Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Denise Linn
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
1 Home as Being
2 My Journey
3 The Four Steps to House Clearing
4 Purifying Fire
5 Holy Water
6 The Alchemy of Air
7 Healing Earth
8 Sacred Sound
9 Mystic Symbols for the Home
10 Moving into a New Home
11 Your House as Metaphor
12 Into the Light
13 The Art of Placement
14 Home Protectors and Energizers
15 Ghostbusting
16 Circle-of-Life Method
17 Interior Realignment Systems
18 Creating Sacred Space in Your Office
19 Transmitting the Light
Appendix
Notes
About Denise Linn
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Everything in the universe consists of constantly changing energy, including our homes and their contents. By clearing and enhancing this energy, we can turn our living spaces not only into special sanctuaries for ourselves but also into places that radiate positive energy for the benefit of others.
In the tenth anniversary edition of this book, Denise Linn shows how we can infuse our homes and workplaces with a very special quality so they become nurturing centres of healing and strength. Drawing on her Cherokee Indian heritage, as well as knowledge she has personally collected from native traditions around the world, international healer and bestselling author Denise Linn offers simple but effective techniques including the use of:
to help us create a sacred space wherever we make our home.
Denise Linn is an international healer, writer and lecturer. She has taught seminars in nineteen countries and has written twelve books, including Sacred Space and Feng Shui for the Soul. She has also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and in numerous documentaries, as well as on BBC TV and the Discovery and Lifetime TV channels. Denise lives in the central Californian wine region where she and her husband, David, are planning a small vineyard dedicated to producing sacred wine.
Pocketful of Dreams
Dream Lover
Past Lives, Present Dreams
Signposts
Source for instructional videos, CDs and tapes
Information about Denise Linn’s instructional video on creating sacred space, Instinctive Feng Shui for Creating Sacred Space, and a wide range of Denise’s guided meditation tapes and CDs are available worldwide from: QED Recording Services, Lancaster Road, New Barnet, Herts. EN4 8AS, England; website: http://www.qed-productions.com; e-mail: enquiry@qed-productions.com
For professional certification or to find an Interior Alignment Practitioner
For information regarding Denise Linn’s professionally certified Feng Shui and Space Clearer instructors and practitioners please visit website: www.InteriorAlignment.com
Sources for flower essences
For Bach Flower Remedies, contact The Dr Edward Bach Healing Centre, Mount Vernon, Sotwell, Wallingford, Oxon, England.
For Australian Bush Flower Essences, contact Essential Energies, 54 Clifton Street, Richmond, Melbourne, Australia 3121.
For Alaskan Flower Essences, contact Alaskan Flower Essence Project, P.O. Box 1369, Homer, Alaska, USA 99603–1369; toll-free (for calls made within North America only) 1–800–545–9309; telephone 1–(540)–937–2153; fax 1–(540)–937–3360; e-mail: Info@alaskanessences.com; website: www.alaskanessences.com
For more in-depth study of stones
A. Melody, Love is in the Earth; a Kaleidoscope of Crystals, Earth-Love Publishing House, Wheat Ridge, Co. USA 80033
For further reading about the consciousness of plants
Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants, Avon Books, New York, NY, 1973.
To explore further the power of colour
Lilian Verner Bonds, Discover the Magic of Colour, Optima, a division of Little, Brown and Company (UK) Limited, London, 1993. In this book, Lilian gives in-depth information of all the shades and hues of the different colours (rather than just the traditional rainbow palette).
Vicky Wall, The Miracle of Colour Healing, The Aquarian Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, London, 1990.
For further reading about the power of light and EMFs
Jacob Liberman, Light: Medicine of the Future, Bear & Company Publishing, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1991.
Ellen Sugarman, Warning: The Electricity Around You May Be Hazardous to Your Health, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1992.
Laurie Tarkan, Electromagnetic Fields: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Health, Bantam Books, New York, NY, 1994.
Denise currently offers professional certification courses in Soul Coaching. In these intensive retreats she personally trains individuals to become highly qualified professional life coaches. She incorporates her many years as a feng shui and space-clearing teacher into this training. She offers courses at Summerhill Ranch in the central coast region of California, as well as throughout the world, working through an interpreter.
For information about her courses, go to her website: DeniseLinn.com
Or write to:
Denise Linn Seminars
PO Box 759
Paso Robles, California, USA
93447–0759
Thanks to:
David Linn, my husband and life companion for support and love; Claire Brown for your excellent editing skills and friendship; Brand Fortner Ph.D., my brother, for scientific editorial assistance;
Sandra Holtzinger for helping me understand the importance of home;
Marika Burton for your beauty and magic;
Karen Kingston, Vicky Patterson, Astrid Neeme, Credo Mutwa for contributions to this book;
Kathy Lynch, Rebbeca Nelson, Patti Nugent, Barb Kelly, Karl Bettinger and Paulina Howfield for the depth of your love.
And thanks to Lynne Franks, soul sister and friend.
