I made this video back in April to help those who, like me, are highly sensitive and maybe struggling somewhat with stress and anxiety from the pandemic. Many of you may also be picking up too much negative energy from the collective. Things are stressful in the world right now, and if you’re like me, and we have to protect ourselves in the ways we can. I go over a basic energy work foundational concept, shielding. Learn what shielding is, how it works, and how to do it in this video. In my opinion, it will work on the psychological level even if you are skeptical about energy work. I’ve been shielding regularly for 4 years and it has helped me navigate my increasing sensitivity that began during an ascension experience a few years ago. I was in such a heightened state that I was very sensitive to the energy, thoughts and emotions of others. Shielding is instrumental when doing inner work on the astral plane, when out in crowds, and to protect yourself from psychic attack and unwanted energy cords.
11 Tips for Divination
Perhaps you’re interested in learning how to divine for yourself, or you have been divining for a while, as I have, but did not put best practises in place. No matter what form of divination you use, there are a few ways I’ve learned over the years that you can get the most accurate answers. It is too easy when you are in a state of distress and anxiety to project what you wish to hear, or over-divine, looking for the answer that will make sense to you. In so doing, often the replies get more and more muddled and inconsistent.
- Cleansing. Be sure to energetically cleanse yourself, and your tools. You can watch my Youtube videos on energy clearing basics for how to keep your chakras and energy field clear. To clear your tools there are a few methods. Many are aware of how to cleanse crystals on a full moon night, and that is certainly valid, but you don’t have to wait until the full moon to cleanse your divination tools. Also you may not want to leave a deck of cards out in the weather! You can also cleanse your tools in a bowl of sea salt, or just with your mind and energy. Follow my instructions for energy clearing and simply apply it to your tools. You will connect them to the light and bathe them in light charging and renewing them. If you divine a lot, I recommend this once a week, particularly if you have a tendency to over-divine, the energy of desperation can contaminate and confuse your tools.
- Detachment. Try to maintain as open and blank state as possible when you ask your question. Of course when reading for yourself you will be invested in the answer, but for that moment at least when you are shuffling your cards or holding your pendulum, clear your mind as much as possible or just focus on the question without attachment to the result. Our minds are powerful and they can impact the answer.
- Intuition. If you are reading Tarot or throwing the I Ching, use your intuition for when and where to cut the deck. At that moment I ask my guides or my Higher Self to help me choose the right spot to cut. Keeping a state of detachment and openness helps.
- Consult your Guides. If you already are in touch with your spirit guides, great, they can help you with your divination. Try to respect them and only ask questions when you really need to, when you’re serious and going to take the answer to heart. Don’t ask the same question over and over again.
- Get Confirmation. While you shouldn’t ask the same question a ton of different way or every day for a month, it is very wise to get confirmation especially for difficult issues. Ask your pendulum if you have a yes/no question. Then ask the Tarot. Ask to be shown a sign or shown in a dream if what you are asking is true. Look out for synchronicities.
- Branch Out. If you’re well acquainted with divining with the Tarot, try another deck. Or get a pendulum with a crystal that resonates with you. I recommend copper or silver, any pure metal that will conduct energy well. You can also use a necklace if you like and don’t want to buy more things. Learn how to read tea leaves, coffee grounds, or the clouds in the sky. All of nature communicates with us if we would only listen. I found learning the I Ching very beneficial because I use sticks, and it is very time consuming. So when I throw the I Ching, I have a very serious, sincere question that I always get a very serious, sincere answer to. Yes/no questions can be difficult to asses with Tarot. Use a pendulum to get a yes/no and then from there refine your question with Tarot.
- Journal. Take the time to write down your question and the answers you get. If you’re still learning Tarot, this will help you to remember the meanings of the cards,
- Read Inversions. This is a tip for those reading Tarot. If you’ve noticed, the Rider Waite deck has quite a few lovely, positive (and romantic) cards. I noticed a lack of accuracy when I was reading particularly about love interests. I thought maybe I was projecting, but when I started reading inversions I understood the nuance. Inversions allow you to see when an energy is repressed or held within and not expressed. They allow you to see the other side of the coin, it is still that thing extant, but inverted, or reversed.
- Gratitude. If you work with your guides (or Source or Spirit), be sure to treat them with respect and ask nicely for their assistance and guidance, and to thank them for their help. The energy of gratitude is tremendous and really, they are doing a lot for you. They warrant your gratitude. Remember that your guides aren’t puppets doing your bidding, they are real entities who are expending energy to assist you, treat them as you would a beloved and respected elder.
- Don’t Do Frivolous Readings. Early on when I was learning Tarot, I didn’t take it as seriously as I should and I read for my friends, “does this boy like me?” over and over and over again. It very quickly muddied up the readings and made the answers incomprehensible. You can feel when your deck is out of tune. For anyone keen on divination it can be tempting to over-divine. Don’t worry too much if you do, but try to stay mindful and clear your deck before you use it next time.
