SCOTUS ruling and 9 Tammuz

Yesterday was 9 Tammuz. In 587 BC, the walls of Jerusalem were breached (this was a Shemitah year and two Shemitah cycles after Lehi was told to exit Jerusalem--his exit was also in a Shemitah year). The Biblical king of Judah, Zedekiah, who "did evil in the sight of the Lord," was captured and taken to Babylon. Eight days later, on 17 Tammuz (commemorated with a Jewish fast day on July 5 this year), daily temple worship and sacrifice (Korban Tamid) was discontinued. Three weeks later, on 9 Av or Tisha B'Av (oddly, the day we did my brother's temple work), Babylon had completed the takeover of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and exiled the Jews to Babylon.

I testify that the Lord still honors the Biblical calendars He designed--though sometimes in unexpected ways. We have seen how the last two Biblical Shemitah cycles have ended--the stock market crash of 9/17/01 immediately following 9/11 and the stock market crash of 9/28/08--both 29 Elul for those Biblical years/Shemitah cycles. Our next 29 Elul is coming up this September, leading into the 120th Jubilee since Creation, according to the Biblical calendar. Hebrew tradition is that there will only be 120 Jubilees total. It will be 70 Jubilees since the Exodus and 40 Jubilees since the birth of Christ. Although the Shemitah year ends on 29 Elul, the Jubilee doesn't officially begin until the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur.

This year's Yom Kippur, in addition to beginning what is supposed to be the final Jubilee of Creation, is the 20-year anniversary of the warning that "the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."

D&C 136:35 comes to mind. The time is now to repent.

UPDATE: I just wanted to put this somewhere, but 1819 AD also began a Jubilee year--which means that the First Vision took place during a Jubilee. This year will be 4 Jubilees since then.

my 100-day challenge

On a forum I belong to, a challenge got floated around called the 100-Day Challenge. At the time, it was 100 days from September 1, 2015. The idea was for each participant to pray and ask God what skill the participant should acquire by September 1.

I felt prompted to join in, and asked what I should do. That same day, I went to a bookstore and found a deeply discounted book on medicinal herbs right in front of my face. I bought it.

The next morning, a Sunday, I felt prompted to google the weeds in my backyard--turns out they are almost all medicinal.

That afternoon, I managed to sneak away from the last 10 minutes of Primary to attend a special fifth Sunday presentation on preparedness--and I walked in just as the high council guy speaking spoke about the importance of medicines, storing medicines and knowing how to use them safely. I took that as my third witness: my job this summer is to master herbal medicine.

Plantain salve. Image here. Mine does look very similar.

This is kind of exciting because obviously my focus has been energetic medicine, but now I feel like I am opening up a whole new world of efficacious healing methods. At home we use quantum touch and theta and essential oils and apple cider vinegar--and now we will also use homemade balms and syrups and salves and tinctures and I am JUST SO EXCITED ABOUT IT!

I've already made my first salve. My phone is not being functional right now so I can't post a picture of it. But I made a plantain salve using the recipe here and it has worked wonders for my baby's eczema and diaper rash. Tomorrow I will be teaching a bunch of ladies from the ward how to make the salve, and I think I'll start a wild violet salve as well for my sore throat. I've been having some fifth chakra issues coming up and manifesting in the throat, and I wonder if part of it isn't to make me get up and create this wild violet balm.
Anyway, this project is pretty exciting to me. What skills does Heavenly Father want you to learn by the deadline of your prompting? Is there anything you need to be learning? Have you asked?

Just in the past few days I've felt a bunch of downloads of things I need to get started with and I'm so excited to get to work! This summer feels like it will be busy but amazing.

What are you all learning this summer?

Announcing Upcoming Yoga Class

I've been putting off teaching yoga because I'm pregnant, but I've been feeling the call to announce a yoga class. I may not be able to demonstrate every move, but I will be able to talk you through it (and in fact, my yoga teaching practicum was on a kriya that was specifically assigned to me because I couldn't demonstrate the moves while pregnant--and it went awesomely).

The class I am feeling called to teach will be Yoga to Release Stress and Anxiety. This will be a four-week program. We will be relieving anger, releasing stress, meditating for a calm heart, and releasing core anxieties. Each class will be between an hour and an hour and a half long. If you cannot make the live recordings, videos will be available for three months following the series (I like to get the videos posted within a day or two of recording). This class will be suitable for both men and women. It will be exercise for the body, the mind, and the heart.

