working Life, found that those who used cell phones for 2,000 cumulative hours had a 240% increased risk for a malignant tumor on the side of the head where they usually held the phone. Two years later, Israeli researchers found that those people who kept their cell phone against one side of their head for several hours a day were 50% more likely to develop a rare salivary gland tumor on that side (just like mine).

+ A study published in the journal Epidemiology in July 2008 reported that children born to mothers who used cell phones while pregnant and whose children used cell phones by age seven were 80% more likely to be hyperactive and to have emotional and behavioral problems.

+ Many studies have found that EMFs can interfere in the body’s nighttime production of the hormone melatonin, which is vitally important for sleep and the lack of which can impair immunity.

+ Other studies and personal reports of the dangers and health effects of EMFs link even minimal EMF exposure to sleep disturbances, immune-system suppression, brain wave changes, headaches, light sensitivity, heart arrhythmias, chronic fatigue, memory problems, ringing in the ears, depression—associated with a new problem, called electrosensitivity.

+ There has also been some evidence that EMFs may contribute to some of the leading environmental issues of our time. German studies suggest that the destruction of forests (in Germany and in the western United States) once blamed on acid rain may actually be the result of constant bombardment from 60 Hz power lines and the RF waves from communications equipment. And some researchers suspect that electropollution may be in part responsible for the changing weather patterns now blamed on global warming.

The Exception that Proves the Rule

To be perfectly honest, many scientists still regard the low-level fields and the high-level radio waves to which we’re exposed to be entirely benign. They argue that these are fairly weak fields that diminish rapidly the farther away you get from them. And many studies have looked at the same data and have not shown the same effects. A group of top international scientists, writing in the 2007 BioInitiative Report, which called for further examination of EMFs and their effect on public health, were clear: conflicting studies should not be taken as an “all clear.” In fact, they note, “there should be no effect at all if it were true that EMF is too weak to cause damage.” And if EMFs had no substantial effect on the human body, the report says, then their use as therapeutic tools would be little more than quackery. It’s true. Mainstream medicine harnesses the power of EMFs to heal. It seems like the ultimate paradox. Broken bones are mended and wounds healed by pulsed EMF stimulation; pain is eased by transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), the application of electricity that appears to activate the body’s own pain-relieving (opioid) system; and depression is lifted by transcranial magnetic stimulation, which uses weak electrical currents and rapidly varying magnetic fields to excite brain nerve cells. Currently being tested on humans is the use of low-intensity EMFs to literally jiggle the electrically charged particles in cells hundreds of thousands of times per second, which can disrupt the division of cancer cells, preventing them from spreading. Israeli researchers studied ten people with glioblastoma multiforme—the same deadly form of brain cancer that killed Senator Edward Kennedy. Those who received the low-intensity EMF therapy lived longer—median survival rate: 62 weeks—than most people with the disease, which usually results in death within 12 months of diagnosis. And yet, in the midst of all this gloom and doom, there are real glimmers of hope and true healing, as you will find out shortly. There are positive ways to reduce the negative influences and health effects of EMFs without giving up the comfort and conveniences of modern-day living.

Living with Technology

At this point, you may be doing what I did while researching this—making a mental list of every electronic device you own and assessing which ones you could live without, or maybe you’re planning your move to a relatively remote part of the globe. The truth is that some technologies do present a clear and present danger. There are hundreds of reliable independent studies that say so. But there are also ways of mitigating their effects safely and practically—which is what my book Zapped is all about. We may not know the exact extent to which EMFs pose a threat, but we do know the ways in which the technologies that generate them benefit us. So living safely with technology is definitely a balancing act. You will have to intervene in your own living situation. You don’t have to do without electric lights, satellite TV, your microwave, or cell phone, as long as you are reducing exposure, prudently avoiding overuse, and implementing some of the cutting-edge and grounding lifestyle therapies. After all, even if you get rid of every single electric gizmo and appliance in your house, you will still be surrounded by them for hours every day as you spend time at work, in your car, and in public places like restaurants, theaters, and malls. The purpose of the EMF radiation protection strategies below is to show you the best way to live with technology so you can prevent and even reverse its negative side effects. Zap-Proof Your Home and Sleep To zap-proof your home, you can choose to do as little or as much as you want, but I would recommend that you focus your energy on the rooms where you spend most of your time: your bedroom, your living room, your family room, and your home office. Here’s what you can do:

+ Clean up your bedroom. Not the clutter, the electronics. Since the greatest healing occurs during sleep, and you spend nearly one-third of your life in your bed, the bedroom is the most important room of the house to zap-proof. That includes TVs, radios, clock radios, alarm clocks (except the battery-operated kind), cordless phones, mobile phones, heating pads, and older electric blankets. They need to be out of the bedroom or at least as far from you as possible. Some people even turn off the electric power to their bedrooms at night as a form of EMF radiation protection.

+ Move the bed. If you can’t cut power to your bedroom at night (if your smoke or carbon monoxide detector is hardwired to the circuit, you don’t want to do that), make sure your bed is positioned so that your head isn’t near a power outlet and be aware of any AC magnetic fields that might emanate from below or next to you. If it’s possible and your room is large enough, move the bed away from the wall because that’s where the electrical wiring of your house lives. You want to keep your body as far away (a minimum of three feet) from the fields as possible while you’re sleeping. The same goes for your living room furniture and workspace too!

+ Don’t cradle your laptop. It may be called a laptop, but don’t use it in your lap at any time. It radiates harmful EMFs whether it’s connected to the AC power adaptor or not.

+ Connect yourself to Mother Earth. Personal grounding, or earthing, promotes better sleep, more energy, quicker healing, and reduced inflammation and pain, and it normalizes production of the stress hormone cortisol. A dozen studies confirm the theory that people, like cable TV and all electrical systems, need to be grounded (that is, to maintain barefoot or bareskin contact with the earth). The findings support the pioneering work of Dr. Ross Adey, who believed that EMFs interfered with the natural, normal electrical communications between cells. As a form of EMF radiation protection, personal grounding prevents the interference of outside noise in normal cellular “whispering,” which can lead to the kinds of signaling errors that can cause cancer and damage the immune system. The research demonstrates that earthing maintains the human body at the same voltage of the earth. The body receives a stabilizing electrical influence for all its many bioelectrical circuits.

Zap-Proof Your Phone The closer you are to any cell phone—in an elevator, on a crowded bus, or with your own cell phone held up to your ear or tucked into your pants pocket—the stronger the signal that reaches your brain or other organs. Here’s what you can do:

+ Buy low. Choose a cell phone with a low SAR rating. SAR stands for specific absorption rate, which measures the strength of a magnetic field absorbed by the body.

+ Put them on speaker. Anything you can do to keep the cell phone as far away from your head as possible will reduce the energy or power level because the farther away you are from the antenna, the lower the signal.

+ Type your words. Text whenever you can—it limits the duration of your exposure and keeps the phone farther away from your head and body.

+ Go offline. Make it a habit to turn the phone off when it’s not in use or to switch it into offline, standalone, or flight modes, which turn off the wireless transmitter but still allow you to use the phone for everything except making and taking calls, texting, e-mailing, or browsing the web.

+ Make the switch. If you absolutely must place the phone against your head (and I definitely do not recommend this) switch ears regularly while chatting to limit prolonged exposure on one side, which has been linked to increased risk of brain tumors and salivary cancers on the side of the head where the phone is usually held.

+ Avoid tight spaces. Don’t make or take calls in the car—which thankfully is becoming increasingly against the law because it creates distractions—in elevators, trains, buses, or underground.

+ Keep an eye on the bars. Don’t use your phone when the signal is weak or when you’re traveling at higher speeds in a car or train because this automatically boosts power to maximum as the phone attempts to connect to a new relay antenna.

+ Get it out of your pocket. A recent study found that men who carried their cells in their pockets had 25% lower sperm counts when compared to another group that didn’t carry a cell.

+ Keep the cell out of the bedroom. Specifically, don’t sleep with your cell near your head.

This article is excerpted from Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn’t Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution by Ann Louise Gittleman.

About The Author Ann Louise Gittleman is a New York Times bestselling author of over 30 books on diet, detox, the environment, and women’s health. Beloved by many, she is regarded as a nutritional visionary and health pioneer who has fearlessly stood on the front lines of holistic and integrative medicine. A Columbia University graduate, Gittleman has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Nutritionists in the U.S. by Self Magazine and has received the American Medical Writers Association award for excellence and the Humanitarian Award from the Cancer Control Society. Learn more at annlouise.com

photo: danka and peter

Positioned along the spinal axis, from the tailbone to the crown of the head, the seven main energy centers of the body are called chakras. Author Michelle Fondin explores and explains each one in the seven chapters of her new book, Chakra Healing for Vibrant Energy, which demystifies the role of the chakras in facilitating healing, balance, personal power, and everyday well-being. She offers meditations and visualizations, yoga postures, breathing exercises, and Ayurvedic dietary practices to learn about and work with the chakras. We hope you will enjoy this excerpt from the book, focusing on the throat chakra.

The Throat Chakra: Vishuddha

Element: Space (Akasha), Color: Sky Blue, Mantra Sound: HUM The fifth chakra, which is the first chakra totally on the spiritual plane, is located in the throat and governs communication and creative verbal expression such as singing, chanting, reading poetry out loud, and recitation. When the fifth chakra is illuminated, all the lower chakras transcend their limitations. The anatomical region of the fifth chakra includes the throat, neck, shoulders, thyroid, parathyroid, mouth, tongue, jaw, larynx, and vocal cords. The sense is hearing, and the sense organs are the ears. The Sanskrit word Vishuddha means “purity,” and I love this translation because it captures the true essence of the throat chakra. Its purity comes from speaking the truth that resides in our hearts. Pure means uncontaminated, clear, innocent, clean, or impeccable. When you reach this level of consciousness, you are exploring the part of you that is pure. The Ayurvedic dosha that rules the fifth chakra is Vata. The two gunas that rule this chakra are rajas and sattva. The color we attribute to the throat chakra is cerulean blue. The mantra, or bija (seed) sound, we vocalize for the fifth chakra is HUM.

Fifth Chakra Ailments

Ailments of the Vishuddha chakra include diseases of the throat and the thyroid and parathyroid glands, neck and jaw problems, speech impediments, colds, and hearing problems. From a psychological standpoint, imbalances can include unexpressed grief, sadness, anger, judgment, and feelings of depression.

Fifth Chakra Energy

The power that lies within the throat chakra is the power to transcend space-time. Communication enables us to transcend space as sound waves travel through phone lines, cell towers, and internet connections. We can be virtually present in another place—through audio and more recently through video—without leaving our physical location. Communication happens on many levels, not only the physical. We communicate through words and sounds, facial expressions, body language, thoughts (also known as telepathy), and vibration. The organs and body parts in the fifth chakra allow us to create and absorb the vibrations of sound. Words have the power to heal when you speak inner truth to yourself. Your inner and outer dialogue about yourself determines how healthy you are. If you repeat to yourself daily, “I’m so fat and I’ll never get thin,” those words have the power to become your reality. However, if you tell yourself, “I’m working on getting healthier each and every day,” you will have quite a different outcome. Words from others also have the power to heal. When a child falls and skins his knee, he will heal faster if his parent says, “You’re all right. Get up and go play.” By chanting the sound HUM repeatedly, you will align the vibrational energy in the fifth chakra and cause your cells to remember their purpose and work toward the greater good, which in this case is keeping you healthy and whole. The ultimate healing power in the Vishuddha chakra enables you to synchronize communication between your inner and outer worlds and most importantly to clear the lines of communication to the Divine. Once you have harnessed this power, wherein there is no disconnection or disharmony in communication between you, others, and the Divine, you will have a clear path toward enlightenment. The first step toward this path is to seek and speak truth.

Recognizing Fifth Chakra Imbalances

Signs that the throat chakra is out of balance may include the Vata imbalance of talking incessantly without listening. This kind of nervous talking uses the voice out of fear of silence or fear of being alone. Another manifestation of imbalance would be using the voice to be harsh to others, such as putting a person in his or her place or being overly critical. Those out of balance can also use their voice as a weapon to hurt another person by not speaking or by yelling, screaming, or crying out loud to create drama. Speech impediments are disorders that can limit your voice or cause frustration in speaking. A person who feels suppressed and doesn’t feel he or she has a voice can experience blockages in the fifth chakra. Miscommunication and misunderstandings are also limitations of the throat chakra. This often happens when two people are talking at each other rather than to each other, and when one person isn’t listening or doesn’t understand.

Healing Vishuddha 

Daily affirmation: I can easily speak my inner truth.

Healing the Physical Body

In order to effectively speak your truth, your throat, vocal cords, mouth, jaw, and hearing must remain healthy. Eating the wrong foods and maintaining poor posture can contribute to ineffective vocal expression. If you find speaking, singing, chanting, or projecting your voice to be challenging, the following changes may aid throat chakra healing. First, dry mouth can be rectified by reducing caffeine and alcohol consumption and by decreasing the number of dry foods in your diet such as crackers, chips, dried fruit, and nuts. You can also keep your mouth moist and throat lubricated by swishing and gargling daily with an organic food-grade sesame oil. Take one to two teaspoons in your mouth and swish for one minute, then gargle lightly and spit it out. It will leave a light film in your mouth. You can do this before bed and you will reap the benefits of a lubricated mouth and the anti-bacterial effects of the sesame oil. Phlegm in your throat can be corrected by reducing cold dairy, sugar, and processed foods. 1. Chanting and Singing Saying the chakra mantra sounds or other mantras out loud is great for toning the throat and strengthening the vocal cords. Singing brings about joy and can be transcendent. It’s no wonder so many of us sing in the shower or alone in the car. It brings out a side of us that is often hidden. Liberate your fifth chakra energy by singing out loud—not only in the shower or car. 2. Head and Neck Exercises Because we tend to position the neck improperly when using electronic devices, it’s very important that we stretch our necks frequently to release the tired muscles. This exercise can be a valuable tool for healing the throat chakra. Sit tall with your back straight. Have your head in a neutral position with your chin neither up nor down. Rest your hands on your lap with your palms facing up. Turn your head to the right, then bring your chin down and draw a semicircle with your chin as you bring it to your left. Then bring your chin downward from the left side and draw a semicircle back to the right. Continue back and forth eight times. Next, return your head back to a centered, neutral position. Take the first two fingers of your right hand, place them on your chin, and bring your chin to your chest. Hold it there and breathe. Release your head, and repeat with your left hand.

Yoga Asanas and Pranayama Exercises to Heal the Fifth Chakra

Try these exercises to help heal and align the Vishuddha chakra. To view a video demo of these exercises, go to www.youtube.com/c/MichelleFondinAuthor. Click on the Playlists tab, and select Chakra Healing Asanas & Pranayamas. Scroll down the list until you find the one you’re looking for. 3. Ujjayi Breath Often referred to as the ocean breath or affectionately coined the Darth Vader breath, the ujjayi breath is excellent for toning the throat and calming nerves. This breath brings heat to the body and therefore is yang in nature. To begin the ujjayi breath, sit tall and close your eyes. Pretend you’re going to fog up a pair of glasses to clean them, and exhale the word ha. Now close your lips and exhale the same way but with your mouth closed. Inhale and exhale the word ha. This results in a partial constriction of your throat. You are breathing from the lower belly, inflating the belly as you inhale and contracting it as you exhale. In the beginning, it’s difficult to inhale the word ha, but with practice it becomes easier. Once you get the hang of it, see if you can prolong each inhalation and exhalation to the count of four. Use this breathing technique for throat chakra healing and anytime you’re feeling stressed. 4. Lion’s Breath—Simhasana This silly-looking breath is effective at toning the throat, mouth, and jaw, and clearing out the lungs and bronchial passages. To practice the lion’s breath, sit on your heels with your knees wide open and place your hands on the floor in front of you. If it’s challenging to sit this way, you can stand and place your feet wide apart instead. Take in a deep breath through your nose, and as you exhale, open your mouth wide, stick out your tongue, and say the word ha emphasizing the h on the exhale, as if you are a lion roaring. If you want to add another physical component to complete the asana, bring up your hands and make claws as you exhale. It’s great for releasing negative energy. 5. Bridge Pose—Setu Bandhasana Begin by lying on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your feet hip-width apart and parallel, your toes forward, and your arms alongside you with your palms facing down. Press your palms down and lift your pelvis up. If you can, bring your hands together on the mat underneath your pelvis and interlace your fingers. Walk your shoulders inward toward your spine, and lift your pelvis even higher. Look straight at the ceiling, and keep your head steady. Hold for five to ten breaths. To lower, separate your hands, bring your palms to the floor, and lower your pelvis to the ground. As a counterpose, bring both knees to your chest and roll gently side to side to massage your back. Bridge pose stimulates the thyroid, parathyroid, and thymus glands. 6. Plow Pose—Halasana To begin, lie down with a thinly folded blanket underneath your head and neck. Rest your arms alongside your torso with your palms facing down. Bend both knees with your feet flat on the floor. Press into your hands and lift your legs. With your legs joined and straight, bring them over your head until your toes touch the floor above your head. You will be folding your body completely in half. You can either leave your arms on the floor or bend your elbows and support your back with your hands. Hold the pose for several breaths. To come out of the pose, lower your knees toward your forehead and gently lower your back to the floor, one vertebrae at a time. To recover, do reclining butterfly pose or hug your knees to your chest, and roll your back out side to side.

Healing the Emotional and Energetic Body

For many of us, one of the hardest things to do is to speak truth. I’m not referring to telling the truth, which at times is challenging in and of itself. I’m talking about speaking your inner truth, the truth that resides within your heart. The truth that is the pure essence within your personal soul, the voice that comes from your highest Self and gives authenticity to your words. It speaks of who you are as an individual and brings light to your uniqueness in every way. 7. Reflecting on Speaking Truth Try this interesting exercise. During the day, focus on your words and see if they match how you truly feel. Resist the temptation to judge or admonish yourself; just notice. You may be amazed to discover times when you don’t think you’re “stretching the truth” but you are. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about joking around or exaggerating to prove a point but rather deliberately changing the truth to mislead another person or yourself in any way. For example, if you get on the scale to weigh yourself and you weigh 160 pounds, but you tell your spouse, who asks, that the scale read 150 pounds, that’s deliberate. You might think, “Well, what’s the harm in that? It’s just a number on a scale.” That might be so, but if it weren’t a big deal, why would you change the number? Ultimately, speaking truth and being mindful of your inner truth is about flexing a muscle so you can live a life of excellence, marked by coherence between body, mind, and spirit. The more you flex your muscles of deception, the bigger they get. And the more you flex your truthfulness muscles associated with Vishuddha, the bigger those get. In the end, you have greater gains when your truthfulness muscles are flexed and toned. Living in and speaking truth doesn’t mean you always have to tell all. It is your absolute right to say things such as “I’d rather not say,” “I’m not sure right now,” or even “Now isn’t the right time for me to express this.” If truth means you will hurt someone and that isn’t where you’d like to go with the conversation, you can always stay silent, unless staying silent means you might harm them. For example, if your friend asks you if you love her new red dress and you don’t like it at all, you could either stay silent or say something like, “I really like the flowered dress you wore last week.” You’re using a softener to avoid hurting her feelings, but you’re not lying. However, if she says to you, “What do you think about this new guy I’m dating?” And you google the guy and find out he has a police record and you don’t tell her, then you could potentially be harming her by not revealing the truth. Do you see the difference? As you go through your day with this exercise, say to yourself, “Is what I’m about to say going to hurt my integrity in any way?” and “Will I be disconnecting from my spiritual self by saying what I’m about to say?” You’ll notice that if you can answer those questions honestly, you’ll go about your day honoring truthfulness.

