Play the game!
Click on words images links
BREATHE SLOWLY, DEEPLY
|
~~This site is a work-in-progress–
Animations on this site are not the creation of the web master
All text and digital art images
Copyright 2005-2009 Melanie A. Stinson
This site supports:
Serge Kahili King’s The Aloha Project
Morphoses, The Wheeldon Dance Company
The Journeywork
Fascinating. I remembered using a fun link some time ago to give myself a Mayan Calendar-based mythic signature or mythos archetype. I’m a Yellow Resonant Seed, and I think the glyph for that on the left looks kind of like a person’s face and like a boat. Ohh, we’re on a journey.
I returned to the link today for some strange reason associated with writing up presentations for schools, conferences, libraries and the like as a writer, artist, dancer and professional weaver of yarns. It is also associated in my intensely jammed full and creative mind with exploring the links between fantasy and science or everyday life options. If you do this like I do, you read books like Life Colors by Pamala Oslie and Energy Medicine by Donna Eden, while remaining a fan of Chris Crutcher, Madeleine L’Engle, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Alice Hoffman, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey and others. You probably also love oracle decks like Brian Froud‘s funky fairy oracle, or the Animal Medicine cards. I hope to receive the Hawaiian deck that contains red-footed booby birds because I love mystic flora and fauna as much as real ones, if you get my drift. And no, I’m not lost in a snow drift although a friend once fell into one as a child and was buried up to his neck. We got him out, though. (this is called going off on a tangent, but it might also be a road less travelled.)
But coming back online here with this, in my exploring I came to the words, “Inspiration Channel Attunement,” and thought, “What? What’s that?” I found those words together on another link with commas between them.
Now, I feel I’m definitely here to inspire as I continue to shift from a workaholic 9-5 jobber to something else, but what caught my attention was that this came in meaningwise to me as though I could give this kind of attunement or activation. Energy practitioners often pass on knowledge to students in this way. I suppose it’s similar to being a mind-melder, ballet teacher, or urban shaman. You absorb, glean, and reverberate in all parts of yourself with what you’re studying and becoming, and your teacher helps you attune, acclimate and assimilate.
For me, “channel” has two meanings, however. I channel energy and ideas, but I also am on a channel or frequency, like a T.V. station, and it is one that behaves as a radio transmission tower. It emits musical theater songs and dance, and tunes of joy and love, plus fairytales and storytelling (using metaphors, archetypes, etc.) bird sounds and waves of bliss.
It’s fun to discover analogies about oneself and see what ancient cultures thought. But I’d like to engage some of you right now both energetically and creatively.
What could I do for you in an Inspiration Channel Attunement, or as an Inspiration Channel for your own form of wavespell? (which sounds an awful lot like my urban fantasy novel, Jones, that I’d like Alex Etel to play the lead in before he’s past the age for it, along with someone yummy and ageless for the extraordinary being, L).
Those of you who resonate with attunements, what kind of Attunement would an Inspiration Channel Attunement be for you? Of course I thought Reiki right off the bat, and I am a Usui Reiki master teacher, who loves Fairy Nature Realms Reiki at the moment, of which I am also a master and teacher, but there are other kinds of Reiki and energies besides these.
What comes to you about this? And if you’d like more links to have your own kind of fun with this “game,” I’ve dropped some in below. I can’t speak for them as I have not yet visited them. There seems to be a lot to know about dreamspells and the Mayan point of view on time. I hope to visit some of these links myself little by little as I feel “called.”
Happy Galactic travels, odysseys, and dreamtime quests!
The POFFF Master/Weaver of Yarns
Don’t forget to comment!
If you’re a Tweep, Twitterer or Facebook type and would rather comment on there about this, please drop me a line or friend me. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, but if I’m playing with moonbeams, eating stone soup, or weaving some galactic yarn, it might not be an immediate response, so I hope you understand.
follow me at http://twitter.com/aplace4us
reply on the web at http://twitter.com/direct_messages/create/aplace4us
http://www.facebook.com/melanieastinson#
Reiki means universal life force energy. It is a way to bring a sense of magic into your life, something we might also call a renewed sense of wonder, of the great mystery that we can forget all too often these days.
