Sound Healing at Frontier Tower

I am so excited to announce my partnership with the Human Flourishing Floor of Frontier Tower in downtown San Francisco! I became acquainted with the amazing leads of this floor during the Funding the Commons conference earlier this year.

Frontier Tower is considered a Vertical Conference (and sometimes unconference) due to its unique set-up. Every single floor is dedicated to the future of humanity and learning in its own way. Floor 15 is the coworking floor, Floor 14 is my floor - the Human Flourishing floor. Floor 11 is the Longevity floor researching longevity biotech and cutting-edge biomarker tracking. Floor 9 is the AI floor that builds and experiments with robots. Floor 8 covers Neuro + Biotech so you can have a lab away from your lab. Floor 7 is a makerspace, Floor 6 is dedicated to Arts + Music…

Everything about Frontier Tower exists on the edge… and on the frontier of the unknown discovered through experimentation and evolution.

I had been to many events at Frontier Tower before the Funding the Commons conference. Different floors will host different events so I had been there for music and dancing but also gatherings that were hosted by different floors collaborating with one another.

During our first meeting, Zan, one of the floor leads of the Human Flourishing floor, literally were already collaborating together, so when I asked him if we could do more events, he was already excited.

Not but two weeks later, we planned our first event for Tuesday April 14th 2026 which we created to be a Sound Healing + Sunset Tea Ceremony as the roof of Frontier Tower is a lovely place to watch sunset from. We had a full house and people came from all directions to join this sacred space that I created through the Crystal Bowl Sound Bath by dropping in, breathing deep and trusting the journey and their process. Afterwards people were led up to the roof to shed whatever came up during the sound session to the setting sun. This was an especially auspicious day as 7 planets were stationed in Aries with no retrogrades! What does that mean? FULL STEAM AHEAD AND LETS FUCKING GO! type energy as Aries is the leader of spring and the beginning of the astrological new year.

After sunset people came down to chat and participate in the tea ceremony and ended up staying for a long time to meet one another, make new friends and chat about … well… everything! It’s interesting how sound healing attracts vastly different people - people in AI, Tech, Crypto, Health and Wellness, business owners and CEO’s alike - something about the simple understanding that we are vibration and that sound can not only affect but organize matter is no longer ‘woo’ but proven by science, and visible to the naked eye. If you haven’t already - go ahead and watch some videos on Cymatics on YouTube. Cymatics is the study of the shape that sound makes - and all frequencies can create cymatics and different frequencies will organize in different patterns. When I watch these videos - or create my own experiments at home - it’s so validating to be able to physically see the overlap of science and spirituality.

Zan and I are so grateful to everyone who came out to share this evening of Sound + Ceremony! Our first event was so successful that we have decided to host monthly events and our next one will be during Human Tech week in May - as meditation is literally Human Technology.

To see our first event in April 2026 click here.

Our upcoming event is May 14th from 6:00-9:00pm - click here to attend!

To learn more don’t hesitate to reach out to me by clicking here

As always, thanks for being here.

Xoxo

Keep on Keeping On

I hope this email finds you well and you are feeling lighter after the Spring Equinox Portal on March 21st…

Even though I do very much wish that for you, there’s this cringey feeling of inauthenticity.

I know it’s difficult to navigate the world and even our own mind and emotions when we see such chaos and brutality on our phones … and … well… *wildly gestures at everything*.

I just want to let you know that you are doing your best - and that is enough.

✨ take an inhale ✨

✨ long slow exhale ✨

We are in this tight squeeze where we are bombarded by bad news and even worse news and it’s difficult to stay grounded during these times. I’m not going to offer any toxic positivity here - as there is a balance between stay informed (as much as you can handle) and living your life and feeling good about it. However, this balance can feel precarious as if we’re standing on the edge of a cliff. Sometimes I’m having a really good day and I feel bad about it and feel like I *could* be doing more or I *should* be doing more.

We are constantly surviving through unprecedented times - not just on a daily basis - but sometimes it feels hourly! We digest more information in a day than what our ancestors did in their entire lifetime. If your nervous system feels burnt out - that makes total sense!

The only things you can do are what feels manageable to you without you feeling overwhelmed or burnt out. Remember how we always talk about turbulence on a plane in my classes and why it’s important to put on your oxygen mask on first before helping the person next to you. This is such a perfect analogy because you can’t help anyone else if you are not helping yourself. You can’t save someone if you’re drowning too. You can’t give from an empty cup.

We desperately need to unlearn these patterns and re-parent ourselves with kindness and compassion. You are important. You matter. The world needs you as you are in your perfectly imperfect way.

When I say this I am also talking to myself of course, during my random health stuff I had in January I noticed my caretaking pattern take the driver’s seat and everything that came with it - overextending myself, people pleasing, saying yes when I wanted to say no, the feelings of guilt and shame that come from all that, the ruminating thoughts, sleepless nights, and then when all that goes on for too long - a sickness finally forms in the physical.

