Some of you expressed an interest in what I meant when I said I had failed to ground last night before the party and I was very jangled and couldn’t sleep. And how does one do that? Didn’t know you could? Can it really make the difference? Oh yes.

I believe that all humans, all living beings, animals and plants included, are created with the ability to sense and react to the energy of all living and non living things, from mom to rocks. As we grow up we start to lose this ability. Use it or lose it I say. We don’t teach it in our homes or at school or on the playground. We actually deny it exists and that we can’t do it and deny those who say they can until we’ve become a society of folks who don’t know what is running them. But we do feel the effects whether we believe in them or not. And absorbing the energy of others either runs you ragged or brings you energy to restore you. Leave yourself wide open and unshielded and you will notice it the next day.

What I don’t know about me, runs me. And sometimes what’s running me is the entitled doctor on the phone with me at work, hitting me with his power to get his way. If I’m not grounded, centered, and shielded, I’m in trouble. And yes, he might not understand HOW it works but make no mistake he is INTENTIONALLY hitting me with his power. He knows that gets results in his sad little world.

I have lots to say on THAT subject but will stick to grounding today.

Many of you (and I know quite a few witchy folks are here and I KNOW you could probably say this better than I) might be familiar with the exercise of holding your palms face to face in front of you and bring them closer together and further apart to find that you can feel the heat, the energy flowing. There are many more advanced exercises you can do with just the palms of your hands and the palms of other people’s hands. Try it now. I like closing my eyes so I have to rely on my other senses to tell me how close or far they are from each other and to feel it.

I can actually feel energy stretching thin and thick like an accordion. I can send into your hands and I can make a ball with it. But not like Harry Potter. Just a fun little ball of energy. But I know if I worked on it long enough I COULD form and send a ball of energy to hit someone. I’ve done it by accident in extreme grief. But intentionally, that would go against all my beliefs about love and I would be a traitor to myself.

What does this have to do with grounding? A lot. We sense and are absorbing the energy around us whether we are consciously aware of it or not. Ever seen a mob? Gotten a contact high? Felt the energy pulsing and slamming into you at a Ramones concert? It’s always there, always accessible.

But because we deny it, we are at the whim of it. We are open receivers and transmitters just sending it out and taking it in and we wonder why, when we get home from work, that we have to lie on the couch for 20 minutes just to decompress. Or get drunk. Which leaves you open even more and the cycle continues. Those guys with tin foil hats probably really are more sensitive. I had a conversation with a guy in tin foil hat once and he actually made some sense except for our refusing to believe in energy.

When we are sick or “low energy” we are even more susceptible to the energy of others. Last night was loud and raucous and drunken and fun and silly and there was a TON of energy zapping all around that room. Some people even got a little cranky, like the women with the mic who couldn’t get everyone to shut up and listen which created confusion in the clusterfuck game.

Soooo. How do I protect myself from the energy of others? How do I ground?

I stand or sit or even lie down. I close my eyes. Whatever part of me is touching the surface, in this case my butt and legs and feet, I start to imagine tendrils of my energy (mine are neon pink in my mind’s eye and I don’t know why) extending down, into the cushion, through the sofa, done through the floor, the neighbors apartment (sorry guys), down through the concrete pad, down into the earth, down down down down until the soil becomes rocks becomes boulders and I start to see the glow of the earth’s core… I let my tendrils grow tendrils, and more tendrils and I let them wend their way amongst the rocks and bones of the earth and then imagine them becoming straws, like roots, sucking up water but instead sucking up the earth’s core energy, up up up through the molten energy, up through the boulders, up up up until I feel it enter my body. I let it fill me with a golden pink light and let some of it rest in my heart.

As I fill up and I keep drawing more and more energy up from Mama, I start to release it from my crown chakra and send it fountaining back into the earth, creating a circuit of energy flowing from me to mom and me and back. I believe that THIS is what Jesus was talking about when he talked about “my cup runneth over.” It was him right? I can really get it flowing, I visualize it being pretty freaking sparkly too because why not? Like a rainbow of water drops in the sun or sparks. Sometimes I let it be a cool calm smooth flow that feels like wind, that’s for today when I’m too low energy to even take a good zap from Mom. I do this usually before I enter a place that I know will have high energy or after a rotten phone call at work or before picking up the phone. Over the years I’ve become able to do this entire thing in about 10 seconds. It used to take about five minutes. But once I start I can actually feel my body lock down to the earth, battening the hatches. I’ve been holding hands with folks in a circle and they’ve felt me lock down and gasped. Not bragging, just illustrating that if you’re awake and aware and open, we exchange it together. It’s why sex is sooooo intense and can either make you feel marvelous or suicidal. It why sacred sex is so crucial to our well being. We are literally letting someone into our core.

Once I have the cycle flowing, I set the intention that it continue doing that for a certain amount of time without my having to maintain it so that I can function in this plane of reality and still receive and give the flow.

Think I’m cuckoo? Shrug. That’s cool. But I tell you it works and keeps me from using my own energy reserves, which are few more than ever these days, mama gives and I give back.

This next thing isn’t grounding but shielding. I envision myself surrounded, on the aural/astral plane, by a shiny somewhat flexible silver egg. I try to remember to sit and meditate on it, visualize it. I note where it’s been dented and scraped and stained and I visualize myself polishing and rubbing and washing it until it’s shiny as new sterling, glowing. This is my permanent shield and must be kept in good working order. I didn’t check my egg last night (or most of this year come to think of it, I’ve been cracked wide open, ugh) and I see this morning that not only is it not shiny but it’s only half inflated. Time for a tune up.

If I had done both of those exercises before the party last night, I probably wouldn’t have been so wired, jangled, when I got home. I might have slept better and I might not have felt hungover from absorbing the energy of some tipsy folks.

It takes practice but it’s a very cool thing. Everything, EVERYTHING, is energy and energy goes EVERYWHERE. And EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED. There is NO separation, that is the illusion of being human, that we aren’t connected. But we are, for good or ill, and the more we know how to care for ourselves, the happier we will be. Through and around you, it’s what it does, for we ourselves are simply energy with a little carbon and water thrown in, also forms of energy. It’s why I believe science and God are very close to becoming ONE. We’re right at the crux of a huge realization and transition. If we don’t do ourselves in first.

The biggest energy wave in the universe is the energy wave of love. You can tap into it even faster than Mother Earth. Ride the wave. It’s energy, love. God is love, love is God, and it’s all energy waves. All connected, ebbing and flowing….

coming soon… Energy Vampires