Welcome 2016 with Good Feng Shui!

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redfiremonkeyHappy 2016! This year already feels magical to me and I am busy planting seeds for the future.

As you know, Feng Shui is about energy – its flow – or lack of it and its reflection in the quality of your life. Since everything is energy, that means your home and office are composed of endless energy fields. This is the perfect time to undergo a thorough cleaning and to clear 2015, physically and mentally.

Here are a five of easy things to do to kick off 2016:

  1. Clear Your Clutter for Good Feng Shui – repurpose anything that does not bring you joy. This helps the energy flow through out your home. And if something is broken, get rid of it. Broken items cut the “chi” or energy in our space.
  2. Bring in Light and Air – open the windows – even if it’s cold- to help bring in the fresh air of 2016. Allow as much natural light in your home as possible. Bring in plants to help purify the air.
  3. Be mindful of the Feng Shui “trinity” – your bedroom, your bathroom and your kitchen are deeply connected to your health. Make sure these rooms are free of clutter and have the five elements represented – air, water, earth, wood and metal.
  4. Bring more love into your life – make sure your bedroom is free of photos of your family and has an abundance of photos of you and your partner. No work allowed in the bedroom! Have two nightstands, one on each side of the bed and have a headboard in order to maintain a supportive relationship.
  5. Create a Strong Front Door -It doesn’t need to be red but the area needs to be free of clutter and clean. You must use your front door daily in order to honor the “mouth of the dragon.”

Just Do You

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“A new you can still emerge from the old you.” Bamigboye Olurotimi

As we round the last corner and 2016 begins to come into focus many of you might be thinking about making new years resolutions and changing. I have a suggestion for 2016 – just do you.

The earliest recorded festivities in honor of New Year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. The Babylonians marked the occasion with a massive religious festival and made promises to their gods at the start of each year. Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake, Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future, and to whom the Romans made promises to at the beginning of each year.

Millennia’s later we are collectively still making the same empty promises to change. But in every moment of every day, we’re changing and evolving and growing. In every moment, we’re reconstructing our identity. We’re not defined by our decisions from two years ago. We’re not even defined by our decisions from two minutes ago. We’re defined by whom we choose to be in this very moment. We have this myth of identity — that who we are is the summation of a lot of choices we made in the past. That we’ve got a map for the life we’re supposed to lead, and we’ve got to stick to it. But that’s assuming that we’re all static beings, and that’s not how people work. We’ll never be “figured out.” Over the course of our lives, we’ll constantly be transforming into a more and more authentic version of ourselves.

Each of us is rare. Being unique is the spirit that already resides in us, the inner intention, primary style and way of being that makes us true individuals regardless, of the pressure to conform to temporary social patterns and contemporary cultural fashions. At the individual level, each person is here to give something that is not just unusual, not only exceptional, but that is distinctive and divine.

This year I hope you find moments of peace and your inner uniqueness for life aspires you to do meaningful work and discover genuine purpose. That you have the courage to undertake the seemingly impossible tasks of transforming culture and helping to heal the world. Not because the world can be saved or redeemed in a hurry, but because it is the impossibility of the great problems and projects of life that awakens the sleeping uniqueness within and changes work from a simple job to a life-long, life-enhancing project. And that serves the dignity and nobility of one’s soul as well as the well-being of one’s community. I hope you experience good health, that you are kissed by fortune, treated kindly by fate, that you jump high, and fall slowly, and that all your landings are gentle. But mostly I hope that you are encouraged to recognize and embrace your inner and exceptional uniqueness.

Piano Playing As a Spiritual Practice

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Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. ~ Wassily Kandinsky

I don’t think I can say, yet, that I play the piano, but I’ve been meeting with one everyday for almost a year, just late at night, or first thing in the morning. I’ve been learning to follow its notes up and down the scales and I’ve been going through the short pieces in several exercise books. It’s not long before the left and right hand are asked to work at different rhythms and to make surprising steps and rests. And it’s not clear where to look. If I look too closely at the notes, everything slows down and I’ve lost the meter. If I watch one hand too intently, the other one wanders off. So I try to look on from afar, dispassionately, just enough to discern the patterns on the sheet and the shapes that my fingers make as they nearly strike the correct notes. Using this method, I have managed to get through the first few pieces in my piano books. I’ve played them hundreds of times now, inscribing little minuet memories into my muscles. I try to get out of the way so that they can take over while I listen along. Of course I can hear it when something goes wrong but it’s been interesting to find that the wrong note feels wrong to the finger as well.