The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
abundance, 174–6
adventure, 185–6
agate, 110
air, 74–98, 115, 265–6, 269–70, 280, 281, 307–8
air purifiers, 89, 95–7
allies, 233–42
altars, 183–4
amber, 110
amethyst, 110
angels, 228–32, 315
animal odours, 86, 96
animals, 233–42, 250
aquamarine, 110
aquariums, 72, 177–8
architects, 168–9
aromatherapy, 68–9, 82–9, 307–8
astrology, 155
auras, 9, 30–1, 34–5, 201
aventurine, 110
ba-gua, 215–21, 303
Balinese temple bells, 127–8
bathrooms, 88, 188, 214, 240
baths, salt, 28, 101–2
beauty, 184–5
bedrooms, 88, 89, 106, 187–8, 238–9
‘being’, house as, 3
beliefs, subconscious, 171–2
bells, 29, 33, 35, 104, 122, 125–32
bi-locations, 258–9
black, 198–9
bloodstone, 110
blue, 51, 197, 308
Blue Flame meditation, 41–3
bowls of water, 71–2
brain waves, 92, 135
brass bells, 127
breathing, 74–5, 90
‘breathing a room’, 82
bronze bells, 127
Buddhism, 76
builders, 168–9
building your own home, 168–70
burial sites, 291
‘calling down the sun’, 43
candles, 40, 43, 47–52, 54, 55, 84, 245, 261
carnelian, 110
cedar, 64, 77
ceilings, 213–14
chakras, 48, 167
chanting, 144–5, 274–5
‘charging’ water, 61–2
chi, 207–8, 209–10, 225
Christianity, 57–8, 103, 104, 149
circle, symbol, 147–9, 264–5
Circle of Life, 263–81
citrine, 110
clap sticks, 141–2
clapping, 142, 291
cleaning, 166, 291–3, 306–7, 311–12
colour, 190–201, 226
candles, 49–52
and emotions, 193–4
gemstones, 111
healing, 193
in offices, 308–11
plants, 118, 119
rainbows, 201
sound, 125
stained glass, 200
water, 72, 201
consciousness, 6–7, 9–10, 113–14
copper, 120–1, 127
coral, 110
cosmology, 209
creativity, 177
crisis apparitions, 258
crop circles, 148
cross symbol, 149, 246
crystal-charged water, 62
crystals, 36, 55, 71, 104, 107–9, 201, 220, 221, 251
desks, 302–4
diffusers, aromatherapy, 85
drawers, clearing, 19–20, 173–4
dreams, 58, 70, 166, 186
druid balls, 131
drums, 33, 135–40, 271–4
earth, 99–121, 266–7, 268, 270–1, 281
East, 265–6
Eight, numerology, 161
electricity, 55, 188–9, 306
electromagnetic fields (EMFs), 182, 203–6, 305–6
elementals, 115–17
elements, 265–7, 268–71, 280–1
elves, 115, 118
emotions, 8–9, 188, 193–4
energy, 3–4
chi, 207–8, 209–10, 225
energizers, 36, 247–52
energizing water, 30
gardens, 118–20
invocation, 32–6
offices, 306–7, 308–11
overlapping fields, 7–9
plants, 119–20
prana, 90
preservation, 36–7
sound, 122–3, 125
stagnant, 29, 31–2, 130–1
subconscious beliefs, 172
symbols, 147–8
trees, 114–15
Epsom salts, 46, 102
essential oils, 69, 83–9, 307–8
Estonia, 285–6
etheric energies, 98, 105, 121
eucalyptus oil, 87, 108
fairies, 115–17
feathers, smudging, 80–1
Feng Shui, 168, 207–26
ferns, 95, 119
fire, 38–56, 115, 266, 270, 280, 281
Fire Dedication Ceremonies, 53–5
fireplace fires, 53
fish, 72
Five, numerology, 152–3, 159
floors, 189
flowers, 64–5, 66–8
fluorspar, 110
flutes, 145, 226
foundation ceremonies, 169–70
Four, numerology, 158
Four Directions house clearing, 267–80
frankincense, 87
front entrances, 187, 211–13, 237–8
fun, creating, 179–80
gardens, 116–19
garnet, 110
gemstones, 110–11, 280
geomancy, 168
ghosts, 253–62, 291
gnomes, 115, 117
gods and goddesses, 251–2
gongs, 122, 132–3
green, 50, 196–7
greeting new homes, 164–5, 168
Guardian Trees, 111–12, 114
guardians, 227–32, 241–4
hands, sensitizing, 31
happiness, 179–80
healing, 16–19, 58, 193, 239
health, 182–3
heart chakra, 48
herbs, smudging, 76–80
homeopathy, 68
house clearing, four steps to, 21–37
house reading, 295
humidifiers, 69–70, 307
incense, 76, 81–2
infinity symbol, 149–50
insects, 118–19
intention, house clearing, 22–6
intuitive Feng Shui, 221–6
invocation:
air, 82–9
earth, 107–11
fire, 47–53
house clearing, 32–6
water, 66–9
ionizers, 92, 93–5, 97, 307
ions, 65–6, 70, 72, 90–5
jade, 110
kitchens, 88, 240
lamps, 52
land, building your own home, 168
land-form system, Feng Shui, 208–9
lanterns, 52
lapis lazuli, 110
lavender oil, 83, 87, 88
lemon verbena, 64
ley lines, 9
light, 190–206, 225
lighting:
full spectrum, 201–3, 310
in offices, 309–10
lightning, 93, 95, 96
linghams, 109–11
living rooms, 88, 89, 239
love, 12–13, 176, 220
lunar-charged water, 61–2
malachite, 110
mantras, 144–5
master numbers, 162–3
Medicine Wheel, 264–5, 267, 271, 277–81
meditation:
Blue Flame, 41–3
candle, 43
Four Elements, 269–71
Medicine Wheel, 279