Cool Jess, so now what 😂

I’ve shared this philosophy with you before in classes, in sessions and consultations; I invite all of us in this moment to adopt the rebel archetype - the rebel archetype says fuck you I won’t do what you tell me (to quote Rage Against the Machine) and there is deep wisdom here.

How? you might ask.

Well, if the powers that be want us to feel overwhelmed, helpless, hopeless and sucked into our phones by churning our clickbait and rage bait and wars and files and other awful shit they are able keep our attention in this unending loop of trying understanding things that can’t possibly be understood.

So tell them fuck you I won’t do what you tell me and start to reclaim your life, your whimsy, your breath, and your nervous system. Limit your phone time, donate to authentic charities, go touch grass, go laugh, go protest - whatever it is that makes you feel good - in every way! Take a stand in a way that feels manageable and not overwhelming, stay informed but give yourself a boundary, stay happy and engaged. Stay grounded and healthy.

Let’s take this moment just after the Astrological New Year (that started on the Spring Equinox) to set our New Years Resolutions. Make a list and get creative. make a vision board, start a new hobby, set a new goal. Make it outlandish! Re-ignite your spark. And put yourself first because that’s the person you can change. Start from within and allow that to ripple out.

When you show up differently - the way you engage with others changes, therefore the space in between you and your community shifts; and that’s how we are able to affect change.

I hope this helps.

I always love hearing from you.

Thanks for being a part of my community.

With love, always

Jess 🤍

Funding the Commons Conference

Funding the Commons has been around since 2021 and has taken place all over the world throughout Europe, Asia, South America and the US. FtC San Francisco took place this year on March 14th and 15th 2026 downtown at Frontier Tower. Funding the Commons is a conference, a coordination hub and also a convergence point between different people with various backgrounds and interests solving different pieces of the same puzzle that finally get to sit in a room with one another and discuss strategies.

Funding the Commons is a curated group of altruistic future-oriented people trying to figure out ways to support and grow public goods like clean air, climate research, open source apps and public knowledge figuring out how to support the systems that support all of us.

This year FtC was a gathering of 1,000 builders of tech, researchers, founders, funders, community organizations, artists and therapy-oriented people like myself. We talked, hosted, and sat in on each others talks to lend our voices to help solve these problems. I took part on the Flourishing Floor and was invited to facilitate the opening circle Sunday morning, collaborated in several other sessions, and helped finish the day by assisting the Closing Cacao Ceremony.

I’m incredibly grateful for the support of Ryan Rising - the Head of Operations + Site Lead, and David Casey - the CEO and leader of FtC encouraging me to bring my unique magic to this event.

Funding the Commons is a conference where every different floor focused on something else - Neurotech, Human Flourishing, Art & Music, d/acc Lounge, a Hackathon, Biopunk, Makerspace. All of the events held and hosted by these floors added depth to this vertical space by offering talks, workshops, lab spaces, healing session, DJ’s, art shows, music and performances, unconferences, as well as normal conference content presented on the Funding the Commons Main Stage which hosted talks, keynotes, sponsors, art and the tea house.

I was elated to not only host my own events, but to collab with others, make new friends, and see so many old friends from my constantly growing global network and from the Edge City’s I’ve attended! It was truly a gathering space that attracted an international crowd!

I am so happy to announce my collaboration with the Human Flourishing Floor (Floor 14) with the help and support of Zan, Ming & Judy!

My next upcoming event that you can find on here on Luma is on Tuesday April 14th 2026 from 6-8pm. My friend Zan and I are co-hosting a Sound Healing Session on the Flourishing Floor with Tea + Discussion afterwards on the roof of Frontier Tower for sunset.

From 6-7pm I will lead a Crystal Bowl Sound Healing Session on Floor 14 and then from 7-8pm Zan and I will host a gentle movement + Tea Ceremony for sunset on the roof of Frontier Tower!

Come join us!

Bring your loved ones and something cozy to wear :)

We can’t wait to see you!

Xoxo

Holistic Chamber of Commerce

I successfully managed to find this image from 2013? 2014? by combing all the way back through my Facebook photos. But here I am and here we were during a perfect spring morning in sunny San Diego - Encinitas to be exact. Featured is a few friends of mine and the president of the Holistic Chamber of Commerce (HCC) - Eileen Kurlander in the middle and me on the right as the Vice President of the HCC.

Eileen Kurlander had asked me to be her VP after she saw my desire to create change in my community. At the time I was the lab manager at Psy-Tek Subtle Energy Laborary, a student at the California Institute for Human Science and also becoming certified in Pranic Healing and Biofield Tuning - and also becoming a yoga teacher! I was hungry and I wanted more.