Healing the Spiritual Body

Gaining the awareness of the fifth chakra is like awakening from a deep slumber. You begin to see things differently. Words spoken or written take on new meaning. As you emerge from the darkness of the lower chakras, spiritual truths seem to fall into place and link together like the pieces of a puzzle that seemed so complicated before. You may find yourself on a sudden spiritual journey, seeking to take in as much information as you possibly can. It’s an exciting time for you as you begin to wonder where all this wonderful truth has been hiding your whole life. 8. Energy-Body Healing with Gems and Colors The color sky blue is associated with the fifth chakra. Lapis lazuli, known as the “stone of truth,” is great for speaking your truth. You can also use aquamarine and turquoise gemstones for this chakra. You can wear or hold to your throat chakra the stones blue kyanite and blue iolite to help enhance clairaudient or psychic hearing abilities. Excerpted from the book Chakra Healing for Vibrant Energy: Exploring Your 7 Energy Centers with Mindfulness, Yoga, and Ayurveda. Copyright © 2018 by Michelle S. Fondin. Printed with permission from New World Library. newworldlibrary.com

About The Author Michelle S. Fondin, author of Chakra Healing for Vibrant Energy and The Wheel of Healing with Ayurveda is an Ayurvedic lifestyle counselor and as a yoga and meditation teacher. She holds a Vedic Master certificate from the Chopra Center and has worked with Dr. Deepak Chopra teaching yoga and meditation. Find out more about her work at michellefondinauthor.com.

the ancient tibetan practice of dream yoga is designed to give you access to dream consciousness in waking reality, which has the effect of powerfully expanding your spiritual awareness.

To begin this section on shamanic dreaming, I will first explain the modern term and experience of lucid dreaming. For us modern folks lucid dreaming and shamanic dreaming will share consistencies in the beginning stages simply because the initial goal of both is simply to become aware you are dreaming while you are dreaming. Learning to do this in the culture of my dreaming teachers—the Wirrarika—is very natural and nothing like what we modern people must go through. Unlike our culture, dream recall is simply a part of everyday life for the Wirrarika. From a very early age, every morning a Wirrarika child is asked by her mom or grandfather, by the shaman or even many people: “What did you dream last night?” This Wirrarika custom of asking about and recounting dreams continues throughout life. This dream recollection is key to beginning to learn lucid dreaming. Moving from intentionally remembering dreams in high detail to realizing you are dreaming while you are dreaming is a natural progression. For Westerners the best way to learn the highly advanced techniques of shamanic dreaming is to first become proficient at lucid dreaming. We are going to dive into this most important subject soon. Most modern dream researchers agree on a simple definition for lucid dreaming: in a lucid dream the dreamer knows that he is dreaming while he is dreaming. For those of you proficient in lucid dreaming, I suggest you stick around anyway because you might learn something new.

A Brief History of Dreaming

We all have dreams that upon our wakening startle us with their clarity: the dream felt so real that while we were dreaming it didn’t feel or seem like a dream at all. Many, if not all of us, have also experienced a lucid dream (LD) in which we somehow knew we were dreaming while we were dreaming it, and upon awakening we remember that we knew we were dreaming while dreaming. Recent polls conducted by dream researchers suggest that around 80 percent of people have three to five lucid dreams per year. That’s a really small percentage—1 to 2 percent of dreams for a whole year. After people participate in a weeklong class on how to induce LD, the percentage rises to 10 to 40 percent. After many months of practice inducing LD, many participants report 80 percent frequency, and there are highly experienced oneironauts (lucid dreamers) who, after many years of practice, report 100 percent frequency when they intend to lucid dream. Lucid dreaming and shamanic dreaming share many themes and processes, but shamanic dreaming takes everything to another whole level. So now you may be wondering why we should practice LD. Good question. The easiest answer is also the simplest: because we spend around a third of our lives asleep, why wouldn’t we want to have access to that part of our life instead of being in a state that resembles a coma? Below are some of the potentials lucid dreaming offers. Later, I’ll get into the whys of shamanic dreaming.

+ Gain control. Explore your dream world with total clarity, and direct and manipulate dream themes, settings, and plots at will.

+ Get inspired. Collect ideas and creative motivation for the waking world from your subconscious.

+ Fulfill fantasies. During LD you can do whatever you want.

+ Therapy. While lucid dreaming you can face your fears, phobias, anxieties, past traumas, and even nightmares.

+ Gain energy and power. Lucid dreamers have shown that proficiency in lucid dreaming carries over many positive changes in the waking world.

What Is and What Is Not Lucid Dreaming

There are two states of consciousness before and after sleep that are often confused with lucid dreaming. The hypnagogic state and the hypnopompic state are terms used to describe the borderline state between wakefulness and falling asleep and being asleep and waking up, respectively. Both states may tap into the subconscious mind in a similar way and sometimes in an even more powerful way to normal dreams, although hypnagogia (falling asleep) is usually more pronounced than hypnopompia (waking up). Common experiences during hypnagogia include visualizations such as phosphenes (colored specks of light), geometric patterns, kaleidoscopic imagery, and flashing dream scenes similar to an ongoing dream. Since we are still partially awake, we often consciously decide to hold a scene or image or to let it go and pass to another. Personally, I find it quite enjoyable and peaceful to see phosphenes and to be able to control their movements while transitioning to sleep and have found this to be very conducive to evoking lucid dreaming once asleep. Hypnagogia and lucid dreaming share some qualities, but they are not the same state of consciousness. During the hypnagogic state I can to a certain extent direct the images that I see, in a similar way to lucid dreaming, but I am not asleep yet. Being aware of the hypnagogic state can be a very valuable to lucid dreaming technique. It is an effective technique to “carry over” an image or scene into a lucid dream. More about that later. A second state of consciousness often confused with lucid dreaming is the prelucid dream state. Although we can at times move from hypnagogia to lucid dreaming, especially with training and practice, normally we pass into normal sleep and then through a prelucid dream state first. The prelucid state is in most cases a very important bridge to becoming fully lucid. While in a prelucid state our dream seems utterly real, and many times we are astonished at the clarity. It’s quite common in this state to say to oneself, “This can’t be a dream.” Or to ask, “Am I really dreaming?” If you are making statements or asking questions to yourself about your dream, you have arrived at a state of consciousness where you could easily cross the bridge to lucid dreaming; however, this is not always the case. Often we stay in this dream state, it fades away, or we wake up without experiencing lucidity. While dreaming we can often feel, or actually be, in charge of what is going on in our dream without being aware we are dreaming. Our unconscious is a tricky animal and is basically in charge of what we are dreaming. If you are in some form connected to your subconscious, it may seem like you are consciously in charge of your dream when actually you are not. Many times, especially for novices, this also occurs even when you are fully aware you are dreaming (LD). For the vast majority of people, it takes a lot of practice to be consciously in charge of your dream even when you know you are dreaming. Strictly speaking, being in charge or having the ability in some way to control your dream is not a necessary component of lucid dreaming. Being fully aware that you are dreaming is the only requisite. You can be fully lucid in your dream with your unconscious mind still in charge. In this common circumstance you are simply consciously “going for a ride” in your dream. These experiences of being lucid while your unconscious is in charge can be supremely enlightening! You can lucidly experience fulfilling fantasies and facing fears, phobias, anxieties, past traumas, and even nightmares, with your unconscious mind in charge of the dream. Letting your unconscious mind be in charge during lucid dreaming also opens up the possibilities of discovering and experiencing circumstances your conscious mind is not capable of due to many factors, the most important being the controlling aspects of our ego. During lucid dreaming, you are you but you are also not you. You are not encumbered by societal pressures, family, or work. No one expects you to behave a certain way or “get things done” while you are sleeping! Because of this, lucid dreamers tend to have a plethora of mystical, divine, and numinous experiences. They also tend to experience intense pleasure and even states of ecstasy, sexual ecstasy included. The occurrence of lucid dreamers reaching orgasm while lucid dreaming is well documented in dream study laboratories. Oftentimes lucid dreamers have such powerful experiences that they are incapable of putting them into words upon waking, and these feelings of awe continue for days, weeks, or years. However, through many years of lucid dreaming, and listening to descriptions of lucid dreams from lots of people, I can also tell you that most lucid dreams are not overly inspiring, stimulating, or therapeutic. Sometimes they can be downright dull. Knowing you are dreaming doesn’t automatically make dreaming more exhilarating or enlightening. In most cases lucid dreaming with the unconscious mind “feels” the same as ordinary dreaming, which is actually a good thing. Some people resist lucid dreaming because they’re afraid they’ll lose the spontaneity and unpredictability of normal dreaming. But that is not necessarily the case. As already stated you can be fully lucid but not be in charge. However, there are many times I want to be in charge of my dream time, and learning how to do that is a remarkable asset in one’s life. One of the most positive benefits of learning to be in charge of your lucid dreams, and later to actually control them (this may seem to be the same but it’s not and will be explained more later), is that during lucid dreaming we generally feel supremely confident! We are aware we are dreaming, so anything is possible. I can be in charge of whatever I want to be; I can submit and be humble if I want to. I can change my attitude to circumstances in my life that I might be struggling with for years in a blink of an eye. I can transcend negativity and pessimism and overcome my fears during my lucid dreams and carry the awareness back to the physical plane. Lucid dreaming also tends to cultivate a unity of consciousness and the cosmos. Lucid dreamers regularly display a shift in their normal awareness toward a more holistic view of the world. Through lucid dreaming they discover a supremely expanded view of life, objects, nature, and other human beings. Through seeing objects, places, and life-forms, including people, as fields of energy while lucid dreaming, the lucid dreamer learns to obtain the same sort of information on the physical plane. This awareness allows the lucid dreamer to see and read other people’s energy patterns more easily, sense more clearly others’ moods and thoughts, and react more effectively and creatively. To summarize, the learned ability to be consciously aware we are dreaming while we are dreaming is such a powerful enhancement of life that when it happens we are changed forever for the better. Lucid dreaming is in my mind one of the cutting-edge modalities that can lead humanity away from our anthropocentric lifestyles and toward a holistic reality. Once we master lucid dreaming techniques, we open the door to the powerful tool of shamanic dreaming.

Practice: Cleansing Your Day in Preparation for Lucid Dreaming

Anything we do consistently during the day will inevitably show up in our dreams. Our dreams are largely filled with subconscious impressions from our day. We all know that previous events and people from our past can also show up in our dreams. Not only that, energetically draining events from our past or from the day before can negatively affect both our current waking life and our dream time. In addition to reclaiming lost energy by healing energetic drains from the past, it’s important to prepare for your journey into the dream world at night if you want to be successful. If we can clear ourselves of stress, tension, deep emotions, random thoughts, and all the various situations of the day, we can fully focus attention on the intention to first remember dreams and then achieve the goal of becoming aware we are dreaming while dreaming. To do this we can perform a simple ritual that can become a wonderful habit. I wouldn’t consider this a shamanic ritual but rather one that can augment and support our attempts at shamanic dreaming.

1. Sit down in a comfortable position before going to bed. It’s best to sit on your bed, or somewhere close to where you will sleep that night.

2. Simply sit for a minute and notice where your thoughts are. When ready, close your eyes and begin to visualize the events of your day.

3. You can visualize events as if looking at a movie screen in your mind, or you can take the visual perspective of looking at the scene from the outside or above. Take one event at a time, and breathe it in through your nose while reliving it. If it is an event you want to energetically discharge, then forcefully breathe it out through your mouth as you visualize the energy leaving you and dissipating. If it is a pleasant event, simply exhale through your nose and notice how the event made you feel. Reviewing energetically positive events is a great way to fortify positivity before dreaming; however, it is important to clear the energy-draining events before dreaming. Do as many events as you feel necessary. If you had an easy day, this process could be very quick; if you had a hard day, it will obviously take longer. In any case don’t rush, take your time, and get your energy moving to be in a clear and positive state.

4. When you feel finished, stand up, take one more deep breath, and while exhaling sweep your energy field clean by placing your hands on the top of your head and sweeping down over your chest, abdomen, genitals, legs, and feet. When you get to your feet, swish your hands out away from your body. The sweeping can be done slowly or rapidly, whatever feels right to you in the moment. Do this once or many times. I usually do it a few times just because it tends to feel really good and refreshing. I often find myself smiling after this, which is perfect for what comes next!

Practice: Importance of a Dream Journal

I am making this simple task an “official” practice for our work because of how important it is. In the past decade or so the activity of journaling has become extremely popular. Now there are books, workshops, and even conferences on journaling. Journaling enthusiasts typically use the activity for problem solving and stress reduction, and I’m told it can also be very enjoyable. It’s been proven to improve mental and physical health and can lead to increased self-esteem. I have to admit I personally am not big on journaling for myself, but I have more than a few friends who love doing it and have been doing it for many years. I spend so much time writing, I can’t even think about keeping a daily journal about my life and thoughts. However, my dream journal is something I have kept up on and off for close to thirty years because it is so important to cultivating lucid and shamanic dreaming for modern people. Unlike the Wirrarika, we typically don’t have someone who will ask us every morning what we dreamt the night before. If you do have someone like that—awesome! But the dream journal is still pretty much indispensable for modern people in setting up lucid dreaming for many reasons. Every lucid dream researcher and teacher will tell you the same thing. Why? Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., known as the godfather of modern lucid dreaming due to his pioneering work at Stanford University and founding of the Lucidity Institute in 1987, puts it this way:

Your lucid dream training will start with keeping a dream journal and improving your dream recall. Your journal will help you discover what your dreams are like. . . . Learning to remember your dreams is necessary if you want to learn to dream lucidly. Until you have excellent dream recall, you won’t stand much of a chance of having lucid dreams. There are two reasons for this. First, without recall, even if you do have a lucid dream you won’t remember it. Indeed, we all have probably lost numerous lucid dreams among the many thousands of dreams we have forgotten in the normal course of our lives. Second, good dream recall is crucial because to become lucid you have to recognize that your dream is a dream while it is happening. Since they are your dreams that you are trying to recognize you have to become familiar with what they are like. . . . You can accomplish this by collecting your dreams and analyzing them for dreamlike elements. . . . Before it will be worth your time to work on lucid dream induction methods you should be able to recall at least one dream every night.

I suggest you buy a special dedicated journal with a lock to record both goals, intentions, and detailed recollections of your nightly dreams. It’s important that others don’t handle or especially don’t look in your journal, thus the lock. If you care to share your dreams with others, especially other lucid dreamers, that’s fine and can be very helpful, but this work is extremely private and shouldn’t be shared without your knowledge. Also, having a special pen to write with makes the experience more special, even sacred. We’re  going to get into when and what to write in your journal shortly. But here I also want to mention a helpful tip from my experience. Often when waking from a dream in the night and not ready yet to wake up for the day, I don’t want to become fully awake because I know in my still half asleep (or more) state, I can easily slip right back into dreaming. Waking up to the  point  of  turning  on the light and writing might, or would, detract from  going back  to dreaming. But if I didn’t make some effort to immediately record the dream, I would almost always forget it. Waking up in the morning, I would know, on the periphery of my consciousness, that I had dreamt but wouldn’t be able to remember the dream. I think we all experience this. The solution I came up with is to hang a  small whiteboard on the wall next to my bed with a marker attached to it. When I briefly wake up and remember my dream, I scribble a few key words on the board so I can remember the dream when I’m fully awake. When I’m awake I take cues from the scribbled notes and write out the details of the dream in my journal. As stated earlier, dream recall is a vital step to lucid dreaming. The little tricks and techniques we use and come up with to polish our dream recall all help in our goal to become lucid.

Practice: Creating Lucid Goals 

In 2007, David R. Hamilton, Ph.D., conducted research at the Dominican University of California involving 149 people aged from twenty-three to seventy-two years old, from many different backgrounds and cultures. The purpose of the research was to compare different techniques and strategies used to achieve our goals. Participants were divided into five groups.

+ Group 1 was asked to think about goals they’d like to accomplish over the next four weeks and reflect on the importance of those goals.

+ Group 2 was asked to write down their goals and reflect on their importance, as group 1 had done.

+ Group 3 went a little further. Not only were they to write down their goals, but they were also asked to write down some actions they could take.

+ Group 4 went further still: they wrote their goals down, reflected on their importance, and wrote some action steps, but they also sent these action commitments to a supportive friend.

+ Group 5 did all that group 4 did, but they also made weekly progress reports to their supportive friend.

As you might have guessed, Group 5 achieved the most and Group 1 the least. Group 5, in fact, achieved 78 percent more than Group 1 did. Writing out your dreaming goals will absolutely help with:

+ Clarification. Being clear and prepared for any adventure increases the probability of success. For example, if you are going on a trip with a specific destination in mind, you can clarify what to pack, how you will get there, and knowing when you have arrived. The same goes with lucid dreaming techniques. Writing down your goals forces you to select something specific and decide what you want.

+ Motivation. Writing down your goals and clarifying them is just the beginning of the journey. When going on a trip you have to prepare, get on the road or plane, and actually arrive. Writing down the goals and reviewing them spurs the motivation toward the actual actions.

+ Keeping on track. So many circumstances pull us this way and that every day. Writing down goals helps us filter out what are the most important actions to take.

+ Evaluation. Written goals are like mile markers on a highway. They enable you to see how far you have come and how far you need to go. They also provide an opportunity for celebration when you attain them!

So the first items to write in your journal refer to why you want to lucid dream. Clarify your motivation. Examples:

+ I want to explore consciousness. + I want to fly around in my dreams. + I want to learn shamanic dreaming. + I want to heal myself. + I want to heal others. + I want to improve my self-confidence. I want to overcome . . .

I like to make a title page as the first page of my journal. Then at the top of the second page goes the date and the heading “Motivation,” followed by why I want to lucid dream. Next, I’ll write some affirmations and truths about what I’m doing. Examples:

+ I will do my best to prepare for dreaming so I will be successful in becoming lucid. + I will try not to be frustrated when not successful. + The process of learning lucid dreaming takes time; I will go at my own speed. + My dream journal is a magical item of my subconscious and dream world. + I am clear on my motivation to do this and have written it down in my journal. + I will be successful in lucid dreaming!

Now don’t forget at any moment to write down feelings, emotions, thoughts, affirmations, doubts—whatever. It’s really interesting to see what we wrote in the beginning of the lucid dream journey months and years later. After this initial section in your journal, skip at least ten pages for future goals, affirmations, and notes. On the first page of the actual journal you will record the dreams you have on your first night; put the date at the top and the two most important six- and seven-word phrases for this stage:

+ I will remember my dreams tonight. + I will write down my dreams tonight.

Place a bookmark at that page so you can easily find it when you awaken during the night. But first let’s look at induction techniques—techniques for inducing lucid dreams.

