Learn Healing Touch

September is around the corner and a lot of people have been having feelings that something big will be happening this fall--including myself. In preparation for that, I wanted to offer a new class on healing touch.

I LOVE the modality of healing touch. I have seen plenty of miracles using this technique. Arthritic cysts diminish; fibromyalgia pain disappears for extended periods of time; swelling from major injuries goes down without medication.

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Last week I tripped on a stroller and the wheel of it scraped against my ankle--it felt like my ankle had been skinned. Immediately the entire thing had turned black. Walking was excruciating. So I went upstairs, put on a TV show, and did healing touch to my own ankle for an hour. By the time I went to bed a few hours later, my ankle was no longer swollen and the black skin had turned greenish and then white again.

My sister once broke her rib and they told her it would take six weeks to heal. But she used healing touch, and by the end of the week when she went in for her first follow-up, the rib was fully healed.

This modality is good for all kinds of physical healing, but also for emotional healing. Since a lot of times our emotions are trapped in specific parts of the body, you can use healing touch to clear them also.

ANYONE CAN DO IT

One reason I have felt it is so important to provide this class is that this modality is literally so easy, anyone can do it, and anyone can do it after just an hour or so of instruction. It is incredible in that way. I first took a class on it with the hospice that cared for my brother before he passed, and when I came home after that class, I practiced on all my family members who were home. From the very beginning, we saw very cool effects! I took that class on a Thursday, and on that Saturday my mother had a flight scheduled across the country for a business trip. But the night before she'd fallen and bruised herself black and blue from ankle to hip.

I did healing touch on her leg for the hour before she had to go on her flight, and when she got off the armchair to drive herself to the airport, she expressed her astonishment that her pain was virtually 100% gone. She was able to walk and attend her conference comfortably. That was yes, three days after I took my first class on this.

This is the perfect modality for healing because it is so easy to learn, so simple to practice, and yet so effective.

Another fun story: I was working on someone's leg whose knee had come out of its socket or something due to a chronic injury from marathon running, and after an hour, we heard a crack and watched as her kneecap spontaneously shifted under her skin. Her leg was back to normal! Crazy!

I also love this modality because you can do it while you do other things--my favorite is to watch TV, honestly. I put on a show and then I and the injured person just watch it. You can also have a conversation during it, although that's a little bit harder because breathing is a part of the technique and talking can disrupt the breathing. Since I practice a number of different modalities, one of my other favorite things to do with clients is do the healing touch while simultaneously doing theta work or Emotion Code, etc. Multi-tasking!

LEARN BEFORE SEPTEMBER

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A lot of people are "prepping" for upcoming events, whatever those events may be. A lot of us probably have stored some medical supplies, and that is very wise. But healing touch will be very, very helpful too. It requires no supplies and can be used at a moment's notice wherever you are. Once you know how to do it, doing it is free. This is a one-time investment that can pay off over and over again in the years to come--whether or not anything worth prepping for is around the corner. Obviously, for me and my family, we haven't been dealing with a SHTF or TEOTWAKI scenario, but I still use this skill almost weekly between clients and my own family's run of the mill injuries that I don't want to go to the doctor for.

CLASS INFO

This class will be online so anyone can participate from wherever they are. The class will be recorded and the recording will be made available the next day for those who are not able to attend live.

I'm scheduling 2 hours for this class, anticipating questions, but the class may run shorter. The basics of this modality are not difficult to learn. This class will take place on Thursday, August 6, from 8-10 PM EST. In an effort to make this information as widely available as possible, this class will be just $20 dollars. Sign up today to reserve your spot. Email awinegarduzett at gmail dot com with questions.

CLASS CLOSED

Reading Faces

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One thing that I have really loved in my life is the ability to read faces.

No, I don't mean the ability to look at someone's smile and know they're happy, or to see their frown and know they're sad.

I mean the ability to read faces, as in the ancient Chinese art of mien shiang. With the proper know-how, you can understand a lot about a person from their face alone. Check out this picture from the Mien Shiang Institute. On that face you can see lines of grief, of lost love, of heartbreak. You can see a "suspended needle" between the eyes. All of these "wrinkles" are actually forms of information--which is to say, to one person they are just wrinkles, and to a face reader, you can see a person's life in them.

Personal experience

I've been studying mien shiang for about ten years now, and early on in my journey I decided not to take it too seriously, because in one of my closest relationships, the other person's nose indicated some life issues that I knew were false for that person.