I was teaching classes all around Encinitas at various different places on different topics. Chiropractors and acupuncturists would invite me to their clinic to educate on Thermography, yoga studios would invite me to talk about energy healing, and sometimes cute and cozy coffee shops would invite me to talk about women’s health. At this point I had been teaching these topics since my early 20’s as it became a special interest of mine after a health crisis caused by allopathic medicine and pharmaceutical drugs.

I left college with my undergrad as I was too sick to continue pursing a Master’s. Around that time I had met a ND, MD and PhD (all the same guy) and had fallen magically into a Thermography career. With all these things combined - being mentored by someone versed in all angles of medicine, having a medical background myself, learning about prevention and preventive scans topped with a special interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and entering the rabbit hole that is energy healing; I naturally started teaching locally as I figured if this information is helping me expand and grow, it would help others too.

I taught and traveled and ended up moving to Florida first before moving out west and taught across the United States. Once I got to California I had already been teaching holistic and sometimes obscure topics for many years which made me an incredibly well-rounded teacher and writer, as also at this time I was writing articles for various magazines like Natural Awakening, The Hour Detroit and for websites like The Gerson Therapy.

I taught for the Holistic Chamber of Commerce and met Amelia (pictured left in the image) and started writing for yet a local Encinitas magazine called The Life Connection.

I was Vice President of the HCC (Encinitas Chapter) for one year and worked alongside Eileen expanding our outreach and education programs.

I very much enjoyed my time with the HCC and under the mentorship of Eileen, and was pleased by all the things I was able to learn from and grow into!

Meditating with Jhourney

I started working for Jhourney at a very interesting time in my life; one of my relationships was ending and I was feeling like you normally do at that tumultuous time - a little shaky, unsure of what’s to come, fearing the unknown and how it will come to pass, wondering if life will be kind to you and catch you - those sort of things. I had done a retreat with Jhourney and they just seemed to like me and they asked me to come work for them; it was such a lovely gift that they gave me - they gave me structure and hope - as well as the gift of realizing how easy meditation could be.

Jhourney is the San Francisco-based meditation company that teaches you how to teach yourself to get into jhana; which, as a teacher I absolutely love that framework because thats how I have always taught - giving people information but allowing them to make sense of it themselves, and then being there as a guide as they work through things. The people that are drawn to Jhourney are these incredibly brilliant minds searching for something to calm the noise that burns inside them. For me it was my ADHD - my thoughts were always so loud I never thought that I could quiet the noise - for other participants it was across the board - they knew they needed something, anxieties, destabilizing life events, ruminating thoughts, not trusting themselves, etc.

The way that Jhourney ‘hacks’ meditation was the exact way I needed to help me understand how to meditate - as you all know I come from a vast biological and spiritual background studying the body, the mind and the heart. Most, if not all, of my friends were meditators and yet, I could not figure it out. The abstract instructions I was always given was just to ‘sit and try to let go of my thoughts….’

…And, my friends, I cannot just ‘sit and try to let go of my thoughts….’

…Or at least I thought I couldn’t…

When I went to my Jhourney Retreat in May of 2024, Jhourney did something that I desperately needed: they flipped the archetype of meditation on its head for me and told me I could break the rules. As a rule-breaker myself, this advice brought me great joy. I had this idea in my head that I needed to sit perfectly still and not have one thought in my head - based on intro talks of TM and Vipassana I had been to years earlier. With the powers of scoliosis and ADHD combined these things are ✨almost✨ impossible!

Jhourney offered easy solutions: if sitting hurts - then lay down. If neither works - then go for a walk - just make it slow and intentional. They helped me reorient my goal - not to try to get rid of my thoughts but to work alongside them. As someone who is very visual I started being able to befriend my thoughts to conjure feelings and then use my thoughts to help me stay in that feeling, and then once everything felt stable I felt more collected rather than scattered and ✨over efforting✨.

What a concept!

Jhourney helps so many people not only find meditation but love it, sincerely. They make it easy to understand and they guide you the whole way. Since my time with Jhourney I have considered myself a proficient meditator and even completed a 12 day Vipassana retreat in May 2025! Younger Jess always had that as an intention for my life, and finally achieving my goal felt so blissful.

After my last in person retreat at the Blue Spirit Resort in Nosara, Costa Rica in July 2025 I knew it was time for a wacky road trip through Nicaragua and Honduras all the way up to surf in El Salvador. Luckily I was blessed with a co-teaching team of amazing individuals and together, Matt, Jack, Owen, Tracey, Hanna and I embarked on our quest. We had the absolute best time piecing together playlists, border crossings, various different buses, a handful of shuttles shuttles and some epic side quests.

I’m so grateful for the time I spent with Jhourney traveling through all throughout California and Costa Rica, teaching alongside people that will remain lifetime friends, and meeting epically cool people as participants - it’s a time I’ll never forget!