Practice: Enhancing Prospective Memory— Reality Checks

The reason for writing out the above phrases before going to sleep is to stimulate what psychologists refer to as prospective memory. Prospective memory means remembering to perform intended actions in the future or, simply, remembering to remember. Examples of prospective memory include remembering to take medicine at night before going to bed, remembering to deliver a message to a friend, and remembering to pick up certain items while shopping. Making lists, using sticky notes, and writing on a calendar, among other physical cues, can help us remember what we want or need to do in the future. I am notorious for making a shopping list and then getting distracted and leaving it at home. I did just that yesterday when I went to the grocery store. But though I didn’t remember all the items on the list, the act of writing the list enabled me to remember the important ones. It seems that importance is key to prospective memory. Leaving on time to catch a plane will usually outweigh insignificant items on  a grocery list. Remembering your spouse’s birthday will probably outweigh taking out the trash. If the task is very important your prospective memory will remain active to the goal and keep checking if it’s time to do it until you actually do it. Much of what we intend to do in our everyday lives, whether at home or at work, involves habitual tasks repeated over time. When it comes to these kinds of habitual tasks, our intentions may not be explicit. We don’t write down or form an explicit intention to insert the key in our front door to open it when we get home. We  just do it. Forgetting to pick an item up at the store may  be no big deal; however, prospective memory failures can sometimes be devastating. For example, aircraft pilots must remember to perform several actions sequentially prior to takeoff and landing, and failure to remember to perform any of these actions may result in injury or death. For lucid dreaming, we can effectively use a concrete prospective memory cue: right before you go to bed, write down in your journal and say to yourself that you will remember your dreams that night—and really believe it! But we are also going to want to perform certain tasks during the dream, the most important being the awareness that we are dreaming. Since we can’t take our journal or a list with us to remember, we need to remember without these tools. Learning to remember better in our waking life can greatly help us to remember while dreaming. As already discussed the importance of an event or task helps motivate us to remember. It’s the same with lucid dreaming: the more we desire to become lucid the more motivated we will be to remember. The following lucid dream technique has two aspects. The first is to exercise our prospective memory and the second is to perform reality checks while exercising prospective memory. Anything we do consistently during the day will inevitably show up in our dreams. To learn lucid dreaming, you must be able to spot the difference between a dream and waking reality. During normal dreams you accept it as real life. It’s only when you wake up that you realize you were dreaming. By integrating reality checks into your waking life, you will soon do them in your dreams. This will snap your conscious mind to realizing: “I’m dreaming!” Reality checks are very easy to perform; however, the more passion and energy you put into them, the more effective they will be when carried over into your dream time. To be truly effective, reality checks should be performed many times during your day—twenty times is a good number. Basically the reality check has a physical component along with asking a simple question, “Am I dreaming?” Some teachers of lucid dreaming techniques suggest setting an alarm on your phone or watch to remember to do your reality check. In my experience it is far better to combine intentional prospective memory with the reality check by doing your reality check when you see a predetermined item(s) during your day or you do something specific during your day. The first step is to write down a list of twenty-one targets, things that are likely to happen during a normal week. Once you have your list, break it down into three items for each day of the upcoming week and write this schedule down in your journal. You will not be taking your journal with you, nor a list of the three targets. This is an exercise to strengthen your prospective memory without using lists or sticky notes or alarms. Here we are exercising our mental power of recall. Examples: I will do a reality check whenever I:

+ Buy something + Write something down + Hear someone say my name + Handle cash + See a yellow car + Hear someone laugh + Turn on a TV + Turn on a computer + Throw something away + Read something + Check the time + Hang up the phone + Put a key in a lock + See a bird + See an advertisement + Open a door + Eat anything + Flush a toilet + See the stars + Turn on a light

This is just a sample list; you must make your own. Obviously, if you are an editor you would choose something else besides reading as a target, or if you are a telemarketer, something besides hanging up the phone. We want the targets to be things we will do a few times a day (like flushing a toilet), not all day long. When you hit a target, it’s time for a reality check. A reality check can be lots of things:

+ Touching. What happens when you touch something solid? + Breathing. Can you hold both your nose and mouth shut and breathe? + Jumping. When you jump, do you come right back down or do you float down? + Reading. Can you read a sentence twice without its changing? + Mirrors. Does your reflection look normal in the mirror? + Math. Can you add up two numbers for a correct answer?

Each of these reality checks can be useful. My preference is holding my nose and mouth shut and the palm test, which is not on the above list. To do the palm test, open one hand and then forcefully tap the index, middle, and ring fingers of your other hand on the palm of the open hand. I prefer this test over the others because seeing (finding) your hands in a dream is one of the main techniques of becoming lucid, which we will discuss later. The more often you do a reality check in waking life, the more likely it is that you will do the same reality check in any given dream to test if you are aware that you are dreaming. The key to reality checks is to do them mindfully and frequently while at the same time asking yourself, “Am I dreaming?” “Am I awake?”—or some other variation of this question. If you are not asking yourself the question in waking life, then chances are you won’t ask yourself the question in the dream. It is the question, not the action itself, that will make this lucid dreaming technique successful. Your brain creates neural constructs based on experiential learning: patterns of thinking based on your real-life experiences. For example, we know about the laws of gravity: we know that in the waking world we can’t just jump off the ground and fly away. There’s no question about it, just as there’s no question that 71 percent of Earth’s surface is currently water, Earth is in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Browns won’t win the Super Bowl this year. Consequently, most of us continue through life without ever questioning the world around us. We become so accustomed to our reality, we forget to question it. And this applies in the dream world too. However, when we question our reality on a regular basis, we open ourselves to actually experiencing alternate realities. When this becomes second nature in waking life, it will become second nature in dreams too. This is the bridge we are looking for to the world of lucid dreams. The other benefit of doing frequent reality checks throughout the day is that it ensures that you are constantly thinking about lucid dreaming. The more you focus on something, the more likely it is to occur, especially in the case of lucid dreaming. A perfect example of this is my current situation with writing this lucid dreaming portion. Since I started writing it and have been focusing on it all day for many days, the number of my dreams has increased and my recall has been outstanding. Remember: whatever we do in the waking world naturally affects our dream world. By constantly thinking of lucid dreaming while awake, we enhance our chances of becoming lucid while we are dreaming. Reality checks, reading and researching about it, and practicing other lucid dreaming techniques I will present shortly all combine to help us with our goal. Summary of reality check technique: 1. Make a list of targets. Choose twenty targets that you know you will hit during a one-week period, multiple times a day. Group them into three targets for each day, and write them in your journal. Below are examples of daily targets for the first two weekdays.

Monday

+ Open a door + Eat anything + Flush a toilet

Tuesday

+ Hang up the phone + Put a key in a lock + See a bird

2. Memorize the day’s targets. When you get up in the morning, after you write in your journal about your dreams of the night, read and memorize your reality check targets for that day. Don’t read ahead; read only the targets for that particular day. 3. Remember to perform your reality check while doing your targets during the day If one of your targets is putting a key in a lock, while you insert a key, you will have to use your prospective memory to do your reality check. While doing your physical reality check, sincerely ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” At this point I would suggest doing another different reality check because sometimes in dreams one is not enough to convince ourselves. In the waking world the answer to your question will more than likely be, “No, I’m not dreaming.” Remember, the action of questioning your reality and state of consciousness in your waking state while increasing your prospective memory is the point of the exercise. Soon you will be doing this while dreaming. The more you do it while awake, the easier it will be to do while dreaming. Keep track of your targets hit during the day with a small notebook or just a piece of paper. Also write down the targets you missed. Many times I have had the “put a key in a lock” target on my list, but often when I get to work in the morning and turn off my car, I realize I’ve missed my very first reality check when I started the car. That was a failure of my prospective memory, which needs improvement. 4. Tally up your hits and failures. At the end of the day write a tally of your hits and failures in your journal so you can mark your progress. This lucid dreaming technique has a definite snowball effect. The more you practice, the better you get. Congratulate yourself when you see improvement, and smile knowing you are intentionally raising your awareness and developing your memory. If you realize you are missing a lot of your targets, continue with the process and try not to be discouraged. Keep trying your best, and you will get it. Remember, hitting your target is only a portion of the technique related to prospective memory. Just as important is actually performing the reality check in a conscientious and high-level manner and sincerely questioning reality. If you fail to do either, hitting the target becomes somewhat trivial. Excerpted from Advanced Shamanism by James Endredy 2018 Bear & Company. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. InnerTraditions.com

About The Author James Endredy leads workshops throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada and is actively involved in preserving the world’s indigenous cultures and traditional sacred sites, such as those of the Huichol Indians of western Mexico. The award-winning author of several books, including Ecoshamanism, The Flying Witches of Veracruz, Teachings of the Peyote Shamans, and Earthwalks for Body and Spirit, he lives in Vermont. Find out more at jamesendredy.com

photo: christian sterk

The physical world is a great metaphor for the metaphysical world, especially if you keep in mind the principle of correspondence: as above, so below. We can look at any number of physical entities—a garden, a closet, a whole house, a business, the body—to understand the concepts of clearing, containing, and cultivating. Because energy (both physical and metaphysical) is meant to flow, it is, unless inhibited, always moving. The physical world has structure and if we want the structures to remain healthy and intact, we have to take care of them. Without attention and care, things naturally move from order to disorder. Our nicely organized closet will change from order to disorder unless we put things away where they belong. A garden full of seedlings will produce better if weeds are not allowed to creep in. A business with a clear vision and a sound mission will lose its focus if other ideals or values are pursued. If not given enough sleep or food, our bodies will fall apart. Each of these processes—clearing, containing, and cultivating—play important roles in maintaining harmony. They are vital, but they are not difficult. I believe that energy is part of the Divine. It is not out to trick you or trip you up because of some ritualistic loophole. There are basic principles governing how energy flows, but once you understand those, don’t be afraid to follow your intuition, your creative impulses, and your own common sense. We are all made of energy and are perfectly able to understand and work with it. You will be invited to try some of the practices as you read on. This is to help you start learning what it feels like to attend to your own energy cleansing. Think of this time as a sampler. Start small. You shouldn’t have a huge goal in mind or attempt to clear anything that you know is big and complicated. This will relieve pressure and allow you to focus on the practice itself and how you feel.

Everything You Need to Know About Clearing

Have you ever tried to plant a new garden into untended ground or attempted to organize an overfull closet with all the stuff still in it? Both activities can be done—unfortunately, the job will be harder than necessary, and we won’t be able to work as effectively. Clearing the new garden bed of rocks and roots, and removing clay or sandy dirt, will make it easier to place the seedlings or seeds in even rows and will make room for the addition of nutrient-rich soil. Emptying a closet helps you to see everything in it so you can more easily make decisions about what to keep, move, or discard. An empty closet allows you to see the space available so you can make the best use of it. These physical examples are good metaphors for energy clearing. It isn’t hard to apply these ideas to our energy body. Sometimes we say that we have to take a break or go for a walk to clear our heads. If you’ve ever felt that way, you have recognized that your mental energy body was filled with thoughts that needed to be sorted through. Walking helps ground and get rid of negative or agitated energy. Once that energy is cleansed, it is easier to see what is on your mind. As you walked, you probably examined different ideas, discarding some and examining some more closely. You discerned which to keep and which to release. Clearing your energy body is just like that. You consciously examine what is residing within you. Then you can decide what you want to keep and cultivate and what you want to release based on your free will. Most of us have a lifetime of energy built up like plaque on teeth or in arteries. Our energy bodies could look like a hoarder’s house, so full that it is hard to move around and where stagnation is the order of the day. This is why clearing takes a little more effort and time when you first begin this work. There is an accumulation of stuck, negative energy that needs to be removed.

Frequency: How Often to Clear

Energy cleansing is not something we do just once. It is an ongoing activity. Because most of us are not educated in good energy maintenance, as we walk through our days we are bombarded with other people’s energy in the form of thoughts or emotions. If we could see all this churning energy that is not being managed but just flung all over the place, it would probably be like walking through a strange metaphysical stew. Your energy body is sticky and things cling to it. If you don’t practice good energy hygiene, you will experience other people’s random energy clinging to you without you knowing it. That energy then affects you, perhaps even changes you, in ways that you aren’t conscious of and haven’t chosen. The regularity of energy clearing will vary from person to person. Extremely sensitive people or people who haven’t strengthened their boundaries might need a daily practice. Others who have stronger boundaries or whose circumstances help them manage their environmental energy more (such as those who live alone or work from a home office) may only need a weekly or monthly practice of spiritual cleansing. No matter what rhythm of habit you eventually settle on, you may also include unscheduled clearings as needed, such as if you’ve just had a particularly intense experience or have been in a situation that was energetically fraught.

How to Choose the Best Energy Cleansing Practice For Your Needs

There are many, many ways to clear negative energy. One is not objectively better than the others. The ones that are best are the ones that work for you. The most important aspects to consider when selecting a clearing method are whether it resonates with your belief system and is something that you will do regularly. A technique from a culture that is very different from yours might not be the best choice because it doesn’t fit into your understanding. If it is too complicated or time consuming, or it requires you to purchase hard-to-find or expensive items, you are less likely to do it consistently. For example, there are formulas for ritual baths that can be used for clearing. Some require the addition of oils, crystals, and salts as well as the use of candles. If you don’t have relationships with the energy (some would say the spirit) of the suggested oils or crystals, have no interest in them, and don’t even like baths, then that practice is certainly not the best choice for you to get rid of negative energy. However, if you love baths and have a wonderful collection of oils and crystals that you’ve worked with, then this technique is perfect for you. In addition, you may find that you prefer specific clearing practices depending on what you are clearing. For example, you may find that a more physical clearing activity, such as dancing or walking, works best for when your mental energy body is overloaded but realize that meditation is more helpful when your emotional body is cluttered. Let’s look in more detail at possible clearing techniques. They will be more like templates so that you can easily fill in the blanks in ways that make sense to you. Options and suggestions will be included, but remember, this is not a set system. You are not required to follow any particular instructions. In fact, if in reading these ideas you are inspired to create your own technique, so much the better. Your energy body is as personal and unique as your physical body. You get to decide what is best for it because, in the end, you and you alone are responsible for it.

20 Powerful Clearing Practices

Energy-clearing practices or techniques can be any activity that allows you to remove unwanted or negative energy. They create space in both the physical body and energy body. Because they create space, it is good to follow them with a cultivation practice so that you are controlling what will fill the space you just created. Some clearing techniques more rigorously focus on breaking up stagnant energy and should definitely be coupled with another action to release the energy you just loosened; these techniques will be noted and suggestions given for pairings. Likewise, some, particularly the earth-based ones, focus on gathering chaotic energy, which can then more effectively be cleared. All of these techniques can be used or modified for clearing objects and spaces. As with so much metaphysical work, intention is as important as the action itself. While doing any energy work, make sure you are focused and your mind isn’t wandering. You want to be in control of what you are doing. Just as important as intent is only doing what makes sense and feels right for you. Running is a great exercise, unless you have bad knees, in which case swimming might be a better alternative. Likewise, burning sage is a great way to cleanse yourself or a space, but if you have smoke allergies, consider a movement- or water-based technique. A big part of energy cleansing work is being responsible for understanding yourself, your energy body, and your needs. Experiment, pay attention to results, and develop the perfect technique(s) for you. As you read through these, make notes in your journal (or mark up this book) about ones you’d like to try. Knowing what doesn’t work is important too, so also note things that aren’t likely to be a good match. Even these early thoughts and decisions will help you start creating your own practice. Unless there is a reason to not try a technique, I’d encourage you to do so. The more you try, the more you’ll learn.

Movement-Based Techniques

Movement is a great (and easy) way to move energy around or get rid of stagnant, negative energy. Movement can be subtle or vigorous. We will talk about both. Mountain pose and yin yoga are gentler forms of movement, good for clearing out any energy that is vibrating too highly for your comfort. Dancing and walking can be either slow or vigorous and therefore are easily adapted to suit your needs. We will look at standing, walking, dancing, and yin yoga as clearing practices.

1. Mountain Pose

Yoga’s mountain pose might seem like more of a non-movement activity. However, the act of assuming and holding the pose includes subtle but important movement. You don’t simply stand; you stand with intention. Place your feet about hip-distance apart. Rock from your toes to your heels, finding the edges of the sides of your feet, and then settle your weight into the middle of your feet. If you were making a footprint, your foot would be perfectly and evenly represented. Tighten your leg muscles so that your kneecaps lift up and your thighbones push back. Lift your rib cage up off your waist, making lots of space for your lungs to expand. Lift your shoulders up toward your ears and roll them back and down. Make sure your ears, shoulders, hips, and ankles are aligned. Keep your chin level and lift the top back of your skull, creating space at the top of the spine. Take a deep breath in, letting it infuse your mental energy body. Release the breath and release the energy into the earth through the soles of your feet. Repeat as many times as needed to feel clear.

2. Walking

When done with intention, the simple act of walking is also a wonderful practice. For me, walking is particularly effective when my mental energy body is clogged. That “all up in my head” feeling can happen after a long bout of writing or planning, listening to a deep lecture, studying or reading, or even after an intense conversation. Begin by standing in mountain pose for a few breaths while you focus on your intention, then walk, maintaining the good posture you established in mountain pose. With each step, feel the energy that you are focusing on break up and begin to move down to your feet. As your feet meet the ground, release the energy to the earth. Walk until you feel clear. While walking try to maintain a strong, aligned posture. Also pay attention to what your body is doing while you are walking. Our bodies are a great source of wisdom and can tell us a lot about our energy body. Do you find your shoulders hunching forward as if your body is trying to protect the heart center? Are you bending forward from the waist, inhibiting your sacral or gut area? Bring your attention to those areas and see if there is other energy that needs work or attention. Because walking is so good for removing intense or negative energy, I like to pair it with a simple cultivation technique. Repeating a mantra, either out loud or in my head, is my favorite. I choose one that invites the energy I want or a thought I want to replace the thoughts I released. For example, if my energy is out of whack because my car broke down and needs an expensive repair, I could take a clearing walk to release the anxiety and repeat to myself one of my all-time favorite sayings, which is from the fourteenth-century mystic and theologian Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Also, walking to clear anxiety due to a car expense has a poetic irony that I’m sure somehow supports energetic harmony.

3. Dancing

Dancing is a natural energy mover. There are all kinds of dancing, as well as reasons and venues for dancing. Dancing at a party or in a club can be part of a spiritual energy cleansing practice—I know it was certainly cathartic for me when I was younger. Sometimes it is hard to work in a night of clubbing when we need it…and for some, that kind of venue wouldn’t feel right. I’ve danced in clubs, at parties, at weddings, in ritual, in ceremony; with formal steps and with riotous abandon. I think any kind of dancing can be part of energy maintenance. For me, the best energy dancing happens when alone. There is no concern about anything else (clothes, other people, whether my friends are having fun, etc.). Just pick a song and move. Learning to trust your body and its wisdom can take some getting used to, but it is worth it and easy once you get the hang of it. It isn’t easy to explain how, and getting past the awkward stage (if you have one) is a good reason for dancing alone. You can experimentally move your body and see how different motions and rhythms feel. The more you do it, the more natural it becomes. Unlike most of the other practices, while I set my intention before beginning, with dancing I don’t really focus on anything after I start. In the walking practice I deliberately focus on my feet hitting the earth to remove negative energy. Dancing is more primal, and I’ve learned to trust my body. Sometimes these less consciously controlled methods are great choices, especially when you aren’t really sure what is wrong or where it is wrong. You just know something’s got to move, so you trust your body to do what it needs to. Through paying attention during your dancing and reflecting on the experience, you can learn about what was going on so that in the future you will have that experience and that knowledge to apply when necessary.