meditation rooms, 88, 89
tree-of-light, 115
metaphor, your house as, 171–89
mirrors, 55, 212, 213, 218–19, 251, 302, 303
missing areas, 218–20
misting, water-purification ceremonies, 65–6
Moon Water, 61–2
moonstone, 111
Mother Earth, 99, 100–1, 103, 107, 135, 268
moving home, 164–7
Moving-in Ceremony, 167, 170
music, 145–6, 225
musical instruments, 123, 124–5
myrrh, 87
naming, 167, 295–6
negative ions, 65–6, 70, 72, 90–5
negative past, releasing, 180–2
night gardens, 116
Nine, numerology, 161–2
North, 266–7
numerology, 151–63
nymphs, 115
objects:
energizers, 248–52
placement in offices, 301–6
office totems, 240–1
offices, 297–314
oil lamps and lanterns, 52
One, numerology, 155–6
orange, 50, 195
orange oil, 86, 87
organization, 173–4
oxygen, 90, 95
ozone, 95–6, 97
paint, 200
paraffin lamps, 52
passion, 178–9
peace, 177–8
pearls, 111
pentagram, 149
personality, new homes, 165–6
phoenix, 39
photos, 247–8, 311
pine, spring-water purification, 64
placement, art of, 207–26
plants:
consciousness, 113–14
flower remedies, 66–8
gardens, 116–19
indoor, 36, 119–20
in offices, 307
smudging, 76–80
spring-water purification, 63–5
totem plants, 118
trees, 111–13
pollution, 90, 94–5, 307
poltergeists, 257–8
pools, 71, 117
positive ions, 90–5
Power Point, Office, 304–6
‘power walk’, 278
prana, 90
prayers, 31, 35–6, 76, 246, 272, 275–7
preparation:
air, 74–6
connecting with the Spirit of Earth, 101–2
house clearing, 22–8
with water, 59–61
preservation:
air, 89–98
earth, 111–21
with fire, 55–6
house clearing, 36–7
water, 69–73
protectors, 36, 227–46
psychometry, 8
purification:
air, 76–82
fire, 43–7
house clearing, 28–32
salt, 102–6
water, 63–6
purple, 51, 197–8
pyramids, 250–1
Pythagoras, 151
quartz crystals, 36, 62, 71, 107, 110, 111
rainbow light, 201
rainbow water, 62
rattles, 140–1, 275–7
red, 49–50, 194–5, 308
rose quartz, 110
sage, smudging, 76–7
salamanders, 115
salt, 28, 101–6, 108, 286–8, 313
Scotland, 288–90
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), 203
self, house as, 186–9
sensitizing hands, 31
Seven, numerology, 160–1
seven-day candles, 52, 55
shaking, 34
shamans, 135, 204, 271
‘silent sound’, 122, 124
silicon dioxide, 107
silver bells, 127–8
simplicity, 180
singing, 145
singing bowls, 134
Six, numerology, 153, 159–60
smells, aromatherapy, 82–9
smoke, 76–82
smoky quartz, 111
smudging, 76–81, 274
sodalite, 111
solar-charged water, 61
souls, trees, 112–13
sound, 122–46, 225
South, 266
Spirit of Air, 74–6, 80, 98
Spirit of Earth, 101, 121
Spirit of Fire, 40–1, 55–6
Spirit of the Home, 167, 242–4
Spirit of Water, 59–61, 72–3
spirit protectors, 227–46
spirituality, 183–4
spring-water purification, 63–5
square, symbols, 149
squeakies, 145
stagnant energy, 29, 31–2, 130–1
stained glass, 200
stones, 109–11, 278–80
subconscious beliefs, 171–2
sugalite, 110
sun:
‘calling fire’ from, 43
solar-charged water, 61
sunlight, 202–3
sweetgrass, smudging, 77
sylphs, 115
symbols, 147–63, 171, 186, 209, 226
tables, office, 305
Three, numerology, 157
tiger’s eye, 111
toilets, 215
toning, 143–4
totems, 118, 233–42
tourmaline, 111
‘treasure maps’, 174–5
trees, 111–13, 114–15
triangle, symbols, 149
trolls, 115
tuning forks, 133–4
turquoise, 111
Two, numerology, 156–7
undines, 115
universe, interaction with, 4–6
vaporizers, 84–5, 89
walls, 189
warming up exercises, 30
water, 30, 57–73, 115, 188, 201, 220, 266, 270, 280, 281
water sprites, 115, 117
waterfalls, 70–1, 93, 117, 178
West, 266
white, 51, 198
wind chimes, 134–5, 225
windows, 214, 302, 303
winds, 92–3
work, 298–300
yellow, 50, 196, 308
yin and yang, 4, 91, 138, 209, 210–11
Zulus, 282–5
Chapter 6: Alchemy of Air
1. Massy, Robert, You Are What You Breathe, Boulder Creek, California: University of the Trees Press, 1980, p. 1.
2. Soyka, Fred with Edmonds, Alan, The Ion Effect, New York: Bantam Books, 1977, p. 20.
3. Massy, pp. 25–8 (Appendix).
4. Ibid., p. 28 (Appendix).
5. Ibid., p. 25 (Appendix).
6. Ibid.
7. Soyka with Edmonds, pp. 64–8.
8. Massy, p. 28 (Appendix).
9. Ibid., p. 4.
10. Ibid., p.5.
Chapter 7: Healing Earth
1. Chase, Pamela Louise and Pawlik, Jonathan, Trees for Healing: Harmonizing with Nature for Personal Growth and Planetary Balance, North Hollywood, California: Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc., 1991, pp. 25–6.
