The idea of ‘inanimate’ is a myth. Just like the idea of ‘solid’ is a perception. In reality, all things that exist are collections of atoms which are mostly space and how we perceive them is based off of the rate of their movement. And movement means that everything has energy, frequency, and is animated by that life force. And life force includes a certain level of consciousness.
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So this means that stones and crystals (among other things) can be equal *partners* in our health and wellness practices.
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Crystals are in everything nowadays. In fact, you reading this is made entirely possible because of the crystals that power technology and screens. And the reason crystals are used in that way is that they’re programmable. We can ask that they be programmed and infused with love and healing light and intentions, and then we surrender to them and allow them to teach and heal and work with us.
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This last weekend I learned some new techniques for working with the aid of crystals to speed up and deepen my own healing techniques. When used properly, crystals can help dissolve and transmute stuck or diseased energy impressions, allowing for a more optimal flow of fresh, present moment life force. What this has meant for myself and my clients is that the things that have felt like they’ve held us back or kept us feeling disconnected or scared our wholes lives are suddenly lighter and affect us less. We find a new sense of freedom and clarity and purpose.
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So are going to keep letting things from your past affect you today? Or are you going to let them settle into being just one more thread in the tapestry of who you are? My helpers and I are here. 💚
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I’m available for distance sessions over video chat.
WHAT IS ENERGY HEALING and is it woo-woo?...
📷: found on karmayoga.ca
Each culture has it’s own specific terms and way of conceiving of the physical and subtle bodies. In the Vedic and yogic conception of the human experience there are five Koshas (often translated from Sanskrit as ‘sheaths’). Whether you personally believe in Koshas or not, it beautifully highlights that fact that on a *frequency* level our body is distinct from our breath, our mind, our emotions, our intuition, and the sense of bliss we find through achieving a sense of interconnection with all.
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And frequency is energy. Which means then that the part of us we can see, our physical body, is only 20% of our totality. Energy healing operates on the realm of the other 80% - the parts of us outside of what the physical eyes see as ‘real’ but which are still just as valid a part of our experience, although less tangible.
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So energy healing then is holistic and complimentary to other forms of healthcare. Removing old, stuck, negative, or diseased frequency impressions from the bio field around and within the body can influence our physical experience, our mental experience, our emotional experience, our ability to feel full of vitality, and our ability to feel connected and content.
on Meditation
photo by Melissa Groves and Photography by Melissa
This blog was originally written for Jennifer Miller who introduced it in this way:
Note from Jenn: 3 years ago I stumbled into a yoga class quite by chance on a Thursday morning. I've been back 1 - 3 times weekly since. In fact, I don't quite remember myself before yoga and meditation led me deeper into relationship with God. One of my most consistent teachers has been Kate. I used to dread her class because it didn't offer the distraction of music. There was nothing to focus on. No beat to let consume my thoughts. The silence was too loud. And then I realized one day, like a light bulb moment, that it too was a way of teaching. She taught us to meditate for 75 minutes every Thursday morning without ever uttering a word about it. I knew when I started this blog I wanted her to write for you and for me on meditation. Check out her bio at the end of her writing. She's fabulous and I'm convinced you'll want to know her better. - Jenn
What do you think of when you hear the word: “meditation”?
Do you think of still minds? Of monks in caves and on mountains? Of enlightenment? Of peace? Of perfection? Can you see yourself in it or does it feel unobtainable? Boring? One more thing that needs to be done? Separate somehow from the chaos that is your life?
It is true what they say that wherever we go, there we are. And inside each one of us there is a quiet voice that fears that who we are is too small and also too much, unloveable, not good enough, inherently flawed. So we bring that voice with us when we approach our spiritual practices, the practices that are supposed to bring us comfort and connection. After all, what we believe about ourselves dictates how we act in our relationships.
All our relationships.
Including the one we have with God: the Supreme Divine Mother/Father, the Love that animates all of Creation. Which, ultimately, is our relationship with ourselves.
So when we sit to meditate, we bring all of our trying, all of our masks and roles, all of our lists and priorities and avoidance patterns, all our shame and fears and guilt. And then we wonder why it doesn’t work, why it feels hard, why we don’t feel peace. We project what we fear about ourselves onto a screen in front of our eyes and then use the movie we created to prove our fears right. “You see, I can’t meditate because I never do anything right. Because I’m too broken. Because I have to get myself better first. I need to be different in order for this to work…”
And yet… there the practice of meditation sits. Quietly. Patiently. Waiting with palms open to receive.
To receive what?
All of you.