Xoxo

Edge Esmeralda

So it’s kind of a funny story…

In the spring of 2025 I solo adventured (as I do) all through Southeast Asia - one of my favorite places in the world. I started in Korea, went to Japan and saw Mt Fuji for the first time (and cried of course) and then went to Thailand for another yoga teacher training and climbed the big walls at Tonsai beach. After that I went to the Philippines for some scuba diving, back through Japan to see my best friend, David, and then wound up in Hawai’i - for the first time - and managed to see 3 of the islands…

But!

All that travel is a Later Blog!

The point of this story is that solo travel is magical and makes dreams come true - it sounds like I’m joking but I’m actually not.

Let me explain…

Something happens when I (or you!) solo travel - where I just reach flow state, easefully and without any effort, the universe just bestows consistent gifts on me when I am doing what I love most - traveling, teaching and learning!

When I was in Thailand I got 2 very important messages - and this is the story of what happened after I got the first message.

My dear friend Hanna reached out; she and I had met while I was teaching meditation with Jhourney in California and fallen in love with each other (she’s a national treasure). Because this meditation retreat that I was teaching at was local in California I brought my sound healing instruments and played a few Crystal Bowl Sound Healing Sessions for the participants and she, in particular, really enjoyed my sessions. She was reaching out because she worked for this pop-up city called Edge City; they combine AI, Tech and Crypto people with Health and Wellness people; essentially people who are creating the future LIVE - and people who care desperately for earth and humanity. She wanted me to bring my witchy offerings to Edge City to be on the Wellness side of things. I asked her about the dates and they fit ✨perfectly ✨into my travel plans and I said “Fuck yes I’d love to come!”

So after 3 blissful months of traipsing all throughout Southeast Asia (and Hawai’i) I came home to the Bay Area and went straight to work - for a full month 🤣

Edge City is a pop-up City that “pops up” all over the world - for one month; they’ve had locations in Thailand, Bhutan, and South Africa. Edge Esmeralda is a pop-up city located in Headlsberg, California in June that combines tech, AI, and crypto with health and wellness offerings in a ‘pop-up’ city style. What this means is that people from all over the world, from similar and also varying backgrounds, are able to come together and join this month-long container, which is lovingly referred to as an incubator.

An incubator is defined as a controlled environment used for the care and protection, and thats really what happens here: people come to join this community to share what they know, to listen to what others have to offer, and to come together in this very unique space for one month. Ideas flourish here, businesses are born here, friendships created here, patents received, partnerships meld, projects grow exponentially, funding is found… anything you can think of can happen here - at the Edge.

Hanna invited me to join the Consciousness Residency to bring my unique set of offerings to the ever-growing list of amazing sessions. I was obviously overjoyed to bring Sound Healing to Edge and I was blessed with the opportunity to kick off the opening session for Consciousness Week, as a Sound Healing Meditation, where I welcomed everyone to the beginning of this week by grounding them into their bodies, clarifying and setting intentions and manifesting the opportunities that would come to pass for them.

My offerings began as Crystal Bowl Sound Bath Meditations and THEN when I learned I could offer anything I wanted - I decided to share my entire toolkit with the participants of Edge Esmeralda, and I began hosting all of my favorite sessions - Meditation Nights, Vulnerability Circles, Sound Baths, Morning Yoga, opportunities for Silence and/or Sharing, and Breathwork sessions.

My favorite thing is creating beautiful and cozy spaces where people feel safe and comfortable to share, to be open, and to be vulnerable - especially when they are new to this side of science and ancient technologies! I love watching people’s faces as I explain sound healing from a scientific lens; its so easy to comprehend and yet can sometimes still carry the ‘woo’ reputation! It’s always such a gift watching someone flow through a session - watching them relax into the vibrations of the crystal bowls, watch them begin to trust and deepen their breath, to move their awareness from their head and into their heart. Seeing them process their emotions as they rise and fall and see them witnessing their own bravery in sitting with whatever arises within them. It can be so activating such that the person that entered the room feels vastly different than the person who leaves.

It’s such a honor to watch new friends in tech, crypto and AI be introduced to sound healing and embodiment practices - like breathwork, yoga or meditation - they have such beautiful minds and hearts. I love creating spaces where they feel supported & protected; I am always so grateful for the trust they put in me to guide them. At Edge Esmeralda I made so many new connections that have exponentially increased my already-global network of friends & family.

My time at Edge Esmeralda was mind blowing, heart opening, and so expansive. I am so deeply grateful for the team at Edge - Timour, Janine, Sophie, Syl + Hanna, and everyone who came to my sessions and for allowing me to hold such sacred space for them.

It’s always such an honor to hold space for you.

Can’t wait to see you at the next Edge!

Xoxo

Nature Heals: The Earth Laughs in Flowers

The earth laughs in flowers is my favorite quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which will make sense later in this blog.