- Be Precise. One of the most crucial things for divining, whether you are reading for yourself or working with a reader is to have a precise question. Having a great sense of clarity about what you want to know makes all the difference in receiving a clear, accurate answer. If you want to have an intuitive reading where the cards tell you what you need to know, that’s great, but if you have a specific need, refine your question.
The Making of a Mystic
This story is long, and multi-layered, so I will start at the beginning and only go so far, but I will certainly return to this thread in other posts. I was a senior in high school and my cousin procured myself, my boyfriend and our friends some acid. At this point, we had only drank alcohol and smoked weed. This was in the early days of the internet, in 1996, and I never heard of Timothy Leary or heard of “set and setting” or any of that. I only knew it would make you hallucinate and so it should be a fun time.
I’ll spare you all the details of the trip, but suffice it to say that we proceeded as if it were a party, drinking a lot, acting stupid, and then the acid kicked in. I was very sensitive to the violent temper of my boyfriend at that time, and I remember kissing him and seeing and feeling the flesh on our faces fall away until we were moving, kissing skeletons and then we disintegrated into dust.
The most mundane part of the trip struck me the most. I was thirsty, and grabbed a big bottle of Canada Dry and started chugging it. At this point we were seeing trails, but now I didn’t just see the trails, I felt the trails, I *was* the trails. It was the most remarkable thing, I could feel time, I could feel the moment I held the bottle, the moment I lifted the bottle to my mouth and every moment in between, the moment the fizzy ginger ale hit my tongue and the moment it slid down my throat. I was experiencing all of those moments at once, and it was immensely pleasurable. Orgasmic, on an experiential level. That experience of being, of experiencing five seconds of time burned on my memory somehow. My friends and boyfriend didn’t seem to experience acid in the same way that I did. I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment, or those moments, and what it could mean.
Now at this time I was just a little, shy country girl who was raised Methodist then stopped going to Church and didn’t really believe in anything anymore, I guess you could say I was agnostic. The shame I felt growing up Methodist didn’t preoccupy me, though doubtless it still affected my feelings of guilt and shame about embodiment and sexuality on the subconscious level. I was a girl who was just starting to break out of her shell by partying with boys and dying her hair pink and I got a tongue piercing. I listened to Marilyn Manson and fancied myself a rebel. I was breaking free of my old self, and the ways everyone had perceived me and I perceived myself. But I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know what I liked or didn’t like, for the most part. But from then on, I became a seeker more and more. I went to college, and did acid and shrooms, and ecstasy. Again there were these transcendent moments, that were far beyond partying. I had to discover for myself that these are sacred medicines, even the acid “told” me one day, you don’t have to use me to find what you’re looking for. It even instructed me that purifying myself would benefit me more, cleaning up my diet, dropping the caffeine and sugar, and so on. The few times I did acid became an initiatory experience for me into the meaning of life. I recall “seeing” coloured lines of energy and dubbing them “the intertwangles”, a combination word of “intertwine” and “tangle”. I had no idea that what I was seeing then was energy cords connecting everyone in that college dorm. I didn’t know when I saw my suite mate in a beautiful rainbow halo of feathers, that it was her aura.
But that suitemate and I went on a spiritual journey together, she took on the role of my teacher, which would later become a pattern for me, as she seemed to know what was going on more and I lacked self-confidence. We were trying to figure it out together. Everything seemed so grand, so meaningful, so powerful, and everyday life on the campus and even in classes, for the most part, seemed fake and illusory. Life felt like a dream that we were waking up from. I went home from college that summer and my mother had started to take an interest in paganism and Wicca. I picked up her book, Dreams, by Carl Jung, and started to understand some of my potent dreams about the animus, and to learn about my shadow, and why some of my dreams were so dark and nightmarish.
I started to learn about how to do ritual, and how to put myself into a trance. I found I could easily enter the astral realm and see and experience things there. For some reason, I didn’t think that much of it at the time and didn’t pursue it. I could also begin to feel energy between my fingertips when I held my hands closer together. Synchronicities became abundant and I started having visions (sober ones) in the mirror in low light of my face shifting into hundreds of other faces, including a man’s face with a beard. Everything felt charged, powerful and poignant, yet familiar,
Returning to college, my friend I did acid with was now my roommate and we attended goth clubs together, and went to bookstores and got Sandman comics after eating cheap Indian food. We would talk forever and philosophize, but I think it was for the best that we didn’t keep up the intensity of our regular intoxication. Over the summer a relationship ended that I thought was deeply important, one that became clear to me on acid that it was a soulmate relationship, and I entered a depression. My roommate couldn’t help me, and she became frustrated with my torpor. I kept up with classes and decided to switch my major to art. At that point, most of my creative energy got funnelled into that direction and my spiritual and hallucinogenic explorations temporarily got put on the back burner.
But I kept painting about my experiences, and they haunted me. I was obsessed with the feeling of trails, that feeling of being even just a fraction of God. I saw images in art history of Kali and Shiva, many-armed deities and I painted people with multiple arms to explore these remembrances. I started to paint myself as the animus, in form of a doppelgänger. To me, the doppelgänger and the multiplicity of the many-limbed Self were connected, somehow. These images were to occupy me to this day.