Here is a recent article on a study done to see how pain levels are helped by yoga, massage, and reiki published in Massage Magazine.  The results are very positive.  Massage Magazine has one of the largest audiences for the world of massage and integrative therapies.

While this study is not a scientific, clinical data study, it looked at 50 patients for each modality of massage, yoga, and reiki.  That is 150 responses over time rating their pain level while active cancer patients.  I have and do volunteer for similar programs at cancer centers that provide reiki to patients (acupuncture and massage as well).  It mirrors the results we see daily from our patients.  We see a drop in pain and anxiety, and an increase in a sense of well-being in the majority of people who come to us, free of charge while receiving cancer treatments.

Touch.  Such a simple thing and so vitally important to our health and well-being.  We show affection through it, we offer comfort through it, and we provide healing through it.  When someone becomes sick, with a serious ailment, such as cancer, touch takes on a whole new meaning.  All of a sudden people seem afraid to touch you, afraid to hurt you with the embrace of a hug.  Some even seem to be borderline repelled by the thought.

Now imagine being that cancer patient and coming into an environment where you are received with open arms, hugged, smiled at, and doted over.  You take off your shoes, and yes, even your wig or hat, not worrying about how you look, and you lay down on a table under a blanket.  Soothing music plays, and you even picked out your own personal essential oil scent to bring with you to the room.  The lights dim and one of two Reiki Practitioners lull you into a state of complete rest and peace through visualizing your body sinking into the table and relaxing each muscle.

Then, what you are apprehensive of and crave at the same time happens.  Two sets of hands are gently placed on your head and feet.  They move in sync, moving and placing their hands on your arms, torso, and legs.  You feel warmth, peace.  You forget your hair loss, your port in your chest, your next chemo appointment, and just settle in and be.  You are pretty sure that by the time they ask you to come back to the present moment you could just fall asleep and stay that way for hours, something that does not always come easy with the racing mind and to-do lists.

The Reiki Practitioners wish this too, but bringing their patient back to the present and seeing them happy and peaceful makes it even more worth their while.  Reiki practitioners get so much out of the sessions as well, knowing they are providing this service and being able to give a sense of respite for even this 45 minutes.  Often times patients are seen right before they go in for chemo or radiation treatment, so receiving these sessions is even more important to their overall well-being.

Reiki is an energy healing that originated in Japan.  It incorporates the idea that we can, through a process similar to Tai Chi, help to support our body systems on all levels: body, mind, and spirit.  Reiki comes from two words Rei and Ki, and although hard to translate directly, together mean “Highly or Purely Guided Energy to Increase Life Force”.  Reiki Practitioners, through training and an “attunement”, are able to lay hands on (or slightly above the body), creating a strong connection to this flow of energy for themselves and others. Patients, at the very least, report feeling relaxed and at peace.  This alone helps facilitate healing.
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What I say to people who only rely on clinical studies for answers is this.  Even if there is not much scientific proof yet to show the health benefits of reiki, acupuncture, and similar healing modalities, the significant amount of positive anecdotal evidence is clear.  Both from the side of the practitioner and the patient.  We see it every day.

I do not know the answer.  I did my truly life changing ‘Angel Therapy’ training with Doreen Virtue (well, technically that is, you don’t ever actually meet Doreen when you do entry level training with her for a week), and had an amazing mentor who also trained with her.  This so profoundly enhanced my career, faith, and understanding of angels and myself.  And also left a TON more questions.  At the time Doreen really seemed to be the “expert” on angels, at least in the U.S.  Now there are so many other well-known people who see, talk to, commune with, get messages from, and even claim to be Oracles or have a direct link to the “Spirit who is at the fingertip of God”.  These last ones are some pretty darn big claims.  Who am I to agree or disagree?  I am the most important person in the world…

…for me, that is.  Only I can know what to believe for me.  I can read and listen to, or even have private sessions with all these people listed below, and still not understand it all.  Wait, let me back up.  If I was very wealthy and somehow could move up on the 1 month to 1 year wait list to have a session with these amazing people, I could maybe start to understand it all.  Luckily, if there is one thing they all agree on, is that I have the power to connect directly with angels myself, and don’t actually need them to do it for me.  Phew.

I am not being negative towards anyone.  I am truly grateful for all insights from humans and communications from light beings that I can get!  I re-read this and almost took out the sarcastic parts.  But then I realized that is all part of our struggle together – what makes an “expert”?  Does the fact that they have a waiting list a mile long, can charge an arm and a leg to see people, and walk around with an entourage of helpers make them experts?  These are by-products of them being experts.  If they weren’t, no one would spend the time and money to see them, right?  I certainly don’t think any of them are frauds, and most don’t even seem to be coming from a place of ego.  Does that mean we blindly believe what they say?  Answering for myself, no, it does not.  It means I have great interest and respect for their insights, and decide ultimately for myself.