This class will be held online via Zoom on Tuesday nights in July (July 7, 14, 21, 28) starting at 9 pm (and ending variably). You will receive links to the stream via your email. Again, videos will be available after the live classes and available for three months afterwards. The class will be $45 for the series.




Email with questions: awinegarduzett at gmail dot com.

Announcing Upcoming Energy Classes

A few new energy classes coming up! Registration closes on Tuesday, June 16, 2015. Each of these classes is a one-time thing, but if you can't make the live meeting, recordings will be available for the following week. Classes will be held via Zoom (you will receive the necessary links in your email).

Muscle Testing and Receiving Intuitive Answers
Wednesday, June 17, 2015, 8-10 PM EST
$29
This two-hour class will give you the tools to muscle test effectively, as well as receive intuitive answers to your energetic questions. You will need to come well-hydrated; you will need to know which way is north where you are; and you will need to not wear leather. Those signed up for the class will receive free access to the video for the week following the class.

Opening the Mind's Eye
Saturday, June 20, 2015, 8-9:30 AM EST
$57
This hour-and-a-half class will help students open the mind's eye to "see" things like the human aura, energetic shields and markers, and chakras in people, plants and animals. This will be an introductory class. Those signed up for the class will receive free access to the video for the week following the class.

Intro to the Theta State
Tuesday, June 23, 2015, 9-10:30 PM EST
$57
This class will teach students three ways to access the "theta" state, or waking REM. This is the brain state for effective healing. We will practice going into and coming out of the theta state while awake, and learn a few things to do in that state for easy healing. Those signed up for the class will receive free access to the video for the week following the class.

Aura and Arcline Healing and Shielding
Wednesday, June 24, 2015, 8-10 PM EST
$57
This class will delve into healing the aura and arcline! These are great basics of energy healing to know. These tools can make a huge difference in both emotional and physical healing. Those signed up for the class will receive free access to the video for the week following the class. Theta ability and muscle testing or intuitive answer ability are necessary for this class-this isn't to say you need to take those other classes first, but rather to say that you will get the most from this class if you can muscle test and go into theta.

Sign up for multiple classes at a discount. Email with questions: awinegarduzett at gmail dot com.

Meditation and Exercise

Last night, I went to bed at 9:30 pm.

Cat-Cow. Super good for preggos! Image here.

Then my husband came up to bed at 10:30 pm, which accidentally woke me up, and that was that. As in, that was my night's sleep.

By 4 am, I was feeling like maybe I could actually sleep again, but I knew I'd have to just get up again in two hours, and I also knew that this was prime meditation time. The amrit vela, the ambrosial hours. I debated it for a while, but then felt like God flat out told me that if I would just go and do it, He would bless me. "Don't you trust Me?" I felt like He asked. And of course my answer is yes, I trust Him, so I sighed and went downstairs to do an hour and a half of yoga, meditation, and scripture study.

My daily sadhana has been involving the following:

- Cat-Cow
- Sodarshan Chakra Kriya
- Antar Naad Kriya
- Meditation to Release Anger and Negativity
- Har, Har

And then if I feel up for it I'll add in a yoga kriya like Kriya to Awaken the Ten Bodies or a kriya for the spine, or whatever. This morning I did the Ten Bodies kriya in addition to the rest. In case you care, my scripture study today was in Ephesians (but has lately been in Ether and 3rd Nephi).

Sodarshan Chakra Kriya.

But anyway. I felt like I did all this great stuff, spending that hour and a half in meditation, prayer, and study, and I got ready for the day thinking: now I will be so blessed today! One hour of sleep never felt so good!

And then I had almost the worst day in memory. The whole time I just thought: what??? Why is my life falling apart when I was so obedient this morning?? Why??

And there was more to the story than that, but anyway, as I was driving around this evening, I suddenly realized: you don't meditate to make your life easier. You meditate to grow. Growth makes life easier, which is why we want to do it, but the actual process of inducing growth leads to growing pains and can be basically really not fun.

I thought: once again, Sodarshan Chakra Kriya is totally kicking my butt, but all of this unconscious stuff that's coming up is stuff that has to be cleared in order to progress. Maybe the promised blessing for today was actually my day being hard: ending up in confrontational situations over and over again provided lots of opportunities for the unconscious to vent. I will say that today, I feel way more beat up internally than I have in a long time. But I do wonder now if that is my blessing.

It's kind of like exercise. You can do five or ten minutes of jumping jacks and get a little bit winded, maybe. It'll be good for your body but you probably won't be sore the next day--and honestly, five minutes of jumping jacks is good, but it's really not all that impressive.