When my fingers have woven together a passing musical likeness, I move on to the next piece. Immediately the baroque threads get tangled up. Notes ring out in strange clusters and at such a glacial pace that it reminds me a bit of nails on a chalkboard. Over and over, I retrace my steps, trying to find the path out of this woeful, accidental modernism. At the rate I am going there is little hope that I will ever become a very good pianist but this doesn’t bother me. It’s fun to be a beginner, every day, unsure of when and how the music will come.

Something I didn’t expect from the relationship I have with my piano is that outer music is leading to inner music in me. Playing the piano is turning into a spiritual practice.

Like any spiritual practice I have the help of a guru, my teacher Sebastian Estrada. And like any spiritual practice piano playing requires discipline. After hours and hours of practice I’ve reached a moment when the motion of my fingers across the keyboard is actually pleasurable, regardless of the sound. And then something else happens: there’s the sense that the music is playing me, rather than me playing the music.

Professional musicians must have this sense all the time, the very best concert performers becoming translucent to the music that they play. Perhaps this explains how they play large chunks of music, involving possibly millions of notes, by memory. It’s not that they memorize it bar by bar. Rather, they know the music so well that the notes could not go in any other place.

Is that a spiritual experience? Perhaps in this sense: musicians give themselves, via the discipline, to a communication that is far greater than themselves. The source of the music lies elsewhere – in the mind of the composer. But nonetheless, without the discipline and skill of the musician, the music could not be realized, could not be incarnated.

Piano playing takes you out of yourself too. Therein lies much of its satisfaction. And there’s one final aspect to it as a spiritual practice that occurred to me. It has to do with love.

Love is like playing a piano. First you must learn how to play by the rules, and then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. The same could be said for finding God.

Music and Healing

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Music Matters. Last year, depressed about a recent diagnosis of a chronic condition, I decided to distract myself by taking guitar and piano lessons from Sebastian Estrada, a graduate student of music at UTEP. Sebastian is tall and broad-shouldered, with a mop of dark curly hair with solemn brows that offset his boyish grin. His eyes are the color of a dark brown beer bottle and rich soil flecked with dark chocolate all mixed together. A love of guitar has made his fingers rough which looks sometimes odd next to the smoothness of the back of his dark-skinned hands. I’m sure since he was a boy he was recognized as exceptional. After months and months of sitting in front of him strumming the guitar and sitting beside him on a piano bench, I don’t know him. There is a remoteness about him, a part of him is powerful yet unreachable. Music became the perfect diversion I needed and as our slow sweet musical tango began, it successfully blurred my criteria for self-pity.

Using music and sound as a healing tool is deeply rooted in ancient cultures and civilizations. Greeks believed music to be an art capable of healing body and soul. The flute and lyre were used to treat illnesses. Apollo, the Greek God of Medicine was also the God of Music and of healing.img_apollon

Vocal sounds have been used by indigenous cultures for centuries as an integral part of the healing process. When overcome by illness Native American Shamans use the voice in healing rituals by singing to oneself to facilitate healing.

In India, it is said the universe hangs on sound, not just any ordinary sound, but a cosmic vibration so massive and subtle and all-encompassing that everything is seen and unseen is filled with it. Hindu Ayurveda medicine has used the voice to balance and re-align chakras for thousands of years.

In 2007 during a trip to Peru, I witnessed the extraordinary discovery of Machu Picchu’s Intihuatana Pyramid that was revealed to be a sophisticated harmonic structure not only mirroring positions of the planets and stellar systems but also designed to mimic the chakras and harmonic cavities of the human body. Stone altars are harmonically tuned to a specific frequency or musical tone. The sarcophagus in the center of the Great Pyramid of Egypt is tuned to the frequency of the human heartbeat. Astonishing experiments conducted at the Great Pyramid and other sites in America demonstrate the pyramids to be voice-activated geophysical computers.