I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to get the answers from others.  I have read their books, listened to their podcasts, taken their meditation classes, had in-person readings, etc.  No cruises for me yet…  And I will continue to do this (read, not go on cruises) to learn and discover amazing new insights, ways of healing, meditating, and becoming closer to the angels, my guides, Jesus, and God.

My biggest lesson learned so far in all of this: my perspective on why I am doing this has changed.  I am no longer looking for them to tell me the answers.  I am looking within myself as I learn more, to know what feels right to me.  I am trusting my own judgement, my own intuition, my own religious and spiritual beliefs, my own sense of connection with the angels, to truly learn about angels.  Am I good at that yet?  Not really.

For example, some experts say you can just think an Archangel’s name and they will be at your side instantly.  Others say you actually have to perform a ritual, or at least set clear intent through actions.  I recently read Anthony Williams take on all this, and he is somewhere in-between.  At this current time in my thinking (I reserve the right to change this thinking at any moment) he is pretty close to what makes sense to me.

Then again Anthony claims that he talks to and sees the Spirit ‘Compassion’ who is literally at the fingertip of God.  Wait, isn’t that Jesus?  If anyone has compassion at its fullest and most Divine, it would be Jesus.  Jesus is certainly our most amazing example of a Divine Healer.  He was also a Mystic that we barely know anything about but sounds truly amazing.  Jesus tells us to see him in everything (Christian labeled or not).  Maybe I’ll just keep praying to him… and stop going off on this tangent.

Where I do feel confident is in my art.  When I make someone’s artistic representation of their guardian angel (http://www.sacredbalanceart.com), I trust myself, I trust that guardian angel to lead me, and I know that what I am doing is real.  When they come to me in color, texture, personality, and want to give a message, it feels perfect to me – my intuition knows, I feel exhilarated, I get in the zone.  And the many confirmations from my customers helps too!

I have made progress, and I have a ways to go yet.  I hope my struggles in this post help you to see you are not alone (come on admit it, you struggle too) and realize that truly believing for yourself, and in yourself, and what you learn about angels, makes you the most important person in the world…to you.

There are so many people out there communing with the angels and other light beings that we must just be getting started with our understanding.  After all, when we are humans, we are but blips in time compared to the life of an angel.  Huh, maybe there are no experts after all.  At least not yet…


Yours in Love, Light, and as always Angel Blessings,
Claire

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To help you on your journey, here is a list of amazing people who work with angels and other light beings:
http://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/essential-angels – Anthony Williams
http://www.lornabyrne.com/ – Lorna Byrne
http://www.angeltherapy.com/ – Doreen Virtue
http://mas-sajady.com/ – Mas Sajady
http://www.allaboutangels.org.uk/ – Jacky Newcomb
http://www.kylegray.co.uk/ – Kyle Gray
http://www.dianacooper.com/ – Diana Cooper
http://sylviabrowne.com/ – the late Sylvia Browne
https://www.amazon.com/Edgar-Angels-Archangels-Unseen-Forces-ebook/ – even Edgar Cayce
The list goes on and on, enjoy discovering more for yourself…

What does it mean to heal with color?  In working with Flora Corona color elixirs for 4 years now, I can say that I am just beginning to understand this.  Color is powerful.  Nature has the most amazing colors, from the flowers to the animals to the ocean to the earth to the sky.  We are all moved by a glorious sunrise or sunset.  We marvel at the depth of color in the oceans.  Florists can make endless combinations of colorful arrangements.  Geologists delight in every new gemstone found.  We can't deny their significance when we think of a rainbow; the same colors in the same order every time a rainbow appears. God gave us the rainbow to signify he won't devastate the planet again.  For thousands of years healing and meditation modalities have associated the colors of the rainbow with our chakra system.  The list goes on.
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But how can we use it to heal?  There are many exercises you can do to become familiar with color.  These are simple ways to get to know color which can have profound effects.  I can try one of these one day and feel and understand a color in one way, then do it again in a month and have a completely different experience.  The first one you might remember from grade school science class!

COLORS HAVE COMPLIMENTARY OPPOSITES:

1. On your computer screen, print it out on paper, or find some construction paper: Make half your screen a color, the other half white.  This is easily done on a Word document, or download the PDF at the end of this post.  It can also be done by taking a piece of construction paper and taping half of it on a white piece of paper.  Or even taping it to a white wall.  So many options for creating this.  I have also included ones you can print in the PDF at the bottom of the page.
2. Stare at the colored square for a full 30 seconds.  Now shift just your eyes to the white section.  What color do you see? 
3. Try with the main rainbow colors, or variations such as teal, peach, lilac, etc.​

COLORS MAKE US FEEL.

