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 Moonshoe
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 5,536
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 hours, 39 minutes
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 how do you practice your spirituality? 
#4785467 - 10/11/05 01:13 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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so i was wondering how you guys practice your spirituality. what im really looking for are actual descriptions of methods or practices. weather they be prayers or visualizations or rituals or whatever...
im especially interested in non drug techniques for achieving altered states of conciousness.
So far im working with :
lucid dreaming
chakra activating meditations
stopping the internal diolouge
what im wondering is, if any of you follow a spiritual/shamanic path and actually practice it, what do you actually DO? you know?
what are your favourite methods or exercises or techniques?
peace
 
edit: i wanted to bring this back because i was high when i made the first post and didnt properly convey what i was looking for. i figure with this many people on S and P or s and m or whatever i can get more than nine responses)
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Edited by Moonshoe (10/12/05 10:52 PM)
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 Az0th
quantum transfiguration
 
Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 53,746
Loc: The Void 
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Moonshoe]
#4785579 - 10/11/05 01:35 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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Element work is at the center of my shamanistic practice.
This mostly involves spending time in nature, and appreciating its many beauties.
Being one with nature. One must understand and be in harmony with the Earth and the elements in order to be in harmony with oneself.
For me personally, this involves a lot of fire work.
I am an air sign, and I seem to have a naturall affinity with fire.
Every gathering I take the role or am chosen as the fire builder and maintainer.
There is a lot to be learned by working with fire. It is a purifying element. It 'burns' away fear.. just as fire transmutes the chemicals in wood to create smoke, it transmutes vices and karma into neutrality.. it cleanses the chakras. It does a lot of things I cannot put into words. Not to mention, the formation of logs, the type of wood, the spirit and energy put into the fire, the way the logs are shifted by the firemaster.. these all have an effect on the type of fire it will be. No two fires are alike.
One can gain great understanding of oneself by staring into a fire. It is a very wise, very volatile, very sensual element. It doesn't have to be a campfire either (although that is the best imo).. one may meditate upon a fireplace fire, or even a candle flame. The essence is the same.
Water is another amazing element to think about. It is formless. It simply flows.. if there is an obstruction, it flows smoothly around it. Life is like a river. Water is also 70% of our body. Water is also a very good purification element.. for our physical body. Wash with it.. drink it.. it's all good. It is also the only element that can flow freely through our most minute blood vessels, completely unchanged, in its natural state. Trip out on water.. it's good for you. An ocean is also a good place to go, for many reasons.
Meditation is of course very important. It can come in many forms, and is essentially simply the mind, focusing, and 'quieting down'. One need not be in the lotus position humming mantras to achieve any kind of depth from meditation, although that cannot hurt. The whole process of meditation, is simply training the mind to focus. Instead of random thoughts filling your head.. you are in peaceful awareness of nothingness.. at least, that is the goal. Thoughts will naturally fill your head.. the idea is to not actively engage them.. observe them as though they are clouds passing above your head. Your meditation goal should be to hold ONE single thought in your mind, and focus on it, for as long as possible. This can be accomplished with any sort of visual or mental aid. Which is why I mentioned the flame.. fire makes an excellent meditation focus. Breathing is also something to focus on. Deep, natural, rhythmic, breathing is the key to a healthy meditation of any sort.
Observing nature is where I learn all my magic. Watch the water. Watch the trees. Watch the birds. Watch the stars. Feel the air.. feel it all.. be one with it. The shamanic path takes place on a forest trail. 
Drumming is also an important part of shamanism. Not only does it release primal emotions in the drummer, and often the listeners.. but it also harmonizes the two hemispheres of the brain by creating a fluid balance between the left and right hands. Drumming allows the shaman to enter more readily and deeper into trance states. That is why it is a part of almost every shamanistic ritual.
Another important and often overlooked part is diet. We must eat natural and raw foods as much as possible. Avoid processed/refined/fried foods. Water is life, drink it often.
The rest moostly deals with learning from and teaching other people.. your "tribe". All is learned through life experience.
According to Eastern though.. there are 5 primary elements, and a central force which combines them all (Spirit)
This wheel demonstrates the cycle of creation and destruction through the elements
In the simplest of terms...