Only then, years into knowing this person, they confessed a lifelong secret that ended up confirming what their face had said all along. I took it as a verification that mien shiang can actually be very accurate.

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Being able to read someone by their face gives a person a lot of opportunities to serve and a lot of chances to treat people the way they need to be treated. If you can look at someone and know immediately that their primary emotion is worry, that they have a difficult relationship with their father, they struggle with money but have talents in the creative arts--that's a lot of info to pick up based on nothing more than a glance at a face. But all that knowledge can be used to treat others more kindly and more personally.

Colors, marks, sizes, shapes

In face reading, everything matters. The size and shape of each part of the face. Its coloration. Any marks--wrinkles, moles, warts, skin tags. They all have meaning. The ears reflect our early childhoods--but also reflect certain talents, such as musical ability or creative writing. The eyebrows signify the capability for anger (the more eyebrow you have going on, the more prone to anger). The area between the eyebrows, the yin tong, indicates the relationship with the father. The overall shape and coloration of the face itself indicates the primary Chinese element that person channels (metal/grief, fire/mania, earth/worry, etc). If you know what you're looking at, you can discern a lot about a person by examining their face alone.

Mien shiang is a very Taoist skill. And as you know, I do love the Tao!

Possible class?

I've thought about teaching a series of classes on this skill for some time. If anyone is interested, please leave a note in the comments. I'm still trying to decide if I want to do it.

Conclusion

The face is an amazing source of information. Face reading can turn images into information and be an amazing tool for healing (through facial "diagnostics" both physical and emotional) and just for getting to know people better.

Last day to sign up for classes

Today is the last day to sign up for the Empath classes! Sign up here. We'll be talking about how to recognize what type of empath you are and the specific challenges you face. The second class will cover a number of tools to use to make life as an empath more comfortable. The third class will be about using empathetic gifts to serve others. It will be a good series!

Understanding the Saturn Return Part 2

First, I forgot to link to my post on the Gospel and reading the stars. It's a good place to start when you're coming from a Gospel perspective and learning about reading the stars.

Now, as I was pondering the post I put up yesterday, I realized I'd forgotten something. That something is consequences.

We can clear our "karma," by which I mean the spiritual consequences of our actions. We do that through repentance. We turn our sins over to Christ through the Atonement, and that clears our souls of the darkness of sin.

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However, just because we've repented of something, doesn't mean that we don't have to deal with the consequences of it. We do. Sometimes repentance drastically changes the external consequences of a choice, but sometimes it doesn't. You might repent of driving under the influence, but that may not change whether or not you have to do jail time.

Similarly, with the Saturn return, you can clear your "karma," or the spiritual weight of your sins and traumas, via the Atonement, but that does not automatically clear you from facing the consequences of your actions.

Sometimes it might, but not necessarily. However, it is possible to face even negative consequences with positivity. Negative times in the Saturn return can be approached from a place of humility and optimism, and a willingness to look for the lessons in every situation. Having that kind of attitude will make even an unpleasant Saturn return more pleasant--if only because you are actively looking for the bright side.

Conclusion

Repentance does not always excuse us from natural consequences. Spiritual work is the most important kind of work, but even so it may not prevent unpleasant things from happening to us. Facing negative times with humility and faith can make all the difference.

Understanding the Saturn Return

I've blogged about the Saturn Return before, if only in my post about Gone With the Wind. Gone with the Wind was written zodiacally, which you can read about at that post. What made me realize it was the "coincidence" of Scarlett O'Hara's "karma" catching up to her at age 28--the same time as the Saturn Return. 

What is the Saturn Return?

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All the planets move cyclically. Saturn returns to the same position once every 29.5 years. That is the time frame of the Saturn Return: between the ages of 28-30, and again from 58-60, and even again from 88-90 if you live a really long time. There's a few-year window there because Saturn is such a slow-moving planet. Here is a calculator to calculate your own personal Saturn return.

Saturn is astrologically known as the "Lord of Karma." Basically the idea is that as it returns, all your karma comes back at you. You might get away with being a crappy person for most of the time, but once that Saturn Return hits, you can be sure you will reap what you have sown.

Or at least that's the idea. You don't have to believe in this stuff. I'm not really sure I do. I still have a few years to go before I experience my first Saturn Return. So, who knows. But it is interesting.