Where did yoga come from? Who was the first yogi? Who was the first guru? If you look closely at the origins of the asanas, you can see: they come from nature. Tadasana rises from the mountain. Malasana crouches with the frog. The people who came before us lived with a profound connection to nature - they knew they were part of it, not separate. Through yoga asana and study, we can slowly uncover a deep truth:

We do not see the world as it is.

We see the world as we are.

Through extending compassion - first to ourselves, then to others - we close the gap between ourselves and the world around us. We find unity where there was once separation.

When you stand in Mountain Pose, do you feel strong? Do you realize it is you who decides whether you feel strong? When you curl into Child’s Pose, do you feel safe? Where does that safety come from?

If you don’t feel strong or safe today - can you be gentle with yourself? Can you create spaciousness inside you, the same kind of spaciousness you would offer a loved one in pain? Can you be open to the idea you might feel safe or strong one day? Can you laugh at life and all its absurdities?

Do you believe in magic and all it’s possibilities; or do you feel safer in the mundane?

Do you realize it is you who creates your life — thought by thought, action by action?

What kind of life do you want to build?

If you feel like you’re not moving fast enough, not achieving enough, not “enough” enough — can you soften? Can you remember that your path will always look different than everyone else’s - because it’s yours, and no one else’s? Can you find laughter and levity in the fact that nothing is actually serious? I mean, truly, we all die at the end?

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…

~ Aldous Huxley

I have always believed in magic.

And because of that, my life has always been magical.

There have been pitfalls of depression and despair, yes - dark times that marred my path and threw me off track for a while - but I always find my way back. Suffering is a part of life. No mud, no lotus.

Nature is my guide. My intuition is my guide.

And lately, I’ve discovered that rest is my guide.

When I was younger, I tried to do everything fast, only to burn myself out and spend months recovering. Now, I follow the rhythm of nature — which is the rhythm of patience. Through breathwork, sound healing, yoga, and meditation, I find my center when I’m thrown off.

I realign faster than I used to.

I am proud that I am always becoming better than I was yesterday.

It’s easy to believe in magic when you’re young. Anything you couldn’t explain was magic then. It didn’t matter if it was science or a fairy tale. Electricity and elves were both infinitely mysterious and equally possible — elves probably more so.

~ Charles de Lint

When we look to nature, we find opportunities to meet our teachers. Nature was my first and most constant teacher. As a child, I climbed trees, built forts with my brother, played in rivers, and lived inside the endless world of imagination.

Creatures lived in clouds. Forts became castles. Finding blocks of wood in the forest behind my parents’ house felt like discovering golden fishes. We caught snakes, fought dragons, saved princesses. Nature molded my imagination — and, in many ways, it saved my life.

Windows were portals.

The moon was my first prayer.

My heartbeat was the crows singing in the hot, swampy Michigan summers.

I am so grateful for my wild inner child — the one who always dreamed of more, knew more was possible, and never stopped believing that everything, the whole world, was available to her. I still bring her with me everywhere I go — uniting my past wild child with my present grounded wildish, wolfish self.

Yoga means to unite.

And in our yoga sessions, we practice this union — integrating our sun and our moon, our masculine and our feminine, our slowness and our quickness, our meditation and our action. Just as we move through poses, we weave ourselves back into nature.

I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I have backpacked through many states and countries, often solo. People ask me, “Aren’t you afraid, backpacking alone?”

But the answer is always no. In nature, I find a peace I have not found anywhere else. It is the peace I prefer above all else.

People are often afraid of what they don’t know. Non-backpackers think it’s wild to pack up for days and head into the mountains. But backpackers know it’s ecstasy. Non-climbers think it’s insane to cling to a cliff. But climbers know the view from the top - the one no one else will ever see.

I have nothing to fear in nature. And I have nothing to fear in backpacking, rock climbing, or yoga. I used to say, “I can’t do yoga because I’m not flexible.” Now, after 15 years of practice, I’m still not insanely flexible — scoliosis gives me certain natural limitations — but I love yoga more than ever and I always come back to yoga.

Recently, I completed a 100-hour teacher training in Thailand with my beloved Janine. It was a homecoming. A marriage of my breath, my body, my movement — falling in love with the way my body stretches and flows, limitations and all.

The compassion I offer my body creates ripples. It radiates outward — to friends, family, strangers. The more compassion I give, the more I receive.

Compassion is reciprocal.

Compassion is also scientifically proven to be good for us. It frees us from self-absorption and connects us to deeper meaning and purpose. When we act from a heart-centered place, we fear less. We belong more.

In this willingness to touch pain with courage and love, compassion holds the possibility of transforming it.

Animal lovers know that animals are teachers. Rock climbers and backpackers know that mountains are teachers. Present people and divers know that the breath is a teacher. The wisest among us know: everything around us is a teacher. In yoga, we learn from Guru Sakshat — the teacher that is near.

