Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for saving me.

I dedicate this especially to my beautiful and loving sister Jo. Who has always been there for me. No judgement and asking nothing in return.  I thank you so so so much. Thank you, sister mine.  I love you with all my heart. 

Thank you for your exquisite suffering. 

I wanted to thank a few someones for holding me through some rough times. How could I show gratitude for their wisdom and stamina and insistent Love? How could I hail their SANITY? Everything I wanted to say seemed feeble and self-centric because it wasn’t so much about how they’d saved me, or how their Love made my healing more possible, it was about the quality of their being. Who they were/are, and everything they’d gone through to earn the wisdom that they poured on me with such generosity. 

Every healer has been wounded and initiated themselves with their own concoction. This is my gratitude for the one(s) who shared their supplies with me.

.  .  .  .  .

When someone gives you their medicine first notice: how it smoothes your shattered edges. Then: how they placed hope into you so precisely it seems that they brought it back from your future.

And the ultimate blessing: when they walk with you so steadily, so full of Faith in your Life Force that they're-set you to your original channel of Love. They do not let you fall back asleep. They remind you one more time and one more time and one more time that you belong and you are wanted and needed and you are God’s sunrise. Their certainty is your restoration.

How can you thank another human for that Holy showing? Your life is beyond words. But now that you are stronger, reach deep into the natural order of things and with your hewn respect thank them for their own exquisite suffering. Pay homage for the terror they wrestled into Grace and the doubt they digested into crops of Blessings. Thank them for the pain they churned with their mercy-begging for so very long. Kiss their precious addiction on the mouth. Look them in the eyes and thank them for befriending the demons who live on the bridge to becoming The Blessed. They’ve done the work, mortified and lost, maybe even more lost than you. 

Be in awe.Revere.Bow. And stay there long enough to see how someone's unearthed and cut jewel became your beautiful latitude.

---

PS: Thank someone for saving you that one time… you know the one.  xo

13 Signs of Being Ungrounded

13 Signs of Being Ungrounded

You are ungrounded if you:

• Get distracted easily
• Space out
• Over-think or ruminate
• Engage in personal drama
• Experience anxiety and perpetual worrying

You are also ungrounded if you are:

• Possessed by desire for material things
• Easily deceived by yourself or others
• Obsessed with your personal image

Physical signs of being ungrounded include:

• Inflammation
• Poor sleep
• Chronic pain
• Fatigue
• Poor circulation

Being ungrounded is a worldwide epidemic. This epidemic is so entrenched few of us even recognize the problem.

Being ungrounded is the root cause of a great deal of human suffering.

Evidence that Grounding Exercises Work

Although the ultimate benefits of grounding techniques will come from the experience itself, our minds often seek evidence in advance.

Research on grounding began emerging over the last 15 years. It’s still in its infancy, but the results are promising.

Grounding:

• Reduces inflammation
• Improves immune response
• Reduces emotional stress
• Improves blood flow
• Elevates mood

These studies are all encouraging, but you don’t need external scientific evidence. If you take the mindset of the scientist, you can let your body be your laboratory. Then, you can evaluate the results for yourself.

PART I: Grounding in the Body

The first part of grounding is to get rooted in your physical body.

Grounding is a similar concept to centering. The Center is expansive, including your body as well as your mind, heart, and spirit.

Once you learn how to ground yourself, it’s easier to find your Center. Grounding techniques are designed to redistribute the energy from your head or mind into your body. Doing so has an almost instant calming effect.

Most of our stress and anxiety results from a disconnection from our bodies. The more rooted you are in your body, the less stress and anxiety you experience.

"Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses suddenly appear"-Hippocrates

How to Ground Yourself: 5 Grounding Techniques

Try one of the following grounding techniques right now to observe the effects.

Cover Your Crown

I don’t fully understand why this grounding exercise is so effective, but it almost always works. When you are ungrounded, place one hand over the crown your head. That’s it. If it helps, close your eyes to avoid distractions.

Time: 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Feel Your Feet

I often use this technique with my clients because it’s so fast and effective. Sitting or standing, place all of your awareness on the bottom of your feet. Pay attention to any sensations.

Time: 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Follow Your Breath

Close your eyes and as you inhale, trace the air as it enters your nose and goes into your lungs. On the exhale, follow the air leaving your lungs and exiting your nose or mouth.

This grounding technique gets more effective with practice. The key is to observe the breath instead of forcing it with your mind. Let your body lead and your mind will follow.

Time: 1 minute to 10 minutes.

Stand Like a Tree

We discussed this powerful grounding technique in a previous guide to anancient standing meditation.