4. Yin Yoga

Westerners often engage in activities like tai chi and yoga for the physical benefits. However, these practices are deeply rooted in energy work. In their entirety they clear, contain, and cultivate. Consequently, when practiced mindfully, they are awesome for aura cleansing and energy health. Regarding clearing specifically, yin yoga is magnificent for this. Yin yoga focuses on holding passive poses for long periods, generally from one to five minutes for beginners. Physically, these long poses go beyond our larger, more visible anatomy and attend to the deeper anatomy. Long poses, particularly deep hip openers, also have an effect on the emotional body, allowing for the release of deeply held stagnant energy. If you’ve never done this before, go slowly and be prepared for an emotional as well as a physical experience. While I highly recommend yin yoga, any yoga is helpful for releasing because so many of the asanas create space in the body. Because of our principle “as above, so below,” this space is also created in our energy bodies. As we move our physical bodies, we move our energy. Stagnation is extreme, prolonged, and inappropriate stillness. Anxiety is intensely vibrating energy. Your body can help maintain the appropriate vibration for you in almost any circumstance. Keep stagnant energy and anxiety out of your life and keep your energy clear and flowing by moving your body appropriately.

5. Sound

Using sound is a simple way to move energy by raising vibration, creating space, and breaking up stagnant energy. While this technique is mostly used for physical spaces or while doing energy work for others, you can also use it on yourself. Remember, intention matters. Traditional methods of using sound to get rid of old negative energy include rattles, drums, gongs, bells, singing bowls, and clapping. Technically, you could use singing or chanting, but I find those more effective for energy cultivation. While it is lovely to have a special instrument for your energy cleansing work, you don’t have to buy a fancy rattle or drum. You can put some dried beans or popcorn kernels in a covered container, like a plastic storage container. You can use a book or tabletop to drum on. When I use sound for clearing myself, I often incorporate movement and then follow the clearing with stillness and silence, breathing out the activated energy and consciously breathing in a light vibration such as peace or grace. Sounds can wake up the mind and our energy. When you feel lethargic, make a little noise to wake up your energetic body.

Water-Based Techniques

Water is a wonderful and refreshing tool for clearing. We will talk about the easiest method, washing, as well as how to create and use infusions. Water can be used in creative visualization as well, when actual water isn’t handy or when you need a deeper dive, so to speak.

6. Washing

The simplest technique is to wash your hands or face with plain water. Sometimes that isn’t enough, so a full bath or shower is better. While regular tap water works just fine, many people like to infuse their water to enhance its ability or create it for a specific purpose.

7. Infusions

Adding essential oils is a common way to do this, but make sure you know what oil you are using and why (and make sure it is safe for contact with skin). While lavender is really popular, it is more a cultivating oil because it soothes and heals. I find rosemary is great for energy clearing. Please note that some people have a sensitivity to rosemary, and it should not be used by pregnant women. My personal favorite, though, is clary sage, although it is not typically prescribed for clearing and should not be used by pregnant women. If you have favorite oils and check them out first for safety, try them. Even though there are common prescriptive uses, we all develop our own relationships with the spirits of the oils. photo: natalie collins Placing a crystal in a container of water and letting it sit for a few days can infuse the water with the qualities of the crystal and thereby support your clearing work. I use a black quartz crystal that a friend found in Russia and gave to me. Make sure you research whatever you want to use because a few crystals do leach into the water. Safety first! Salt is a great natural cleanser, so you can simply dissolve salt into your water to boost its clearing abilities. Solar and lunar infusions are also popular. These infusions are easy to make. Simply put water in a container and leave it in the sunlight or the moonlight for a while. I put water in a lidded jar and leave it on a windowsill. For a solar infusion, I leave it all day; for a lunar infusion, I leave it overnight. I tend to use solar infusions for clearing and lunar for containing and cultivating, but that reflects my relationship with these heavenly bodies. Think about your own relationship to them and decide which is more appropriate for you. Depending on how interested in astrology you are, you can even refine the purpose of the water by paying attention to what sign the sun is in or what sign or phase the moon is in. Traditionally, a waning moon is used for releasing or clearing. Whether you are just washing your hands or your whole body, another way to cleanse with water is to use soap infused with oils or herbs known for their clearing properties. I’ve found some lovely soaps infused with sage, sweetgrass, and cedar to be extremely effective. There are lots of oils that have cleansing properties. If you can’t find soap with your favorite infusions, perhaps a local soapmaker could create a custom blend for you or you can try making it yourself. If good safety precautions are used, making soap is easy and satisfying.

8. Visual meditation

Visual meditation is a useful and versatile method for clearing. There is so much room for imagination here, so let your ideas run wild. Knowledge of chakras is not necessary for energy work, of course, but even a minimal understanding of the chakras can be useful. Chakras are energy centers in the nonvisible body. The idea comes from many Eastern traditions and has been embraced by many Western energy workers. The word chakra comes from the Sanskrit, meaning “wheel” or “circle.” While there are many chakras, most Western practitioners focus on the seven main ones: crown (violet), third eye (indigo), throat (blue), heart (green), solar plexus (yellow), sacral (orange), and root (red). If you Google “chakras,” you will find many good images that show their location and the energy and issues that they represent. One of my favorite general self-clearing meditations that involves water is to lie down, close my eyes, and visualize my energy body and my chakras. I begin at the bottom, with the red root chakra. I see it clearly in my mind and then set it spinning. I move up the chakras, moving from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to indigo to violet, keeping them all spinning at the same time. Then I imagine a swoosh of water coming through the top of my head (through my crown chakra) and moving through each chakra in turn, cleansing them as it goes. The water flows back to the earth to be redistributed as needed. I admire my shining, sparkly clean spinning chakras for a moment and then settle them back down. That’s it. Easy as can be and so incredibly refreshing.

Fire-Based Techniques

Fire can be a powerful clearing ally. You can incorporate fire in your energy-cleansing work through actually burning things, through candle work, and, as with water, through visualization. Because it is so powerful it can be dangerous, so always, always be sensible and careful.

9. Burning

The most common way I use fire is to write down the energy I want to release on a very small piece of paper. Using a set of tongs I have for this purpose and a cast-iron cauldron (any fireproof receptacle will do), I hold the paper with tongs and light it using a long-nosed lighter or a candle and let it burn in the container. If I were a really careful and diligent person, I would bury the ashes in the ground. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes they stay in my cauldron until the next cleaning…especially in the winter because the ground is too hard to dig.

10. Candle work

Another way to use fire that I’ve heard of but haven’t personally tried is to burn a small candle, putting all the energy that you want released into the candle. To put the energy into the candle, hold it in your hands. Center and ground. Focus on cleansing negative energy. Feel it leave your body and enter the candle. You can seal it by using a toothpick or other small, pointy object to write the name of the energy you are releasing. Watch it burn until it is gone. Depending on the candle, it could take a good while. If you don’t have a small candle, I would dedicate one candle to this purpose and mark it in small increments, using one increment per cleansing session.

11. Visual Meditation

As with water, visual meditation with fire is another way to incorporate this powerful tool into your cleansing repertoire. I suggest visualizing a bright white glowing light instead of regular flaming fire. After getting comfortable in your meditative state, visualize a glorious white light surrounding you, engulfing you like a loving embrace, as you take a long, slow, deep inhale. Allow it to permeate your energy body and all the way to your core. Hold your inhale for a few counts and release it, along with the light that is taking with it all the energy that you have released. This practice, which takes only as long as a slow inhale and exhale, can be done at any time. For example, I don’t know about you, but when stuck in traffic it is sometimes challenging to maintain a nice, calm harmonious energy. Giving in to the urge to be angry or swear or yell at people (as if they are on purpose trying to create traffic) may relieve feelings for a minute. Unfortunately, the aftereffects to yourself and others in your vicinity aren’t worth it because all you’ve done is fed the chaotic, confused, frustrated energy already present rather than clearing negative energy. Instead, this quick and effective practice of breathing in and out with the light can make your and maybe others’ drives a little less frenetic.

Air-Based Techniques

Air is one of my favorite clearing elements, not because it is somehow the best out of them all but because it is a good match for me and how I work. If you already have an affinity for an element, that one may be your best medium for clearing. If you are unfamiliar with or have little experience working with the elements, try them all and see which feels most natural for you. Unless a practice really resonates and feels natural, you are unlikely to do it with any consistency, and consistency is important in any kind of practice. The techniques here include smudging, breath work, and organization.

12. Smudging

Incense is commonly associated with air, and the fragrant smoke from burning herbs or resins has been used for cleansing negative energy for centuries. In fact, most people interested in clearing energy start with sage. It is the most popularly given advice and has become part of mainstream culture. Burning sage is indeed a great way to cleanse the aura as well. It is one way that is part of my regular home-clearing work. By the way, when reading about working with sage, you may see the phrase “smudging ceremony.” The word “smudging” sounds like it might imply using the ashes; however, it really means to pass something through smoke or to pass the smoke over and around something. It is the smoke that purifies. Using a sage bundle or stick incense, light the end, let it burn a few moments, and blow it out. The end should be glowing red, with smoke coming out of it. Move the smoke over and around the item, space, or person to be cleansed. You can use loose incense on a charcoal or electronic burner, too. Using herbs on these, though, creates a lot of smoke, so be prepared. I usually use sage when clearing spaces.

13. Breath work

For personal cleansing with air, breath work is incredible. We already mentioned breath work a little in the section on working with fire, so you know how easy it is: no tools are required, and it can be done anywhere without anyone even noticing. Well, they may notice a complete transformation in your demeanor, words, and actions after you’ve cleared yourself, but that just means you were successful. Again, as with many of these practices, breath work can be used for containment and cultivation, too. Here, though, we are focusing on clearing negative energy. The key here is emptying yourself and creating space. This means that while you definitely want to take long, slow, deep inhales, the focus is on your exhale, the release of energy. When using breath for clearing, follow these steps:

+ Inhale for a count of three.

+ Exhale for a count of five.

+ Hold your breath (or, more precisely, your lack of breath) for three to five counts.

This final hold creates the space necessary to give stagnant energy room to break apart and to create room for other energy to help move it along. Do these long, slow, deliberate breaths a few times, using your inhale to help break up stagnant energy. After your final round, hold your lack of breath for as long as you can—no longer than five counts. You do this to enhance the creation of space, to experience the emptiness. This space is now available for you to fill, so as you take in your next breath, consciously choose what you want to bring in (this, too, is cultivation, but it is hard to have an exhale without an inhale).

14. Organization

The last air technique is particularly helpful for clearing the mental energy body and for people who feel overwhelmed by their work. I classify it as an air practice because I associate this element with communication, logic, and order (among other things). While it may be normal for people to be “at work” all the time, via their email and smartphones, we know it isn’t healthy and does not increase productivity, even if it feels like it does. This practice may feel unrealistic and will take time and discipline to accomplish. I don’t tell you that to make it seem harder but to make sure you have realistic expectations. Even though it took me a while to get here, this one energy cleansing practice—which, again, is part containment and cultivation as well as clearing—has visibly changed my life significantly. Here it is: at the end of my work week, before I shut down for my weekend, I clear my emails, clear my computer desktop, and clear my actual desktop. Crazy, right? Who has time for that? You’re so busy! I know; me too. The benefits are amazing, though. You can leave with a clear mind. When you come back, you do not start your workweek with chaos. You have control over your workspace and the work itself. There are lots of resources and articles about how to do this, but I’ll share a few of my tips. For my emails, I do not use them as visual reminders to take care of something. Back in the day when I’d have a hundred or more emails in my inbox, it just created anxiety and a sense of “busy-busy-busy” that can be really addictive but is definitely not harmonious. I create folders for projects and put the emails there. When I’m ready to focus on that project, then I attend to the emails. If the email is not project-related but still requires a reply, I have a folder for those as well. For anything time sensitive, I make a pop-up reminder in my email program. The same goes for my desktops. Everything gets put away so the visual chaos is gone and a sense of order prevails. Along with a daily to-do list, a good running to-do list helps make sure nothing falls through the cracks. As above, so below. Approach this project with calm energy, and that energy will flow through it. Keeping things clear and neat will flow back to you, maintaining a nice, complementary practice that benefits your work and your energy body, extending to the process of spiritual cleansing. Related to clearing the work area, something that I struggle with is keeping my phone clear. I’m not very good yet at deleting apps I no longer use, texts that are weeks old, emails that are no longer necessary, and voicemails that I was saving “just in case” but never listened to again. Oh, and let’s not forget photos. Have you ever wanted to show someone a photo on your phone, only to have them sit there growing more impatient while you scroll through three hundred images? Sometimes I take a dozen pictures of a thing, person, or event, hoping that one is just right, intending to go back and weed out the ones that aren’t just right. The thing is, I hardly ever do. Then, when I go to my photos to actually refer to one, anxious energy rises up and is not pleasant to experience; it also makes it difficult to find what I’m looking for. The good news is that I’m slowly getting better at this. You see, maintaining a healthy energetic life is always a work in progress. The nice thing is that once you establish a system and practice it consistently, it eventually becomes second nature, so you can move on to the next area without feeling overwhelmed. Organization and energy clearing work wonders in both the physical and energetic worlds.

Earth-Based Techniques

When you are feeling scattered or flighty or are in a very reactive state, earth-based practices are just the thing. For stagnant energy, though, I suggest using the other practices. Earth is good for settling chaotic energy and gathering it together so it is easier to release. Here we will discuss the benefits of working with crystals and trees, the importance of pets, and the magic of naps.

15. Crystals

The simplest and most common practice is to carry a stone or crystal in your pocket so you can touch it whenever you need grounding. The type of stone can determine a more specific flavor of grounding. I have a few personal favorites, namely tiger’s-eye or any one of a small collection I’ve gathered over the years while on hikes. A good crystal book or well-staffed metaphysical store or rock shop can help you and is a particularly good choice if you don’t know much about crystals because you can actually hold them and see how they feel to you. Salt is such a good energetic and aura cleanser, but, except for using it in a bath, I usually use it for clearing spaces rather than personal energy. Like breath work, crystals are also used for cultivation. They carry specific energy within them, and luckily we are able to access it when needed.

16. Trees

Even though it has become a joke in some circles, hugging or leaning against (as well as sitting or standing beneath) a tree is such a powerful way to cleanse negative energy. A tree feels so powerful and wise; I always feel complete trust when I ask a tree to be an ally. No matter how chaotic or reactive my energy, I know a tree can handle it. Likewise, even just going outside and touching the ground works if you don’t have access to a tree.

17. Pets

Holding, stroking, or playing with a pet is very calming. There are plenty of articles about how these activities calm the physical body; as we know, the physical and energy bodies are connected. However, use care with this practice. Interact with the pet to settle the energy, but do not release it into the animal. Instead, after you feel settled, follow this activity with something like mountain pose or breath work to release and get rid of any negative energy.

18. Napping

The next practice might not seem like energy work, but it is among the most effective techniques I know: take a nap. Of course this isn’t always possible, but if it is, then just try it. I’ve long said that the most powerful magic practices I know are to tidy up (which moves stagnant energy) or to take a nap (which settles chaotic energy). When the energy of the mental or emotional bodies are worked up, sometimes being conscious is counterproductive. As long as your mind can keep spinning stories, it is easy to feed obsessive thinking or stoke already heightened emotions. Sleeping is an effective way to give the mind and emotions space to calm down.

Spirit-Based Techniques

Spirit-based practices are perfect for contemplative types or those who like a more devotional experience with their energy work. Some of my favorite spirit-driven techniques include prayer and good works.

19. Prayer

Prayer—or communion with a deity or however you envision the Divine—can be a simple and direct method of managing energy. In the same way I ask a tree to take unwanted energy from me and give it back to the earth to be redistributed where it is most appropriate, I can also pray to my concept of the Divine, asking it to do the same. For those who already have a prayer practice, this is a natural and easy method. For those who do not pray, it can become a simple, quiet, and beautiful experience if it suits your belief system. If, however, the act of prayer is tied to unpleasant memories, substitute meditation for prayer. They are not the same thing but are very close. In prayer we commune with the Divine, while meditation is a way to connect with our highest inner wisdom.

20. Good works

While it may seem strange to couple a spirit-based approach with mundane physical-world actions, this is a powerful technique. If you know the nature of the energy you want to clear, determine an act that counters it. For example, if you want to clear selfish or clingy energy, do an altruistic or charitable act. If you need to release and cleanse angry, negative energy, forgive someone. While most of the practices explained above are great for in-the-moment energy experiences, this one is particularly good for chipping away at long-standing, deep-seated energy within yourself. Sometimes energy takes up residence in us and shapes our behavior in ways that are not consistent with our values. While we would like a single ritual or healing session to take it away once and for all, that generally doesn’t work because those behaviors have become habits. Even if the energy has been released from the energy body through spiritual cleansing practices and healing work, the physical body (including the mind) has to catch up. It takes time for the physical body to release old habits. Consciously training yourself to behave in a way that is in line with your ideals through consistent action will create lasting change. If the behavior of the physical body isn’t changed, the energy will probably return since the environment is so inviting. Now that you’ve learned some clearing techniques, you’ll probably want to learn ways to keep everything nice and clean. Containing your own energy is important so that you do not get depleted. Further, once you’ve gotten rid of what doesn’t serve your true purpose, you don’t want it coming back and taking up residence.

Taking Note

Make some notes about your reactions to some of these techniques. Try at least one from each section. Note the energy you felt before the technique and how the energy changed afterwards. It is important to keep good notes because although we always think we will remember everything, unfortunately we just don’t. Your journal will become an important tool as you learn about energy work and develop your own personal practice.

1. Which seem like ones you’d never use? Why? 2. Which are you looking forward to trying? Why? 3. Of the ones you’ve tried, which surprised you the most? Why?

Excerpted from Modern Guide to Energy Clearing by Barbara Moore. © 2018 by Barbara Moore. Used by permission from Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., Llewellyn.com.

