Dancing in the Shadows by Laura Bryannan

Creating Circles

This technique is a way of locking in a particular constellation of mind and emotion to be accessed at any time. It's best to try it the first time when you're in a particularly positive frame of mind. Since "up" or "high" states are often fleeting, this exercise will help you get back in touch with those good feelings when they are not there.

• Keep your awareness in touch with the positive feelings in your body; try to experience them as much as possible, feeling them as completely as you can.
• Look on the floor near your feet and picture a large circle of any color; imagine a tube of colored light coming up from the circle.
• Step into the circle you've created on the floor and project your positive state of being into the tube of colored light, feeling the positive feelings in your body as much as you can.
• When you feel that the circle is completely energized, step out of the circle.

Now, when you're feeling low, or scared, etc., you can visualize the colored circle on the floor, step into it, and recreate the same positive state of being you were originally experiencing. You can bring your circle with you to job interviews, first dates, visits to your parent's house--any time you need to get back in touch with some good feelings.

You can create circles for many different uses. Some survivors might like to have a library of circles: a feeling sexy circle, a feeling brave circle, a spiritual circle; some survivors cut off from their emotions might even want to create a grief or anger circle to make a safe, but contained, place to experience these feelings. Just be sure to create them with different colors. The more you can feel the desired feelings in your body when creating them, the more energized and powerful the circles will be to use later.

If you find that you're not ever feeling up or brave or sexy enough to energize a circle, you'll have to try one of these little tricks:

Think back for a time in your life when you were feeling brave, for example. Try to remember that time as completely as possible. Let your mind replay the events leading up to your brave behavior. Let yourself feel that brave feeling as much as possible. When you're in touch with the brave feeling as solidly as you think you're going to be, imagine your circle and energize it. Any time you do something brave and are feeling it in your body, imagine your circle and re-energize it some more. If you remember any other times you were brave, re-energize the circle again.

If you're fortunate enough to remember your dreams, you can use the feelings they produce in your body to energize your circles too. Sometimes we have dreams in which we behave in ways we would never have the guts to do in real life. If you've had a dream that has produced a wonderful feeling in your body you may want to recapture later on, create a circle and energize it with the feeling while it's there in your body.

Temple Meditation

Loving and wise beings exist on all levels of creation. On more refined (invisible to most of us) astral, mental, soul and spirit levels, the Ascended Masters, angels and other beings of light have temples where they work, learn, and teach. There are temples out there specializing in practically anything you can think of: temples of music, healing, creating, power, information, cleansing and purification, etc., etc., etc. Anyone can send their consciousness out into the Universe and ask to be taken to a temple for specific kinds of help.

The following is a very basic healing and cleansing temple meditation. It can be changed in many ways to suit the meditator. I'll discuss the ways you can vary this afterward. This one works best if you have at least twenty minutes to stay in meditation.

• Close your eyes and sit comfortably.
• Take three deep breaths, beginning in the lower belly first, then expanding the upper lungs.
• Find your consciousness. To do this tune into your stomach; what is going on there? Now tune into your head; what is going on there?
• Now send your consciousness out over your head and out into space. See yourself slowly moving away from your house, above your city, and now away from the earth.
• Take a look around at the majestic darkness of space and its diamond tiara of stars.
• Pick a particularly interesting point of light and move toward it. You're moving so fast now that it only takes a few seconds to be very near to it.
• As you get closer you see that it is an beautifully radiant temple illuminating the dark of space. Fly to the steps of the temple and alight on them.
• Now you can see that there is a being waiting for you on the steps. Greet this being.
• Ask the being for their name. They might not reply, but if they do, let yourself receive it.
• Tell the being what kinds of healing you would like to accomplish during this particular meditation.
• Now you follow the being as s/he enters the temple. You can see that there are many rooms along each wall of the large interior corridor.
• The being shows you into one of the rooms. Let yourself sit there quietly, knowing that the healing you have discussed with the being will be performed on you while you are there. (If you have good spiritual senses you might become aware of colors flashing, sensations in your body, etc.)
• After about ten to twenty minutes, or if you get a sense that the work is complete, come out of the room.
• Walk toward the far end of the temple, where you now see a beautiful pool--it might be filled with water, it might be filled with energy. What do you sense?
• Jump into the pool and let the refreshing water or energy swirl all around you. Feel free to dive in, do cannonballs, do somersaults--anything that feels good and fun.
• When you feel completely refreshed and rejuvenated, climb out of the pool, stand and stretch.
• Now you notice that there is a stream of light coming down from above, bathing you in sparkles.
• The sparkling light contains all the colors of the rainbow, swirling down around you and through you. Let your bodies absorb all of the light and colors they need.
• When you feel complete, move toward the front of the temple. The being you originally encountered now meets you again.
• You might want to ask the being if there is anything they wish to impart to you before you leave. Let yourself receive the answer, if so.
• If you really liked this particular temple, you might ask the being to tell you its name. Knowing its name will enable you to return there immediately, any time you wish to.
• Thank the being for his or her help, then walk to the front steps again, lift off into space and return to earth.
• Return to your city, your house, and your body, opening your eyes when you feel ready.