The discoveries emerging describe the existence of a worldwide temple system mounted like antennas on the key energy meridians, which were employed by ancient priest-scientists as a musical system to stabilize the tectonic plates of the planet. This ancient system tuned the planet like a giant harmonic bell.

A recent study at Stanford University shows that depressed patients gain self-esteem and their mood improves after music therapy.
Extensive research shows that human blood cells respond to sound frequencies by changing color and shape. Sick or rogue cells can be healed or harmonized with sound.

I recently heard Sebastian’s band Trost House play. The band name was inspired by the aesthetic of his Sunset Heights neighborhood and the home on the corner of Yandell and Hawthrone, a home that architect Henry Trost designed and Sebastian passes every day. Sebastian’s mother is an architect and father a civil engineer so architecture, like his music, has always been an important part of his life. In a dark hot bar, hearing Trost House I found myself transcending. The music touched me deeply and tickled some universal nerves, invoking images and feelings. There is a moment of intimacy that occurs between a musician and an audience, outward energy, like an invisible electromagnetic field.

The music turns you around and pulls you in. It’s a magnet. Once heard, once felt, never forgotten. Music is your essential rhythm in your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. And music takes us and heals us in places we couldn’t get to any other way.

Note to note, music laces out of loose ends an extraordinary lattice of assurance and grace – assurance that there is hope for awakening in ourselves a deeper sense of immediacy or purpose amid the slumber of ordinary life, and for moments when we feel like all such hope is lost and that we will never heal, the grace of trusting that we do endure and that our of the wreckage of illness something surprising will rise.

Sebastian is teaching me about the space between the notes, about the measures, where so many juicy moments of life, spirit, and friendship can be found. In music, I am finding miracles, truth, and healing.

When life delivers an illness that leaves you speechless, songs give you lyrics to establish a narrative meaning to life. This is why music is healing because music is meaning.

Michelle Cromer on Blog Talk Radio

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Archives to my popular blog talk radio show.

The Midas Touch – Use Feng Shui to Increase Your Wealth in 2016
01/24/2016 — Let’s face it, who doesn’t need more money? Learn how to find your prosperity corner is in your home, office or space and discover how honoring this space increases your abundance. With some basic improvements, you will see real results to your wealth issues. You too can have the Midas Touch in 2016!

Essential Oils, A Natural Way to Heal!
09/27/2015 — Essential Oils, which have been used as far back at 4500 B.C.E have been called the “lifeblood of a plant.” They circulate through plant tissues and pass through cell walls, carrying nutrition into cells and carrying waste products out. Listen in to learn how to use nature’s medicine to heal your body, mind, and spirit!

Get Ready! Mercury Retrograde is Here! 9/17 – 10/9
09/20/2015 — Mercury Retrograde is here again for it’s third and last visit this year. Mercury is the planet that seems to have the biggest effect on people and when it turns retrograde, even those that don’t believe in astrology find it difficult to deny it’s powerful influences. The most noticeable problems will occur in communication, technology, and travel plans.

Mercury Retrograde What it Means to you!
9/6/2015 — Although Mercury does not move backward, it appears to be. It’s a time to back up your commuter, expect delays and miscommunication because Mercury rules communication, transportation, and travel. It’s not an ideal time for elective surgery of any kind. Keeping track of Mercury Retrograde periods can allow you to increase your productivity and avoid frustration. Listen in as we give you valuable tips on navigating through this three and a half period of time.

How is Your Love Life? Attract More Love Through Feng Shui!
08/30/2015 –We can all use more romantic love in our lives and yet somehow, for many of us, this kind of love eludes us. The ancient art of Feng Shui can bring in the loving energy you desire. Listen in as we discuss helpful tips on the design, layout and energy flow of your love section of your home, how to activate that area and ways to bring in the love energy in your bedroom. Utilizing Feng Shui can be the practical application you have been looking for.

Venus is Retrograde! What Does That Mean For Your Love Life?
08/9/2015 — Venus is retrograde from 7/25 – 10/9 which means we are all getting lessons in evaluating the real worth and value of people and things in our lives. Problems and unresolved issues bubble up to the surface and demand attention. The retrograde motion of a planet from our perspective appears to move backward in the sky. This provides the perfect time to review, reevaluate, reassess any relationship you may have.