Fire creates Earth, Earth creates Metal, Metal creates Water, Water creates Wood, Wood creates Fire
Fire destroys (melts) Metal, Metal destroys (chops) Wood, Wood destroys (drills) Earth, Earth destroys (dams) Water, Water destroys (quenches) Fire
Notice the pentacle.
A lot of shamanism deals with 'natural magic'. This means having a working relationship and understanding of the balance of the elements. This is the foundation for which you base everything on. Whether working with your higher self in dealing with issues, calling on your spirit guides, doing purification rituals, working with your totem animals, or other entities.. your understanding and acceptance of the flow of nature is at the heart of all these things.
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~Thought Creates Reality~
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 15,176
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Moonshoe]
#4785643 - 10/11/05 01:50 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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if you take entheogen you intend to alter consciousness by adjusting mind states, possibly with some interest in "spiritual" objectives that I am not conversant with (I have a friend who leads a peyote church, I have not attended, it is a real church and does not lure me strongly).
if you meditate, you intend to progress on a meditative path (having to do with the middle way) which is an alteration of consciousness in it's own right. some mind states will be visited along the way. Many forms of meditation are also conducive to just getting through the night as it were.
I see consciousness as a bigger thing in time and space than mere mind states; while mind states with their variance in resonance to the greater world are resultant from emotions, attention or entheogenic adjustment.
(concsiousness is composed of chains of mind moments, some mind moments are slower fading, yielding different mind "states", with thicker or thinner warps and wefts of mind moments and their ever present mental contents)
When I meditate, these days - it is usually a matter of helping me get through the night (even if it is just steering through the daytime). That said it is not inconsistent with my path which is a reflective, creative, and appreciative one.
without any ceremony or fuss, I use the breath as an object of meditation with a point of concentration on the tip of my nose. I follow the breath in and out using the following words (silently, & mentally) "beginning, middle, end" during the beginning, middle, end of the in breath and "beginning, middle, end" during the beginning, middle, end of the out breath.
my wife will not do it as it is too much work for her she says, she complains she gets mixed up and frustrated. I see that as an important hurdle for her to take at her own pace and do not trouble her about it at all. We thrive together as equals and not in this way and others.
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spudamore
Stranger
Registered: 06/12/03
Posts: 1,460
Loc: Australia
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Moonshoe]
#4785728 - 10/11/05 02:11 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Moonshoe said:
what im wondering is, if any of you follow a spiritual/shamanic path and actually practice it, what do you actually DO? you know?
be
Quote:
Moonshoe said:
what are your favourite methods or exercises or techniques?
meditation
lots of energy work
healing
hypnosis
manifestation
affirmations
and just step outside of your situation, take a look at yourself from a deattached veiw, i do lots of little things but my major one is meditation do it nearly all day everyday in every situation.
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suicide a permanent solution to a temporary problem
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Mixomatosis
great ape
Registered: 10/28/03
Posts: 1,306
Loc: cipherland
Last seen: 5 months, 25 days
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Moonshoe]
#4785750 - 10/11/05 02:18 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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Hui-neng was an illiterate wood-cutter who, through seeing clear and perceiving reality directly, attained enlightenment overnight. He eventually became the 6th patriarch of Chan Buddhism. In the first chapter of the Sutra of Hui-neng, he's giving a talk on his personal history. He talks about an incident where the 5th patriarch told all the students to compose a verse and if one could demonstrate his understanding of the "great meaning" he'd become the 6th patriarch.
The leading student wrote:
The body is the tree of enlightenment,
The mind is like a clear mirror-stand.
Polish it diligently time and again,
Not letting it gather dust.
Hui-neng responded with:
Enlightenment originally has no tree,
And a clear mirror is not a stand.
Originally there's not a single thing--
Where can dust be atracted?
There's an obvious reference to methods and practices in these verses. The first monk seems to be encouraging people to continually refine the self through whatever mirror-polishing methods Chan Buddhists used, and then Hui-neng comes along and says "self-refinement? There is no self!" Something to keep in mind, anyway.