In Savasana, we practice the art of dying to bring the unknown into the known. When we familiarize ourselves with death - with stillness, with the great unknown - we dissolve our fear of it. Just like how hiking mountains makes us less afraid of forests, traveling makes us less afraid of people, climbing makes us less afraid of falling.

Remember no mud no lotus.

Just as the lotus cannot flourish without mud, compassion and wisdom cannot flourish without the fertilizing power of suffering.

In my Wildish Wolfish Way online course, my students speak of meeting parts of themselves they didn’t know, or had locked away, or judged as ‘bad.’ We also uncover why we see the world they way we do and we rediscover our belief in magic - the magic within and the magic without. We begin to dance in the absurdity of the heaviness we’ve been carrying and find it easier to release, to let go, and to let the dance dance us. Through meeting, and accepting these parts they find a union. Through acceptance and uniting, they find compassion.

And through compassion, they find joy. And through joy, they find power… and then peace.

So I leave you with a question:

Do you believe the earth laughs in flowers?

The Unstruck Sound

From repetition of and reflection of Om, comes cosmic consciousness, as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases. PYS 1.29

Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?

What are my credentials? Well, I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Sciences, double minors in Sociology and Biology, a theme in Death and Dying, half of a Master’s Degree in Integral Health and 2 ex-career’s as a medical device trainer and as a research scientist. Why am I telling you all of this? Ironically (or maybe not) all of this science led me to my current career(s). I now have multiple advanced certifications in yoga, breathwork, energy healing, reiki, pranic healing, Biofield tuning, sound healing and Kalos. I attend several 7 day retreats per year on meditation, or yoga, or psychedelics, or healing my brain be more coherent, or working with my inner child. It’s been a long and fascinating road, and today I call myself a metaphysical guide, a master sound healing facilitator (specializing in tuning forks and crystal bowls), a storyteller, a medicine woman, a ritual facilitator, and an embodied movement (yoga) and breath(work) guide. 

Let’s continue:

If you’ve ever taken a yoga class you’ve heard chanting or singing of the word “Aum.” Aum is special and considered the vibration from which all existence arises; it has 3 distinct syllables: Ahh represents creation - the beginning, Uuu represents preservations, the dream state, and Mmmm represents dissolution, the deep sleep state; together they create the entire cycle of existence: birth, life and death. We use this sacred sound, Aum, in yoga to stimulate our connection with ourselves, others, and the universe; to vibrate our throat chakra, the thyroid gland, Udana Vayu (ascending air), Jalandhra Banha (throat lock) and thus harmonize our relationship between heart, breath, and bodymind.

Aum is the bow, the self is the arrow, and Brahman (Sat Chit Ananda = bliss) is the target.”

~ Mundaka Upanishad

Traveling back in time, we learn in 3rd grade science class that everything around us - our body, our brain, the materials our chairs are made of, our loved ones, our phones are all made of the same thing: vibration… AND that we are (incredibly) mostly space, AND our atoms vibrate through that space to influence matter. It could be said that vibration is the building blocks (or waveforms if you prefer) of our universe.

So, we have an intersection between spirituality and science, whereas science agrees that waveforms come first and physical matter originates from vibration (sound) and not only that, but physical matter can be influenced by sound, which we see directly when we study Cymatics or, the shape of sound… but more on that later.

Nada Yoga + Anahata Nada

Nada Yoga, often called the yoga of sound, is a lesser-known but profoundly transformative limb of the yogic path. Rooted in the ancient Vedic traditions, it teaches that the entire cosmos - our bodies, our thoughts, our relationships—is made of sound vibrations, and that by consciously working with sound, we can refine our awareness and attune to higher states of consciousness. While the physical postures (asanas) of yoga are aimed at aligning the body, Nada Yoga aligns our inner vibration with the vibration of the universe itself. It begins with external sound—like mantras, singing bowls, or even classical ragas - but gradually draws us inward to listen for the internal sound current, or nada, which leads to deep meditative absorption. In this practice, sound becomes not only a tool for healing but a vehicle for liberation. Just as the breath leads us into presence in pranayama, in Nada Yoga it is the listening itself that becomes the practice - listening so deeply that even silence hums. When I facilitate sound journeys, I often feel this lineage vibrating through the room -like ancient rivers of tone guiding people back to their essence.

The Anahata Nada, which means the Unstruck Sound, is not something we hear with our ears, instead we feel it on our soul. It’s a vibration that transcends the physical and emanates from the very fabric of creation. Many traditions describe it as the primordial sound of the universe or the echo of source, not unlike AUM. If you recognize “Anahata” you would recognize it as the Sanskrit name of the Heart Chakra which means “unstruck;” the heart center is a bridge from the physical to the spiritual and is the location where the Anahata Nada can be felt, makes sense, right?