About The Author Barbara Moore is an author writer and tarot expert. In the early 1990s, at a party, someone put a tarot deck in Barbara’s hands; she’s held on tightly ever since. Tarot provides just enough structure so that we don’t get lost as we explore the mysteries, plumb our dark corners, and locate our North Stars. Barbara has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember. She’s published a number of books on tarot, including Tarot for Beginners, Tarot Spreads, The Steampunk Tarot, The Gilded Tarot, The Mystic Dreamer Tarot, and Tarot of the Hidden Realm. Writing is solitary work and is relieved by teaching tarot at conferences around the world. Barbara also loves working directly with clients, helping them uncover guidance and insight in the cards. Connect with Barbara online at tarotshaman.com

photo: tobi oluremi

Time Traveling to Change Your Past

I once worked with a woman named Rachel who was at a transition point in her life. She had just made the decision to abandon a lifestyle of clubbing and partying. Instead, she committed herself to a daily spiritual practice, eating only raw foods, and other positive changes. Despite her commitment, she found herself resisting the change and could not understand why. She knew this new lifestyle was exactly what she wanted, yet there was a deep-rooted fear holding her back. Buried within her implicit memory lay the answer to her troubles. Working together, we wandered into her past to visualize the events that took place when she chose this new way of life. She remembered her old friends abandoning her because they could not tolerate her “extreme” raw food lifestyle. A series of these experiences led her to believe the raw food lifestyle meant having no friends. Inevitably, being a social creature who craves human connection, she found herself scared to embrace that way of life. By bringing that implicit memory into her awareness, she was then able to shift the meaning she created for those events. To help Rachel choose an empowering meaning, I guided her to visualize the healthier future she wanted to live in. When I sensed her desired future had been validated on an emotional level, I verbally steered her back into the past. At first, it was a shock for her to go from a place of joy to a place of darkness. But from that place of joy, she saw the experience in a different light. Suddenly, in what can only be classified as a light-bulb moment, she realized her friends hadn’t abandoned her; they gave her the space to live her purpose. “They gave me the wings to fly,” she ecstatically realized. By changing the meaning ascribed to those past experiences, she no longer saw them as negative moments in her life. For her, the past had been altered. The “reality” itself changed because perception shapes reality, and perception is based on memories that constantly lie to us.

How Your Brain Turns an Experience into a Memory

“Every special date and anniversary, every advertisement, every therapy session, every day in school is an effort to create or modify memory.” —Dr. Joseph Ledoux Memories create the series of habits, associations, and patterns that make you who you are today. Like it or not, you are a product of your past. Your present is molded by it, and your future is dependent on it. But the past doesn’t have to define you. It isn’t real. Your memories are as plastic as your brain and you can learn how to erase bad memories. With a proper understanding of memory, you can manipulate it to let go of the past, push through your fears, and experience the bliss of Fearvana. There are three steps involved in the process of converting an experience into a memory:

1. Acquisition: Acquisition occurs when your brain, working in conjunction with the bodyguard at its base, receives and processes external stimuli. As you read this paragraph, your brain is starting to form a neural network based on the information it’s acquiring.

2. Consolidation: Most of the information that comes into your brain is lost in short-term memory, but some of it becomes a part of your long-term memory. To implant an experience into your long-term memory, neurons are connected through pathways that collectively form large neural networks.

These are physical maps that materialize as structures in your brain representing a memory. The process of strengthening these pathways to build the construction of a memory network is called consolidation. How each memory (whether a happy or painful memory) is consolidated depends on various factors, including how much attention you paid to the event, the emotional impact it had, and the number of senses it engaged. If you simply skim this, it will fade away from your memory. If you focus on the content and apply it, you will gain the experiential memory required to consolidate the knowledge into your subconscious.

3. Retrieval and Reconsolidation: Retrieval is when you pull a past experience from your brain and bring it into the present. During retrieval, your brain activates a neuron that triggers the other neurons in that particular memory network. If a part of a memory is activated, such as the sights, sounds, or tastes you experienced, it lights up the rest of the neurons in that network. This is why the song “When You Say Nothing at All” triggers the memory of my ex-girlfriend. Reconsolidation is what occurs during retrieval. It is your brain drawing information from various regions and putting these pieces together as a consolidated memory to bring into your consciousness.

The efficiency of each of these steps is dependent on many factors, including genes, health, stress levels, and belief systems, to name a few. Regardless of where you are now, though, your memory is plastic, so it can be improved and healing of memories can occur. There are two kinds of memories you have the power to mold: implicit and explicit memory. What did you do yesterday evening? To answer that question, your brain activated the neural network of yesterday’s events and retrieved that memory map to tell the story of what you did. You actively brought the past into your present awareness. This happens both when you’re casually thinking about or dwelling on the past. The conscious direction of your mind into your past is known as explicit memory. On the other hand, if you were to put down this book, step outside, and get in your car, assuming you know how to drive, would you have to think about it? The reason you can drive with such ease, or walk through your home, or even know how to walk for that matter, is because of implicit memory. Implicit memory runs on autopilot without your human brain. When you entered into this world as a helpless infant, these memories were responsible for your transformation into adulthood. In fact, researchers believe that in the first year and a half of our lives, we only encode memories implicitly. According to Dr. Daniel Siegel, the three features of implicit memory are, as follows:

1. You don’t need to use focal, conscious attention for the creation of implicit memory.

2. When an implicit memory emerges from storage, you do not have the sensation that something is being recalled from the past. (You don’t think about the first time you learned how to walk every time you walk.)

3. Implicit memory does not require the participation of the hippocampus (the human brain’s role in memory).

Your implicit memories are responsible for your beliefs, your subconscious mental models, your sense of right or wrong, and the triggers that cause you fear, stress, and anxiety.

What If You Could Be Fearless?

“Memories influence every action and pattern of action you undertake.” —Dr. Daniel Amen The neural networks that form a memory live in many different areas of your brain, but there are two areas most active in the creation and storage of memory: the amygdala and the hippocampus. The amygdala is responsible for implicit memory, and the hippocampus is responsible for explicit memory. That is an oversimplification, but it is a useful one in helping you understand the two kinds of memory. Dr. Siegel calls the hippocampus “the master puzzle piece assembler.” It compiles the information it receives from multiple areas of your brain to produce good and bad memories, as well as meanings and emotions for any event. It also helps consolidate the information stored in short-term memory, turning it into a long-term memory you can recall in the future. When I asked you what you did yesterday, those events were probably not at the top of your mind. By answering the question, as Dr. Siegel states, your hippocampus “literally link[ed] together the neurally distributed puzzle pieces of implicit memory.” The conscious activation of your memory turns the implicit into explicit. Various parts of the brain work together to form these implicit memories, such as the basal ganglia, which is “the habit center” of your brain, but the amygdala is primarily responsible for this task. The amygdala, or fear center of the brain, stores emotionally charged and painful memories to help you avoid future danger. If you are like me and you were a bitten by a dog as a child, your amygdala imprinted that experience into your implicit memory, possibly causing you to have a natural aversion to dogs, or at least the kind of dog that bit you. This is what makes the amygdala the central player in the creation of all learned fears. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just get rid of it? Not really. In 2010, researchers Justin Feinstein and his colleagues discovered a woman, whom we shall call Mary, with an extremely rare disease that left her without an amygdala. She was a goldmine for neuroscientists. They did everything they could to scare this woman, but nothing worked. They made her watch scary movies; they gave her snakes; they put spiders in her hand; but none of them registered a fear response in her brain. Imagine being completely fearless. You could quit that job you hate, run that marathon, write that book, start that business, and do all those things you have always wanted to do but have been held back by fear. Turns out, it’s not that easy, as Mary discovered. One night while strolling through a park alone, Mary was attacked by someone wielding a knife. What would you do if that happened to you? More than likely, you would not return to that same park alone and in the dark, at least not in the next week. The reason you would stay away is because you have a functioning amygdala that remembers the danger. Mary did not have this capacity. The very next night, she went back to the same park, once again, alone. Mary had been attacked at gunpoint, had her life threatened, and was almost killed in a domestic violence incident—all because she had no amygdala to process fear and keep her out of life-threatening situations. The amygdala helps keep us alive by learning what to fear. “You don’t learn how to be afraid; your amygdala doesn’t have to learn what to do; it learns what to do in response to [stimuli]. So it learns what stimuli it should respond to,” says Ledoux. “So it’s learning and memory in that sense that we call an implicit kind of memory where you don’t have to have any conscious involvement.” Remember, no matter what fears show up with bad memories, they are not bad or unreasonable. You don’t control their existence; the amygdala does. Without the activation of your conscious self, how can you be held responsible for your fears? Your implicit memory has implanted them into you. This is why so many of us are held captive by the events of the past and the fears they have created within us. The good news is that these memories are not actually true, and they most definitely are not set in stone. You can learn to forget bad memories and heal painful memories.

Your Past Is a Lie

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” —Carl Jung Shortly after the tragedy at the Twin Towers on 9/11, psychologists conducted a survey with hundreds of people about their memories of the event. In a follow-up survey one year later, they found that 37 percent of the details were different. Within three years, that number rose to almost 50 percent. Some of the memory alterations were minuscule; others involved an entire shift in the story line. Some people even remembered being at a different location that morning. After the study, Elizabeth Phelps, one of the lead researchers, wrote, “What’s most troubling, of course, is that these people have no idea their memories have changed this much. The strength of the emotion makes them convinced it’s all true, even when it’s clearly not.” In another study, conducted on three hundred people convicted of crimes in the United States who were later proven innocent through DNA testing, researchers found 75 percent of them were sent to prison based on false memories of eyewitness. The eyewitnesses did not know they were lying; they simply believed their memories to be facts. Truth is nothing more than what we believe it to be, and those beliefs are as malleable as the memories that created them. To demonstrate how our memories can be manipulated, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has repeatedly proven that as many as 50 percent of the people in any given study could be tricked into believing a fabricated event. Using what she calls a “false feedback” technique, her team embedded into the minds of their research participants fake memories, such as finding yourself lost and crying in a shopping mall as a child, almost drowning before being rescued by a lifeguard, and getting attacked by an animal, to name a few. In numerous other studies with people from all walks of life, even those trained to handle stressful situations like those in the U.S. Special Forces, Loftus has demonstrated the ease with which false memories can be implanted into the human brain. “Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people,” she says. Most of us think memory is when we remember a past event. We believe it “works like a video camera, accurately recording the events we see and hear so that we can review and inspect them later,” summarized psychologists Dan Simons and Chris Chabris. In reality, memory is like putty; it can be molded by all who possess it. Therefore sad, painful memories can also be healed and you can learn how to let go of the past. You might have been in a situation where two people recall completely different “facts” about the same event. This occurs because of how a memory is reconsolidated in our brains. Every time we explicitly recall a memory, we are not remembering the event itself, but the last time we remembered that event. “We learn, we store, we retrieve, and when we retrieve the next time, we are not retrieving the original experience—we are retrieving our last retrieval,” says Ledoux. “In other words, upon retrieval, a new memory is formed.” In his last line lies the secret to erasing memories and changing your past. When you consciously go back in time to recall an event, the memory is summoned from your hippocampus, which works with the amygdala and other parts of your brain to remember your past. The act of remembering alters the neural network of that memory, creating an entirely new structure of neural connections. So every time you think about a past event, the “reality” of that event changes, based on your current state of being, your current level of awareness, and the present conditions in which the memory is recalled. Since good and bad memories are formed by your conscious remembrance of them, not by the event itself, altering the conditions in your brain during recall can recreate the neuronal map of your memories and the stories they tell. If you make yourself happy now and then travel back in time to a sad or painful memory, the joy you feel in the present will change the neurological formation of that sad event. By choosing your present state of being and then going into your past, you can begin to heal and erase these memories and change the effect the past has on you today. For a while, Rachel’s past kept her imprisoned by fear. By first sending her into her desired future, Rachel was able to then travel back in time from an empowered place. Her state of being in the present delivered a wave of positive emotions into the neural network of that memory. Those emotions became the fuel that made her implicit memories explicit, allowing her to consciously change the impact and, in turn, the content of those events. What this means for you is that your memories might not be true. But don’t let this information lead you to question and dwell on your past. That could drive anyone insane. Instead, use the malleability of memory to your advantage. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how “true” your past is. Memories function the way they do because all that matters is how your past helps drive you forward today. As LeDoux explains, “The brain isn’t interested in having a perfect set of memories about the past. Instead, memory comes with a natural updating mechanism, which is how we make sure that the information taking up valuable space inside our head is still useful. That might make our memories less accurate, but it probably also makes them more relevant to the future.” Memories come and go based on the “use it or lose it” principle of neuroplasticity. Self-awareness allows us to choose the kind of information we want to occupy neural real estate and erase memories we don’t want to store. Without it, the battle is lost to the implicit fears and stressors our ancient animal brain thinks it needs to keep us alive, and bad memories can take over. The animal brain might be long overdue for an upgrade from the primitive lifestyle it is still accustomed to, but until that happens, we must activate our human brain to alter and heal the content of memory. Once we make the choice to consciously travel back in time from an empowered state, we must act quickly. We don’t have a lot of time to take the next step in changing our past. In a study at NYU, Dr. Daniela Schiller and her team of researchers showed two groups of participants a random sequence of blue and yellow squares on a screen. On the first day of the experiment, group 1 and group 2 were both occasionally administered an electric shock when exposed to a blue square. Both groups developed a fear memory associating blue squares with pain. Our “associative memory” is constantly forming associations between the various elements that come together to form a memory, so that when one element is activated, it triggers the other as well. On the second day, the researchers reminded both groups of their fear by exposing them to a blue square. Inevitably, the association they learned the previous day triggered a fear response in the participants’ brains, causing them to sweat at the sight of that dreaded blue square. With the painful fear memory now activated, the researchers left the room and returned to group 1 after a few hours. They then flashed a sequence of blue and yellow squares without administering a shock. They continued this until the group no longer feared the blue squares. With group 2, the researchers returned after six hours and repeated the same procedure until they too no longer feared the blue squares. By exposing both groups to the source of their fear and removing the pain associated with it, they eliminated the fear response from automatically showing up in their brains. On day three, the researchers once again showed both groups a blue square without a shock. This time, only group 1 showed no fear. Group 2 still remembered the association it had formed on day one and reverted back to that old fear response. “It was pretty astonishing,” said Dr. Schiller. “It had so many implications for why some therapies only work temporarily. The original idea was that you could forget a bad memory but you’d always have the original memory stored somewhere. The new theory is that memory can be updated, and there is a window in which this can be done.” The researchers brought the participants back one year later, and their response was the same. Group 1 had permanently eliminated their fear of blue squares, while group 2 still remembered the pain accompanying the flash of a blue square. This six-hour window for altering and erasing a memory has been found to be present in rats as well. What this means is that to change and let go of the past , we need to activate a memory from an optimistic present state and modify it within six hours, just as Rachel did. Your past helped shape the fears that keep you imprisoned in your present, so altering, healing, and erasing your memories is often a necessary step to move from fear to Fearvana. Let’s work on adapting your history to serve your present self and your future self.

Training Exercise: How to Erase Bad Memories

I want to make it clear that just because we are delving into the past doesn’t mean we all need therapy to thrive. The problem with many forms of therapy is that it takes you back in time from a very disempowered state in the present. Simply opening up your heart about the past doesn’t free you from it. When done incorrectly, the time traveling process only aggravates the stressors and fears caused by the very event that brought you to therapy in the first place. It reinforces the negative impact of that past event by creating an unpleasant association between the neural network of that memory and your current distressed state. I experienced this first hand as a veteran diagnosed with PTSD by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Before I taught myself how to heal my brain using everything I am now teaching you in this book, I went to a therapist to overcome my psychological obstacles. I used to walk out of that office more miserable than when I walked in, and very often, I would drive straight to the liquor store. My therapist told me this was a normal, even necessary, part of the process to heal past memories and wounds. Although I know he genuinely wanted to help, after learning the inner workings of the mind, I came to realize his approach was far from the truth. The methods below allowed me to finally find value in the guilt I felt over losing my friend in Iraq. Another problem I found with therapy is that traveling back into the past is useless unless we use it to drive us forward. It is pointless to spend years on a therapist’s couch, analyzing and interpreting every second of your past, with no clarity as to what you want to gain from it. You don’t need to waste all that time. We only need to delve into the past to the extent that it negatively affects who we are today and who we want to be tomorrow; otherwise, what difference does it make? Those moments are now over. We can’t do anything to get them back or alter the actual events. All we can do is change and erase our memory if and when we need to.

Back toward the Future Exercise

In this exercise, our focus will be to travel back in time with the sole intention of aligning the events of our past with the future we want to step into. Step 1 Choose one of your goals where you are struggling to make progress. Choose something you think you are having a hard time with because of some subconscious force buried in an implicit painful memory. Step 2 Now write down or create a visual presentation of your accomplishments. Alternatively, if you are very clear on the future life you want to create, you can also visualize what it looks like. More often than not, though, it is harder to imagine yourself in a situation you have never been in, as opposed to recalling one you have personally experienced. A past event has a neural network that incorporates your senses and your emotions, so it could have more of an impact to bring that into your awareness. But if you have a strong imagination and a proclivity for visualization, as Rachel did, feel free to bring your future self into your awareness as well. Either way works. The key for how to forget a bad memory is to ensure something positive is front and center of your awareness and you feel the impact of it. You can even do this by finding activities that bring you joy, like going for a run, and use them as tools to reframe your past. Alice is a perfect example of someone who altered a traumatic past and healed and erased memories by infusing positivity into her life. “I don’t remember a period of more than a few days where it actually completely consumed me,” she said of her past. “I remember being able to find joy during those times in something, in my little cousins, in being outside, in movement… I’m really playful. I love to be outside, so being around that in other people was a reminder of what was real.” She never let her past consume her because she found avenues of joy to construct her desired reality. Step 3 Once you are focused on something empowering and feeling the favorable emotion deep within you, go back into your past to find find and erase the bad memory or the event keeping you from taking action to better your future. You might know what that event is ahead of time. If not, use all the awareness exercises in this book to get clear on where in your history you experienced a moment that created some disempowering belief about yourself or the world around you. Keep the positive sensation in the foreground and allow the past event to glide behind it. “Have a positive experience be prominent in awareness while the painful one is sensed dimly in the background,” writes Dr. Rick Hanson in his book Buddha’s Brain. Step 4 This next step needs to be taken within six hours of activating the memory. If you follow along with this entire exercise on how to erase and heal memories, that shouldn’t be a problem, as you will flow seamlessly from the last step into this one. You have two options in this step. Use one or both of them, depending on what works best for you and what you need:

1. From that empowered place, choose a new meaning for the event. For example, although I am not proud of wasting a year and a half of my life with drugs, I now know that lifestyle also led me into the Marines, so I have no regrets. I haven’t forgotten the past, but I reframed it. You too probably won’t forget what happened to you, especially if it was emotionally charged, but you can let go of and move on from the impact that event has on you.

2. From that empowered place, search for examples in your past in direct contrast to the block you are currently experiencing. For example, someone I once worked with felt terrified of traveling to a new place by himself. Fear kept him from taking action to venture out of his home. To combat the fearful memory, he focused his attention on the past experiences when he mustered up the courage to engage strangers in conversation or wander through an unknown city alone. This exercise didn’t eliminate the fear the next time he traveled to a new country, but it gave him confidence to do what was needed to get on that plane.

Step 5 Notice when the past event is holding you back and keep conditioning the new meaning to it and/or replacing it with the other event that contradicts it. Step 6 Keep a daily record celebrating positive experiences. This can be in the form of a gratitude journal or accomplishment log. I use a variation of both, depending on the events of the day. Because of negativity bias, our mind implicitly tends to focus only on the negative memories. In this step, we are becoming proactive about consciously directing our awareness only toward the positive. Do whatever it takes to feel the positive emotion so it continuously plants itself into your memory. For example, a few days after permanently sobering up, I finished a run and sat on my lawn listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Paradise.” With the sun on my face, my puppy sitting beside me, and the serene sounds of the Boss seeping into my soul, I basked in the bliss of knowing I had finally become the person I always believed myself to be. The beauty of the moment was so intense, it brought me to tears. I will always remember the joy and freedom I felt in making the commitment to stop drinking. It became a new memory to engulf every other one that associated alcohol with pleasure. The past is a part of who you are today, but it doesn’t have to keep you from molding your ideal future. Use this exercise to not only heal and erase bad memories but to leverage your past and make it work for you. This article is excerpted with permission from Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How to Turn Fear into Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Akshay Nanavati.