2. Ibid., pp. 26–7.
Chapter 12: Into the Light
1. Liberman, Jacob, Light: Medicine of the Future, Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear & Company Publishing, 1991, p. 9.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p.41.
4. Ibid., pp. 45–6.
5. Ibid., pp. 46–7.
6. Ibid., pp. 58–9.
7. Ibid., p. 59.
8. Ibid. p. 10.
9. Ibid., pp. 121–7.
10. Time-Life Books, (Ed), Mysteries of the Unknown: Earth Energies, Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1991, p. 61.
11. Girdlestone, Rodney, ‘Electromagnetic fields’, Mind Body Soul: The Alternative Lifestyle Magazine, Sept/Oct 1994, p. 21.
12. Ibid., pp. 22–3.
Chapter 15: Ghostbusting
1. Time-Life Books (Ed), Mysteries of the Unknown: Hauntings, Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1989, p. 22.
2. Ibid., p. 23.
3. Ibid.
The cedar waxwings arrived today. For some people January 1st chronicles the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another. To me it is the arrival of the cedar waxwings. These sleek, golden birds with their distinctive bandit-style mask of black around their eyes and red, wax-like tipped wings signal to me the passing of yet another year. They are a harbinger of the transition out of the darkness into the light, as we move towards spring. They will only stay for a week or so, during which time they will restlessly hop on the branches of the mulberry tree in front of our home, delicately eating its catkins, before continuing on their migration. But these few days that they are here are magic, a promise of renewal and brighter days ahead.
Ten migratory cycles have passed since I first wrote Sacred Space. Ten times flocks of crested waxwings have found refuge in the mulberry tree. So much has happened in those ten years.
When I wrote Sacred Space it was one of the first books written about feng shui, but now there are over six hundred and counting. Ten years ago almost no one could pronounce the word ‘feng shui’, let alone understand what it was. Now there are feng shui sections in bookstores and major department stores advertise products for ‘good feng shui’.
Sacred Space was also the first book to go into depth about the ancient tradition of cleansing and harmonizing the energy in a home or business. At the time that I wrote this book there was no name to describe this art, so I coined a phrase for it: ‘space clearing’. When I originated this term I remember being worried that people might find it strange. It almost sounded like someone had a broom up in the stars and was trying to clear space. But somehow the name stuck and now there are numerous books written about ‘space clearing’, and even a number of books with the words ‘space clearing’ in the title.
Over the last ten years I have received thousands upon thousands of glowing cards, letters and e-mails from people who have successfully used the techniques described in Sacred Space. Quite frankly, I was overwhelmed by the volume of correspondence, but I was also delighted to hear of the great benefit many have received from the techniques described in this book.
When I wrote Sacred Space I never imagined that it would become a bestseller. I just wanted to share some methods that I had found valuable in my own life. But somehow this simple book must have struck a cord, perhaps because of its message that the energy in your home can make a difference in the quality of your life. Maybe it was the right message at the right time.
Our homes have become increasingly important in the last ten years. Five years ago, when we approached the turn of the century, many people were fearful about a millennium disaster and sought refuge in the sanctuary of their homes. And even when we entered the new millennium without much strife, a nebulous concern about the future still seemed to weigh heavy on many people’s minds – a fear that came into focus on September 11, 2001. After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in America, polls showed that most people in westernized countries were travelling less and spending more time at home. In the last few years our personal spaces have become wombs of safety amidst changing times, and books and television shows about creating beauty and harmony in the home have blossomed.
I am not dissimilar to most people as I also spend more time at home today than I did ten years ago. David, my husband, and I live on forty acres in the wine country of central California amidst rolling, oak-covered hills and vineyards. So much of what I talk about in Sacred Space relates to living in balance with the earth, and it is here at our home Summerhill Ranch that I walk barefoot on the earth and climb four-hundred-year-old oak trees. It is here that I have sunk my roots and find refuge through holding the rich soil in my hands and watching the arrival of waxwings . . . finding my personal ‘sacred space’.
In Sacred Space I said, ‘the energy radiating from your home can be like a small stone dropped into a still pool of the universe, whose ripples will be felt at the farthest shore of the cosmos.’ I believe that this is even truer now than it was ten years ago. In today’s uncertain times there is a tendency to focus on what is out of balance in the world and to bemoan these difficult times. However, from a spiritual perspective, there has never been a more profound time to be alive. It is through adversary and challenges that we can unfurl our sails to the wind. Through the creation of sacred space in our homes and work places we can infuse our lives and even the world around us with sweet divine energy.
This book is dedicated to our daughter, Meadow Marie, who always has a Sacred Space in our hearts
OUR HOMES ARE mirrors of ourselves. They reflect our interests, our beliefs, our hesitations, our spirit and our passion. They tell a story about how we feel about ourselves and the world around us. A home is more than a place to lay your head and seek comfort from the elements. It is a place where you can interface with the universe. It is a crossing point in time and space that can attract energy or repel energy.