READ HERE: A SKEPTIC WRITES ABOUT REIKI
Reiki is an ancient Oriental system of hands-on healing or healing touch that can be likened to being in a room with a sacred being or a loving Yoda who opens you to the divine so you benefit mentally, emotionally, spiritually, energetically and physically.
Many people prefer to see life force energy and include consciousness that is pure spirit in their description of Reiki. These describers of Reiki see it as being of divine origin, and they see the drawing down of Reiki as a drawing down of divine light or divine love.
This ties in with the point of view of conventional spiritual healers, who see themselves as being channels for divine light. And because Reiki is not attached to or allied to any particular religious belief, it is a form of alternative prayer, meditation in relationship, or sacred ritual that can be brought into any home or workplace setting, and can be accepted by all people whether they have no religious beliefs or a very strongly held one.
Another way to define Reiki is to call it spiritual chi. And yes, chi is found in Tai Chi, Chi Qong, and in Aikido (ki being a different spelling). In yoga, chi or ki is known as prana.
You are everything -
if you are healing yourself you heal everything.
The founder of Reiki in Japan, Sensei Mikao Usui saw Reiki as a path to enlightenment or spiritual growth, with healing others as a part of what you did along that path.
In the West, we have been presented with Reiki basically as a treatment or healing technique. This is because one of Mikao Usui’s students was a man called Dr. Hayashi, a retired surgeon commander from the Imperial Navy, and a Christian. Dr Hayashi wasn’t so interested in the ‘spiritual path’ side of Reiki, and he concentrated on Reiki as a healing treatment. Hayashi taught a woman known as Mrs. Takata, and Mrs. Takata brought Reiki to the West.
What is it like to give and receive Reiki?
A Reiki treatment can vary a great deal from one person to another in terms of what they feel when they’re having a session. Most people receiving Reiki enjoy (1) deep relaxation (2) feel heat from the practitioner’s hands, and 3) may see colors.
Reiki treatments make you relaxed: deeply, deeply relaxed. Most people who receive Reiki end up drifting in and out of consciousness. Some people – particularly men – seem to fall asleep.
It’s common for people to feel heat from the practitioner’s hands, sometimes intense heat, a heat so unusual that it’s simply not possible for hands to get that hot on their own.
A common experience is to see colors against your closed eyelids as you are being treated. Sometimes a random rainbow light show, sometimes colors that change depending on what hand-position is being used. For some this is proof that something is happening and that there is some kind of energy occurrence. But feeling Reiki is the real proof.
I see this energy as incredibly personal and loving. It makes you realize
1) that you are not alone in the universe, and 2) that you are not just skin and bones. It is not something that the mind “knows” either. It is something you feel–like an invisible hand of support and comfort.
It's love no matter how you say it
I have worked with children who were suffering from anxiety and who were self-conscious and timid. Sometimes, if a child is open to it, I will give an in-person touch session. But for children who don’t know me, I can also use something I call my “fairy stones.” These are stones that have been treated or activated to Reiki: fairy reiki is a great choice for children. I have seen a fearful young girl unable to present her speech to me begin giving it within a few seconds of holding a fairy stone. She made mistakes and she forgot portions of what she wanted to say, but she moved forward and actually began–and completed the entire presentation! Such experiences are a wonder to behold, which is why I believe in Reiki so much and want school children to be able to have this resource. I have also given sessions to moms and their young child at the same time.
What Can Reiki Do for You?
One thing that Reiki seems to do for most people, whether they’ve come for a series of treatments, or have learned Reiki for themselves, is to produce the following: Reiki helps them feel more calm, content, serene, positive, better able to cope, and not so affected by stressful people and stressful situations.
So people might come for a treatment with everything from depression to a migraine, and they go away feeling more calm and content, more positive, better able to cope, less stressed.