About The Author Akshay Nanavati is a Marine Corps veteran, adventurer, and entrepreneur. He has run ultra-marathons, climbed mountains in the Himalayas, and skied 350 miles across the world’s second-largest ice cap. To heal his brain after being diagnosed with PTSD as a result of seven months in Iraq, he spent years studying neuroscience, psychology, and spirituality. Today, Akshay runs a global business helping people live limitless lifestyles. His work helps fund his nonprofit, the Fearvana Foundation. Akshay has been featured in media outlets such as Forbes, Psychology Today, Fast Company, CNN, and Runners World. Visit his website: fearvana.com

photo: zabalotta photocase.com

Money and Happiness: Rethinking the Relationship Can money buy happiness? It’s a question philosophers have asked for millennia. While there is still plenty of debate on the topic in economics, just about everyone agrees money can only get you so far when it comes to happiness. That is, a lot more money only makes you a little bit happier, if at all. As Ben Casnocha, an entrepreneur and best-selling author based in Silicon Valley, noted when it comes to billionaires, “Some of them are quite happy… But many of them are not happy or have prolonged bouts of unhappiness—even though they’re way ahead in the global rat race.” If billions of dollars might not be enough, what can we conclude about money and happiness? Well, one recent study  has even given us a number to work with—$75,000. According to Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, both Nobel Laureates in Economics, an annual family income of $75,000 could take you to the top level of emotional happiness. Anything more than that might get you more things to buy and more social status, but it probably won’t add much to your long-term happiness.

“Money has never made man happy, nor will it; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Stop for a moment and ask yourself how you feel about that number. Would $75,000 be enough for you? If not, then why? How much would be enough? Despite the evidence that more money can’t buy more happiness, the financial services industry continues to ignore the fact that money and happiness are only distant cousins. They prefer instead to pretend the two are close, intimate friends. This is because the bank and brokerage business model is built on a single promise—more money. Wall Street sells greed because that’s something you can put a number on. If you want to double your money, reach $1 million or retire by the time you’re fifty, Wall Street has a plan to sell you. But Wall Street only knows how to keep score in dollars. Happiness, well, that’s not so easy to put a number on. It can’t be hedged or shorted, and you can’t put it in a presentation with flashy charts and graphs. If you’re interested in something more than money—if you’re looking for happiness or a meaningful life—Wall Street can’t help you. It’s up to you to envision a future that includes a lot more than just money. Happiness is clearly an important concept, or so the Founding Fathers thought. They imbued our Declaration of Independence with its importance, holding happiness out as a standard for the citizenry: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Research tells us factors such as good health, friends, freedom, security, and trust are all important to our long-term happiness. Conversely, factors like unemployment, inflation, and chronic pain chip away at the joy we find in life. Maybe money cannot buy you happiness, but what if there were a formula that could point the way to a deeper and wider range of happiness in your life? Enter happiness research—a confluence of research from the fields of neuroscience, sociology, psychology, and economics—which is shedding new light on what truly makes us happy. And, unlike most current work in economics, the research on money and happiness provides answers we can immediately apply to our everyday lives. The formula for happiness turns out to be fairly straightforward: H = S + C + V. H = sustained happiness. Not the kind you get from a piece of chocolate cake or a great first date but rather the kind of ongoing happiness you carry with you throughout your life. The type of real happiness humans long for and our Founding Fathers had in mind. S = your individual set point. This is your natural level of happiness, akin to your body temperature or heart rate. They may go up or down for periods of time, but your temperature and heart rate will eventually settle back to your natural, steady state. Your level of happiness behaves the same way. In fact, when it comes to wealth and your set point happiness, researchers have found that even multimillion-dollar lottery winners eventually settle back into their previous level of happiness. There is a wide range to set-point happiness, and some people are naturally happier than others. This doesn’t mean you are powerless when it comes to your happiness, however. The good news is less than 50 percent of your happiness is attributable to your set point, which means you can control much of your own happiness if you choose to. C = conditions in your life. These are the things you cannot change in your life, such as your race, age, or childhood family situation, and things that may change slowly over some extended period of time, like marital status and occupation. Think of conditions as the elements of your life that remain relatively constant from one day to the next. The good news here is humans are very, very adaptable to the conditions in their lives. Even serious cancer patients and impoverished third-world communities can report relatively high degrees of happiness. And finally, V = voluntary activities which you have immediate control over. Prayer, meditation, social involvement, exercise, and volunteering are all examples of the kinds of choices you can make regarding your time, money, and energy from day to day and hour to hour that can have a lasting impact on your happiness. In short, despite the fact that money can’t buy happiness, there are lots of things that can affect your happiness—some you can change and some you can’t. This article is about taking the emphasis off money—something that will probably have very little influence on your happiness—and focusing on the voluntary activities that just might make you happy for the rest of your life. Your conditions do not define your happiness, unless you let them.

Choice Conflict—Limit Your Options If You Want to Be Happier

Like many of the concepts we’ll discuss regarding money and happiness, too much of a good thing can lead to less happiness. Take choices for example; we know from the research that greater control over your living space, career path, and representative government—just to name a few examples—can significantly improve your happiness. Humans want to have choices when it comes to their environment. However, too many choices can paralyze you, often leading to no choice being made at all. Professor Barry Schwarz describes this as the paradox of choice. Choice overload, as he calls it, encroaches into our everyday lives in powerful ways—from our trips to the grocery store to the investments we make in our 401(k)s. In the early 90s I studied Russian from an amazing professor in Washington, DC. He was a native Russian speaker but also fluent in English, French, Greek, and probably a few other languages I wasn’t aware of. In addition to his teaching workload, my professor volunteered his time helping Soviet emigrants assimilate into their new lives in the United States. Remember, these were the first few years of “Perestroika,” Russia was still part of the Soviet Union, and hundreds of thousands of Russians were fleeing each year. Those Russians had rarely experienced freedom of choice in more than four generations. Choosing a career or where to live were not unbounded options for most Soviet citizens. My professor would take these new arrivals shopping and help them search for jobs and find housing in the Washington, DC, area. The stories he retold to our evening class were tragic, real-life examples of choice overload, which can impact how you spend your money and your happiness. Even the simple process of choosing toothpaste or cereal for their kids could be overwhelming in the West. Where they were used to one or two options on the shelves in Moscow, they now faced one or two aisles of choices, four rows high. Incredibly, my professor shared more than one story of families returning to Russia because they were simply unprepared for the massive range of choices their new lives offered. Returning to the question of whether money can buy you happiness, it can give you more choice, but this isn’t always a good thing. In his book The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz challenges the idea that having more choices is always better for us. In fact, he argues that seeking the very best may actually leave us worse off. By setting your standard to “the best,” you may be condemning yourself to a relentless feeling of “what if.” What if I had acted sooner; waited longer; done more research; known about this or that resource? Schwartz calls this “maximizing,” and this type of behavior can be counterproductive. In effect, Schwartz recommends we lower our standards. Striving for “good enough” will lead to happier and healthier lives, with less stress and far more time for the important people who matter. He calls it “satisficing,” and it may be the solution in our age of too much information and too many choices. But you must choose to strive for “good enough.” It might not feel natural, may even seem like losing to some, because as a culture we tend to place a high value on winning. Will “good enough” be good enough to feel as if it was a success? This is where Wealthfulness comes into play. You have a choice—to win the battle or win the war. Wealthfulness is a mind-set that can lead to a healthy, happy, and full life, but it might just entail satisficing when your natural inclination is to maximize. “The Best” is just today’s little skirmish—occasionally important, but probably not.

 Running Toward a Number

 “The elephant cares about prestige, not happiness.” One of the most interesting findings in the research on wealth and happiness and whether money can bring happiness is the universal tendency for humans to prefer relative wealth over absolute wealth. What this means is a wealthy farmer in China with a few cows will generally report feeling just as happy as a wealthy farmer in Texas with a herd of six hundred cows. People tend to compare themselves with other people in their community, and consequently their happiness can rise or fall depending on where they see themselves in comparison to those around them. This might be why you often see a highly successful sibling or in-law as the antagonist in movies and books; they become constant reminders of our relative wealth. I would venture to say the most frequent question I’m asked when discussing someone’s financial plan is, “How are we doing compared to everyone else?” The correct answer is, of course, it doesn’t matter. Lee Eisenberg wrote a book several years back called The Number, in which he argued everyone has a “number”—the money in the bank they want to have when they retire. Eisenberg got the idea for his book from his conversations with Wall Street bankers and traders, who he said ALWAYS had a number. The interesting thing, though, is Eisenberg found the number would change as their salaries and bonuses inflated. Their number got bigger because everyone around them was receiving a lot more money, too. Who could be happy with $2 million in retirement, which seemed like so much money at one point, if it’s less than your friend’s bonus last year? It’s not the amount of wealth that influences happiness, but what you have relative to your neighbors. This idea of comparing ourselves to those around us and constantly trying to keep up is related to something psychologists call the hedonic treadmill. The idea is derived from the word hedonism, meaning the pursuit of pleasure. The hedonic treadmill is simply a constant and increasing cycle of materialism in search of pleasure. As Carol Graham points out in her book The Pursuit of Happiness, “increasing levels of income—and income growth—tend to be accompanied by rising expectations and related frustrations.” Having more can make you want even more, which can lead to increasing stress and frustration and eventually to a lower level of happiness. One of my most enduring memories as a financial planner is of an elderly gentleman with considerable wealth—more than his family could spend over several generations. Having grown up during years of unrest in Colombia, he was terrified of losing even a little bit of his money. One day I had the pleasure of hearing him reminisce about his life when he was young and in love. He and his future wife, owning virtually nothing but a beat-up motorcycle, would ride through the streets of Bogota in the summer evenings. You could almost feel the wind as he told his story, his bride of fifty years smiling beside him. He looked up at me and sighed, “We were happier then.” He truly realized that money cannot buy happiness. A Wealthfulness mind-set helps you step off that money and happiness treadmill by forcing you to communicate your financial priorities and reassess your definition of success. My client was realizing in his eighth decade of life that it wasn’t the money or his success as an architect that mattered most. It was his life experiences with his wife, his family, and the memories of his youth in Colombia that resonated. All the money, in fact, was making him quite unhappy. In the end, experiences create much deeper memories than material things. Friends and travel, for example, build longer-lasting memories than the new car that slowly becomes just a car. This is true partly because our memories are far more malleable than we think. Researchers have suggested that it is far easier to mold an experience than it is a material object. The experience is more subjective, more open to interpretation. As Eisenberg wisely points out in his book, experiences are almost always less expensive and easier to come by than precious material things. He suggests, in the end, that the unexamined life is much more expensive, because those mindless material purchases never truly fill the empty void in our lives.

Conspicuous Consumption—Who’s Watching What You Buy?

If the research is correct in telling us that experiences matter more than material things, why are Americans still racing along on their hedonic treadmills—reaching for bigger houses, driving more expensive cars, and following the Kardashians on social media instead of hiking the Rockies with their kids? Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University, has spent decades trying to understand why people often behave in such irrational ways. Like many of the economists we’ve discussed so far, Frank has concluded that we are not the purely rational, self-interested creatures depicted in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Frank points out, for example, that we like others to see what we are consuming—i.e., we want our neighbors and friends to see where our money goes. He calls this conspicuous consumption, and it has a surprisingly large role in how we make purchasing decisions. The houses we buy, the cars we drive, and the clothes we wear are all, to some degree, bought with others in mind. Frank’s insight regarding wealth, money and happiness is that a bigger home or a new car is conspicuous, while a longer vacation or quality time with your family is not. Your neighbors and friends may not even notice the quality time you spend with your kids, but they’re sure to notice that new BMW. Consequently, we subconsciously (or even consciously) opt for the material objects that give us only temporary happiness, rather than the experiences that enrich our lives and make them more memorable. Wouldn’t we all be better off with longer vacations and shorter commutes, rather than suffering the incessant trend toward suburban McMansions and 24/7 job stress? Think for a moment about your most recent purchases. Have there been more material items or experiences? How conspicuous? Do you rely on brands, labels, and high prices to lend credibility to what you buy? Interestingly, our digitally connected lives may be leading to positive changes in our conspicuous consumption. Economist Tyler Cowen points out that people are obviously emphasizing experiences, i.e., leisure, as they flock to social media to document their evenings, food, and travel. Nowadays they can instantly share those great pictures of Italy or Cancun with hundreds of Facebook friends. So maybe, just maybe, Facebook is encouraging us to connect with more people in meaningful ways—to share experiences instead of things. Of course, the ultimate goal should be to spend time with the ones you love and to ditch the idea that money can bring you happiness, not simply to have more Facebook-worthy vacations.

The Two Most Dangerous Times In Your Life—Birth and Retirement

Dan Beuttner, a National Geographic Fellow, spent years traveling the world looking for the secrets to a long, healthy life. His eventual book, Blue Zones, summarizes his findings from small communities across four continents —Europe (Sardina, Italy; Ikaria, Greece), Asia (Okinawa, Japan), South/Central America (Nicoya, Costa Rica) and North America (Loma Linda, California). In these “blue zones,” Buettner and his team of researchers found much higher percentages of healthy adults living well into their late nineties and beyond one hundred. What were their secrets? Plant-based diets, active lifestyles, strong community ties, and a deep sense of purpose seemed to be consistent themes. Buettner gave a summary of his research in a September 2009 TED talk. In his talk he suggests the two most dangerous times in a person’s life are when they are born and when they retire. The first year of life is obviously a very risky time for all creatures, but why is retirement also fraught with risk? It turns out that many of the characteristics Buettner found in the blue zones fade away with retirement—daily physical activity, community ties, and a sense of purpose , to name a few. If your identity is based on your income or your job title, then retirement can be a pretty big shock to both money and happiness. You lose those work connections to people and your sense of purpose the moment your career ends. Buettner and his research team discovered one blue zone community on a small Japanese island that had a name for a life purpose—ikigai. The Japanese translation is “a sense of life worth living,” and virtually all the centenarians Buettner talked to on the island could easily explain their personal ikigai. It was part of their culture. In a separate study of forty-three thousand Japanese adults, the participants with strongly expressed ikigai had significantly lower rates of death, particularly cardiovascular deaths, over the following seven years. It’s very important to note that ikigai is not derived from societies’ definition of purpose—power, economic or social status—but rather it is cultivated internally, uniquely by each individual. A 2006 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research supports Buettner’s contention that retirement is a particularly dangerous time in life. They found a strong connection between retirement and declining health. The incidence of illness increased, while mobility and mental wellness declined between 6 and 16 percent during the first few years after retirement. These negative effects turned out to be stronger when a person’s retirement was involuntary. If you have developed deep, meaningful relationships throughout your life and beyond your career, then retirement can be just a turning point where you spend more time with friends and less time with (ex)coworkers. However, if your work has been allowed to consume your time and energy for decades, then retirement is not a turning point but rather a stopping point. In this case a person’s physical and mental activity levels can drop dramatically in a short period of time, alongside their wealth, money and happiness. In an upcoming paper, Professor Cowen surveys a number of reasons why many of us may enjoy working—from the obvious, like status and more money, to less obvious influences, such as social, psychological, and demographic factors. According to the paper, the hours worked per person has not changed much since World War II, in spite of large changes in technology and productivity, along with smaller positive growth in personal income. We should expect people to work less as their incomes and productivity increase, yet professor Cowen points out, “One of the big lessons of economic data is that people really like work.” Happiness, as you can see, is complicated. We know that money can’t buy you happiness; however, many factors, like social status and conspicuous consumption, are directly influenced by our income. We may continue to work just as hard as previous generations because of those external benefits, or, as Cowen suggests, we may enjoy working for a host of other reasons. The question is not how can money buy you happiness, the question is: how can you best navigate the complicated journey of happiness? Here’s what Ben Casnocha recommends—think of your success and happiness in terms of a dashboard instead of a leaderboard. A dashboard, like the one in your car, provides lots of information about your driving experience but tells you nothing about the cars around you. Your money, wealth and happiness can be measured in the same manner, i.e., relative to the internal conditions you control. A leaderboard, on the other hand, forces you onto that hedonic treadmill or status ladder. As Casnocha tells us in his article, “you should measure yourself in the spirit of improving upon your last best record, not what an opponent has accomplished. Leaderboards turn your attention to others; dashboards turn your attention within.” Over the years I’ve had clients who worked as practicing surgeons well into their late sixties and seventies. Earlier in the book I mentioned Peter Bernstein, an economic historian who wrote several of his most popular books well after he turned seventy. When I interviewed John Bogle in 2009, he had just turned eighty and was on his second heart transplant. At the time, he was busy working on a brief for a pending Supreme Court case, writing regular op-ed pieces for the major newspapers, and rewriting his classic book Common Sense on Mutual Funds. These people were not slowing down well into their seventies and eighties, and I believe it was due, in large part, to their happiness dashboard—their “ikigai.” This article is excerpted with permission from Wealthfulness: Simple Steps to Financial Health and Happiness by Lance Alston.

About The Author Lance Alston is the Founder and President of New Dimensions Wealth Management, LLC. He holds a master’s in economics from George Mason University and a Bachelor’s from The University of Texas at Austin. As the co-host of a personal finance podcast (2005-2008) he interviewed a wide range of guests from the fields of economics, finance and public policy. Alston has personally helped more than 500 families create a customized financial plan for their future during his 19-year career. Those experiences have taught him a few important lessons—uncomplicated solutions are usually best, investing costs are very important, and money isn’t everything. In his free time he enjoys traveling with his two daughters, Claire and Olivia. Learn more at: ndwealth.com/lance-alston-cfp

photo: nicolasberlin photocase.com

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in the article below are entirely those of the author and associated organizations and are not representative of Conscious Lifestyle Magazine or its team. This piece is intended to spark a larger conversation and dialogue about the future of humanity and human consciousness as we enter the impending age of genetic engineering, which will require great responsibility to be used safely and beneficially for all life.