Okay, lets say you want to do something else in meditation besides receive healing. What if you're trying to create something in your life, a new job perhaps? When you go out into space, ask the Universe to take you to a temple that works specifically with creating. When you get there, tell the Master or Mistress what you are trying to do. While you're in the temple you can visualize the new job you're trying to create. Doing creative visualization in a temple with the Masters' help lends a lot more energy to your visualization than if you're just doing it on your own!

CAVEAT: Because visualizing in a temple amps up the juice, so to speak, it is very important not to do any creative visulation in a temple when you're feeling down, scared or angry, etc. You may think you're only creating energies for your new job, but you'll also be creating more of whatever negative space you're in too. So don't try to do creative visualization in a temple unless you're feeling up or balanced.

What if you have some questions about your life situation that you can't seem to get clear on. Again, when you go out into space, ask the Universe to take you to a temple that works specifically with information and learning. When you get there, tell the Master or Mistress what you want to know. If you ask your questions and then quietly wait, you'll often receive an answer in your mind. Don't expect a "movie" or a thunderbolt out of the blue; the response will probably be very subtle and may even feel like it's your own mind answering.

Not all people are successful in trying to receive answers to life's questions from the Masters. In my experience, all questions are answered, but not all folks are ready to believe, let alone act, on what they receive. It is very easy to say, "Well, I probably just made that up." Some people have very powerful spiritual senses and are able to perceive the answers easily, most people do not. So, if the answers don't come clearly, don't be discouraged.

Psychic attunement, like any other skill, comes only with practice for most people. You wouldn't expect to pick up a violin and be able to play the first time, would you? So don't expect perfection from yourself the first time you go questing into the psychic realm!

Rainbow Technique

This technique is like a personal grooming day for your subtle energies. One colleague of mine called it "putting makeup on your aura." It refreshes the colors radiating from your energy centers, giving you that "glowing" look. Look at your face before and after doing this technique and you'll see what I mean.

• Sit with arms and legs uncrossed.
• Beginning with the left foot, imagine a beautiful shade of bright red slowly flowing up your left leg, to your knee, your hip, your left side, up your left arm, to your shoulder, then to your head, turning the whole left side of your body a gorgeous red color.
• Imagine that as the beautiful red color flows upward, it pushes any dingy and dirty red color that may be in your body ahead of it.
• Now come down the right side of your body: your right shoulder and arm, your side, your hip, your leg, and down to your foot.
• Imagine that any dark and dingy red in your body has now been pushed out your right foot. Send it into the earth.
• Take a few seconds now and experience your whole being glowing a beautiful fire engine red.
• Repeat the above process with the color orange, then yellow, green, sky blue, indigo (navy blue), and finally violet. Each time, imagine the old, dingy colors being pushed out of your right foot into the earth.
• Take a moment to experience yourself glowing as each color.

It's interesting to pay attention to how each color feels. You will like "wearing" some colors better than others. Do the colors you like feeling during this meditation correspond to your favorite colors?

You'll also notice that some of the colors are easier for you to imagine than others. If this is the case, it helps to place some object with that color in front of you so you can open your eyes and see it when you're trying to imagine that color. The colors you have trouble imagining are probably colors your being doesn't work with much. Since this technique is like feeding your aura colors, focusing on the colors that are hard for you to imagine may remedy imbalances in your energy system.

CAVEAT: Try to keep the amount of time you spend with each color roughly equal; don't spend more time with one color over another, especially red. Red is a very hot color. Giving it too much emphasis may result in increased agitation, anger, headaches, etc. Use each color in balance and it will help you stay in balance.

Here's a very basic description of the colors and their corresponding energy centers:

• Red is generated in the base of the spine and works with the survival-oriented energies of the life force.
• Orange is generated in the belly and works with sex, creating, physical activity, digestion and the overall health of the body.
• Yellow is generated in the solar plexus and is associated with the mind and thinking.
• Green is generated in the heart area. Green promotes balance, love, healing and prosperity.
• Sky blue is generated in the throat and is concerned with communication and self-expression.
• Indigo is generated in the third eye area, the space just above and between the eyebrows. Indigo is about transformational awareness and the spiritual senses.
• Violet is generated at the top of the head and amplifies artistic, musical, visionary and spiritual awareness.