In sound healing and vibrational medicine, the concept of Anahata Nada is easily graspable, as we are able to hear the crystal bowls, Tibetan bowls, Koshi chimes and gongs that are struck; but we also feel them inside ourselves- it evokes something within us. It’s almost as if we are cleansing the pathways of listening deeper so that we can hear the Anahata Nada through our feelings sense. We are diving in to ourselves so deeply we come out the other side in the universe… and vice versa. Through the deep listening we develop in our meditation practice we can attune to the Unstruck Sound. In Jivamukti yoga, Nadam, refers to the concept of deep listening and by tuning our awareness in we can increase our sensitivity to perceive the Unstruck Sound within us. The founders of Jivamukti yoga believe that sound is a vehicle of liberation which is why the silence inside of the sound is where Nadam reveals itself. The best experience I can relate this to in my own life is doing Ayahuasca in the jungle of Peru and hearing the Icaros and remembering the song even though I had never heard it before: it was as if my soul remembered the song before I was born.

“Music is the space between the notes"

~ Claude Debussy

Similar to mindfulness practices like yoga, breathwork, meditation and sound therapy - to hear the Unstruck Sound is a coming home to oneself. It’s not chasing anything external but rather unveiling what is already present, inside and innate to us, which is the divine.

I have an interesting tangent that I’ll go off on for a moment - I write a lot of notes to myself to remind me of things when i have time to get back to them. One fateful day in 2014 I found a note that said “songs from the wood.” I didn’t even remember writing this and didn’t recognize this phrase, but it was my own handwriting so i googled it and found that this was an album by Jethro Tull. I listened it and literally couldn’t stop listening to it for a month. I told my mom about this one day on the phone and she said,”

“That is what your dad listening to the whole time I was pregnant with you.”

I was floored. It was almost as if my ears didn’t recognize the music, my soul did.

Science and Sound

I’ve already eluded to cymatics - the shape of sound. Why is this important? Have you watched any of the videos yet and seen physical matter be manipulated by sound? If not please leave this blog for a moment as it will be waiting for you to finish after you watch some YouTube videos.

Now that you’re back: doesn’t it bend the mind and stretch the imagination in curious ways? If sound can manipulate these viscous substances, much like blood and lymph, what can sound do to our physical bodies?

I have 4 tuning forks that are pairs - one pair creates the Schumann Resonance as a binaural beat, and the other creates the Fibbonnaci Sequence. The Schumann Resonance is known as the heart beat of the earth and the Fibonnaci Sequence we know as sacred geometry. Binaural beats can influence different brainwaves states and allow for relaxing deeper, more focus and even altered states of consciousness.

When you listen to music you not only hear the music but you feel things, yes? More than likely you have playlists to influence, change, alter or deepen a mood. The famous Japanese research Dr. Emoto shared his findings with the world in a book called Hidden Messages in Water where he said affirmations and played different music to water, froze the water and took images of the crystals that could / could not form. Water that was told ‘I love you’ and water that listened to classical music formed beautiful crystals, while the water that was told ‘I hate you‘ and listened to extreme heavy metal couldn’t form a crystalline structure. Again I rhetorically ask, what are the implications for our physiology?

What if I told you that sound can create light?

Well it can: Sonoluminescence is the phenomenon where tiny bubbles in liquid emit light when exposed to sound waves… it is postulated that at the peak of the bubble collapse it may turn into plasma (which is electrically charged.) (Google) 

Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.

 – Arthur C. Clarke

Integration

Maybe this quote makes more sense now:

“from repetition of and reflection of Om, comes cosmic consciousness, as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases.”

Through repetition of refining our hearing, of showing up for ourselves, of have power over our thoughts through meditation, resilience through suffering in life and yoga, listening deeply and falling into our breath; through doing sound healing sessions we can find transcendence beyond the physical and into the cosmic and spiritual. Through suffering we learn and become wiser, more compassionate, more patient. Remember the saying ‘no mud - not lotus.’ We are all growing through our own mucky muck to eventually rise to the surface of our pond blossoming open the illuminated jeweled lotus that we truly are.

The yoga of sound, the unstruck sound, study of sound, the shape of sound, healing with sound, sound creating light… the fact that we’re vibration, it’s intriguingly all about us and the alive world around us, weird, right?

And repetition of vibration, through tuning forms or Aum can unite the different layers of the body “as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases.”

Teaching sound healing, yoga and breathwork is one of the joys of my life. Helping people regulate their nervous system, find alignment, embodiment, and thus illumination is one of my most consistent and largest blessings. Teaching people the science of sound coming from an academic background in health and physiology, and as a yoga teacher allows me embody my teachings at the various intersections of biology, science and spirituality.

This essay has no answers, just excitement and pure fascination to learn deeper and expand my knowledge on all these topics. Sound creates light, light touches matter, and matter responds with energy. The study of vibration is more than just a fascination… it’s a frontier. The more we learn about it - the more we learn about ourselves. 