1. Open in full view or print out the 12 colored circles included in the PDF download.  Leave as is or cut into "flashcards".
2. Look at each one individually.  Write down words of how each one makes you feel.
3. Now look at them by rows; red-orange-yellow, then lime-green-teal, etc.  How does the grouping make you feel?
4. Take the colors that made you feel uncomfortable.  Look at their opposite on the next layout.  Do you feel a more comfortable feeling with its opposite?

WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS?

Depending on whether you want to explore the colors that make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable, try these next steps.

1. Wear the color.
2. Meditate with the color all around and in front of you.  Find a scarf, light a candle, just print a sheet or find construction paper of that color.
3. Journal about how it makes you feel, and ask why.  Keep journaling over time.  Do you get insights?  Does your feeling towards the color change?
4. Take a bath and focus on that color.  Ask your Body-Mind to tell you why you like/don't like that color.
5. Research what the color means.  I don't give a lot on the meaning of color on purpose.  Depending on which "expert" or "philosophy" you learn about, it will be different.  Follow what feels right to you.
   1. ​For example, RED can mean: passion, anger, sexuality, strength, courage, creativity, warmth, danger.  All mean something very different.

WHAT NEXT?
My hope is that this tiny introduction to color helps open up ideas for you on how to start noticing how it effects your daily life.  Also notice how you want to try using it through meditation, journaling, and personal growth.  Start with the exercises I gave and see how delving into the power of color can be insightful and transformative.  Let color guide you on your natural strengths (what your favorite color says about you) or areas that you may need to work on (what colors make you feel uncomfortable when you focus on them, read about them, etc.)

​Contact me to set up a Flora Corona healing session and enjoy looking through my energy art to see how color is in all I do.

Some resources to further your exploration:
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http://www.dinshahcolortherapy.com/

http://www.floracorona.com/

http://www.colormatters.com/

http://www.amazon.com/  - search adult coloring books

Color Blessings!
Claire

I create fiber art angels, angels that are an artistic representation of your actual guardian angel.  Here is the story of how they came about and why they are so special.

I taught myself how to knit to honor my Nanny when she passed as a way to honor her- she was a master knitter.  I am a decent knitter but one can only make so many hats and scarves.  My Mom gave me a kit to knit and then felt a purse.  I was hooked!  As I started looking at all the possibilities for felting (way to many hours spent on Etsy, I am not sure Pinterest was around yet…), I saw these darling figures people were making by needle felting.  And then I saw brooches of wet felted flowers, all lovely and talented.  I wanted to do this, I just knew it was my artistic calling.  But what to make that was unique?

I started making angels since they are such an important part of my life.  As I would make them, they would come alive with personality.  They seemed to be talking to me, telling what color hair they wanted, what color wings, dress, etc.  The more I made them, the more it seemed that I really was getting little messages and visions of what to do with each new angel.  At the same time I was taking Doreen Virtue’s course to become an Angel Therapy Practitioner.  It seemed that when I was “in the moment” with my art angels is when I could best hear them.  I realized this is because I really was in the moment.  All my focus has to be on making the angels – I am using a barbed needle and holding the wool as I poke it over and over in my hands.  If I am not paying attention, I literally get hurt.  Trust me, those needles poked into a fingertip are not fun.

This was a big key – being present allows the angels a doorway to get through this muddled, day-dreaming, procrastinating brain of mine.  I started asking the spirit of the angel that I was creating to help me, give me clear guidance on what to do.  Oh my!  They obliged!  I not only received the color of hair, wings, dress, etc., but now I had personalities and visions of what they really look like, or at least how they were presenting themselves to me.

I was still at the stage of creating them and then selling them.  The day came when someone asked me to create an art angel FOR someone.  Ahhh… I see now.  The light bulb went on!  The guardian angel of the person I was making the angel for was the angel talking to me.  She wanted me to make a artistic representation of her!  Taaadaa!  My healing art form was born. 

​As I made more for people, they were fascinated by my process and what the angels were saying and doing.  Everyone wanted to know the name of their guardian angel.  I have never felt comfortable with this.  One day a dear friend said “That is because they come to you in color and texture, not in name.  Embrace that.” I started to get little messages that the guardian angel wanted me to pass along to the person.  At first I thought I could not do this, that this was someone wanting art, not an angel reading.  I thought combining the two would make people shy away and not buy the art.  I was wrong.  It has now become the main part of what I do – creating an angel with a message for people. 

The more I make, the easier it becomes for me to see and learn about these amazing beings who are delighted that I am making little artistic representations of them.  The challenge now is trying to capture their movement, their glow, their iridescence, with fibers.  I may have to expand to new mediums to help create even more accurate artistic representations.  I am gleefully up for the challenge!