Learn How You Can Utilize Remote Viewing

Have you ever wanted to close your eyes and transport yourself to another place using ESP? Join us on Blog Talk Radio 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.

What other’s are saying:

“The plot twists ran all the way through to the last chapter of the book. I was amazed and surprised.”

“Rebecca’s descriptions of locations were so specific it was like watching a movie. Who will play Penny and who will play Leo in the Hollywood version?”

Listen in and learn how you can utilize remote viewing.

Conscious Eating as a Spiritual Practice

Most people say they don’t have time to meditate, yet we all find time to have three squares a day. Eating isn’t typically associated with the expansion of our soul but with a few mindful moments, eating can be an opportunity to cultivate a spiritual practice.

Here are a couple of ways to invite your soul into your next meal:

Give Thanks

When Ricky Bobby (actor Will Farrell) says grace at dinner with his family in the movie Talladega Nights, he prays, “Dear baby Jesus use your baby super-powers…“His wife interrupts to remind him that Jesus grew up to be a man with a beard. But Ricky Bobby likes the Christmas Jesus better, and continues to pray to “the eight-pound, six-ounce baby Jesus who listens to baby Einstein tapes…” Whatever “saying grace” means to you – praying lays the energetic and spiritual groundwork for the meal. Our thoughts and spoken word create a vibration that influences physical matter. My Native American grandmother used to pray for the spirit of the animals that gave their lives so we could eat. She thanked the farmers who grew the vegetables and always thanked whoever physically prepared the meal. As a child I thought her prayers were too long and thanking the animal was ridiculous, but as I look back on her meaningful words I realize now that it was her way of incorporating her spiritual practice into every eating experience. Each meal was a spiritual journey as she took the act of eating to a deeper level and filled every bite of food with the energy of grace. Through prayer, we invite God into our meal making it a blessed and scared experience.

The Cup Concept

Anyone who knows my husband Barry knows about his cup concept. Essentially Barry suggests choosing a cup to eat out of, so that each time you eat, your meal takes on an element of sacredness. A cup that is the same size as both of your hands cupped together is about the size of your stomach. If you are eating just enough as provided to you by the confines of the cup, you will be less apt to overeat compared to eating from a plate of food on which you can pile lots of food. You hold the cup in your hands, in a prayer-like manner to set your intention. Additionally, I like connecting a cup to the dimensions of the stomach because it is a subtle reminder that your stomach is the “altar of your being.” It is where your mealtime offerings are made to your entire self. If we considered eating as the process of making an offering on the altar of our stomach for its transformation and integration into our being, that might create a different awareness of our intake.

Make a Spirit Offering

Although I grew up Christian, I became acquainted with various spiritual religious traditions through university classes and by studying with spiritual mentors of different faiths. When I traveled to Tibet I noticed in the Buddhist temples that food offerings to the gods are common practice. Food may be simply and silently left on the altar, with a small bow, or the offering might be accompanied by elaborate chants and full prostrations. However it is done, offering food on an altar is an act of connecting with the spiritual world. It is also a means to release selfishness and open the heart to the needs of others.

It is a common practice in Zen to make food offerings to the hungry ghosts. During formal meals or during Sesshin ( an intense meditation retreat) an offering bowl will be passed or brought to each person about to partake of the meal. Everyone takes a small piece of food from his bowl, touches it to the forehead, and places it in the offering bowl. The bowl is then ceremonially placed on the altar.

Hungry ghosts represent all four greed and thirst and clinging, which bind us to our sorrows and disappointments. By giving away something that we crave, we unbind ourselves from our own clinging and neediness to think of others.

If you don’t have time to meditate, use the daily ritual of eating to enjoy and enrich your life by creating enlightened experiences and meals full of meaning.

Are you wearing the best colors for you? According to the ancient art of Feng Shui, each of us has a power color based on the five elements and the day you were born. Sign up for my email list and provide me the day, month, year of your birth and I will send you your birth element and power color!

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Inner Flame

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October is my favorite month. In the Roman calendar, octo, Latin for eight, was actually the eighth month, but the Gregorian calendar, instituted by Pope Gregory XIII established January as the first month of the year, making October the tenth.

The leaves are changing colors; the weather is cooling off; football is in full swing; Halloween decorations are going up and I am going to celebrate another rotation around the sun. October is my birthday month and I get to blow out a candle.

Candles on birthday cakes derived from an ancient practice. Birthday celebrations began as a way of recognizing the spirit that comes to life with each soul born. Originally, there was only a single candle representing individual life no matter what the age of the celebrant might be. The single flame symbolized the inner spirit and natural, shining genius that enters the world at the birth of each child. The flame of inner intelligence burns at the center of the soul and would light a path through this uncertain world. The single candle was lit to remind everyone of the invisible fire at the core of each life and birthday gifts were not given to the person, but to the spirit born within them.

In this old sense, a birthday serves as a reminder that each person is already gifted – each having an inner genius and some God-given gifts to bring to life. One’s birthday involved a return to the mystery of oneself and a reminder of the inner flame of one’s life. The point wasn’t simply to make a wish, but also to consider what the candle of each life burns for. When the candle was blown out it was said that the rising of the smoke could carry prayers for the spirit of the celebrant to the heavens above.

I am a disciple of myth, a servant of stories, and strangely a devotee of the notion that the soul is threaded through with a plotline from the beginning that aims at a destiny that might be possible to find before the end. For life is an eternal story, a mythic drama that begins again each time a soul enters the world. This year on my birthday I am going to contemplate the candle on my cake, my inner flame and what my life burns for. Through meditation and prayer, I will begin this quest by seeking the counsel of my soul. The soul is a kind of ancient library that holds the exact knowledge we seek and need most. Call it an inner spirit, the great soul or deep self, the inner genius or divine twin. It has many names but each refers to the older wiser self. We may enter paths where others have found meaning and even transcended; that’s a good way to begin a quest. But in order to answer the question of our own lives, we must risk taking our own steps. The only genuine safety in this world comes from risking oneself completely in order to become oneself more fully.

