Inhabitants of the Unseen Part II: Shadow people

I’ve been doubting whether a classification of the astral beings is useful or even possible. It is like trying to classify the types of waves in an ocean, they are all different, and yet they have depths in common. I was motivated to write this based on a series of posts in Gary Leigh’s website: http://empathsupport.com/2014/05/07/the-hidden-astral-world-series-the-evolving-story/

I’ve found it interesting to read, even if I don’t necessarily agree with all the posts. As I read, I realise/remember/know a few other things to tell. So, here I’ll share some of what I know, as far as I understand it, which might change as I evolve, and there is no guarantee that any of it is correct anway. Read with discernment in mind.

Today I will talk about shadow people. I was for a while thinking of a name for them and then a friend, ‘coincidenally’, sent me a story about them. Shadow people are pretty much everywhere, their energy feels to me like human energy. It is when you think you saw someone across the street and in reality there is no one. When you feel someone watching, or when you see a shadow move. I think almost everyone sees them, but we have an amazing ability to ignore what we see when it doesn’t fit into the stories we tell ourselves. But what exactly are shadow people? I can’t say I know for sure, but I have a couple of theories:

1. They are the remains of a deceased person’s personality. A shadow of who this person was in life, but without substance; a part of the deceased’s life energy sustains them, but they are mainly empty shells. They happen when a person is too attached to who they are in their lives at the moment of death. A shadow person will continue doing everything the person used to do in life, get up, prepare coffee, go to work, ride a bicycle, etc… They are formed when people where very attached to their habits for many years. Sometimes they are the outcome of a violent death not accepted by the dying person, although these are a different type of shadow, and may contain more of the essence of the deceased.

For example, I live in a building that used to be a monastery, so from time to time I dream of monks padding around holding a single candle in silent contemplation (winter is very dark here). In my previous apartment, also in an old building, I would dream of an old man who would get up every morning to make coffee and hardboiled eggs. Old habits die hard.

2. They can be constructs (refer to previous post), or they can subsist due to other people believing in them.

What to do about them?

Generally, they will fade out in time, as they have no real substance to keep going. I usually treat them in the same way I would treat a stranger walking down the street, a little smile, and a ‘good morning/evening’.  However, in the off chance that it holds a bit of essence of the deceased, I always whisper an extra tender ‘adios’ – goodbye in spanish, which means literally ‘go to God’. This with the intention that they come to know that they are dead and so will ‘give up the ghost’. Using the analogy of the waves above, it is a loving call for them to return to the depths, lay their heads and rest.

There is no need to be afraid of shadow people. Some are stronger than others, and they will feed off of emotion, so sometimes they tend to inspire in the living the same emotions that they brought up in those around them when they were alive. There are a few other entities who can pass as shadows, however their energy feels different, they are not quite so human. They are shadows, but they are not shadow people.

By being aware of shadows you begin to hone in your psychic skills (if that is of interest to you, of course), and since they are so close in energy to us humans, they are easy to spot. It is a good exercise in awareness, but don’t go looking for them. I also think that the occasional one that is ready to accept the call to give up the ghost is grateful for the kind reminder. A chance to do a good deed.

Or, I’ve just lost my mind completely and I give my good intentions to random bits of air.

 

Beings of the Unseen Part 1: Constructs

Today I want to write about a type of ‘entitiy’ called a construct, for lack of better words. Constructs are both imaginary and real at the same time, and they are created when enough people believe in them with enough conviction.

Beings of the unseen- Part 1:

This will be part of a series of posts about beings of the astral or unseen dimensions. This blog was initially meant to explore psychic and self development phenomena. Latetly I’ve been writing a lot about yoga, since it is where my self development is taking place these days. However, I do not want to forget about the other explorations I want to carry out through this blog. I read a phrase once: ‘ I write to discover what I know’ (please let me know the author if you can). So back to constructs:

It is hard to tell which entities were born as constructs and which ones are pre existing and ‘other’. Regardless, all entities of the astral can grow through construct images or aspects of themselves. So, what exactly is a construct?