This effect is also something you would notice once you’ve been attuned or activated to the energy. Not necessarily a great big instant transformation, although sometimes it is, but usually something that builds up in you gradually, or perhaps it is something that you start to notice with hindsight. You realize you’re thinking and feeling about things differently, and are less stressed, less bothered by things.
My eighty-something mother, who has had memory loss and reacts quite easily to almost anything, now says, “I believe in Reiki.” And I no longer see her as the person who I fought with as a teenager. I see her as a human being who is calmed and strengthened by Reiki sessions and other treatments like flower essences and CCT.
Reiki clients remained clothed in a session and can receive the energy lying on a massage table, seated in a relaxing chair, or lying on a yoga mat. But, if you’re really stressed and can’t get away, I could even give you a brief session by phone. If it helps you, you may place your hands on the areas of most discomfort and feel what happens! I know I was startled the first time I received a Reiki attunement in what is called a “distance” attunement or session. But it works quite well.1) You can attune or bless anything with Reiki: crystals, shawls, art images.
2) Animals love Reiki. I have seen my diabetic cat stabilize on insulin using Reiki on his food and brief sessions of CCT and Reiki, after a year of using Reiki, glipizide and homeopathic treatments.
3) Wriggling babies like Reiki, too. A simple touch is enough to allow the Reiki flow. In fact it can flow through any part of the body, so for example, a mother can hold the baby against her while she’s receiving a session and they both reap the benefits. How wonderful to coddle an infant’s feet this way!
4) Pregnant women will appreciate Reiki, and the unborn baby will benefit simultaneously.
5) Those people who unfortunately have life-threatening illnesses may not find a complete removal of their problem, but it will certainly bring peace into their lives and make the process of moving on far easier. And when someone has passed on, Reiki sessions can help loved ones cope with the process of grieving, seeing this stage of life in a new way.
6) Reiki 
can be given to a situation, although I prefer to combine Reiki with Crystalline Consciousness Technique (CCT) when I’m asked to work with such things.
7) Regular Reiki sessions used in conjunction with orthodox medications will usually reduce or eliminate the necessary dosage and the side effects. But be sure to consult with a doctor before making any changes to medication.
A little Reiki is better than none, and the more the better as Reiki is cumulative. You can’t receive too much Reiki. There is never a situation in which Reiki is inappropriate or in any way harmful. The Reiki energy knows no limitation. So the only limit is your imagination, and your imagination can do wonders for you when it is given the honor of partnering with the loving energy of Reiki.
Mikao Usui had ‘precepts’ which he passed on to his students, and these are still used today in Reiki training. The precepts are:
Just for today do not anger,
Just for today do not worry,
Be humble,
Be honest in your dealings with people,
Be compassionate towards yourself and others
Reiki has the potential to make a wonderful difference to you and the people you care about, and can fill the spiritual void so many people feel nowadays, as Reiki helps bring things into balance on all levels. It can help you in times of transition and change, and when nothing else seems to bring solace, Reiki can offer hope and comfort much like Aloha, sharing energy in the present moment.
If anything written here feels right for you, if you like what you’re read, if you can see yourself or your children receiving or learning this simple and powerful energy technique, please feel free to contact me and we can explore together what might be the next step for you. You won’t regret it!
Melanie A. Stinson, LMT
Reiki Master Teacher: Usui, Karuna Ki, Empowered & Fairy Realms Reiki
Advanced Crystalline Consciousness Practitioner
Minister of Healing, Universal Life Church
Contact Melanie here
Would you like to do more to help the earth? Are you attracted to nature? Do you feel too serious or easily frightened? Does this sound like something your playgroup would benefit from? Ask me about Fairy Realms Reiki. Mom/child sessions and children’s classes forming in the Toledo-area. 419-308-2926.
Sometimes you need to stay and focus awhile on one image or one sound or one aspect of nature to receive its gifts
Numero Uno. Relaxation – It’s the gateway to awareness. Ahhhh.