Your home can be a place of renewal and hope. It can be a sanctuary within which you can retreat and recharge during the changing times; an oasis of peace amidst turmoil. Homes can be places of healing and regeneration. Not only can your home help to strengthen and heal you, but your home can be a template of harmony within which you and all who enter can be invited to step up to a higher level of spiritual frequency.
Your home can be the overlap between the inner universe and the outer universe, the crossing point between inner and outer realities. It can be a focus point for magic and power and spirit. Your home can be a power point, a vortex of energy on the planet. Like an echo heard throughout infinity, your home can be a transmitter of luminous energy. The energy radiating from your home can be like a small stone dropped into a still pool of the universe, whose ripples will be felt at the farthest shore of the cosmos.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century our homes are going to be increasingly important. It is now essential that our homes become sacred places as we solidify our place in the universe. It is valuable to infuse our living spaces with a sense of cosmic order – to bring integrity into our homes so that they are in balance with our basic beingness and the flow of creation. Our homes can offer sanctuary and renewed hope during times ahead which may be potentially difficult, yet absolutely exhilarating. They can provide us with a sacred space where we can remember who we are and remember why we are here on the planet at this time.
In the evolution of our earth, as we move further into the new millennium, there has never been a more powerful time to be alive. Now is a time filled with potential for change, for realization of our dreams, for evolution on both a personal and a global basis. All around us we see a world increasingly polluted and fraught with conflict as ancient prophecies come to fruition. And yet, despite these grim manifestations of possible doom, there is an underlying sense of hope.
We know in our hearts that an opportunity, golden and glistening as a new morning, sits waiting just beyond the horizon. The question is, how can we take the opportunity available at this time and use it to transform our lives, our relationships and our world? One of the keys to answer this question lies in the environment around you, and more specifically your home. There are ways that you can transform this energy. By harmonizing and clarifying the energy in your home, you can open channels within your living space, so that your home is a collection point for energy. Your home in turn will radiate this energy in the form of love and light to the rest of the world and the universe beyond.
Your home can be a transmitting station for the Light!
This book is about energy. It is a book about understanding the energy in your home and how it interacts with the energy of the universe. My intention in creating this book is to show you ways in which you can cleanse and accentuate the energy in your home so that not only does it provide a sanctuary for you, your family and friends, but it can also be a vortex of radiating energy that is beneficial for many others. In this book you will learn many different techniques, some which have been used by shamans and healers for centuries, to cleanse the energies in your home. You also learn how to enhance and intensify the energy in your home so that your home becomes a ray of hope and light in the shifting times of change.
To understand how to cleanse and clear the energies in your home it is essential to understand how our living spaces fit into the context of life around us. To do this it is valuable to understand three basic tenets that underlie all the space-clearing techniques you will be learning:
Understanding these tenets leads to the awareness that: your home is composed of energy; it is not separate from you; it is an evolving being. This book is about understanding that your home is an evolving energy that has consciousness. It has a ‘Beingness’ with which you can communicate; a ‘Being’ that can provide protection and healing for you and your family as you understand and honour its livingness. Learning to interface with your living spaces can contribute to creating a life that is balanced and in harmony with the energy of all that surrounds you.
Ancient Native Americans understood that all forms of life, from the clouds, to the trees, to the buffalo that roamed the great plains, were all transient swirling patterns of energy. This is an understanding that goes back to the most primordial times in cultures spanning the world. It is one of the most basic underlying perceptions of life held by native cultures. Our present-day concept that the universe is fixed and staid is dramatically at odds with this fundamental insight.
All life is energy. We are immersed in an ocean of energy. The energy that is around us flows and moves, in constant, ever-changing currents through time and space. Physicists acknowledge that the atoms and molecules in all things are in constant motion. Beneath the surface of fixed objects, existing in a linear river of time, is the reality that energy swirls into form, dissolves and coalesces once again. The world is a dance of the two opposing yet harmonious forces in the universe: yin and yang, mystery and form. The world around us and within us is an interplay of these patterns of energy in ever-fluid relationship. Energy ebbs and flows around us, not constrained by the limitation of the past and future. We are in an infinite, yet patterned, timeless drama of light and dark. Underlying this motion is a cosmic order. There is an innate harmony inherent in all life as waves of energy and pulsating electrons spiral ‘form’ in and out of existence.
There is nothing ‘out there’ that isn’t you. Because of the linear way in which we perceive reality I don’t think that we can ever understand this intellectually, communicate about it verbally or even write about it in a comprehensive way. However, I do believe that deep inside each of us we all do know this. I believe that inside each of us is a longing, a yearning, and a remembering of an exquisite place of oneness and unity beyond time and space.
Many of the difficulties people are experiencing at this time in the evolution of our world stem from one erroneous belief – the idea that we are separate beings, unconnected to our planet, to its animals and the trees, separate from each other, and sometimes even divorced from ourselves. The Western belief is that we are separate from our living spaces and our environment. The idea that we can exist independently of our environment is an illusion. And it is an illusion with potentially grave consequences for our health and happiness. It is the belief in this illusion which makes possible the epidemic of global pollution, racial hatred, wars, greed, and so many other ills which fill our newspapers and trouble our sleep.