A simple example: say that enough people believe that the old house on the hill is haunted, this goes on from generation to generation. Eventually, people’s own beliefs will create a construct, and the house will truly be haunted. At this point, the construct has acquired ‘life of its own’ so to speak. It is a feeble existence, a construct will only be as strong as the belief that it exists. Once forgotten, a construct dissolves into raw energy once more, the place where it existed will be imbued with its vibrational field for some time.

To say that it is the result of people’s imagination is not to say that it is unreal, for humans have extraordinary creative powers of intention. So, a construct is an entity born purely out of intention. As such, the construct will have the characteristics it was imagined with. If it is a ghost haunting a house it will live up to its ideal, if it is a gnome helping plants grow, it will also live up to its ideal. This is not to say that actual ghosts and gnomes do not exist, or that they are all constructs. They can be a construct. 

Once a construct is strong enough, meaning once several people have created the image of it, but before it is too strong, it can be inhabited by another being in the astral. It would be a great source of energy for another archetype.

There are several types of constructs, more or less powerful:

1. Constructs of deities

2. Constructs of deceased loved ones: specially when they were a community leader and several people would want to contact the departed.

3. Constructs of failed infatuation/attachment (mistaken for love) : this one most people have created at some point in their lives, it is when you love the idea of someone more than the real someone. Idealizing a person can create a construct. This type of construct lives around the broken heart who created them, and cloud their view of reality. The real person will never live up to the ideal of the construct behind it.

There is much and more to be said about constructs but I’ll leave it at this for now. My point in starting with these types of entities is to highlight the creative power of intention that us humans have. We have influence over the unseen as much as the unseen has influence over us.

Love and light,

Luna sol

 

Applied yoga for empaths

This weekend I went to a cave, all vertical, which means rope work, our lead was panicking for no reason I could see. As an empath I could feel his panick like a cold black dread in the bottom of my gut. I even had to go out of the cave to have a bowel movement, it was that intense, even before we left the daylight behind. So how does this relate to yoga? one word Bandhas.

I am pretty sensitive to emotions of people around me. For a long time I didn’t know how to separate them from my own, in fact I would take other peoples emotions and make them mine. This was hurting me, and draining me completely. I even took on stress and illnesses that were not my own. I enjoy speleology, but I am very sensitive about who I go with as part of a team. I feel my team’s fear, I even feel residual fear/stress that other people have left behind in the cave. It is not all bad, I also feel excitement, determination and stamina, but for some reason the negative emotions are always stronger in my perception.

I’ve now been doing a serious practice of yoga for nearly four months. So, I decided to apply the principles of yogic breathing and bandhas inside the cave to close myself off to our guide’s panick. He was doing the rigging, and he was so tense that he made mistakes and he was going very slowly. I was standing above a deep pit waiting for him to say it was ok to come down, I was secured at the same rope in another anchor point, I could feel so much of his panick through the rope. It is amazing how much energy a rope can transfer. As an empath, I try to avoid prying into people who haven’t asked me to feel them. However, it is a sense, like hearing, it is hard to not hear a loud noise next to you. Just like hearing, I can’t help feeling someone’s emotions when they are broadcasting like a satellite.

Now, the mystery of bandhas still eludes me, but I’ve come to start to feel what it is to engage the breathing along with the muscles in my pelvis, my abdomen and support my lungs with the diaphragm. This action is meant to awaken the inner energy, and focus strength while maintaining steady breathing. It focuses strength and calms the mind. In ashtanga yoga it is called Ujjayi. I am starting to understand it, so far I can only partially close my bandhas, but even that was enough to keep my integrity and calmness in that situation. After the initial bowel movement I realized what was happening, and I took breathing action to close myself off to his feelings. I avoided getting sucked into his panick.

I didn’t take his panick as my own, I recognized it as his, I kept cool, checked the knots at the anchor points as I came down. Descended slowly to avoid the rope from rubbing on sharp outcrops. In his panick at some point he didn’t know how to continue the rigging, he was trapped in a loop of insecurities and simply went back up. Left our other teammate and I to take out the rigging. I had only done it once before, I would have appreciated his advice, but he left and went up the big pit too soon. I was dissapointed that we didn’t explore further in the cave, but at that point I didn’t want to insist to him to continue, he was supposed to be leading after all. 