The Past and Future of Consciousness

Man’s quest to understand his origin—and therefore his power, is eternal. At its core, every religious construct seeks to lead mankind to be more conscious of the mysteries of his existence. Eastern philosophy in particular, teaches that in order to attain that consciousness, we need only look within—because it is there that our true power lies. As a collective, we have succeeded only in making hard work of this, reserving heightened states of consciousness for the likes of monks and mystics. The last fifty years have seen incredibly rapid advancements in science and technology. The Information Age brought vast knowledge to our fingertips and saw the invention of the Internet, considered to be one of mankind’s greatest achievements. Even with its myriad of benefits, the Internet’s potential to alienate us from each other has long been a concern.¹ Another quantum leap in technology, artificial intelligence, challenges humanity to be more than just a fleeting phase in a robotic evolution.² Humanity’s scientific transformation carries an important lesson: the most valuable evolution is that of our consciousness, without which we may lose every semblance of our humanness. Scientific breakthroughs and consciousness evolution must work in tandem. The former, devoid of consciousness, may very likely lead to our destruction. The latter, without the benefit of scientific advancement, will continue its very slow progress in achieving any widespread understanding of the Power from which we came. Before exploring how science can impact the evolution of our consciousness, perhaps we must first attempt to define consciousness. Being conscious can be described as being aware of one’s own existence. Possessing higher or spiritual consciousness can be described as being aware of things as they truly are. This implies a deeply spiritual understanding of our existence, far beyond the everyday confines of our humanness. We humans have the power to achieve this awareness, but until this time in our history it has been only through a slow process of intense introspection, meditation and even extreme solitude.

Cognitive Physics

Both Western and Eastern Philosophy have long recognized the cognitive potential of the human mind.³ While science has begun to acknowledge the mind exists outside of our physical bodies,⁴ it is yet to fully explain anything beyond the mechanical workings of the human brain. Neuroscience is beginning to catch up with Eastern Philosophy in recognizing that our cognitive faculties can be trained through meditation.⁵ Yet, scientifically explaining the human consciousness potential remains elusive… at least, until now. One organization undertaking pioneering work in this field, Future Life Institute, has applied a scientific approach to explaining spiritual states of being. In the book Transcendental Engineering (by FLI’s founder John Mee), mathematical axioms and formulas are applied to reveal cardinal laws governing the dynamic interplay between spirit, or the Power from which we originate, and the material universe. Transcendental Engineering introduces a new branch of science called “cognitive physics,” which expresses fundamental laws governing consciousness (which exists outside of our brains), and its relationship with our physical neurology. Why is this important? The huge implication is that in having a scientific understanding of consciousness, we can look to other scientific applications to enhance it.

Cognitive Engineering

The science behind genetically engineered DNA molecules for cloning in foreign cells has been with us since the early 1970s.⁶ The commercial sale of genetically engineered food began in the mid-1990s. In the U.S., the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990 and the mapping and sequencing of the human genome was announced in 2000. Humanity has entered its Genetic Age. The standout development of this era so far is a genome editing technology called CRISPR.⁷ This technology’s impact on biological research is being compared to the steam engine, which gave rise to the Industrial Revolution and the transistor, which launched the Information Age. CRISPR has enormous potential, particularly for applications in medicine—and investors are paying attention (according to the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, public and private genetic engineering companies raised $15B globally just in the last two years). Genetic engineering application in enhancing human physical attributes such as appearance, strength and agility is possible. If genetically engineered food causes contention, the genetic engineering of humans can be an ethical minefield. Again, the evolution of human consciousness alongside scientific technological advances comes into sharp focus. That evolution is necessary, indeed mandatory, if we are to counter the base human tendencies of power and greed—tendencies which could lead to the gross misuse of advances in genetic engineering. In its research into scientifically actualizing the potential of human consciousness, FLI envisages the use of CRISPR to enhance human cognitive functions. FLI calls this “cognitive engineering,” but with a greater emphasis on consciousness enhancement, as opposed to only enhancing cognitive brain-based skills. FLI is overseeing research programs for the formulation of genome engineering designs to achieve these aims. FLI will implement not only the scientific editing of the DNA affecting higher states of consciousness, but also comprehensive education and psychological counseling around managing those higher states of consciousness. Universities with appropriately trained teachers will tutor students, delivering education and counselling programs. This education is vital to managing higher states of consciousness and will therefore precede the actual genetic upgrades, which will be administered via reversible pill therapy (enabling short, long or permanent states of higher consciousness). It is a given that not all students entering these universities will eventually meet the stringent requirements for gene therapy. It is intended that the research entities and universities will, with astute management, establish a gold standard of quality, and importantly, integrity for human genetic consciousness engineering.

GenI and the genetic Revolution

What does all this actually mean to someone interested in, and qualified for, cognitive engineering? As mentioned, students who prove themselves ready to attain and manage higher states of consciousness will become eligible to receive access to gene therapy resources. FLI has coined the term “GenI” (pronounced Gen-I), to describe cognitively-upgraded individuals who successfully complete the course of education and receive the gene therapy. The higher state of consciousness enjoyed by GenIs is its own reward, but there are important benefits which will extend to communities and society as a whole. The Key Rewards chart outlines some of these benefits, which will empower individuals to effortlessly remain centered in their spiritual identities as they live each day. GenIs will enjoy continuous awareness of awareness, providing an example to others of mankind’s spiritual capacity and the ensuing impact on our world. GenIs will represent the consciously-enhanced future of humankind, paving the way for future generations of advanced humans who embrace science and technology as a means of benefitting and preserving humanity.

Cognitive Capital: Humanity’s New Wealth

The Genetic Age is giving rise to a new form of wealth—genetic capital. The rush to invest in genetic engineering underlines the long-term returns anticipated by investors. The myriad of applications for genetic engineering includes, but is not limited to, agriculture, energy, health and industry. The use of genetic engineering to enhance cognitive abilities gives rise to cognitive capital. Artificial intelligence poses an undeniable threat to the need for humans to perform jobs,⁸ a threat that is progressing at a speed most people are yet to grasp. As robots replace humans, the loss of affected jobs will usher in the creation of millions of high-remuneration, cognitively-demanding jobs. With globalization, these new jobs will inevitably emerge where the mental capacity of the workforce matches their demands. This phenomenon has been studied by Oxford scholar Nayef Al-Rodhan,⁹ who believes that harnessing cognitive enhancement technologies can help nations “engineer more productive, competent, focused, and skilled individuals in the workplace, thus increasing the overall output of their economies and projecting global power further afield.” Al-Rodhan outlines some inevitable social and political implications of this cognitive enhancement, not least particularly the potential implications of inequality between enhanced and non-enhanced individuals. Perhaps these ethical challenges become redundant if cognitive enhancement is used to raise not only physical and intellectual capacity, but also our consciousness, which will always seek the best outcome for the whole of humanity.

Cognitive Geopolitics

It is logical that various countries have considered the economic impacts of having a “more productive, competent, focused, and skilled” workforce. China’s emergence as a global economic power includes it being recognized as the world leader in human genetic enhancement.¹⁰ With conservative Western attitudes towards genetic engineering, China’s lead will only widen. China’s competitiveness on the world stage will increase with a potential upgrading of its population’s cognitive abilities. Loss of jobs in the West through the threat posed by artificial intelligence, would lead to vast numbers of alienated and agitated individuals, eager for radical change. Voters being drawn to ever more powerful demagogues with false promises of hope pose a real risk. The viable solution for displaced workers is education, but many will lack the mental capacity to handle the education that will make them re-employable. Cognitive enhancement provides the means for an individual to gain the focus, emotional intelligence and motivation needed for success in more mentally challenging work environments. The West must not play catch-up in the human genetic engineering chase.

To the Future

The astonishingly rapid scientific and technological breakthroughs of the past fifty years make predictions of what our world would look like in the next fifty years difficult, if not impossible. The Genetic Age brings much promise, but carries considerable risk without a dramatic upgrade in humanity’s collective consciousness. The tried and tested means to higher consciousness are slow, unable to match the pace of scientific developments. Disruptive and original thinkers in the search for higher consciousness for humanity, such as the researchers at Future Life Institute, are outlining practical—if as yet unproven—solutions. The need for radical thinking investors and philanthropists who seek a future conscious human existence, is immediate. Cognitive engineering is here. Consciousness engineering must be part of humanity’s scientific evolution. The scientific evolution of consciousness provides the spiritual means for humans to continue their existence, not as egotistical destroyers of each other and their Earth, but as preservers and seekers of a greater future. The scientific and spiritual possibilities that await a consciously enhanced humanity exceed anything that we can currently imagine.

References

¹ Researchers link use of Internet, social isolation https://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/february23/internet-022305.html ² Is humanity just a phase in a robotic evolution? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/09/is-humanity-just-a-phase-in-a-robotic-evolution/ ³ Contemplative Prayer and Christian Meditation http://liveanddare.com/contemplative-prayer-and-christian-meditation/ ⁴ Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body https://qz.com/866352/scientists-say-your-mind-isnt-confined-to-your-brain-or-even-your-body/ ⁵ Neuroscientists now believe that cognitive faculties are not fixed but can be trained through meditation https://qz.com/866352/scientists-say-your-mind-isnt-confined-to-your-brain-or-even-your-body/ ⁶ Boyer and Cohen develop recombitant DNA technology showing that genetically engineered DNA molecules may be cloned in foreign cells http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/resources/timeline/1973_Boyer.php ⁷ Questions and answers about CRISPR https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/questions-and-answers-about-crispr ⁸ Robots will destroy our jobs—and we’re not ready for it https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/robots-jobs-employees-artificial-intelligence ⁹ Brain Gain: The Emerging Security and Ethical Challenges of Cognitive Enhancement http://www.gcsp.ch/News-Knowledge/Global-insight/Brain-Gain-The-Emerging-Security-and-Ethical-Challenges-of-Cognitive-Enhancement ¹⁰ The future of genetic enhancement is not in the West http://theconversation.com/the-future-of-genetic-enhancement-is-not-in-the-west-63246

About The Author Nandini Gosine-Mayrhoo serves as Future Life Institute’s lead research analyst. Nandini honed her skills as an analyst during her management career in wholesale banking at Lloyds Banking Group in London, where she specialized in large asset and project finance risk analysis. At Lloyds, she was responsible for researching and investigating the feasibility of financing large asset transactions, including the building of ships, aircraft, power plants and roads. She also organized and directed risk management analysis for LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group. Originally from Trinidad, Nandini lived in London for over 20 years before moving with her husband to Florida. She is active in several other non-profit organizations serving women’s needs and local communities, and is currently studying for a Doctorate in Metaphysics. She is passionate about natural health, wellness, personal development and engaging in a deeper connection with the elemental world. Visit her website: futurelives.org

photo: mark tegethoff

The Origins and Brief History of Astrology Thousands of years ago, people gazed up at the skies and were awed by the mystery of the planets and the stars. The movements of the stars and planets must have seemed like magic to them. Not surprisingly, these movements were observed and recorded. Solon, the Greek historian, wrote that astronomical information was being recorded nine thousand years before he was born. If this is correct, people have been interested in astrology for at least eleven thousand years. It’s possible that astrology is the oldest form of divination in the world. Astrology probably originated in Mesopotamia, but almost every ancient civilization, from Babylon to Egypt, and China to Greece, studied it. Early astrologers noted that most groups of stars, known as constellations, moved around the sky together. However, five of the larger and brighter stars traveled independently. They called them “wanderers.” Today we know them as planets. Astrologers thought these wanderers were gods and called them Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Uranus was discovered in 1781, followed by Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930. They also noted the movements of the Sun and Moon, which factor significantly into understanding astrology basics. Astrologers gradually came to realize that people who were born at a particular time of year, when the Sun, Moon, and planets were in the same part of the sky, had a great deal in common. Even though every person is unique, these people shared many of the same interests and feelings. This enabled astrologers to construct horoscope charts for individual people. A horoscope is a picture of the heavens at the date, time, and place where the person was born. If you could lie on your back and look up at the sky at the moment you were born, you’d see all the planets in the same positions as they are in your natal chart. Preparing your chart used to be a lengthy process, but nowadays it can be done in seconds. If you Google “free horoscope chart,” you’ll find many sites that’ll prepare a chart for you. However, interpreting and understanding an astrology chart is an involved process that takes years to master.

The Four Elements

The twelve signs of the zodiac are divided into four groups, each containing three of the signs. The four groups are named after the four elements that were proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles twenty-four hundred years ago. They were believed to be the building blocks of the universe: fire, earth, air, and water. In basic astrology terms, the elements express the indispensable nature of the different signs.

+ Fire (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius) Fire is positive, assertive, energetic, enthusiastic, impulsive, inspirational, courageous, powerful, passionate, and initiating.

+ Earth (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) Earth is cautious, responsible, reliable, ambitious, practical, focused, disciplined, dependable, solid, and persevering.

+ Air (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius) Air is lighthearted, joyful, curious, restless, independent, communicative, impractical, entertaining, intellectual, and trusting.

+ Water (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) Water is compassionate, forgiving, understanding, emotional, creative, intuitive and spiritual.

Understanding Astrology Sun Signs

The Sun is the energy and force behind the entire solar system. Without it, life as we know it could not exist. In your horoscope the Sun represents independence, willpower, strength, energy, leadership, motivation, creativity, and even your popularity. It indicates your individuality—what you are really like inside. Even if people know nothing about astrology basics, most people know what their Sun sign is, and they usually know a few of the character traits that are assigned to it. The astrological predictions that appear in many newspapers and magazines are based on the Sun signs. These are by necessity generalizations, as there are only twelve Sun signs, and this means all of humanity is divided into twelve groups. Obviously, this isn’t the case, but it’s a good place to start looking at your horoscope chart when learning how to understand astrology. In astrology, the sky is divided into twelve sections, each representing one of the signs of the zodiac. It looks like a circular cake cut into twelve equal slices. At the moment you were born, the Sun was in one of those twelve sections, and that determines what sign of the zodiac you belong to. The Sun spends thirty days in each section, which means it takes a whole year to visit each section and circle the zodiac. The dates change by a day or two from year to year. Consequently, if you were born near the beginning or end of a sign, it would pay to check the year you were born in to find what sign you were born in. Incidentally, when I was young, someone told me that people who were born “on the cusp,” which means at the start or end of a sign, pick up the positive aspects of each sign and miss out on the negatives. This isn’t totally true when you begin to understand astrology beyond the basics, but it’s amazing how many people who are born on the cusp have a positive outlook on life. Each section provides its own particular energy to the people who are born in it. Thousands of years ago, astrologers used the names of animals, people, and objects to describe this energy. This is why we have: Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Scales, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Centaur, Capricorn the Goat, Aquarius the Water Carrier, and Pisces the Fish.

Aries

+ March 21–April 20 + Element: Fire Ruling + Planet: Mars People born under the sign of Aries are leaders and pioneers. They enjoy responsibility and are happiest when managing and organizing others. They are magnetic and outgoing and can inspire others to action with their dynamic leadership. They are courageous and prepared to take calculated risks, and they fight for what they believe in. They need to be busy to be happy. Arians are often happiest when working for themselves, but also rise to positions of leadership and responsibility when working for others. They are curious and have a keen interest in everything that’s going on. Because they’re quick-witted and like to get to the heart of any problem, they can get impatient with people who take time to come to a decision. They enjoy talking and look forward to social activities. They make warm and lively friends.

Taurus

+ April 21–May 21 + Element: Earth + Ruling Planet: Venus People born under the sign of Taurus are practical, patient, and determined. According to astrology basics for this sun sign, they’re naturally cautious and think matters through before acting. Because of this, they can appear stubborn and obstinate to others. They like to do things their own way. Taureans can be extremely generous, but they always keep something in reserve, as security is important to them. They are generally good at managing their financial affairs. They are persistent and possess enormous drive and determination. Taureans love beauty and work best in harmonious surroundings. Their homes invariably display good quality and tasteful objects, and whenever they buy something, it has to be of good quality. The main lesson Taureans need to learn is how to control obstinacy. Once they’ve made up their minds on something, it’s almost impossible to change it. This can make them inflexible and unforgiving, which is out of tune with the calm, harmonious approach they usually have.

Gemini

+ May 22–June 21 + Element: Air Ruling + Planet: Mercury People born under the sign of Gemini are ingenious, versatile, restless, and quick-thinking. They love meeting new people, and have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They are good with words, and can talk at great length on almost anything. They enjoy occupations that use their voices in some way. They enjoy mental stimulation, but often waste time on idle chatter. They are easygoing and get on well with almost everyone. They’re versatile, highly creative, and often artistic. They need a great deal of variety in their lives. This endless search for variety often means they leave a trail of half-finished projects behind them. They possess a great deal of nervous energy and always seek quick results. They have the ability to see both sides of a problem.

Cancer

+ June 22–July 22 + Element: Water + Ruling Planet: Moon People born under the sign of Cancer are romantic, emotional, and imaginative. They are ruled largely by their feelings. They are highly sensitive and easily hurt, but are able to fight back when pushed into a corner. They have the ability to charm and captivate others and use this to devastating effect when they know what they want. Because they’re incredibly tenacious, they ultimately achieve their goals.

A core concept in understanding astrology is that each sign is ruled by a particular planet, and Cancerians are ruled by the Moon, which emphasizes the sensitive, emotional side of their natures. Consequently, they may sometimes appear unwilling to commit in case they get hurt. Cancerians love the security of home and family, and they make extremely good parents. They can be self-indulgent and spend money freely, yet they’re also extremely good at getting a bargain. They are usually highly intuitive, and have the potential to develop considerable psychic ability.

Leo

+ July 23–August 22 + Element: Fire Ruling + Planet: Sun People born under the sign of Leo are ambitious, determined people with open, friendly natures. They are born leaders and instinctively gravitate to positions where their leadership potential can be utilized. They’re open, honest, and enthusiastic about every aspect of their lives. Because they’re generally happy, they want everyone close to them to be happy too. They are confident and determined and always make their presence felt in everything they do. They invariably get where they want to go, though overconfidence can cause delays and problems along the way. Pride is very important to Leos, and they hate being ridiculed or demeaned. They are susceptible to flattery and need to learn how to control this. They are generous and enjoy making magnanimous gestures. They spread their warmth and enthusiasm everywhere they go. They can exaggerate or distort the truth at times, as they like to weave a good story.

Virgo

+ August 23–September 23 + Element: Earth Ruling + Planet: Mercury According to astrology basics, people born under the sign of Virgo are modest, down-to-earth, and matter of fact. They have a shrewd outlook on life. They are intelligent, cautious, conforming people who invariably look respectable and tidy. They enjoy doing detailed and precise work, and this, coupled with good memories, makes them highly capable administrators. They can assess people quickly, though they usually keep their thoughts to themselves. They are naturally reserved, and this makes it hard to get close to them until they’re ready to let you in. They make good friends once this happens. They are their own worst critics, as they constantly aim for perfection and set high standards for themselves. They enjoy analyzing things and can sometimes pay excessive attention to tiny details. They are self-motivated but find it impossible to complete anything to the high standards they require. This can cause significant worry. They generally prefer working behind the scenes but enjoy the inner satisfaction of a job well done. They can be outspoken and critical, and this often comes into play when they feel that justice and fair play are absent.

Libra

+ September 24–October 22 + Element: Air Ruling + Planet: Venus People born under the sign of Libra are harmonious, well-balanced, and friendly. They have a tendency to be indecisive. They are good talkers but prefer to avoid arguments and confrontations. They’re honest and sincere and expect others to be the same. They feel their emotions deeply and are very involved in the lives of the people they care for. They love beauty and have good taste. Librans find it hard to make decisions. They like to think about the matter, agonize over it, and weigh it up carefully before making a decision. This can cause impatience in other people, especially when the indecision is over something that is unimportant. However, once the decision has been made, they’ll follow it through with great determination. Librans have a strong sense of justice and fair play. They often side with the underdog.