As we move on in this new millennium, huge changes in technology, natural resources and the force fields surrounding the planet are taking place. In our modern, Western culture, it is often difficult emotionally to feel our connection to things further than our private domain. Yet it is essential now that we not only expand our ‘identification of self’ to our personal environments but that we extend our ‘sense of self’ beyond the boundaries of time and form to encompass not just our home but our community and our planet. Extending your ‘sense of self’ to your home is a good first step, and an essential one.
Our planet is changing so quickly that it is affecting deeply the way we relate to each other and to our environment. Though advances in technology have added much to our lives, they have also separated us from the environment around us. In our dash for technology we have ‘forgotten’ the primordial wisdom that all creatures and all things on our planet are connected. We have ‘forgotten’ that we are connected within a living pulsating universe – a universe that sings with life, that pulses with intensity of spirit. We have forgotten that everyone and everything has a living energy.
Our ancient ancestors all over the world did not share this belief of separation. Their world-view centred around the fact that none of us exists independently of our fellow creatures, of the sun, the moon, the soil, the flowers, the oceans, and all the other wonderful myriad beings and things which make up reality as we know it. Everything is relative to every other being; nothing exists in isolation. An example of the Native American comprehensive view of ‘relationship’ is expressed in the sacred Ceremony of the Sweat Lodge. When entering into the sweat lodge one declares ‘to all my relations’. This isn’t just an acknowledgement of the others attending the lodge or members of immediate family: it is an affirmation of the interrelatedness of all of life and the intimate connection with all of creation.
In modern Western culture the usual way of interacting with the world around us is to feel that we are separate and autonomous. We usually identify with our body and feel separate from all the other parts of ourselves. Most of us identify ourselves with our physical bodies. We draw a kind of boundary line that stops with our skin. But this is not the only way we define ourselves. Many of us occasionally identify with things further beyond our physical selves. Sometimes we identify with our children or even our possessions (a man will run into a burning building to rescue valuables at great danger to his physical body because in that moment he is identifying himself more with the valuables than with his body.) We may identify also with the clothes we have on. For many people the way they dress is an expression of who they believe themselves to be. It is also clear from the way that some people react while driving in heavy traffic that they identify with their cars.
Yet, when you take a moment to reflect on it, you will probably remember a number of times when you suddenly felt at one with the world around you. You may have had the sensation of being drawn into the beauty of a sunset illuminating the evening sky. Or you may have felt a joyous and cleansing sense of your own relationship to the universe while watching the pounding of waves on the shore. These experiences remind us of the truth we all knew before this life – that we are essentially one with all things. We are no less part of the mountains, the sea, the clouds or the stars than we are of our own bodies. We are all manifestations of pure energy, forever fluctuating in its manifestations, and forever connected. Everything that is and ever will be is within you. The universe is your extended body.
I believe that it is essential to make the journey back to this connected view of reality, a view which is as innately natural to us as our connection to our mothers when we were in the womb.
Not only is the universe around you a vast flowing energy field to which you are intimately connected but everything in the universe has consciousness. Even the most hardened sceptics would agree that animals are conscious beings. And modern science has proven that plants have intent and can respond to the energy field of humans. However, no less conscious are the stones and mountains and rivers. Native people understood this well and would ask for the blessings of the Spirit of the Sea before embarking on a fishing trip. Plants were thanked when they were picked. Before a hunt the hunters asked for forgiveness from the animals. After the hunt the animals were thanked for the ‘giveaway’ of their life for the benefit of the tribe. The Earth beneath their feet was not inanimate and inert: the Earth was Mother. Thanks were given to her and forgiveness was asked before digging into her flesh. It was in this way that native people recognized and honoured the consciousness of everything in the world around them.
Ancient people understood that we are all connected and that everything is alive. A smooth, river-tumbled stone is no less alive than a great Orca whale. A tall proud cedar tree is no less alive than a cougar padding through a verdant meadow. My Cherokee Indian ancestors called the trees their brothers because they recognized the livingness in the trees. Everything is alive.
From these three tenets it follows naturally that:
Your home is not just a composite of materials thrown together for shelter and comfort. Every cubic centimetre, whether solid or seemingly empty space, is filled with infinite vibrating energy fields. There are vast undulating patterns of energy fields overlapping within it and around it. There are a multitude of realms within your home. In addition to the purely physical realm of your home’s structure and the physical objects within it, there are emotional energies and a multitude of spiritual and etheric energies constantly moving and swirling within your home.
The physical environment surrounding your home its positioning relative to the sun and the wind, surrounding vegetation, land masses and waterways as well as the way your home’s structure interacts with the environment, affects the energy fields in your home. The materials with which your home and the physical things inside it are made, and the chemicals within these materials, also affect the energy fields. For example, the energy of pine wood is more fluid and radiant than the denser, heavier, grounded energy of oak. The location of a raw material will also affect its energy. For example, the energy of a Californian oak will be different from the energy of an oak from England. And an oak from a natural forest will have a different energy from an oak that has been grown on a tree farm. How the materials are made and whether they are handmade or machine-made affect energy fields. In addition, the colours of walls and furnishings, the kinds of lights, the air quality, the smells, the size of the rooms, and how far away your home is from the earth below, are just some of the physical things that affect the energy flows.