Moses began being Moses when he was placed in a basket and given to the river of life. Later, he knew how to part the waters and lead others from bondage to safety. Buddha had to find a way to go between the two great religions of his time because he could not go along with either of them. Each of these men became a prophet in their own way and each is remembered for the way they became themselves.
Those who learn to paint like Da Vinci imitate a master; yet as long as their own inner mastery remains unknown, they are imposters. They may grow by following the brushstrokes of an original but only become themselves by grasping their own originality.

So, this year, when I blow out my candle you will know exactly what I am wishing for, searching for and hoping to find…me.

Changing

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“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ~Anatole France

My doctor says I need to change my eating habits, my husband says I need to change the way I interact with him, my fat butt says I need to change my workout routine, and I think I need to change my approach to God. I continually tackle life with habitual attitudes while expecting outcomes to be different. The outcomes don’t seem to change. Not simply doing things differently but becoming a different person, both more aware within and more alert in life is really what I am attempting to accomplish.

It seems that changing doesn’t happen simply because a person joins a movement or converts to some form of faith. Those things can help; they can widen one’s perspective and bring you to the banks of the flowing river of life. Yet the baptism takes place under the water and no one actually sees the change that occurs.

In ancient India hunters developed a proven method for catching monkeys. A big coconut would be hollowed out. Then a hole was made in it; just large enough to allow the monkeys paw to pass through. The coconut would then be pinned to the ground and some tempting fruit would be placed inside the hollowed shell.

Inevitably, a monkey would approach the shell and want the fruit. As soon as the paw of the monkey grabbed the fruit, he was trapped because the fist and the fruit were too big to go through the opening in the shell. In order to become free of the trap all the monkey had to do was let go of the prize it coveted so much. But, the monkey would not let go. The monkey was trapped by what it desired and held onto. I think a lot of us are like these monkeys. Some of us stay trapped and imprisoned, caught by a narrow desire, and also by a fierce and blind unwillingness to simply let go of what we’ve held to be necessary or important.

Many take hold of something and refuse to let go, even when they become stuck in one place, even if they can’t taste the sweetness they first reached for in life. Some hold onto another person and refuse to let go; others take up an idea, a political belief or a religious notion that was supposed to set them free. After a time, they become trapped inside narrowing ideas or rigid rules. Soon they are caught in a trap made of their beliefs.

Change is hard because we hold onto what keeps us from changing; because freedom feels like losing something that we are used to clinging to; because real change means that we would no longer desire what is trapping us.

Genuine change involves pain just as birth involves labor. Many come to prefer the pain that they know to a birth that they can’t control.

There are many religions and philosophies that promise to end the piercing troubles and deadening habits if you only believe in them. However, belief in a spiritual experience of others can only act as an inspiration. In order to truly change we must let go of our habitual ways of being and cut off that which otherwise seems natural and common to the rest of us.

Wisdom is always valuable because it remains hard to find; it hides where most people prefer not to go. Wisdom and true freedom are found when we submit to the way we are intended to go and surrender to the mysterious ways we are intended to grow.

Like Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

This summer it’s time for me to start changing me.

Men and Meditation

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The average American man works an average of 8.73 hours per day and according to a new study published in The Lancet, most men are also under “job strain,” or stressed out. The findings also showed that men who experienced job stress have a 29 percent greater chance of developing heart disease. Stress, which increases your blood pressure, could lead to a long list of other heart-damaging side effects, researchers explain.

If you can’t control your workload, you can beat the harmful effects of stress by developing a simple meditation practice.
People who meditate have fewer doctor visits and can lower their blood pressure, cholesterol, and stress hormones. They have less heart disease, less depression, and increased confidence. They are calmer and for reasons still unknown, mediation seems to slow down the aging process.

Meditation is essentially deep relaxation. It’s a distinct way of learning how to be present from moment to moment and offers us a way to turn inward to find a calm and quiet place. Mediation is the awareness of the flow of reality, space and time. Unlike philosophy, which strives to achieve order through mental reasoning alone, mediation looks for a deep acceptance; a knowing that comes from the mind.

Like learning any new skill, meditation takes practice. Try setting aside five minutes a day at first, then after a few days increase your meditation practice to 10 minutes, then 15. Twenty minutes is proven to be enough time for the stress-reducing benefits of meditation.

Here are a few simple steps:

  1. Find a comfortable place to sit. Make sure that your back is straight and upright so that your attention can be on your practice and not on the pain in your back.
  2. Set a time period. Like learning any new skill, meditation takes practice. Try five minutes a day at first, then after a few days increase your meditation practice to 10 minutes, then 15. Twenty minutes is proven to be enough time for the stress-reducing benefits of mediation.
  3. Eliminate distractions. Turn off your phone, computer, anything that will ask for your attention.
  4. Set your focus. It is important to have a solid focus point – your breath and to have a word that your breath into and a word that you breathe out. Perhaps breath into “So” and breath out to “Hum.” It really doesn’t matter what word or mantra you focus on, but you need to have something to return to when your mind gets hijacked with thoughts, and you will get hijacked.
  5. Begin. Close your eyes, set your focus, breath in and out to your mantra, your mind gets hijacked, release those thoughts and return to your breath.
  6. Develop a practice. Schedule mediation into your busy schedule and honor that daily appointment.

Are you wearing the best colors for you? According to the ancient art of Feng Shui, each of us has a power color based on the five elements and the day you were born. Sign up for my email list and provide me the day, month, year of your birth and I will send you your birth element and power color!

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Michelle Cromer