Another interesting note is that if the wall of the temple where these bodhisatvas recorded their verses was this forum Hui-neng would have been banned for disagreeing with the other poster.
What was needed here was a forum for UFOs and the unexplained, not a separation between spirituality and philosophy. I'm dissapointed.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 15,176
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Mixomatosis]
#4785888 - 10/11/05 02:58 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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me too, very few are delighted and they really just needed to publish a more stunted book on chakkras in color which could be properly remaindered and sold for kindlini.
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~~~~~
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Huehuecoyotl
Stranger
Registered: 06/14/04
Posts: 10,178
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Moonshoe]
#4786350 - 10/11/05 09:16 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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I feel that the single most important "technique" to be used in shamanism is the way one lives their life. At it's root core shamanism is a magical practice. It is a branch of sorcery that focuses on healing. As with any magical practice, one uses the will to alter their reality. Most native cultures believe that in order to exercise the will one must have "personal power". Personal power is the energy we get from food, sunshine, air, physical exercise, and water. It is finite, so we cannot waste it wantonly. So, one must cultivate a way of life that allows the accumulation of personal power. Assuming responsibility for ones actions to a very deep level is the first most important step. This causes us to make decisions by using careful thought so that we are not thrust into needless drama. Handling drama and uncalled for petty emergencies are great wastes of personal power. One should also seek to avoid habitual activities that have no practical purpose. Self destructive habits like alcohol and drug abuse are major users of personal power. Such a habit is a power sink that does not allow one to accumulate anything due to it's self perpetuating nature. One should also try to avoid all needless drama with their fellow humans by putting ones self beyond their manipulations. When one is self responsible then one has taken charge of their emotions, and they will not allow themselves to be subject to petty manipulations. When you are manipulated against your self interest you are wasting personal power. When one has lived in this way for even a short time one finds ones self able to exert the will in ways they never dreamed. One takes total command of one's life...which leads to the further accumulation of personal power. It is at this point that manipulation of awareness becomes relevant and easy to achieve. Meditation and psychedelics are strong tools to achieve this end...but they are only tools...a means to an end...not an end within themselves. This idea is fundamental to shamanism and sorcery.
Edited by Huehuecoyotl (10/11/05 01:15 PM)
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Huehuecoyotl
Stranger
Registered: 06/14/04
Posts: 10,178
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Mixomatosis]
#4786353 - 10/11/05 09:17 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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Great point. I agree with you.
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"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
― Carlos Castaneda
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MJF
Human Being
Registered: 06/27/05
Posts: 1,810
Loc: Between 15 and 45 degrees...
Last seen: 4 years, 26 days
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Az0th]
#4786642 - 10/11/05 11:17 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Water is life, drink it often.
 I call it life juice.
Edited by MJF (10/11/05 11:19 AM)
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!
Registered: 09/11/04
Posts: 10,586
Loc: I re·side [primarily] in...
Last seen: 2 days, 7 hours
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 Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Moonshoe]
#4787212 - 10/11/05 02:32 PM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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live the moment, not merely in it...
.. :P
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Disclaimer!?
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Moonshoe
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 5,536
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 hours, 39 minutes
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Re: how do you practice your spirituality? [Re: spudamore]
#4795101 - 10/12/05 10:27 PM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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thanks for the great responses.
shroomism: i totally resonate with what you say. one of the most potent ways to alter your conciousness is to enter places of deep wilderness and great natural beauty. i firmly believe that all places have distinct energies that affect us in different ways. Many urban environments are very poisonous and draining. But places like forests, especially virgin forests, can give you an intense natural high and heal you just by there presence.
huehuecoytl: very well said. I am starting to believe and act on the idea that the most powerfull and crucial form of magic is just concious, will full, living, with integrity. cutting out destructive habits and developing healthy ones.
Spudamore:
what do you mean by
energy work and healing and manifestations?
could you please go into more detail about what you actually do and what these terms mean.?
oh.. for my own part:
i practice concious dreaming, dream recollection, lucid dreaming and dream techniques (like visiting chosen people or places in dreams)
and i practice basic meditations, either simple mantra repeating, or breath following, or just trying to maintain a still mind.