I don’t yet fully understand why closing the bandhas helped me fence off the wave of emotion coming from him. It is perhaps the focusing of my strength that I find invigorating; and not at all a fence, but rather a strenghthening of my own presence. Perhaps, it is that it helps me turn my energy inward. I still felt his panick, but it stopped affecting me, I didn’t take it inside me.

I read a tibetan book once ‘the book of living and dying’ and in it, the monk describes practices where ‘bad’ or sick energies are taken inside the healer towards the heart center, transformed through love, and put back in the receiver as clean loving life. I wish I knew how to do that. I’ve started experimenting, and it more or less works in common situations. I stopped trying to do it after I got ill from it, I took and illness from someone else and I cured it the old fashioned way (by curing my body). Perhaps as I continue my study of ashtanga yoga I will discover more about opening up my heart center, and closing it as well when necessary.

For now, I want to end this post with a gratitude message for the lineage of ashtanga. It is saving my life, it is curing my body, it is giving me tools to deal with being sensitive, it is quieting my mind so I can hear my soul. Thanks to myself for undertaking this path. Thanks to the kind soul who teaches for free on saturday mornings. Thanks to all the teachers who share knowledge and resources online so that self-studies like me can have access to it. Thanks to all the bloggers that share their experiences with it online. Thanks to those who have transmitted and added to the knowledge through the centuries.

Namaste,

Luna Sol

 

Is yoga just a workout?

There has been a lot of debate lately about what yoga is and what it is not. Some seem to say that practicing only asana (postures) is not yoga, others seem to hold on to asana and dismiss all the rest. What I practice in the morning when I do an asana practice, is exercise. What happens after a few months of observing my body day in and day out as I come to my mat, that begins to be something else, the elusive yoga perhaps?

For me, sometimes yoga is just a good workout, over time it is so much more than that. I think that the practice of ‘asana’ holds the entire potential of yoga. My mind is restless and my body is in knots, I suffer constant pain in my joints and tight muscles. The daily practice of asana has taught me that it is when my nervous system is out of control that I get the most cramps and electrical shooting sensations in my joints. I’m not always terribly inspired when I wake up stiff from a restless night and come to my mat. Doing the 90 minute session of ashtanga sometimes seems out of reach when I start the practice. I manage it about 3 to 4 times a week, an the rest of the days I  do a lighter practice. I drag my weary bones to the mat and I delve into asana, having faith that it will heal my body, trying not to think about it, just doing it. In that process of just doing the physical work, don’t think just do, is where I’m finding something else. Sometimes it happens, heat rises and my body starts to unfold taking my mind along with it, sometimes it doesn’t happen; it is still good exercise. 

Observing that process day after day brings me new awareness about myself. My body uncurls and heals, only to get knotted again while I sleep, and off I go stiffly to the mat in the morning. It is a process of doing and undoing, releasing and tightening. I think a daily practice of asana brings with itself this gift of awareness, and the key to go deeper into it. Learning how to focus strength, learning how to allow the body to move deeper, those are the gifts of asana. The physical practice is demanding, it requires, nay encourages, the mind and spirit to follow along. Observing how my body evolves over time, and how situations in my life affect my practice I gain much knowledge about myself.

I had a friend who would get angry at me for ‘sneaking 20 minutes of yoga’ before dinner. I had a hard time understanding his anger; my back was aching, my nerves feeling raw, yoga is so soothing (it prevents indigestion for sure).  He never did explain why it made him so upset, I think he thought I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. He holds it so dear that he he doesn’t like to see it done out of a reverent contex. Perhaps, this is where this separatist conversation in the yoga world is coming from. Those who have felt the ‘otherness’ in yoga cannot imagine not feeling it, and indeed will not practice if they don’t feel spiritual at the moment. Me, if I didn’t practice when I don’t feel spiritual I would almost never practice. I just blindly jump into asana hoping that the inspiration and spirituality will come, with time. In the meantime I’m enjoying the health benefits I’ve gotten so far, I begin to see that it is possible to heal my achy body.