Compare that to the committed exerciser--the person who does their P90x or Insanity every day, who goes to the gym, who is constantly putting in significant amounts of time into tearing down what muscles they have in order to let them grow back stronger. The person who puts in an hour a day towards a more extreme exercise is going to have a very different experience than the five-minute jumping jacker. So much exercise is going to lead to fatigue at times, and soreness a lot of times. But over time, the committed exerciser sees a real difference in the makeup of their body.

Jumping jacks. Image here.

You don't get physically in shape by doing five minutes of jumping jacks.

You don't get spiritually in shape by five minutes of scripture study if you remember. You don't get spiritually in shape by remembering to pray once in a while.

True health--be it physical or spiritual or what have you--takes conscious effort, takes time, takes consistency, and comes at a price: it is deeply uncomfortable. This is the price of
growth.

Like that saying goes: there is no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone.

So I think it's official: my comfort zone was wayyyyy not anywhere close today, but I was definitely operating in the growth zone. It's better to process this unconscious garbage now, than to put it off any longer. The sooner the tough stuff gets worked out of the un- and subconscious minds, the sooner the mind can enjoy new levels of functionality and joy.

Conclusion

Meditation is like physical exercise: it tears down the "muscles" of the subconscious mind to allow them to grow back stronger and more aligned with God. We don't meditate because it's fun; we meditate because it helps us grow. And many times, growth comes accompanied by growing pains. Meditation makes life easier in the long run, the same way physical exercise does--however, like physical exercise, it can come with some annoying short-term side effects. The trick is to not give up just because things get hard when you're just getting started.

it's time to accept yourself.

Well, my friends: here is your wake up call.

It's time to accept yourself.

It's time to stop judging yourself for where you are, and time to start just plain loving yourself exactly where you are at. So you're not perfect. No one is perfect. And we're called to love them anyway. 

Love yourself anyway. 

Image here.

We all have our frustrations--the things about ourselves we want to change. Perhaps your career isn't taking off the way you'd like. Maybe you wish you were prettier. Maybe you wish you had more money or more time or more spirituality or more whatever. 

I invite you to take a deep breath, and let these frustrations go as you exhale. It's time to accept yourself exactly as you are, right now. It's time to take an honest look at your own Self, your positives and your negatives, and stop hiding from them and stop resenting them. There is no need to resent Truth. We can only grow when we accept it.

It doesn't mean abandoning the need for change

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, a Buddhist monk, has written (emphasis mine):

Many people think that self-acceptance means celebrating what's there already: that you're good enough, that you don't have to make any changes. That's not the case at all.

Acceptance means accepting the fact that you're responsible for a lot of your experience right now. You can't blame anybody else. And ultimately that's a good thing. If other people were ultimately responsible for shaping your experience, what could you do? You'd have to go around pleasing them all the time. But the key fact is that you're shaping your pleasures and pains here in the present moment. Some of your experience comes from past actions, but a lot comes from the way you shape things with each present intention. 

So learn to be open and honest about the role you're playing in this moment.

Honest and open about the role you're playing in this moment. Exactly. The fact is that we all shape our realities, and when we resent different aspects of our Selves or our realities, that resentment is rooted in a lack of self-acceptance--a critical absence of holding ourselves accountable for our own experiences.

This blogger explains it well (emphasis mine):

Whether we’re talking about facing our own difficulties, or those of our loved ones, or of the whole world, “acceptance” boils down to the same thing. To stand firm and be willing to look reality in the eye. To face our fears and doubts. To quiet our impulse to run away or distract ourselves in hopes they’ll go away. 

Image here.

As I think about all this, it seems like this teaching is pointing us in a similar direction as the famous serenity prayer from the Christian tradition: 

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. 

So “accepting what is” is not about passivity at all. It’s about clear seeing, and the “wisdom to know the difference.” Paradoxically, it’s when we take responsibility for our own failings and difficulties, or those of the world around us, that the real process of change can begin to take place. I see it as an essential starting point for anything we take on in life.

Self-acceptance is about understanding who you really are--it is about facing even the darkest part of your heart, and acknowledging it for what it is, and taking responsibility for it. It's about facing the reality of You without fear, and without resentment--instead, facing that inner Self with understanding and compassion, ready to help that Self heal and change. 