Stand with your feet parallel and at least shoulder’s width apart. Keep your head floating above your body, chin tucked, and spine straight. Rest your hands at your side or place them over your navel.

Sink all of your body’s weight and tension into your feet (without collapsing your posture), allowing it to be absorbed into the ground. To support this grounding process, imagine roots growing out the bottom of your feet, extending deep into the ground beneath you.

Time: 1 minute to 10 minutes.

Take a Cold Shower

This grounding technique has many health benefits. Cold exposure has shown to increase immunity, reduce fat, and elevate mood (by triggering dopamine). If you’re not accustomed to cold showers, at the end of your hot shower, make the water warm/cool for 30 seconds.

Over the course of the next three weeks, make the water slightly cooler and stay under it for longer. By the end of the three weeks, your body will get used to the cold temperature. It’s an invigorating and grounding experience. I recommend it unless you have high blood pressure.

Time: 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

PART 2: Grounding to the Earth

Earthing means connecting your physical body (skin layer) to the Earth. Every household outlet has a ground wire. (It’s the third prong; that semi-circular hole beneath the other two prongs).

In case there’s a short circuit, the ground wire provides a path for an electrical current to be absorbed into the ground. Without a ground wire, your body touching the device (electrical box, appliance, power tool, etc.) may complete the ground path. This causes a shock, if not an electrocution.

From an earthing perspective, our bodies are already short-circuiting, resulting in the prevalence of physical, emotional, and mental disorders. Connecting to the Earth grounds us, re-balancing our electrical system.

The Health Benefits of Earthing

The theory is that earthing allows a transfer of negatively charged electrons from the Earth’s surface into the body. These electrons neutralize positively charged free radicals that cause chronic inflammation.

An excess of free radicals damages our cell membranes and DNA, leading to cancer and other diseases. Because earthing has shown to reduce blood viscosity (thickness) and inflammation, it has the potential to support cardiovascular health.

Most of us have an overactive sympathetic nervous system (excessive emotional stress). Preliminary studies show that earthing has a calming and balancing effect on the nervous system.

Biophysicist James Oschman explains:

The moment your foot touches the Earth, or you connect to the Earth through a wire, your physiology changes. An immediate normalization begins. And an anti-inflammatory switch is turned on. People stay inflamed because they never connect with the Earth, the source of free electrons which can neutralize the free radicals in the body that cause disease and cellular destruction. Earthing is the easiest and most profound lifestyle change anyone can make.

A growing body of research suggests that earthing helps naturally heal humans from a wide variety of ailments.

Cyclists in the Tour de France often suffer from sickness, tendonitis, and poor sleep from the extreme physical and mental stress caused by the race.

The American team experimented with earthing after their daily competition. They reported better sleep, less illness, no tendonitis, and faster recovery from illness. From my experience, the benefits of earthing go far beyond healing disease.

I believe earthing has unspoken mental and emotional benefits essential for psychological development and peak performance.

The Bioelectrical Body

Humans are beings of energy. Electrical currents and their associated magnetic fields fill and surround the human organism.

These currents make up a web or system of interactive energy fields that govern the body’s functioning. In energy medicine, it’s called the human biofield.

This subtle energy is called prana in Ayurvedic medicine and qi in Chinese medicine. However, these ancient terms likely include other forms of energy beyond electromagnetic fields (for example, sound energy).

In these ancient Indian and Chinese traditions, the understanding is that a life force energy flows through the body (extending beyond it). Blockages and imbalances in the flow of this energy lead to illness.

Modern forms of energy therapies like Reiki operate on a similar principle.

The Electromagnetic Earth

In Chinese thought, the qi from our bodies comes from Heavenly Qi and Earth Qi.

Heavenly Qi refers to the energy of the sun and the cosmos. Earth Qi is formed from the Earth’s natural web of energy, its magnetic field, and its natural heat.

It turns out the Earth also has an energetic anatomy consistent with our own. Energy centers, energy channels, magnetic fields emanate from the Earth.

The Earth is like a massive battery that’s replenished by solar radiation, lightning, and heat from its molten core. It gets recharged every minute by 5,000 lightning strikes somewhere in the world.

Reconnect to the Earth

While some early versions of the shoe were made of papyrus, most shoes were crafted from cowhide, bearskin, deerskin, wood, and canvas.

Enter the industrial age. The first rubber-soled shoes date back to 1876 in England. By World War II, synthetic-soled shoes were commonplace. We, as a people, haven’t recovered ever since.

If you recall from high school physics, substances called conductors allow electricity to travel through easily. Others substances called insulators inhibit the flow of electricity.