Number Two. You can get that here free, but it usually feels better to receive it through physical contact. That means massage, Reiki, healing touch, breathwork, energy work like CCT – Crystalline Consciousness Technique, hugging your children (if you have them), and giving members of your family and your good friends opportunities to receive sessions that offer professional touch as gifts.
Look for deals in the Toledo area HERE
Please leave comments so others will know this is the place to BE, explore, learn and more–virtually Free.
Second in the series…
There’s nothing I like more than a day of enchantment and that’s certainly what I experienced Sunday, October 5, in the Big Apple. I knew I would attend the open class and rehearsal for Morphoses at the New York City Center, which has an incredible celebration of dance this autumn.
It was such a delight to watch ballet master Jeffrey Edwards teach company class. He used vocal sounds, and vivid vocabulary and imagery that obviously connected with the dancers. He seemed to give the dancers what they needed to prepare them for performance, something that is decidedly different from teaching dancers and sustaining them in daily class. I noticed something that perhaps only New York City Ballet ballet masters and teachers might address, what I can only call a lack of support for the upper back in the male dancers taking Morphoses’ class. Each of them had trouble on turns, losing the upper back and shoulders and therefore losing the turn.
After this classroom view, came an illuminating talk with Christopher Wheeldon, and then we were able to see Shutters Shut, which I had seen the night before. Set to a Gertrude Stein poem with voice and no music, I could again see the way in which Wheeldon is bringing in choreographers pushing the boundaries of the arts as Diaghilev once did, exploring dance in conjunction with other mediums. The dancers spoke Stein’s language and the language of the husband and wife team of Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon.
After this, I knew I would set off to see what lay at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, a location I had used in a poem about Duo Concertante, in what seemed like a haphazard fashion. Why had that location come to mind? I didn’t know what was there. As I walked east from City Center I saw the number 140. Again in a somewhat wily nily fashion (or was it intuition), I decided to be at that corner at 1:40 p.m. I took pictures along the way as I do, noting how certain themes arose in my head as I walked.
At 1:40 p.m., I noticed the scaffolding on one side of Fifth Avenue. Though I rather blanketly discounted it, it still worked on me from behind the scenes, for scaffolding means something is being built. On the other side of Fifth, however, I began to notice roofs within Central Park. What is this, I wondered. The trees had a mystical, almost faerie-like appearance. My heart sang, Fairyland.
What is this, I asked again. I reached stairs going down and as I began my descent saw to my complete amazement, the actor Russell Crowe talking to a slighter man. I had an internal dialogue with myself that went something like this.
“Shit, it’s Russell Crowe. What do I do?”
I discounted asking for his autograph as being simply moronic and something that someone who’d grown up in Bowling Green, Ohio, would do. Having lived in the New York metro area for some 20 years, I knew I simply would not do it. I flashed to my camera as I had been taking pictures all along.
Do I ask him if I could take his picture? As I stood there, I finally allowed the feeling of the scene to wash over me instead of focusing on some need to act. I knew he would not want his picture taken. I knew somehow not to intrude. I heard his Australian accent. I also felt and would process later the most incredible power coming from him, and without knowing what I was doing consciously, I honored it. I let the two men go ahead, still wondering what this was all about for me. They disappeared in a crowd of people that was like a scene out of Shakespeare or a film version of La Sylphide, which I have been working on in script form.
Again, I began to see England and fairyscapes. Then I turned a corner and went nuts with all that greeted me. I wished I were the best professional photographer in the world, all the while taking pictures. Children swarmed around me.
A little girl in pink came toward me and said, “There’s a slide over there. A slide!”
“I know,” I said, spying it. Of course, I took a picture with my trusty little Kodak. And then I saw them… bridges… bridges everywhere… in silver chain, lined with tree stumps and stones… some narrow… some you could never walk across your self as they bridged space or other dimensions, and the enchanted fairy realms. I had seen the sign that said, Children’s Zoo, but somehow had never been in there.
