Blessings Altar

Bright Blessings!

I am reviving my Thursday Healing List, and hopefully many other aspects of this blog. As I was assembling my new Reiki Grid, I decided to make an outdoor space for the Grid, along with a place to meditate, make offerings, and general gratitude and blessings.

Luckily, I have a lovely little space on the West side of our property. 

It is currently the site of another failed attempt to grow veggies in the High Desert climate of Southern Arizona. The small herb garden, however, is thriving and I will concentrate on growing that area. since they seem to resist the critters and the heat.

Sweet mint, chocolate mint, sage, rosemary, and thyme have so far survived. Because I am obsessed with putting rocks around everything in my garden, that is in process, now that I have decided to shrink the garden down to just the herb patch. I took the cinder blocks from around the veggie bed (aka the Pack Rat Buffet) and made a little altar area.

Then I made my Reiki Grid, and added in some offering bowls and my little oil lamp. I added a chair to sit and do my energy work and meditation. I also plan to add some pavers to the area in front of the shrine to put a yoga mat when I go outside. You can see I can store stuff like lamp oil under and smaller items in the cells of the blocks. I have a Mason jar with the Healing List names tucked in under the grid so they don't get wt in the rain or blow away.

It's a work in progress, but it's a start! I'm pretty pleased with it after just an hour of work, so who knows what it will become as I spend time out there and continue to add to it. Also, since it's right under my window I will see the grid even when I'm not outside in the space, and my intention will direct energy into the grid when I catch a glimpse of it.

If you want a name on the Healing List, please comment below or email me at pheonixfae@gmail.com. You can also comment on Facebook or Twitter

A Minute Meditation

Meditation Bowl

I have been lost for a while now. Let me be clear, I have chosen to remain lost, to some extent, for a while now. Some of this has been out of my control and remains so, and has been steadily improving with the help of my doctor. Some of this has been my choice to not nurture the light in my life, and a choice to wallow in the quicksand of my dark thoughts.

I am taking a step now, to bring daily meditation and prayer back into a place of priority in my life. I used to be really good at this. I used to meditate for at least one short session a day, and prayer was second nature, like a commentary to Divine in my head.

Now, I have to remind myself to pray even once a day. Is it the worst crime of my battle with depression and anxiety that I allowed my connection to my faith and spirit be damaged, and took so long to repair it.

But, repair it I will, and I am taking a step today to re-establish my meditative practice. I am making a Meditation Bowl, and I encourage you to do the same if you wish to establish or strengthen your own meditative practice.

The Mayo Clinic has this to say about meditation:

Benefits of meditation
Meditation and emotional well-being
When you meditate, you clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to your stress.

• Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations

• Building skills to manage your stress

• Increasing self-awareness

• Focusing on the present

• Reducing negative emotions

Meditation and illness
Meditation also might be useful if you have a medical condition, especially one that may be worsened by stress. While a growing body of scientific research supports the health benefits of meditation, some researchers believe it's not yet possible to draw conclusions about the possible benefits of meditation.
Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that benefits both your emotional well-being and your overall health. And these benefits don't end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly through your day and can even improve certain medical conditions.
The emotional benefits of meditation include:
With that in mind, some research suggests that meditation may help such conditions as:

• Allergies

• Anxiety disorders

• Asthma

• Binge eating

• Cancer

• Depression

• Fatigue

• Heart disease

• High blood pressure

• Pain

• Sleep problems

• Substance abuse

• SOURCE

With this in mind, and knowing how much taking the time to meditate has helped me in the past, I am taking this step to make a visual and emotional cue to both remind me to meditate, and help me get to that head space for peace and thoughtfulness.

The Meditation Bowl

Supplies

• small bowl
• Sea Salt
• tea light or votive candle and holder
• tumbled stones for meditation or root chakra (amethyst, rose quartz, clear quartz, aquamarine, turquoise, black obsidian, hematite, etc.)

Cleanse the bowl and stones, then sprinkle 3 pinches of salt in the bottom of the bowl. Add the candle and stones, then place in a high traffic place in your home where it will be seen every day. Try to meditate, concentrating on the lit candle in the bowl, for as little as a few minutes a day to get into the habit of mindfulness and meditation. Let me know about your meditative practices, and check back for guided meditations! 

Healing list for 4/18/13

Brightest Blessings and welcome back to the Healing List.

Please send, prayers, love, and healing light to those on the list this week. To add yourself or a loved one to the list, just leave the info in the comments!

The victims and families of the Boston Marathon bombing

WhiteMoonLily and her father who is battling illness

The victims and families of the Waco, TX explosion

My Dad, who is losing his battle with Alzheimer's

Writer's charm for NaNoWriMo

Two days till I hunker down and try to reach the elusive 50,000 words in November. I was getting my laptop bag ready today, since my plan is to carry it as a purse all month. You never know when I will have time to kill or be struck with inspiration.

So I had a thought. I made a Writer's Charm to attach to my bag.

I used white coral for organization, ametrine to bring my dreams into reality, and bloodstone for self confidence. 

I used some yarn scraps to stitch them up into a little pouch, and attached a faery, a four-leaf clover, and a hematite and carnelian copper wrapped pentacle to it.

I hooked it on to my USB and now I'm set to rock out the pages this November.

Lavander and Amber calming spritz