And i practice once or twice a day a quick visualization exercise, where i imagine each chakra flaring up with energy, then draw that energy through each one (starting at the crown and going down to the root or foot) and then circulating that energy through the whole body.
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Edited by Moonshoe (10/12/05 10:30 PM)
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spudamore
Stranger
Registered: 06/12/03
Posts: 1,460
Loc: Australia
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Re: how do you practice your spirituality? [Re: Moonshoe]
#4796401 - 10/13/05 02:37 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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energy work, healing, and manifestations all work with "thought intention" and visualization. thought intention is like affirmation but actually putting yourself in the state that what you want you have already acheived the goal, then this act starts to create subtle changes within the body, mind and spirit, then starts to open you up to greater opportunities if you decide to accept it and go down that path or help you recognise other paths that will benifit you the most.
i go through a great deal of visualisations rituals and states of mind all at one time, then i get to where i lose all sense of physical being and become greater than physical reality. or so it seems. then just start to create and realise.
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suicide a permanent solution to a temporary problem
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GeoMcCheeseburgers
one-eyed willie
Registered: 07/08/03
Posts: 39,543
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Re: Methods. Practicum. Lets DO something [Re: Az0th]
#4796593 - 10/13/05 03:38 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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/.
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m00nshine is currently vacationing in Maui. Rumor has it he got rolled by drunken natives and is currently prostituting himself in order to pay for airfare back to the mainland but he's having trouble juggling a hairon addiction. He won't be back for a long while.
Edited by matt (08/31/07 07:34 PM)
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Moonshoe
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 5,536
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 hours, 39 minutes
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Re: how do you practice your spirituality? [Re: spudamore]
#4797261 - 10/13/05 10:09 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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thanks spudamore thats a little better. but i wanna try one more time.
you are going to your room to do some energy work.
WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY DO? like please try to give me a rundown of like, what the hell light work means. i hear so much about this light work and i still dont get what it is. please, how bout this. think of the last occasion that you did light work and describe what you actually thought, or did, or visualized.
if you would anyways id apreciate it im really interested in what lightwork is.
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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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Re: how do you practice your spirituality? [Re: Moonshoe]
#4797516 - 10/13/05 11:32 AM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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Visualize light. Maybe penetrating from a sun shining above your head into your crown liquidly white warmth flowing through you. You could gather at your heart, expanding a circle of light on the inhale and making it denser towards its center on exhale. Let it flow from your root too. Try to feel it. Try to feel like your whole body is breathing, you're breathing through your skin gathering your force and center at a chosen chakra or maybe the body as a whole.
It might be fantasy. Fantasy might be fantastic. But it gives me energy. Doing this on druqz is explosive.
Maybe awareness without interference is preferred, but I try to do a little of both.
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gettinjiggywithit
jiggy
Registered: 07/20/04
Posts: 7,469
Loc: Heart of Laughter
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Re: how do you practice your spirituality? [Re: Moonshoe]
#4797649 - 10/13/05 12:01 PM (7 years, 8 months ago) |
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The term light work and light worker probably has put many off because it sounds so mysterious. I will break it down. You know how we talk about "awakening to the light"? What does that mean? Just becoming aware that there is more going on then the physical itself. Light= information and or energy. becoming aware that subtle energies are in play behind the movements of the physical.
To work with the light just means, you live with awareness and intention of effecting those subtle energies. Before we "awaken to the light" we are moved around my the subtle energies. After someone awakens to it, they can start working with those subtle energies to shape the physical in a conscious way.
I think when a lot of people talk about doing energy work on the body, they are talking about working to keep the chakra system and or energy grid that feeds and supports the physical body healthy.
They do things like, look for blocks of energy and release them, things to increase flows. It's sensitive and intuitive work. You have to be able to sense the subtle energy bodies to feel for blocks and how energy is moving through your body.
Everyone has the sensitivity and can develop it. Just start taking more time to become aware of how, you feel, often. Start making associations with a change in how you feel and what you were just thinking or doing. Soon, you will start to see that certain, activities, environments, or thoughts effect how you feel, some for the better and some for the worse.