If you’re outside during a lightning storm, it’s best to get into your car, because the tires are rubber. Rubber is an insulator; it will protect you from the lightning striking the ground. The rubber-soled shoes have broken our connection to the Earth.

Health expert David Wolfe calls the common shoe “the world’s most dangerous invention.”

The authors of Earthing explain:

Earthing naturally protects the body’s delicate bioelectrical circuitry against static electrical charges and interference. Most importantly, it facilitates the reception of free electrons and the stabilizing electrical signals and energy of the Earth. Earthing remedies an electrical instability and electron deficiency you never knew you had. It refills and recharges your body with something you never knew you were missing … or needed.

Taken from a modern perspective, walking barefoot on the ground might seem primitive. From an instinctual perspective, however, walking barefoot is how we are meant to travel.

How to Ground Yourself to the Earth: 4 Grounding Exercises

Grounding exercises to connect you to the Earth are straightforward: just take off your shoes and socks and get outside.

Stand on the Earth: grass, stone, sand, or dirt work best. You can stand in one place, walk, or lay down.

As in forming any electrical circuit, you need two points of contact. One foot alone on the Earth won’t ground you, but two feet will. If you’re lying on the ground, you can use any two connection points to form a circuit, for example, an elbow and a foot.

For healing, the researchers behind the Earthing movement recommend staying barefoot on the Earth for at least 20 minutes, twice a day.

But even if you can get connected to the Earth for only 10 minutes during lunch, it will serve you.

• Avoid grass sprayed with pesticides as they will get absorbed through your feet.
• Be careful in areas that may have broken glass or debris.
• Avoid walking barefoot on asphalt.

Here are four grounding techniques to help you reconnect to the Earth:

Mindful Walking

Simply walk and stay present with your environment.

My favorite way of earthing is to walk barefoot on my property and the surrounding woods. Depending on how active my mind is, it takes only a few minutes before I am more mentally calm and centered. Walking barefoot has the added benefit of massaging acupuncture points in your feet like in reflexology.

A point of particular interest is the Kidney-1 (K-1) point or “bubbling well” in the center of your foot. Walking barefoot helps stimulate this point. Be sure to use your whole foot when you walk: heel, ball, toes.

Time: 10 to 20 minutes.

Roll Around Like a Cat

Have you ever noticed how cats and some dogs roll around on the Earth?

I’ve often wondered if they instinctually know how to discharge negative energy. Try getting dirty and rolling around on the Earth. You’ll understand why cats do it. It feels good.

Time: However long you want.

"Now I see the secret of making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth."-Walt Whitman

Stand Like a Tree

We covered this grounding technique above.

This standing meditation called Zhan Zhuang works best in nature (in fresh air) and even better when done barefoot on the Earth.

Time: 1 minute to 10 minutes.

Earthing Visualization

Feel the ground beneath you and center yourself. Now, focus on your heart.

Become present with the energy of life emanating from your heart. Now, imagine the center of the Earth. It could be a magma core, a circle of light, or whatever comes to mind.

Next, visualize a curved beam of light or energy going from your heart down to the Earth’s core. A complementing curved energy beam extends from the core to your heart (completing a pointed oval). Feel the connection between your heart and the Earth’s core.

Time: 2 to 5 minutes.

Maximize Your Grounding Exercises

If you consciously ground yourself in your body (Part I) and then root yourself to the Earth (Part II), you can augment the effects of grounding/earthing.

The more time you spend in front of a computer or connected to your smartphone, the more time you’ll benefit from grounding techniques and earthing exercises.

Some people believe there isn’t valid evidence to prove that electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) and radiation waves from electronic devices like mobile phone are harmful.

However, the evidence continues to mount.

Ultimately, you need only get more rooted in your body to end the debate. The effects of both EMF and/or radiation from these devices become noticeable in your energetic body.

It’s not a question of whether these electromagnetic and radiation waves are affecting you; it’s to what degree you’re able to feel them.

Regardless, grounding yourself in your body and daily earthing may be an important lifestyle choice for those interested in a long, vibrant life.

Learning qigong or practicing The Mastery Method (if you don’t have a lot of time) can teach you how to feel and move the energy in your body.

Recap: How to Ground Yourself

Grounding techniques provide powerful methods for increasing your awareness of your body. These exercises offer a diverse range of health benefits.

Earthing is a grounding exercise that reforges your connection to the Earth. Research shows that earthing reduces inflammation by scavenging free radicals.

For creative professionals, grounding techniques and earthing exercises are ways of:

• Quieting and clearing your mind,
• Recharging your energy, and
• Calming your emotions.

Therefore, grounding exercises will help increase your overall mental and physical performance. It’s a calming and joyful experience to walk barefoot on the Earth.