The thoughts and feelings of you and your family and house guests are constantly influencing the emotional energy in your living spaces. Emotions have their own energy structure which lingers long after the emotions have been felt. Perhaps you have walked into a room after an argument and felt a thickness in the air. This is a remaining energy field from the intense emotions felt during the argument. Psychometry is based on the idea that a person’s feelings, thoughts and personality imprint on their physical objects and surroundings. All the feelings and thoughts of the current inhabitants as well as previous inhabitants influence the emotional energy in your home. The thought forms, personalities and activities of those who lived on the land even before the house was built also affect the emotional energy of the house. Each physical object inside the home has the emanations of the people who previously owned it as well as the energy of the object’s creator. And buildings that are erected over old graves sites are affected by the emotional energy surrounding the sites. The structure of the dwelling can also affect the emotional energy. For example, high ceilings can feel uplifting and lower ceilings can either feel emotionally confining or cosy. Every part of your home exudes and/or elicits an emotional energy field.
Your house has an aura just as you have an aura. The aura of your house is influenced by the physical form and the physical objects of your home; the emotional thought-forms lingering within it; but it is also influenced by the permeating spiritual energy fields around your home. Spiritual energy fields are generated by the trees, the earth and the landscape which are infused with surrounding angelic and devic forces. Primal earth energy, called ley lines, also affects your house’s spiritual aura. (Ley lines are created by a naturally formed electrical current that courses through the crust of the earth along channels or lines.) However, the most important thing influencing the spiritual energy in your home is the love that is given and received within its walls.
You are not separate from the home that you live in any more than you are separate from the air you breathe. Your home is not just an extension of your thoughts and feelings but in a larger sense your home is ‘you’. You are no less your home than you are your body. Both are outer manifestations of your inner energy fields.
In the deepest sense your home reflects and mirrors your consciousness. Just as the body is symbolic of our inner states, so your home reflects your inner state. Even the most traditional doctors are beginning to acknowledge that there is a mind/body connection and that the body can reflect consciousness. If a person gets a sore throat and loses their voice, this has often been shown to mean that there is something that they want to say but can’t. Emotional difficulties manifest in the body. A house mirrors your inner states no less than does your body. For example, plumbing in a home can represent emotions. Clogged plumbing can mean clogged emotions. Overflowing plumbing can mean overflowing emotions. You can shift personal consciousness by shifting energy in your home. The windows are your eyes to the world around you. Just the simple act of cleaning your windows, with the Intent of being able to see your way in life more clearly, will have an effect on the clarity in your life.
Not only does every part of our world have consciousness, but your home has consciousness. Homes as well as people are nourished by how we hold them in our heart. They have a living spirit that is sustained through the reverence and love that we hold for them. Without that care they become inanimate and lifeless: the spirit recedes and they become merely physical structures that can neither sustain nor nurture us. Our homes have become lifeless structures, rather than vibrant, alive, pulsating power points which we can enter for rejuvenation and renewal. Your home is an evolving creative being. It can be introverted or it can be outgoing. It has cycles just as you and all of nature has cycles.
You can communicate with your home. Your home can be your ally or it can be an adversary. Your home cares about you and would like to befriend you. Your home doesn’t just reflect you and your feelings and interests, but in a much deeper way your home interfaces with you and through that interconnection you both can grow. Your home evolves as you evolve. The regard in which you hold your home can rouse an ancient and replenishing spirit from the deep to fill your home; this power can heal you in the very centre of your soul and heart.
Understanding these tenets creates a groundwork from which you can cleanse and enhance the energies in your home.
THE JOURNEY THAT led me to discover and explore energy began in a very dramatic way when I was 17 years old. I lived with my family in a very small Midwest farming community. One warm summer afternoon I was out riding on my motorbike. I felt carefree and happy as I rode down lovely country roads. The corn seemed to be thrusting up toward the heavens on either side of the road. Overhead, the sky was a brilliant summer blue.
Suddenly the peace of the day shattered. A large American car violently rammed into my motorbike. I struggled to keep upright. The car rammed into me again and I fell on to the side of the road.
I struggled to stand up. My shock turned to terror as I lifted my head to face my unknown assailant. With cold determination, he aimed a gun at me. The two black holes of the gun seemed enormous, out of proportion. I couldn’t comprehend that he was pointing a gun at me. My thoughts were racing: ‘I didn’t do anything to him! Why did he run into me? Why is he aiming a gun at me?! Why?!!!’ He looked at me without any emotion and squeezed the trigger. The deafening blast changed my life forever.
I was left on the side of the road where a passing farmer found me and called the ambulance. It’s peculiar the things you remember in traumatic situations. As the ambulance was hurtling to the hospital, though the pain was excruciating, I remember looking out of the ambulance window and thinking how very beautiful the sky was and how lovely the trees were at this time of year.
Life is so very precious.
At the hospital everything seemed amplified. The lights appeared glaring and bright. Searing pain. Shrill harsh voices. Slowly, the lights began to dim. Pain subsided. Voices faded into stillness. I found myself in a soft womb-like darkness. I felt as if I were being drawn deep down within a velvet black cocoon.