The world's acceptance

So many of us yearn for external acceptance. We crave the feeling of acceptance from friends, from parents, from siblings and spouses and children, from random people we pass on the street. The feeling of being unaccepted leads to the feeling of being unacceptable, and that is a feeling no one wants to experience. This need to be accepted leads to all sorts of negative situations. Have you ever compromised a personal standard in order to feel accepted by the external world? 

And yet, the world's acceptance can never be whole. It can never be true. Because the world can never know the inner You like you can, like God can. It can never see the inner Self, and because of that, it can never validate that Self. It is simply impossible. Any acceptance that is gained at a worldly level is a false acceptance--because it is based on the external self. The only acceptances that are real are yours and God's. 

Image here.

God's acceptance

God accepts us as we are: He understands the reality of our inner workings even more than we do. He sees us for exactly what we are, exactly where we are, and He accepts us and He loves us. His acceptance does not mean automatic salvation, by any means, but rather that no matter where we are, He is ready and willing to meet us there. There is no sin so foul that God is not willing to meet us in that deep dark place and hold our hand there.

Conclusion

Accept yourself. Look at yourself for who you are. See the choices and behaviors, the attitudes and qualities that bless your life, and the ones that make it harder. And accept yourself through all of it.

This is to acknowledge reality; this is to become free.

Image here.

on seeing auras

Long before I actually was able to discern the human energy field, I was fascinated by the idea of seeing auras. The amazing thing about it is that literally anyone can do it. Kind of like singing. I think there are different levels of inherent talent, if you will, but just about any human being can open their mouth and sing out a note, even if it doesn't sound amazing. Once you understand how the mind's eye works, you can see lots of things.

Aura via Kirlian photography. Image here.

The Basics

The way I see auras is not with the physical eyes, but the spiritual eyes. Okay, and sometimes with the physical eyes. But mostly just the spiritual eyes. Because of the nature of spiritual vision, you don't need to be physically present with someone to see their aura. Also, you can view a person's aura over time--like check in with it from a year ago, or ten years ago, and see what it looked like then. This is true for all energetic vision, auric or otherwise.

Layers of energy

The human energy field is very, very layered. For me, I only tend to see one layer at a time--either the layer that just comes into my mind through a flash of insight, or else the layer I ask to see. For example, in my healing work, when it comes to auras, I tend to not even look at colors or anything like that. I look for holes. What comes up is kind of a sense of knowing where the auric holes are, but I don't end up noting any colors or shapes involved. If people ask about their aura's colors, I have to look another time with the specific intention of observing colors. So when I do aura work on people, I usually don't end up with a clear image of the entirety of the aura. Just if there were holes or not, or where the holes were.

Looking for colors

Auric layers. Image here.

First off, you'll want to do the exercise I posted here. Observe your own third eye and make sure it is open. If it's not open, you can make an executive decision to open it. Just decide that it will be open now and tweak the symbolism around it until it is the way that you want. This may not last for long, but it may last long enough for you to view a human aura.

Secondly, you'll want to gently call up the idea of the person whose colors you want to view. Don't try too hard. Just think of the person and see if you feel the ideas of any particular colors coming into view. For example, you might think of a person and get the idea of mostly spring green and a splash of purple. If you think about where the purple is, you might see it over the third eye. Or you might get the idea of seven colors, earthy in tone. Focusing more deeply you might get a sense of ceramic reds, mustardy yellows, dark greens, etc. Then you would set the intention to know where each color is centralized to.

These colors may come more as ideas than as precise sight, if that makes sense. The trick is to take those hunches seriously. I wouldn't expect to see these images in your mind the same way you see things with your eyes open; it's more of a perception of the ideas of color.

Muscle testing on aura color vision

As it turns out, your own subconscious mind registers other people's auric coloration without your conscious input. So you can also just muscle test as yourself on what other people's colors are.

The thing to be careful of here is filters. Muscle test to find out if you are wearing any sort of covering over your spiritual eyes, such as blindfolds or glasses. You might find rose-colored glasses, just like the cliche, or another color, that interferes with your ability to see another person's coloration clearly. A blindfold will keep your vision dark. To remove those things, you can just decide to remove them and then muscle test until you test positive that they are gone.

Rose colored glasses. Image here.

Some energetic glasses are good--they can contribute to clearer seeing. So if you have clarity-enhancing energetic glasses on that are not interfering with color observations, you can keep them!

Conclusion

"Seeing" auras is something that everyone can do--we just have to maybe change the understanding of what it means to "see." You can double-check your hunches through muscle testing.

I am planning an online class on perceiving the human energy field. More details later.