I really think yoga is good for everyone, the ones that practice with intention, and the ones that don’t. The ones that want to have intention and just don’t know how just yet. The ones who are in a deeper path and the ones who just want to relax. The ones looking for therapy for their muscles. The ones looking for therapy for their spirits. Asana by itself, as a purely physical exercise, when done regularly and with discipline,  brings unbelievable gifts to the practitioner. Even the reluctant practictioner. 

 

 

Remember the power of moonblood

About moonblood. almost every spiritual practice I know of recommends that women cease all spiritual activity, meditation and sexual activity during her moon days. I think this is wrong.
After a long time, one of Luna’s stories, more will follow:
Our blood days are when we are closest to instinct, we bleed and our blood has value. It connects us to the lower vibrations, the instinctual, the thick cool restful darkness. It can be incredibly powerful, we have access to all the lower vibrations during these days.  They are days of groundedness and inner awareness. The pelvis makes itself felt, so much so that sometimes it gets in the way of what we call daily living. Our blood days are when we can remember the blood magic  that runs through our unconscius collective. We have access to our blood freely given by nature, and yet we treat it as a nuisance, as dirt, as shame,  as garbage.
I long for the days in ages past when warm, dark, thick blood ran down my thigh to soak my bare toes and the wet earth under them. Nourishing the land with my offered chrysalis,  nourishing the wild ones.
We are privileged in this and we do not remember it. It was deemed so after the last women ruled society, after the blood magic was abused and misused. We were stripped, not of our given gift, but of our memory of it. Partly to protect us from ourselves, we are valuable, humanity cannot afford to lose women. ( or men for that matter, but that is another topic). We agreed to cover our glorious bodies, we agreed to appease the boiling of male blood, we agreed to submit. It went too far, and it is no longer necessary. 

Walking the path of the blood magic means walking the edges of the mind, the twisted kingdom as one author put it. It can lead to insanity, instability and entrapment. So many women walk it without knowing, here lies the danger.  So much of the stereotypical female hysteria, and all because we don’t remeber the power of the blood magic. I know that at least one of you, my sisters, will remember. Talk to me when  you do.

Remember, remember,  the red ember.
Remember, remember the lost blood,
Remember the wild winds of the waste,
Remember the humid storms of the night,
Remember the call of the deep.
Remember, remember, the red ember.

-Luna

Free Readings, feelings and a few other things

I’ve been doing a bit of an experiment with these free readings. I’ve met very interesting people and I feel overall more grounded and empowered as I do on purpose what I’ve always experienced by default. So I want to continue offering free readings. Curiously enough I don’t get too many responses every time I post this, sometimes I think I would get more experience if  I charged for it, but I don’t really want to just now.
It works like this:
Send me an email to: luna.solaris1@gmail.com
Write a well intentioned question and think about what it represents for you.
You may share as little or as much information as you are comfortable with.
I’ll sleep on it and get back to you at some point (sometimes it can take a few days, I might be busy or distracted)

What I offer:
I can feel emotions around an issue, sometimes I perceive images or dreams. I can also get an overall health feeling from a person, though I am not a doctor or health practitioner in any way, but I can give you general recommendations about the origin of the issue in your body. I can also interpret dreams.
I prefer not to tell the future, but can communicate possibilities.
In the past I wasn’t too eager to talk to spirits, but I will consider it now, so I can try to talk to deceased loved ones or others if they are available and the feeling is good.
I’m also becoming the guide I seek, so if you’re struggling with odd feelings and psychic abilities I’m willing to offer coaching. We  can think together about a development plan with follow up over time.
I also offer a friendly ear ( or eye) if you simply want to talk/write to someone.
If for whatever reason I can’t feel a reading for you I’ll let you know.

What I ask in return:
Smiles and good intentions (I’m serious about this *smile*).
Feedback so we can learn together.

Write to: luna.solaris1@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you soon,
Love and light,
Luna Sol