As I meandered, I came to a bridge with a fence. On one corner sat a crow. I am not making this up. I may be an urban fantasy writer with a vivid imagination, but I did not make this up.
The crow cocked his head at me. Magpie flew into my head. I was stunned that he didn’t fly away as I stood so close to him. His beak seemed a spectacular golden yellow. I took his picture. Still he didn’t fly away. Then as I continued to walk and glanced upward, I saw two pinkish-orange parrots up high that did not move. I knew immediately that they were fake. I kept walking and never looked back. I was now wondering if I really saw the crow, if the crow was real or some paper mache animated thing, and for a brief moment felt as though I were in some incredible dream. But I wouldn’t allow it to be only dream. Russell Crowe had been real, as real as we are as embodiments of energy.
At some point during this I began to hear the music from Pirates of the Caribbean. Swashbuckling music. This along with the feelings of ancient England continue to embue me even now.
The next day, I went to one of my favorite haunts, East/West Books, to pick up a crystal or two, and see what else was in store for me there. After picking up Siberian Jet, a light light stone from which I feel such peace, I held some other stones, ocean quartz, rutilated quartz, orange selenite, and others. I could not decide between them. Suddenly, a staff person appeared, and she seemed to know exactly what I needed. She opened a cabinet and procured a small piece of Danburite, a calcium borosilicate crystal. She also asked if I knew about The Book of Stones, which I did not.
She made me a copy of the page on Danburite and for some reason I asked if she’d make me a copy of the one on Moldavite, a stone I’d encountered on my last visit and with which I was working along with Peridot, both green stones. Besides writing and working with the story of La Sylphide, I have been drawn to the tales of King Arthur and Merlin throughout my life and am using this story in other writing.
This is a small part of what The Book of Stones says about Moldavite: “Throughout history, and even into pre-history, Moldavite has been regarded as a spiritual talisman… More recently, Moldavite has been viewed as a relic of the legend of the Holy Grail. In some recountings, the Grail was said to be not a cup, but a stone, an Emerald that fell from the sky. In other stories, the Grail cup was carved from the Emerald. The correspondences of the Stone of the Grail and Moldavite are clear. The ancients called all clear green gemstones ‘Emeralds,’ and Moldavite is the only such stone ever to have fallen from the sky. In history, there was even a physical ‘Grail’ discovered and brought to Napoleon, who was disappointed to find it was green glass. But, of course, Moldavite is green glass. Another chalice, this one made of gold and adorned with Moldavites, was passed down through the centuries and disappeared during the second World War…”
Well, for those with a penchant for the mystical, for history, and for tales of enchantment, such information is thrilling indeed.
What does any of this have to do with Monotones II? Something about sorcery, celestial beings, and the process of discovery. I have seen the piece performed by the Royal Ballet and the Joffrey. If you’re not a ballet dancer, you may not know its difficulty. When I saw it performed by the Morphoses cast on Saturday evening, my first thought was, I would never want to perform this ballet. I believe I’ve had that thought about it before, but couldn’t say now with which company or why. I didn’t know why until the performance of the piece ended and I turned to my friend, also a dancer.
What I noticed was that my focus went to the dancers and not to the choreography. What was lacking for me were the feelings of mystery and sacred something I have experienced when the piece is in sync and when the performance of it is also a mystery, the dancers as flawless technically as they are musical, reverent, and able to be moved deep in themselves.
I noticed ribs protruding, a kind of thinness that hurt. I noticed the largeness of the male dancers’ bodies and the nuances of their musculature. I noticed that the ballerina’s leotard was wrinkled over her solar plexus and seemed almost too large for her. I know that I thought I would never want to perform the ballet because I noted every shift from each of the male dancers that wasn’t part of the piece as choreographed. Otherwise, the dancers were technically perfect, and Wendy Whelan captured a muted kind of reverence. Muted though, not soaring, not quite resonant enough. I wondered if Wheeldon had chosen this piece as much for the dancers’ growth as for it being Ashton.