The Single Dad Detour — Resetting Your Parenting GPS after Divorce
08/02/2015 — Michelle Cromer and Perla Maldonado welcomes Tez Brooks, to share with you principles from his own experience as a single dad, as he explains them in his new book, The Single Dad Detour.

Becoming a Spiritually Healthy Family
7/26/2015 — No one who starts a family plans on falling into patterns of dysfunction, but between the baggage of the past and the pressures of the world today, developing destructive parenting patterns is all too easy. Family ministry leader Dr. Michelle Anthony has now brought hope and practical help to parents in her new book, Becoming a Spiritually Healthy Family: Avoiding the 6 Dysfunctional Parenting Styles.

Halo Found Hope
7/19/2015 — Author found a ray of hope in darkest of circumstances. Despite being tested by a terrifying diagnosis, Helo Matzelle clung to faith. Join Perla and I as we discuss with author Halo how this simple diary turned into “Halo Found Hope”, a memoir.

Putting an Arm Around Teen Moms with author Tricia Goyer
07/12/2015 — Everything changes the day young girls discover they’re going to be moms, and the pressures they’re under can be crushing. In Teen Mom, Tricia pours out her heart and shares advice for the hard things you face. She also longs to provide encouragement, reminding you that you can be the mom your child deserves not in your own strength, but in the strength God provides.

LoveHuman–Where You Come From, Where You Are Going with Betsy Otter Thompson
06/14/2015 — Michelle Cromer and Perla Maldonado welcome author, Betsy Otter Thompson, an author of 6 Spiritual Self-Help Books, to share with you about her new book, LoveHuman, Where You Come From and Where You Are Going. It offers valuable guidance about how to find comfort in a world where uncomfortable things happen.

Soul-Guided Living with Dr. Laurel Geise
5/31/2015 — Dr. Laurel Geise is an inspirational author, international speaker and spiritual mentor empowering you to live your soul’s calling. Combining twenty years of teaching personal development workshops with 30 years as a business executive. She is the popular host of “Soul-Guided Living”, a weekly show on VividLife Radio featuring experts in the field of personal transformation.

Working With Intuition In Times of Chaos
5/3/2015 — Could there be any more chaos in our world? Most of us don’t realize our own personal patterns of chaos and how they affect others. Listen in as Christopher Barbour, psychic detective explains intuition, and how we can work with our own.

Meditation for Kids: Turning to Mindfulness to Help Kids Stay Calm
4/26/2015 — Recently I was asked to teach meditation to a group of underprivileged middle school kids in El Paso, Texas who are in the chess club. Listen in to the techniques that can help to curb kids’ impulsivity, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. The chess club ended up winning state and are headed to nationals!

Feng Shui For Love!
2/08/2015 — Whether you are looking for a new relationship or want to rev up your existing one, listen in as we discuss some favorite Feng Shui tips for romance. By giving special attention to this area, you will foster long-lasting and harmonious relationships built on mutual trust and unconditional love. Feng Shui for love relationship and marital harmony is one of the most popular applications of Feng Shui, just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Interested in Higher Consciousness and Truth?
11/02/2014 — Listen in as we discuss Geoffery Jowett’s latest book, The Power of I Am. Learn how to bring balance to your life by aligning your energy system or chakras. And, how to maintain a steady and balanced level of energy vibrations through each of your seven chakras so that you may be in harmony with love, peace, and joy.

Replay with Christopher Barbour–Become More Intuitive
10/26/2014– Replay from Becoming More Intuitive Part 2, is the sequel from our popular guest Christopher Barbour! Listen in as this psychic detective discusses the five most important questions to ask regarding intuition. Christopher will share some of his amazing psychic adventures and explain some of what goes into doing this work.

Mom Seeks God; Utilizing Motherhood for a Faith-Filled Life
5/18/2014 — What is it about motherhood that causes you to abandon any semblance of spiritual life? When you are surrounded by the happy chaos of children, how do you spend quiet time with God? Listen in as author Julia Roller offers practical advice from her new book, Mom Seeks God: Seeking Grace in the Chaos. Learn how to address life changes with grace, patience, and prayer. Listeners will learn that motherhood itself is a spiritual discipline and maybe God’s most effective technique for forming a more faith-filled life.