Here's what one set of Saturn bloggers has to say about it (emphasis mine):

If you’re in your mid-to-late twenties or even in your early thirties, you are close to the heart of your first Saturn Return, and are probably feeling the crack of Saturn’s whip more than ever. If everything feels like chaos, if your relationships are breaking down and you’re questioning your career, your friendships, your sanity, and your very life, it is likely that it’s just the ripples of your Saturn Return descending. [...]

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As you hit the Saturn Return, you’re about to leap off the cliff of childhood and you feel estranged from external support systems. Now you can’t be taken care of; You have to learn to fend for yourself and figure out what truly constitutes the ground below. What internal resources do you draw upon for a safe landing if you are to make this leap, kicked out of the nest once and for all? Once you finish your Return, you’ll probably have a much better idea.

The time of the Saturn Return is a time of concentrated, personalized growth. As another blogger writes:

Essentially, your Saturn return is a test. What is it testing? Maybe a better question is, what is is NOT testing?! Saturn is a hard taskmaster, & Saturn wants you to learn the difficult lessons so that you can move forward with your life. During your Saturn return, you will be asked repeatedly to prove that you have learned from the challenges you’ve faced over the last 29 years.

[....] 

During your Saturn return, it might feel like everything is thrown into turmoil, from your relationships to your career, even down to your family situation & where you live. 

I sometimes think of Saturn as a kind of loving bully — the cruel-to-be-kind type. He picks us up, turns us upside down & shakes everything out of our pockets. The stuff that stays is the stuff that is working. Everything else gets shaken loose.

That same article has a whole list of things to do to survive your Saturn return. Go check out her site for the list, but some of the things that stood out to me were:

- Don't compare yourself to others
- Take responsibility for your life
- Recognize the power of your own free agency
- Let go of grudges and bitterness

Saturn: Lord of Karma, or Giant Mirror?

I've thought about this a lot. I don't believe that someone's future is "written in their stars," or anything like you might hear on an astrology site or A Knight's Tale (<--great movie). To me, the stars feel more like a mirror. They mirror who we are.

So to me, it would make sense that if you'd cleared out a lot of your issues before hitting those crucial years, your Saturn return would not be a big deal. If you haven't cleared out your issues, the Saturn return would be a big deal.

Preparing for a Saturn Return

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I'm actually only 26, so I have a little while to go before my own Saturn return. But my husband is coming up on his first Saturn return, so the idea of it all has been on my mind.

It seems to me that, if any of this stuff is actually valid at all, the best way to prepare for a Saturn return happens to be the best way to prepare for anything. Scriptures, prayer, meditation, service, temple worship, magnification of callings. All those things cleanse the inner vessel. If my theory about the planets as a mirror is correct, repentance and a change of heart would take care of the issues associated with the Saturn return. You can't deal with a negative reflection if you've already cleared your personal negativity.

Conclusion

The Saturn return happens every 29.5 years, but the effects of it are felt for the years surrounding that crucial midpoint. The things that happen to us during the Saturn return reflect the lessons we need to prove we've learned. Saturn may be considered kind of a bully, but it's all to help us grow. Prepare for a Saturn return with spiritual preparedness and clearing out the negative aspects of the self.

irrevocably decreed in heaven.

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You know what they say about karma.

I've been thinking about karma a lot lately. What goes around comes around, and all that. The idea that we all reap what we sow.

This is what LDS.org has to say about the Latter-day Saint faith and the Hindu beliefs on karma (emphasis mine):

By 600 B.C. many Indian Hindu priests and philosophers believed in a doctrine labeled Karma-Samsara. Karma means action or acts, and refers to the accumulation of results a person reaps from his every act and thought, be it good or bad. There is a strong similarity between this and the “law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated.” (D&C 130:20.) The difference is that Hindus believe that the law of karma is absolutely unalterable. Their belief in Samsara, the wheel of rebirth or reincarnation, states that every person will be reborn into a status (which could be human, animal, or inanimate) that is the inevitable result of his actions. Thus, Hindus believe that people who are born into a high caste deserve to be where they are, and so with all creatures. We Latter-day Saints also believe we are born where we should be, but that a just and loving Father in heaven has decided where we can best perform in this mortal sphere of activity. We believe we reap the rewards of our actions, but we also believe in the atonement of Jesus. Were it not for this merciful provision, we would be left with nearly the same doctrine as the Hindus. That is, we would be left to eternally pay the price of our sins.