These grounding techniques help awaken your instincts and bring you closer to yourself.

Hope you find this helpful. I am currently putting something together that's less formal or scientific sounding. Just wanted to cover some basics.

Blessings,
The Hippie Gypsy

The Mystic Shop

https://themysticshop.bigcartel.com/

Oneness

As I speak to her, I can feel her vibration shifting. It leaves me mesmerized to witness another person evolve so rapidly... how sometimes all we need is a place to be heard. A place where one can offer insight and a new framework of mind to help shift what is, into what can be. .
As I spoke to her, the minutes flew by and I just sat in total awe of the unfolding of everything. And the message comes through so strong and clear; what we endure, the trauma and the roadblocks we sometimes experience are there to push us deeper into what our destiny requires of us. Becoming conscious of these new areas of focus is not easy; awakening is not easy. Being “conscious” is not easy; but if we want to shift our life, our lifestyle, our state of being— we must intentionally choose our next thought and our next thought and our next and next to prevent ourselves from going on auto pilot. If we desire to avoid those things that bring us out of alignment consistently, we must become the energy and presence we wish to feel. No one can do it for us; and we need something more than shifting our outside pieces — often we must shift our internal pierces to feel better. To bring about true transformation... I am so grateful for this life and all that I have been called to do. No matter what you may be experiencing, you must know that your pain IS being turned into power in this now. You are transforming into the YOU that you are proud to be. YOU deserve it! We are here, for divine purpose and we are using the tools available to us to help merge into newness. Together ❤️

5 Ways to Invoke the Fiery Power of Saint Brigid

 

1) Treat yourself

Imbolc is a last call for bear medicine. If you haven’t rested enough, take the next few weeks to honor the cycle. Eat whole foods, take long walks, engage in deep meditation and relaxation. It’s important to treat yourself to alone time before spring arrives so you may greet it with renewed vigor. Indulge in unaccounted space to breathe and soak in warm baths surrounded by gentle candlelight.

2) Clean your energetic (and physical) home

On the flipside, if you have rested and are feeling anxious to move into spring, Imbolc is also an invitation to get your shit together, energetically speaking of course. Many magical practitioners take Imbolc off from their day jobs to stay home and clean, organize bills, rearrange the home, and prioritize personal projects. The besom or broom is one of the symbols of Imbolc because it’s figuratively a time of cleaning up your inner sanctuary. Doing this will sweep out old patterns and motivate you to think better, do better, and be better.

3) Light a fire

In the olden days in Europe, they would light fire in every form on Imbolc, creating huge blazes. That’s what Imbolc is to me – the fanning of my flame, the reminder of my inner fire, and a burst of energy to clear out and clean up. Build a bonfire (or a fire in your fireplace), casting into the flames what you’re ready to surrender. This is a time to detox and cleanse the spirit. What are you releasing right now? Write it down on a piece of paper, and watch it burn. Give anything that is ready to leave over to the flames. Remember: be smart, burn safely. There is actually an Imbolc fire festival.

4) Set intentions with candle magic

Imbolc is also a time to work with candle magic! When you invoke the energy of the fire element, you illuminate your intentions with power. Think about blowing out the candles on your birthday cake! Candle magic takes nothing more than your chosen candle, a flame, and the power of your intention to invoke its power. Add a genuine mantra of gratitude to Brigid in front of the flame, and watch your intentions manifest throughout  the coming months.

5) Honor yourself

The best way to rekindle your fire is by acknowledging your many gifts and celebrating them. Honoring yourself in this way also allows you to see what isn’t working for you – including those negative thoughts that keep you from realizing your full potential. Celebrate by honoring your individuality! Have you ever purchased a unique outfit you would be self-conscious to wear in public? Put it on! Do you have a guilty pleasure movie you only watch in private? Invite your friends over to bask in the novelty of it. Do you have a hidden talent you were too afraid to express or nurture? Try it out. Imbolc is a time of releasing negativity and making way for the new. A way to rekindle your inner fire is by igniting your dormant, but very real qualities. Do whatever makes you unique and special and celebrate it. Honor the brilliance of your own spirit.

In closing

During Imbolc, embrace the warrioress within and explore the uncharted expanses of your heart without fear. Sweep out what isn’t serving you, and get ready to welcome the promise of spring with a spirit that is energized from winter rest. Express your gratitude to Brigid for the simplicity and beauty she brings to Earth – the green grass under your feet, the still waters, wide rivers, and flowering blossoms of new life.


Blessings my dear ones. May you embrace the warrioress or warrior within this year. Imbolic is on Friday February 1st.

A'ho
The Gypsy Glam Lexa