How to Survive the Death of a Child
4/27/2014 — Sandy Peckinpah’s sixteen-year-old son woke up with fever and was dead the next morning of bacterial meningitis…her life changed forever. Listen in as we discuss how writing in a journal led to self-discovery and resilience. Learn how to talk about a loss you may be experiencing, handle anger and grief and learn that you too can feel joy again. Your healing begins today…not tomorrow, not a week from now. How to Survive the Worst that Can Happen, A Parent’s Step by Step Guide to Healing after the Loss of a Child is the first step we will take together.

What Do Your Dreams Mean?
4/13/2014 — Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Have you had a nightmare and don’t understand why you are so afraid? Join our conversation as we talk to Fabio Macchioni about what our dreams mean. Fabio is a student of Carl Jung who studied Jung who believed that when it comes to dream interpretation there are no rules to follow.  As an engineer, a scientist, Fabio felt that was a simpler way to interpret dreams so he began to enter every dream he analyzed into a database. Ten years later this database reveals extraordinary patterns and rules that promise to change the way we understand our inner voice. The language of dreams is finally decoded!

Devil Eye – A story about Remote Viewing
3/02/2014 — Have you ever wanted to close your eyes and transport yourself to another place using ESP? Join us as we welcome back fiction author Rebecca Jean Downey, author of “The Middle Eye” and her new book, “The Devil Eye”. This is the second book in her series featuring her main character, Penny Larkin.  Penny uses her remote viewing skills to track down New Mexico gunrunner, Juan Rico. Penny is sworn to secrecy because the marshal believes a law enforcement officer is involved.

Mystics, Saints, Prophets, Sages, and the Pope
12/15/2013 — Nelson Mandela was laid to rest. Pope Francis has just been declared the “person of the year” by Time magazine. Listen as we discuss mystics, saints, prophets, and sages that have been touched by divine power. Their defining moments ultimately reveal universal lessons about the true nature of God.

Become More Intuitive!
10/13/2013 — Become More Intuitive Part 2, is the sequel from our popular guest Christopher Barbour! Listen in as this psychic detective discusses the five most important questions to ask regarding intuition. Christopher will share some of his amazing psychic adventures and explain some of what goes into doing this work.

Divine Grace
9/29/2013 — Are you ready to Find Unconditional Love for Life? Tune in to hear author Fredericka Close discuss her new book, Divine Grace.

What does the Fall Equinox mean to You!
9/22/2013 — Listen to the replay as we discuss what the fall equinox means to you.

The Middle Eye
9/08/2013 — Award-winning author Rebecca Jean Downey will be discussing her latest novel, The Middle Eye, the new Penny Larkin series of paranormal thrillers set on the U.S.-Mexico border. For the last twenty years, she has worked in higher education as a marketing specialist. She has had a lifelong interest in criminal justice and has published articles on law enforcement issues in magazines, newspapers, and business journals.

What Happens If I…
8/18/2013 — Have you ever wanted to go on an inner journey towards growth and understanding? Join us as we talk with author Betsy Otter Thompson as she explains her theory of emotional action/reaction which enables us to see ourselves honestly and provides us with practical skills for achieving a richer, more meaningful life experience.

Igniting Your Soul-Guided Life
At the core of every soul, the seeds of truth and grace await for you to awaken them. Listen as author and speaker Laurel Geise talks about her new book: The Jesus Seeds; Igniting Your Soul-Guided Life.  Learn how to activate the light inside of you so you can have access to the cosmic encyclopedia of life! Laurel Geise is an inspirational teacher, author, and speaker who empowers people around the world to live an authentic, soul-guided life. The awakened energy of her message weaves a vision of unbounded human potential waiting to be unleashed.

Feng Shui for Life!
4/28/2013 — Do you need more love? Better relationships? Career advancement? How are your finances? Listen in and learn how to activate areas of your home and office in order to maximize opportunities in your life!

A Year with God and 25 Books Every Christian Should Read
2/24/2013 — Through 365 daily meditations, author Julia Roller explores 18 spiritual disciplines in her book “A Year With God.” Julia will instruct us on the “25 Books Every Christian Should Read.” These books are shaping the Christian church, faith and the world.

 

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Michelle Cromer