Basically, where we differ in belief is:

I thought this was funny.
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- past life stuff

- reincarnation stuff

- that people have to pay the price of their own sins; no one can intervene

However, as a faith, we do belief in the concept of reaping what we sow, and that "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated" (D&C 130:20-21).

Those verses are so interesting to me. There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven, upon which all blessings are predicated. 

All blessings? All of them? All of them have a law associated with them?

Here are some blessings that come to the top of my head: 

- happiness
- money
- temporal safety and security
- freedom
- happy family
- peace of mind 

That scripture would indicate that if we are not currently experiencing those blessings, it may be because we are in violation of the laws "irrevocably decreed in heaven." It's kind of similar to the idea of karma. 

So what are the terms to achieve those blessings, according to the law? I don't really have the answer to that. Something to pray about and ponder.

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In energy work you realize that agency and personal responsibility are at the heart of healing. So many physical ailments are caused by spiritual and emotional components, and cannot be healed until the person is willing to take responsibility for their own self. A lot of times, for example, physical ailments are caused by unforgiveness. You might not have a lot of say in what people do to you, but you always have a say in how you handle it. Being unwilling to let go and forgive can cause a lot of physical health problems. Until we use our agency and take personal responsibility for our own emotional, spiritual, physical health by exercising forgiveness, for example, we will suffer.

I have a lot of thoughts about this idea and I may write about it further. I've been thinking a lot recently about the Saturn Return as well, and how it relates to this concept, and to agency and personal responsibility and the laws decreed in heaven. But I'll have to save that for another day.

loved by things

In the past few months, I've had the most bizarre experience of feeling loved... by things.

My grandmother sent me an amaryllis bulb for Christmas. I've never been into plants, really, until recently--I could just never get them to live. But this bulb had other plans. I forgot about the thing until a few weeks after I received it, when I found it sprouting out of its box--with no soil, no water, and only the light that came through the cardboard of its box. Incredible.

Generic amaryllis. Mine is better. ;) Image here.

It grew and grew and grew, and had flowers on it the whole Christmas season on multiple stalks. When the flowers died, the plant sprung forth six new leaves that ended up being about three feet long each when I finally decided to cut them off.

But even that didn't kill this amaryllis--it's still alive and on my counter, and has a new leaf on it that's probably two and a half feet long. People with energetic sight can easily see the aura on this plant. Whenever I see or think about it, I just feel this enormous feeling of love. It's like this plant just really wanted to be in my life. I am so grateful for it!

My garden is similarly rocking at life right now, for the first time ever. I have dozens of plants that are just thriving and it is amazing to me. I have more produce than I know what to do with. I'm going to dehydrate it and add it to my food storage; I just got my oxygen absorbers in the mail. I've never had good luck with my gardens before, but this year everything seems to be growing with abandon. Similarly, every time I go out to my garden, I see this green aura (green is the color of the heart chakra) and I just have this huge sense of symbiotic love, belonging to me and my plants. Like we are sustaining each other with love.

A while ago, I had a weird experience where I knew that I was not experiencing my own feelings (normal for an empath)... but I couldn't figure out whose feelings I was feeling (also normal for an empath). When I looked into it, it turned out to be my house's feelings! My house was upset on my behalf! It was so bizarre but when I cleared my house's emotions, my own went back to normal. And I thought: does my house seriously love me? Is this even possible?

I decided I don't see a reason to believe it's not possible. So I love my house back and thank it for being protective of me.

In Visions of Glory: One Man's Astonishing Account of the Last Days, which I am not endorsing but have read, Spencer talks about plants and inanimate objects feeling love for the people in their lives. I love that idea and due to my recent experiences, I feel it is true. The plants, the animals, even the stuff in our lives is capable of love. All intelligence is capable of love because it is the most basic--and most powerful--feeling that there is.


I've been considering buying a copy of the new smash hit organization book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. I still haven't bought it, but I've read a lot of reviews, and one of the things the author recommends is verbally thanking all your belongings for their service in your life every day. I love that idea. Our things do serve us and I believe they are receptive to our gratitude.


Conclusion

Could it be that our things can love us? Consider the possibility that even the inanimate objects in your life are sending love and grace to you with every passing minute.