Meditation doesn’t care if your mind was only still for a millisecond before, “Hey! Look! I did it!” drops like a heavy stone sending ripples. Meditation doesn’t care about the roles you inhabit in your day-to-day life. It doesn’t care whether you are healthy or sick. It doesn’t care about your degrees and qualifications. It doesn’t determine your value based on your accomplishments or the busyness of your schedule. It doesn’t care how many mistakes you have made. It doesn’t even care whether you feel badly about having made them. Meditation doesn’t ‘do it for the ‘gram’. It doesn’t care whether your house is clean, whether your hair is brushed, whether you have it together or even appear to have it together.…
It simply doesn’t care.
Because meditation is not a judge, nor a measuring stick. Meditation is not a spot on a map. It’s not a specific length of time. It’s not a test we fail or pass. Meditation cannot be bought, hung on a wall, diffused throughout a room; nor is it a look we put on in the morning and freshen up during our bathroom breaks. It does not have a right or wrong. Sometimes, I think I hear meditation laughing gently - “Why are you hitting yourself like an idiot?” it teases, smiling.
Ah. Right.
I have to laugh a little in response. I feel some tension leave my jaw and shoulders. Perhaps a sigh escapes. All the suffering and the struggle… I brought that. And I can choose to put it down.
Try it.
Whatever you are using to beat yourself up, lay it down, at least for a moment, and come sit with me. Or lay down if sitting isn’t comfortable. After all, we get to say what works for us and meditation will meet us there.
Feel your breath move in and out. There’s no need to change it. Remember, there’s no right or wrong.
There is only presence instead of hiding.
Watching instead of doing.
Listening instead of speaking.
Not praying, but embodying the prayer.
Not asking, but wringing out the juices of your precious, beating heart with all its deepest, most sacred and secret longings and then offering them up to the One who Holds with compassion and humility and gratitude.
And when fear comes, that’s OK - we fear what we don’t know. And meditation turns the unknown to the known.
It’s the flash of lightening that gives us a glimpse of what’s in the dark room.
It’s the battlefield where we steel ourselves to face all our most gruesome monsters who, when we actually stop running, hiding, and fighting long enough to look… reveal themselves to simply be children: hurt, sad, scared, misunderstood.
We open our arms and they climb in and so meditation becomes the embrace through which stranger becomes Self.
And when stranger becomes Self fear becomes love, violence becomes peace, what is broken is mended, and we can see our stumblings for what they truly are: the very grace of God, moving through the world as us.
“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.”
- excerpts from Rumi’s A Great Wagon
Millions of Little Steps
I dive in.
It’s what I do. I wouldn’t consider myself reckless. I just somehow have always seemed to have a deep trust in the Universe… in myself. And so far I’ve never jumped into anything that I couldn’t ultimately handle, so when I feel some fear there’s plenty of proof to quiet it.
But the fear remains. There’s always been a voice somewhere inside me whispering that I may not have what it takes to succeed. That I may be too lazy and undisciplined. There’s always been a little nugget of jealousy when I compare my struggles with others who seem to effortlessly manifest dreams that appear ‘successful’ and ‘sustaining’.
And yes - there are a lot of judgements and projections in those fears. There are a lot of assumptions based on external appearances that may or may not have any basis in fact. But I’ve come to learn that there is always a kernel of truth in my fears and there is always a hidden longing in my judgements.
I dove in to the nomad life - moving out of my house and spending what I expected to be a few months (and ultimately turned out to be over a year) shuffling me and my things from friend’s house to friend’s house; relying on generosity and love and community to keep me sheltered. And it was humbling, beautiful, and incredibly hard.
I dove into renovating a 33-yr old RV - with no prior experience and in a context where without house and with increasingly little money, the stakes felt very high and there was very little space for missteps and setbacks to feel like anything other than failure. I poured myself and my resources into the RV and had very little left to keep myself in community with others or to keep my business running. I became stronger, more resilient and capable and also more depleted with each passing day.
I dove into a completely new business format - going from a location-dependent to a location-independent business. I thought I had laid the groundwork for a relatively smooth and sustainable transition and quickly discovered that I was wrong and, furthermore; that I wasn’t even sure the concept I was trying to model after felt authentic to me and my strengths. Self-Doubt crept in and made a tiny nest near my heart and winds of fear and desperation continued to strip me bare. I know all this leaves room for deeper clarity to come and yet the undeniable reality of my lived experience was many moments of feeling shaky and lost.
In the midst of all this, I continued cultivating a different relationship with my nervous system; a deeper listening into and trusting the innate wisdom and desires of my human self. And I witnessed myself pull the rug out from under my own feet - rob myself of stability and a sense of security. I saw clearly how often I set myself up not to fail, but to stay within survival mode; and how I have never really given myself the opportunity to experience what thriving feels like.