Once you start becoming more sensitive to feeling it, then, you can start working with it to better control how you feel and the ideal is to feel, healthy, vital, clear, empowered, and "light" as in not weighed down.
Start monitoring your environments, the influence of the people you hang around, the music you listen too, the food you eat, movies you watch, stuff you read and take note of how you feel when exposed to its energy. Cut back on what feels lousy and bring in more of what feels good.
Once you get good and sensing how you feel, how the energy of stuff effects you, you can start working with chakra clearing, balancing and energy body techniques.
Some people say they just can't notice how they feel one way or another. Many of us shut down our feeling centers when we were young due to emotional hurts and emotional traumas as a protective defense mechanism.
If thats the case, you have to get the feeling centers opened up again and release blocks. Star with chakra work and there's plenty enough information for it on the net.
An AWESOME Chakra work book that really helps give insight into, physical mental and emotional symptoms related to chakras malfunctioning, being inactive -closed, or over acting, over compensating for an inactive one which is not healthy either. It also gives physical exercises for opening blocks and increasing flow.
It's called The Sevenfold Journey, Reclaiming Mind, Body and Spirit Through the Chakras, by Anodea Judith & Selene Vega.
I know a lot of us have read channeled stuff about planetary light workers. Once they got working on their own bodies down, they started to help working on the planetary energy Chakra grid system to helps release energy blocks in the planet and increase incoming "light energy" flows into to help others, awaken, see and become more empowered with it.
same process. Just becoming highly sensitive to the subtle energy fields of the planet and effecting them through mental visualization and intention. For more science types it's like how the observer of quantum particles effects the movement of the particle.
Think of the subtle energy fields like the quantum field.
When people get more into it, they also tend to start working with sound and color light frequencies to shape physical matter.
Like how hospitals use blue light on babies with jaundice. There is science behind it. You can put sand on top of a drum, and hit it with high amps of sound waves and watch it move and take shape to the sound, like the govs HAARP project.
Sound is powerful stuff. high pitches and break glass and the air force isn;'t allowed to break the sound barrier over populated areas because the shock waves are so destructive.
Those asses did it here over Tampa last winter and I thought a Bomb exploded, the house was going to crumble and collapse from the shaking and my chest was going to burst open. The shock waves were awful to feel. It was on the news so many people called in wondering wtf just happened.
Sound is some powerful stuff. Take note of how it effects you when listening to people talk and music.
Anyway, everyone is a lightworker. Some are conscious of how they move energy or are moved by it, some work with it on a subconscious level and some are still totally unconscious of it. Thats why a conscious awakening to the subtle energy fields at play and a sensitivity to feeling them comes before people start being conscious of how they use, move and work with light-energy.
Thats all for now.
For guys, you can make it more fun but thinking of your energy body as an engine and the chakras as gears. You can start playing around with down shifting and shifting up, increasing torque, and do high performance tune ups and and add high performance parts.
Or if you better relate to electrical systems, Think of the system in terms of you body Energy stations (chakras) Then transformers feeding "smaller chakras" and circuit breakers feeding your house and its wiring, nervous system.
Energy body work gets really enjoyable when you get the hang of it.
I feel bad for men in general. It comes easier to women because most of us as girls were encouraged to feel for others and be sensitive. Many boys are discouraged from feeling and told to quit being so sensitive and to toughen up. They did and shut down their feeling centers and abilities.
They have them JUST THE SAME as women do. They give you a behind the scenes advanage with people.
Why else do guys wonder why women start the " whats wrong drilling 3rd degree?" They feel you guys shift or pull away from them emotionally. Guys who are not even sensitive to their own energy have not a clue what they are talking about and never noticed they did, and think the woman is just trying to start crap. They easily notice things like energetic withdrawl from a relationship.
Sorry , this is long. I could energy talk forever when inspired too.
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Ahuwale ka nane huna.
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Moonshoe
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 5,536
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 5 hours, 39 minutes
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thank you very, very much jiggy. that made so much sense
and now that you have described it, i see that i have indeed been doing lightwork for quite some time but way more so even recently.
hmmm. excellent.
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