Instantly the black bubble seemed to burst. The most brilliant luminous golden light enveloped me. It was so vibrant that the brightest sun would pale in comparison. Everywhere around me, into infinity, was light. Infused in the light with crystalline delicacy was pure sweet music. This liquid light symphony was ebbing and flowing throughout the universe in perfect harmony. The fluid harmonics pervaded my being until I merged with the light and sound. Light and sound were not separate from each other. I was light-sound. And this surrounding, all pervasive universe of warmth and light and music seemed completely natural and completely familiar.
Everything seemed more real than anything else I had ever experienced! It was as if my teenage life up to that time had only been a dream. Just as when you awake in the morning and your dream begins to fade in the ‘reality’ of the day, my entire life up to that time seemed to dissolve into a fine mist as I stepped into this new ‘hyper-real’ reality. My previous life seemed nothing more than an illusion to me.
All time seemed to flow in a continuous, everlasting ‘Now’. There was no past and no future. Everything was contained within an infinite present. I remember trying to think of the past and I couldn’t, because it was inconceivable. It literally didn’t exist. It was as impossible for me to imagine linear reality when I was ‘there’ as it is for me to fully understand non-linear reality when I am ‘here’.
Completely infused within this world of light/sound/infinite-now was ‘Love’. This was so very different from the way we usually think of love. Our culture’s conception of love involves loving someone or something as an entity separate from ourselves. The love I experienced was infinite and limitless. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t Love. The love I experienced was not separate from anyone or anything . It was as natural as breathing. Everything simply was Love, a part of it, without any separation. It was a love beyond form, without boundaries.
And I wasn’t alone. You were there with me. Everyone was there. There wasn’t anyone who wasn’t there. We were all One. We weren’t separate. There was no beginning, no end, just infinite eternal light. No longer confined to my body, I experienced being one with all things and all beings. I was everyone that I had ever loved and everyone that I had ever hurt. I was everyone that I had known and I was everyone that I would never know. I was the hungry beggar on a side-street in Delhi. I was the thief in New York City. I was the baby held in her mother’s arms in Kenya. I was the spiritual adept in a mountain temple in Japan. I was everyone and everyone was me.
Although this experience remains in my memory like a kind of jewel to which I can reach out with aching fondness, it no longer makes any sense to my conscious mind. One’s ordinary mind is not big enough to grasp the totality of what I felt and knew within every cell of my being at that time. It was completely outside of what is normally conceivable. But at the time it seemed completely natural. It was the most natural and real experience that I have ever had.
The only way that this can even begin to make sense to my conscious mind now is when I imagine our life here on earth as a hologram or a reflection of the spiritual dimension that I encountered when I was shot. Here is the imagery that I use. Imagine that Spirit can be likened to a giant luminous mirror-ball in the heavens. Shafts of light radiate in all directions from the mirror-ball’s individual mirrors, creating reflections throughout time and space. Now imagine that each person on earth identifies with an individual reflection to the extent that they feel that they are that reflection. They look around and see other reflections, but of course all the reflections seem separated by time and space. However, if those individuals were to expand their perception they would eventually recognize that all reflections emanate from the same source. We are truly One. We are not separate. We are the reflection and we are the Source of our reflection. We are One.
Even though I felt a deep fusion with infinity, curiously I still seemed to have the ability to perceive from a fixed point of consciousness. From my centre-point of awareness I saw a golden river of light in front of me. I knew that if I could reach the other shore of the river I would not return to my 17-year-old body. I would no longer have to bear the pain of being separate from others. I wouldn’t have to be trapped in a body that was very damaged and in excruciating pain. I stepped into the river and felt fluid light surround me.
Shimmering luminous light flowed gently on either side of me. Yet before I could reach the other side of the river I heard a voice reverberate inside my mind, ‘You may not stay here. There is something you need to do.’ I screamed, ‘No-o-o-o-o!!!’ and resisted with all my might. I felt as if I had been lassoed and was being dragged back inside my body.
When I woke I was in a hospital bed fighting for my life. The body that I was forced back into was seriously wounded. The gunman’s bullet had bounced off my spine and lodged in my lung, tearing away my spleen and an adrenal gland. My stomach, one lung and my small intestines were damaged as well. Eventually a kidney was removed and a six-inch plastic tube was inserted to replace the aorta of my heart.
However, even though the gunman’s assault had been terrifying, something mysterious and magical had also occurred when I was shot, something which changed the course of my life forever.
My perception of life and the world around me had changed completely and forever. Though I had many wounds to heal – not only the physical wounds caused by the bullet, but also deep emotional wounds from a childhood gone wrong I ‘knew’ that nothing that had happened to me in my past was an accident. I ‘knew’ that my life was guided and that there was a higher purpose to my existence. I was not brought back from the symphonic world of light and unity which I had briefly experienced in order to invent a cure for cancer or to present an earth-shattering new philosophy. My mission was simply this: to embrace and love all of life, to experience the deep connections between all things.
In those few moments I spent within the realm of death, my perception of life was completely and irrevocably shifted. After I returned everything seemed the same, and yet everything was totally different. Before being shot I thought ‘I’ was my body. I thought ‘I’ died when my body died. Growing up in a family of scientists, I had been taught that the only true reality was the one that you could test and measure in physical terms. After my near-death experience I no longer thought that my life began at birth and ended at death. I no longer believed that I was separate from other beings. Time no longer seemed rigid and finite. I perceived the universe around me as malleable and changeable rather than linear and fixed. Everything on the planet was alive. All life was precious.