…Perhaps I am not ‘lazy’ but overwhelmed? Maybe I’m not ‘undisciplined’ but rather unprepared? What if I live knowing that any day could be my last AND continue to play the long game? What if I slow down even more and truly celebrate all the millions of little steps that constitute the journey?
You see, I’m learning a big and powerful lesson that dreams pursued at the expense of the nervous system often land as trauma.
I am grateful for the courage, passion, and trust that seem to be within me, encouraging me to leap. And I acknowledge the fearful and jealous parts of me and their desire for more nurturing, ease, and security… for thriving, not just surviving. I realize I am worth it. So I take these two paradoxical pieces of me by the hand - the leaper and the walker, the visionary and the pilgrim - and we seek a middle path. Together, we’re trying something different…
Notification of closing of office
For clients and yoga students in Winchester, VA… below is the text of my email notifying of the closing of my bricks and mortar office space and my eventual departure from Winchester to expand.
Dear clients, dear friends:
I hope this wintry holiday season is finding you well.
It has been a little over a year since I opened the doors to my practice and began offering Integrative Energetic Medicine. It has been an amazing year. I have grown so much as a practitioner and a person. I am so humbled and honored that each of you have trusted me with some part of your journey. It is my soul’s deepest satisfaction to watch you leave with brighter eyes.. even if they’re brighter through tears! ;) I know what it has meant to me to really get that being a deeply caring person in a challenging world is not a punishment or a burden, but rather a gift and a skill. When I see you, my clients and friends, begin to find similar acceptance for all the pieces of you, it fills me up with joy and gratitude.
A lot of growth and transformation has been happening in my personal life, too. I have always loved travel. Last Fall, I went to India and it was my first long trip since immersing myself in energy healing. I fell in love with who I am when I travel all over again. For many different reasons, as bittersweet as it is, I feel very deeply that a new stage of my life wants to unfold and it wants to unfold in a more nomadic way of life… out on the open road.
Some of you already know that I have moved out of my house, purchased an RV, and have been staying with friends while I renovate it. As I have moved around several times during this period, I have learned a lot about both the value and weight of possessions, I have also learned a lot about allowing myself to receive the gift of generosity from others. There are many other things I am being shown about myself, others, abundance, and compassion. And the time is now really approaching when I will be moving into the RV and taking my healing practice, and my own journey, on the road.
So, what does this mean for all of you?
Some of you may feel that your time working with me has naturally come to a close. I honor that and am grateful for the time we had together.
For anyone who wishes to keep working with me whether regularly or semi-regularly, I will be closing out my in-office practice Wednesday, January 16th, 2019. This means that this will be the last day I will be seeing clients in-person, in my office.
However, I have been gradually transitioning more of my practice to remote sessions. The connections forged and healing awakened through video chat and phone calls have been so beautiful and still fill me with a deep sense of honor, gratitude, and joy. I hope you will consider continuing our work together, albeit in a slightly different format than you may be used to.
I am in the process of updating my website so it will be easier to purchase/book remote sessions with me. And, as always, any referrals sent my way I consider a great gift and acknowledgment. If they haven’t already, now they can include any friends or family you have that might be interested… anywhere in the world! You can also help me by leaving me a testimonial to include on my website (http://www.wildsacredjourney.com/testimonials/). Truly, this shift for me is about expansion in a world that desperately needs more love and connection.
I look forward to seeing as many of you who want an in-person session as I can before the end of Wednesday, Jan 16th, 2019. I look forward to continuing to work with you and be a part of your journey wherever mine takes me.
I plan to write more in my blog while traveling: http://www.wildsacredjourney.com/travelogue/
I am also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katepowell.wildsacredjourney/
and Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp
Please connect with me there and send anyone you think may be interested to connect with me there as well.
Just like me, my business continues to grow and evolve. I am working on a shorter session offering geared towards those of you who might just want periodic energetic balancing or who may want some support for your energetic system before or after surgery or other medical procedures. Stay tuned for those details. I will be offering one last day-long retreat on Sunday, January 13, details coming shortly. And I will continue exploring other ways that will allow us to continue to connect, grow, and heal together using social media and other, digital meeting places. If you have purchased a package with me, those will always be honored. If you feel called to ask for a referral to another IEM practitioner who is still local to Winchester, I will gladly give you some.
Winchester folks - You have been part of my community in a place where I learned to put down roots. I hope you will think of this not as a goodbye, but rather as an invitation to expand with me. Current remote clients - I look forward to perhaps visiting your area and continuing to work together in the meantime. Together, we can all explore and adventure into new possibilities and wider, deeper, connections. I have no idea where I’m going on this wild, sacred journey… and I’m kind of excited about that!!
With great love and gratitude (and yes, some tears, too),
Kate