When the performance ended and I turned to my friend, she said, “They were totally wrong for this. Miscast.” When I discussed what had happened for me, we agreed that somehow that was a sign that the dancers had not been able to overcome their bodies, and whatever else was at play here. I know I felt that the ballerina would need the most ravishing and perfect body ever imagined. I don’t know if that is really true, but it is what I thought. However, when a dancer transports you, and Wendy Whelan often does this, the mind turns off and one simply experiences.
For more of this continuing tale and for the seagull’s message… please stop back.
You choose the wording, and you make it sing!
What is a Staycation? Literally what it says: you stay around or in your locale for your vacation. A Spa Vacation Day or Weekend is a bit different.
It can be an adventure that starts here–online–as you gather information about what you want to experience that’s restorative or says spa and vacation to you (and members of your family if they or someone else is included).
Here are some ideas:
Pampering
Delicious food: depending where you are–Souen in New York City;
Poco Piatti in Perrysburg or Toledo; Nagoya Japanese Steak House
Spa products
Being on a beach, near water, or in nature: Wildwood Preserve in Toledo, Wintergarden St. John’s Woods in Bowling Green, Ohio; Nyack State Park, Rockland State Park or Central Park in New York
Exploring new places like a local bookstore or magical shop like The Happy Badger Trading Portal in Bowling Green, Ohio or East/West Books in New York City, or discovering little nook art galleries like Spectrum in the Toledo Botanical Gardens, the latest show at the Toledo Museum of Art, or something else equally cool and inspiring and maybe inside on hot summer days (such as after strolling through the Crosby Arts Festival). Smelling the roses is a fine way to go.
Something exotic
Going shopping
Seeing a Broadway show or something similar
Visits to local haunts, favorite or new: Try the 577 Foundation in Perrysburg for community gardens and an awesome biodome. There’s also a children’s garden that the fairies adore!
Need directions?
Make your list, and then you invent and intend. You can even try the lens “Give Yourself That Million Dollar Treatment” and ask for a spa vacation. See where it takes you–mentally, physically, energetically, spiritually.
If you’re into spending a little bit on yourself because you’re that worthwhile, you might start by having breakfast at a new little nook that seems exotic. Maybe that’s a Paneras, or Cafe Marie’s, or if you’re in Bowling Green, Ohio, Call of the Canyon.
Or maybe you’ll rise at dawn, pack up your camping gear and head for your backyard or that campground a few miles away that you always intended to visit but never have. Or maybe today’s a visit to the Butterfly House to inspire that butterfly or fairy garden you’ve been meaning to create.
You could literally give yourself a session in a spa or with a practitioner who you know brings heaven on earth, or you could travel to your bathroom, local health food store, or a beauty products haven and pick up some aromatherapy products–candles, bath beads, whatever catches your eye–and, you could also visit your local flower farm or florist or your own garden and use what you have: rose petals, any fragrant flower for a bouquet (or stay outside on your lounger and inhale, relax, visualize, and meditate).
What totally awesome Sex in the City kind of drink comes to mind? Get the ingredients and make one. Or better yet, watch the movie and get re-inspired. Have a Girls’ Night Out. You might even add some get happy entertainment like a fairy or angel reading.
You can also play some inspiring music. Some of my favs include: Enya, Rob Thomas, Yanni, musicals like Hair Spray or Mary Poppins, and classical music like anything Mozart.
I’m listening to Josh Groban as I write this–remembering the rain and the train of thought that says, “After the Rain” Christopher Wheeldon choreography and poetry like Rumi, a night on the town, and later, some moon, cloud or star-gazing.
Hopefully this will get you started and maybe some tunes or books (curling up with a great book is vacation material to me).
Whatever you do, think “enchanted” and you’ll find something magical comes your way, for sure. Don’t forget after your power nap, to open your eyes and ears and heart to receive it!
Check out: Restoratives or
|