Scorpio

+ October 23–November 21 + Element: Water Ruling + Planet: Mars People born under the sign of Scorpio are forceful and determined. They have enormous powers of concentration, but don’t always reveal this side of themselves as they’re also secretive and never reveal their true nature to anyone. They’re intuitive, and this gives them great insight into how other people work and react. Scorpios are individualistic. They’re prepared to take risks, but they’re always carefully calculated first. They watch and wait for opportunities, using the element of surprise to their advantage. Scorpios usually know what it is that they want, and they possess incredible determination and tenacity, which helps them reach their goals.

Sagittarius

+ November 22–December 22 + Element: Fire Ruling + Planet: Jupiter People born under the sign of Sagittarius are friendly, open, and optimistic. They are naturally enthusiastic and have a great zest for life. They’re honest and loyal, but can be outspoken and tactless at times. Independence is important to them, and they need space and room around them in order to thrive. Because of this, they’re often interested in sports and other outdoor activities. Sagittarians need to learn to channel their energies, as they often try to do too many different things at the same time. This is especially the case when they’re young, and it can be frustrating to others who can see their potential. Sagittarians enjoy learning, and often do this on their own, as they feel hemmed in and restricted in classrooms. They possess considerable foresight and vision, and over a lifetime develop a strong philosophy of life.

Capricorn

+ December 23–January 20 + Element: Earth Ruling + Planet: Saturn People born under the sign of Capricorn are solid, practical, and hardworking. They have a serious approach to life and slowly but steadily reach their goals. They are cautious, logical, careful, and fair. They’re ambitious and set their sights on far off distant goals that they invariably achieve. They are practical, conservative people who like to work everything out carefully before acting. According to the basics of astrology, they are thrifty and careful with money. They enjoy saving money but are happy to use it for specific purposes. They find it hard to express their emotions but can be extremely romantic with the right partner. They enjoy family life and are good, responsible, and loving parents.

Aquarius

+ January 21–February 19 + Element: Air + Ruling Planet: Uranus People born under the sign of Aquarius are sympathetic, broad-minded, tolerant, unconventional, and completely lacking in prejudice. They’re inclined to be independent, intellectual, inventive, and altruistic. They possess strong humanitarian ideals and are happiest when they’re involved in helping others. Their humanitarianism extends to all humanity. Aquarians have a scientific frame of mind and are always progressive and frequently radical in their ideas. They’re constantly looking ahead, trying to turn their dreams into reality. They accept people for who they are and accept their needs and idiosyncrasies. They make excellent, long-lasting friendships. Aquarians seek the truth of life in everything they do. They learn using both logic and intuition. They live largely on a mental plane and enjoy coming up with original ideas.

Pisces

+ February 20–March 20 + Element: Water + Ruling Planet: Neptune People born under the sign of Pisces are gentle, imaginative, thoughtful, philanthropic, and creative. Although they can be vague and indecisive at times, they are generally popular and make successes of their lives. They’re sensitive and easily hurt, and this can lead to disappointments and emotional crises. They need encouragement to perform well. Pisceans are intuitive, receptive, and sympathetic. This makes them good judges of character. However, it also means they get easily hurt, and they suffer in silence when rebuffed or dismissed. They are extremely compassionate and are always available with a shoulder to lean on. They are happiest in any occupation that involves helping others.

The Ascendant

The second most important part of understanding an astrology horoscope chart is called the ascendant, or rising sign. Because of the Earth’s rotation on its axis, the zodiac appears to revolve once every twenty-four hours. This means that one of the twelve signs was on the eastern horizon at the time you were born. This sign is called the ascendant. If you were born between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., for instance, the sign coming over the horizon would be the same as your Sun sign. If you were born between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., your ascendant would be the sign that immediately follows your Sun sign. In basic astrology terms, your Sun sign describes your individuality, and your ascendant reveals your personality. It also has an effect on your physical appearance and how you present your individuality in everyday life. If your ascendant is a fire sign (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius), you’ll appear enthusiastic, optimistic, and full of energy. If your ascendant is an earth sign (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn), you’ll appear cautious, reserved, practical, and serious. If your ascendant is an air sign (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius), you’ll appear sociable, friendly, and communicative. If your ascendant is a water sign (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces), you’ll appear emotional, intuitive, and sensitive. If you don’t know your time of birth, astrologers normally use 6:00 a.m. This places your Sun Sign in the first house. However, you should use your time of birth if you know what it is. Sometimes your friends might be able to help you decide on a possible ascendant by comparing you to the qualities provided by the four elements. Your horoscope sign and ascendant provide valuable insights into you and your nature. They also explain why two people of the same sign can be completely different to each other. Someone born under the sign of Aries, with a Leo ascendant, will be outspoken and enjoy being the center of attention. Another Arian, with a Pisces ascendant, will be quieter and more sensitive.

The Ten Planets

Astrologers refer to the Sun and the Moon as planets when doing their calculations. Of course they know this isn’t actually the case, but because they have a strong influence on our lives, it’s convenient to consider them as planets when looking at a horoscope chart and for understanding astrology in general. The ten planets are: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. According to the basics of astrology, each of these relates to a different side of our personality. The Sun The Sun passes through every sign of the zodiac for approximately one month every year. It reveals what we want out of life. The Sun is the giver of life, radiating energy, inspiration, self-awareness, enthusiasm, and wisdom. However, the warm rays of the Sun can be used for both good and ill. When adversely affected, this creates pride, anger, conceit, and egotism. The Sun relates to the conscious mind. The Moon The Moon symbolizes fertility and relates to sensitivity, imagination, feelings, emotions, the subconscious, and intuition. It also relates to nurturing, domesticity, and home and family life. People who are ruled by the Moon are essentially emotional, sensitive, and changeable. In advanced and basic astrology, the Moon relates to the subconscious mind. Mercury Mercury governs the nervous system and intellect. It relates to self-expression and getting on with others. The keyword for Mercury is communication, which is why it’s related to rapid thought, adaptability, eloquence, quick perceptions, and the intellect. It’s also related to travel. Venus Venus is the goddess of love and sexuality. It represents gentility, sociability, beauty, and the arts. It controls the deeper and finer human emotions, such as appreciation, love, and devotion. Venus reveals what you enjoy and how you handle close relationships. Mars Mars, the god of war, symbolizes courage, force, bravery, assertiveness, and physical drive. It gives the qualities of boldness, frankness, endurance, and initiative. Mars reveals your energy and sexuality. People influenced by Mars are better at doing things, rather than planning them. When Mars is well situated in a chart it gives strength of character, leadership ability, and a strong desire to succeed. It also provides moral courage and the ability to carry ideas through to completion. Jupiter Ancient astrologers considered Jupiter as being second only to the Sun. It symbolizes wisdom, moderation, and generosity. Jupiter reveals how we enjoy ourselves. Good fortune and luck have always been associated with this planet. Jupiter is also related to wisdom, knowledge, higher learning, philosophy, ethics, understanding, and the intellect. Because it’s always looking ahead, Jupiter is also associated with ambition and career, when interpreting and understanding astrology. Saturn Saturn is the planet of restriction and restraint, and gives its name to the word saturnine. It reveals our sense of discipline, responsibility, focus, and strength of character. It gives tenacity, prudence, self-control, and concentration. When harnessed and directed, Saturn can be a positive energy that helps people achieve their aims. Uranus Uranus is the planet of transformation and regeneration. It pioneers new ideas and concepts and brings out people’s highest potential. It reveals originality, individuality, and creativity. It also provides a humanitarian outlook and an interest in metaphysical pursuits. Neptune Neptune rules our innermost feelings, psychic abilities, sensitivity, and imagination. Its positive traits are receptiveness, intuition, spiritual development, psychic perception, and compassion. It reveals spirituality and humanitarian ideals. Pluto Pluto, ruler of the underworld, represents the subconscious in basic astrology. It reveals your capacity for change, regeneration, growth, healing, and knowledge. As it takes Pluto two hundred and fifty years to circle the zodiac, Pluto’s influence has an effect on generations of people, and can influence world conditions. Like the Sun, the planets visit all of the signs in turn, and the planet and sign combination can be interpreted as a means to understanding astrology. Here are some examples: If Mercury was in Cancer, you could say, “thinking would be influenced by emotions.” If Mars was in Capricorn, you might say, “plenty of ambition, with a strong desire to succeed.” If Jupiter was in Taurus, you might say, “luck in money making ventures. Materialistic approach.” If Saturn was in Gemini, you might say, “security gained through some form of communication.”

Aspects

The angles between the different planets in a horoscope are called aspects. They are another important concept for understanding basic astrology and can strengthen, weaken, and affect the readings for each planet. There are both favorable and unfavorable aspects. Often a planet can be in a favorable aspect to one or more planets and at the same time be in an unfavorable aspect to others. Interestingly, people use their aspects differently. One person might suffer greatly under the effects of a discordant aspect, while someone else with the exact same aspect will look for the positive energies inside the aspect and work with them. Favorable Aspects The favorable aspects emphasize the positive, beneficial energies of the planets. They indicate the areas of life where you can accomplish what you set out to do with little effort. Because of this, many people take them for granted and become lazy. It’s important to work just as hard in these areas as anywhere else to make the most of the blessings you’ve been given. The favorable aspects are:

+ Conjunction: This occurs when two planets are within 8 degrees of each other. The conjunctions usually indicate areas that will show good results.

+ Trine: This occurs when the planets are approximately 120 degrees apart, with a leeway of 8 degrees on either side. The trine is the most fortunate aspect, as the energies of the two planets harmonize easily. This aspect often shows you where your greatest strengths are.

+ Sextile: This occurs when the planets are approximately 60 degrees apart, with a leeway of 8 degrees on either side. This is an “easy” aspect that generally works in your favor without much input from you.

+ Semi-sextile: This occurs when the planets are approximately 30 degrees apart, again with a leeway of 8 degrees on either side. This is also an “easy” aspect. Despite this, you shouldn’t take it for granted in your understanding of astrology, as it indicates areas where you can shine.

Unfavorable Aspects The unfavorable aspects emphasize the negative characteristics of the planets involved. The unfavorable aspects often motivate people to action, as they want to overcome the challenges and difficulties the particular aspect produces.

+ Opposition: This occurs when the two planets are approximately 180 degrees apart with a leeway of 8 degrees on either side. This is a difficult aspect, and it takes a great deal of effort to overcome any problems it creates.

+ Square: This occurs when the two planets are approximately 90 degrees apart, with a leeway of 8 degrees on either side. This aspect works against your best interests, and it takes a great deal of hard work to eliminate the negativity it creates.

The Houses

There are twelve houses in astrology. They represent the areas of life in which the planets and signs operate. As there are also twelve signs in astrology, it’s easy to think the twelve houses are part of the same wheel or chart. However, this isn’t the case. The signs are dictated by the apparent annual rotation of the Sun, while the houses represent the Earth’s twenty-four hour rotation around its axis. The planets and signs exhibit their characteristics best in the areas of life dictated by the house they happen to be in. It’s common for a chart to have a number of houses with no planets in them. These houses are still interpreted in basic astrology, but are not as important in the person’s life as houses that contain one or more planets. First House This is the house of the self. It’s responsible for the person’s appearance, physical body, vitality, and temperament. It includes likes, dislikes, thoughts, personal activities and interests, and anything else that appeals to the person. The ruler of the first house is Aries. Second House This is the house of money, possessions, resources, and feelings. It reveals the person’s ability to earn and to spend. This house is ruled by Taurus. Third House This is the house of communications, mental stimulation, short journeys, and relationships, especially brothers and sisters. The third house is ruled by Gemini, the Twins, which relates to the family relationships. Fourth House This house represents the home and early childhood. Consequently, it’s usually related to the person’s mother. It is also related to anything that’s private or concealed. This house is ruled by Cancer. Fifth House This house governs pleasure, love, creativity, and the element of chance. The fifth house is ruled by Leo. Sixth House This is the house of system and order, practical work, and service to others. It is also related to matters concerning health and hygiene. It’s ruled by Virgo. Seventh House The seventh house governs partnerships, such as marriage, close friendships, and business partnerships. As this house is involved in bringing people together, it’s also related to enemies, as not every contact can be a happy one. It’s ruled by Libra. Eighth House This is the house of death, legacies, possessions that are gained from someone else, strong feelings, and anything that’s hidden. It’s ruled by Scorpio. Ninth House The ninth house governs long journeys, higher education, prophecy, and philosophy. It’s ruled by Sagittarius. Tenth House The tenth house governs the person’s status, importance, and aspirations. It’s involved with practical matters, security, and the drive to succeed. It’s often related to the father. It is ruled by Capricorn. Eleventh House This is the house of humanitarianism, ideals, connections, and casual friendships with people who support a common cause or interest. In traditional understandings of astrology, this is the house of “hopes and wishes.” It’s ruled by Aquarius. Twelfth House The twelfth house relates to the occult, the psychic, and the person’s unconscious. It also relates to health problems, and the fact that not everything should be taken at face value. The twelfth house is ruled by Pisces.

Putting It Together

With this information, it’s possible to provide a detailed description of the person’s personality, including his or her strengths and weaknesses, emotions, parental influences, ability to find happiness and fulfilment, lifestyle and career, love and sex. In fact, using these astrology basics, it’s possible to look at a chart and receive information on any aspect of the person’s personality and makeup. Here’s an example. Let’s assume the chart is for a young man who is thinking of starting his own business. His Sun sign is Taurus, so we know he’s prepared to work hard and expects to receive the rewards of his labor. His Sun is in the second house, a particularly harmonious combination, and one that would certainly help him in business. His Sun is conjunct Venus. This means he’ll be charming and able to get along with others. He’ll be positive and optimistic. Although he’ll be ambitious, this side of his character will be softened, making him less competitive and more relaxed. His Sun is also trine Saturn in the ninth house. This means he’ll be responsible and ethical. He’ll overcome the difficulties in his life relatively easily and will always try to do what is right. He’s likely to travel extensively. His Sun is in opposition to Uranus in the seventh house. This means he’ll look at everything from his own personal point of view. He’ll have original ideas, but is likely to need others to help him as he’s impractical. He’ll have a strong desire for independence, which encourages self-employment. Uranus in the seventh house could well indicate a business partnership. In this example we’ve looked briefly at the Sun and three planets. Imagine the detail an advanced astrologer would find if he or she examined all the planets, all the aspects, and all the houses.

Into the Future

Astrology doesn’t claim to accurately predict the future. However, using a variety of methods, it reveals the influences and tendencies that will appear in the future. A natal horoscope chart is constructed for someone at the moment of their birth. This chart can be progressed to any time in the future of that person. There are a variety of ways to do this. Transits Probably the easiest and most popular way of doing this is to examine the planetary transits. Transits describe the movements of the different planets as they move around the horoscope. You’ll need the person’s natal horoscope (the chart drawn up from their birth data) and a book called an ephemeris. This is a listing of the positions of all the planets on any given date. Ephemerides are also available online. You look at the ephemeris for the particular date you’re interested in and see what planets listed there are in aspect to any of the planets in the birth chart. Most astrologers work with a 1 or 2 degree leeway when doing this, rather than the 8 degrees often used for a natal chart. Speaking generally, the aspects between the slower moving planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) are more powerful than the faster moving planets for understanding astrology in this way. This is because the aspects created by faster moving planets exist for only a short period of time. No astrologer would look at the transits created by the Sun or Moon, for instance. The transit created by the Sun lasts for about two and a half days, and the Moon a mere four hours. The transits of the outer planets reveal the trends of a person’s life, while the transits of the inner planets usually indicate an event. Planetary Returns A planetary return occurs when a planet returns to the position it was in at the time of the person’s birth. They signify a new cycle of experience is about to start. The planets take varying degrees of time to return to where they were when someone was born: Jupiter takes approximately twelve years. It’s a time to move forward as there’s considerable potential for achievement and success. Saturn takes approximately twenty-nine years. It’s a time to reassess one’s life and to change direction, if need be. Uranus takes eighty-four years. Many people never experience this. Consequently, the half-return at the age of forty-two is examined. It’s a stressful time, but it opens doors for new interests. Solar Return In this method a chart is erected when the Sun has returned to the same position it was in the natal chart. Understanding this astrology chart provides insights into the next twelve months. The ascendant of this progressed chart gives a strong clue as to how the person will handle him or herself in the next twelve months. The house the progressed Sun is in indicates the person’s focus for the next year. A Day for a Year People often ask astrologers about the trends of their lives. “I seem to be going through a rough patch.” “Back then everything seemed to just fall into place.” “How come I made money so easily last year, but this year it’s a struggle?” We all have ups and downs in our lives. In astrology there’s the concept of “one day for one year” when progressing and understanding an astrology chart. In other words, if you turned thirty-five today, your current astrology chart would show every planet moved forward thirty-five days from the position they were in when you were born. This is an ancient technique that is still used by many astrologers. There are other methods for determining future trends with astrology basics, but the “one day for one year” method is perfect for most needs. It’s a quick and easy way to forecast future trends, and it’s not surprising that many professional astrologers use it. Horary Astrology Horary astrology is a method to answer specific questions. A chart is erected for the date, time, and place where the question was asked. The chart is then interpreted to help answer the question. William Lilly, the seventeenth century English astrologer, used horary astrology most of the time, as many of his clients were not sure when they were born. He wrote a detailed explanation of the technique in his book Christian Astrology. Mundane Astrology Mundane astrology isn’t interested in the future of a single person. It focuses on the future of nations, political parties, and world events. A chart is erected for the capital city of a country, or the date of birth of the people most involved, such as a president or prime minister. Newspaper Astrology Everyone is familiar with the Sun sign forecasts printed in newspapers and magazines around the world. For some years, I prepared daily horoscopes for a national radio station and was amazed at the amount of positive feedback I received, as I was using nothing but the ten planets and the twelve houses. If you’re preparing a Sun sign forecast for an Arian, you’d place Aries in the first house, Taurus in the second, and so on. If the person happened to be a Virgo, you’d place Virgo in the first house, Libra in the second, and so on. As the planets travel through the twelve houses, they stimulate the houses they pass through, and this provides the Sun sign astrologers with the basic astrology information they need to prepare their forecasts. Consequently, if Venus happened to be in the third house, it would enhance all forms of communication and fill it with love and affection. When Uranus is in the third house, it would behave completely differently. You could expect disruptions and other problems in your communications and dealings with others. The signs the planets are in at any given moment are available online, enabling you to create your own Sun sign readings in much greater detail than you’d find in your daily paper. This article is excerpted from the book: Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Divination: Your Definitive Source for Learning Predictive & Prophetic Techniques by Richard Webster.

About The Author Richard Webster was born and raised in New Zealand. He has been interested in the psychic world since he was nine years old. As a teenager, he became involved in hypnotism and later became a professional stage hypnotist. After school, he worked in the publishing business and purchased a bookstore. Richard’s first book was published in 1972, fulfilling a childhood dream of becoming an author. Richard is now the author of over a hundred books and is still writing today. His best-selling books include Spirit Guides & Angel Guardians and Creative Visualization for Beginners. Richard is a past-life specialist and has also taught psychic development classes, which are based on many of his books. He regularly travels the world to give lectures, workshops and to continue his research. Visit his website: richardwebster.co.nz