Om Mani Padme Hum (Hail to the jewel in the Lotus)

What do I do next?

• Start small and hum or AUM for 5 minutes in the morning or the evening.

• Find a breathwork coach and lets regulate your nervous system!

• Listen to a binaural beat YouTube video with headphones!!

Curious to experience more?

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re called to deepen your practice with private sessions!

I hope this blog sparked intrigue in you - it definitely did for me while writing it!

Happy exploring y’all!

Xoxo

Jess

fuck & the throat chakra

Screaming to release stuck emotions is a well-known method of Somatic Therapy - just like crying or shaking. These exercises can help to provide relief by setting the emotion free and relaxing the nervous system.

---

Never underestimate the power of screaming “FUCK” on the top of your lungs.

Seriously.

I know that might sound weird, but let’s unpack this together:

The word “Fuck” is the word we’re told we’re not supposed to say. And maybe because of this it might be the word we want to say: and therefore holds SOOOOO much energy. What we resist persists, remember?

We know that sometimes emotions get trapped inside our body if we don’t allow them their life’s mission - which is full expression. We know that stuck / long term emotions can cause physical issues (you’ve heard of stress & its relationship with disease, yes?)

Similar Childhood experiences

So let’s reflect on these potential experiences you may have had in childhood - especially if you’re female.

You may have been told:

1. You’re not allowed to be angry

2. You’re not allowed to be loud: kids are meant to be seen and not heard

3. How dare you say that!

Perhaps you were shamed with

4. People won’t respect you if you talk like a sailor.

5. Good kids don’t say bad words!

Perhaps guilted with

6. If you say that it reflects poorly on me!

This is a list of common things we’re told as children, amongst others. This list is destructive to our self esteem, autonomy and boundaries because it limits what you’re able to say and how you express. Who is anyone to tell you not to say things?

I’ve always thought that not saying a word gives it more power. This is also true when it comes to names. I have found when I do sound healing sessions, I sometimes will ask my client to purge the name of a person who hurt them; this is in order to release it out of their body. Often there is an emotional response to it and 10/10 times the person feels better! Consider the lesson of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named from the Harry Potter series:

“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” ~ Dumbledore

We allow certain words to hold energy and then we deny ourselves energy.

Why? Let’s use that untapped potential!?

I find that specifically yelling this word - FUCK - helps to release and unlock a lot of power from people who would consider themselves people-pleasers, perhaps children of narcissistic parents or tendencies, and therefore maybe lacking boundaries.

There is latent power in yelling FUCK.

Now, if you’re like “But Jess, the word FUCK comes from horrible roots!” Like yea, you might be right... But that just proves my point even more!

“If you name me, you negate me.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard.

What if instead of judging this word as bad, we unlock the potent potential of setting this word free. Let’s harness this ferocious energy of “FUCK” by yelling it on the tops of our lungs and using it to clear the Throat Chakra and heal ourselves!

*Note: I’m not saying its okay to swear AT people - anger splashed on others is, in fact, inappropriate.

Turning back time

Personally, I believe in past lives.

Back in the day it was easiest to kill people via the neck (aka Throat Chakra). People were hung, throats were slit, heads rolled from the guillotine. People who were scouts, truth tellers, and history writers were murdered to keep truth hidden. Is it any surprise that the reincarnations of those people - us - struggle with the truth: how can we speak our truth if it’s dangerous? if we’ll get killed because of it? if our subconscious mind or perhaps our soul is scarred with these memories as truth = pain?

How can we tell our truth when it’s literally been disconnected from us?

Why does this matter?

Healing the throat chakra

The Throat Chakra is seen as the bridge to higher chakras; below the Throat Chakra, the others deal with physical-realm things; safety, abundance, motivation, and love; but the Chakras above the throat deal with intuition, self awareness and realization, and divine consciousness & connectedness.

Finding your truth, understanding it and speaking it help heal the Throat Chakra. How do we do this?

1. Figure out what your truth is:

   • Spend time alone, away from people and social media

   • Others don’t know your truth, only you do

   • Silence helps you hear better

2. Understand your truth and what it means

   • Connecting deeply within yourself

   • Understanding your emotions & patterns

   • Aligning with your authenticity

3. Speaking your truth

   • From a space of integrity

   • With balanced emotions, and a centered & grounded Self

In Biofield Tuning, we find the right side of the Throat Chakra relates to issues speaking your truth and not being heard. This can be because someone wasn’t listening, or flat out didn’t believe you. The left side of the Throat Chakra deals with not speaking your truth; this can happen if we don’t know what our truth is, if speaking our truth isn’t safe, or even! If we’re not listening to ourselves. How can others hear us if we don’t hear ourselves?

When I work with clients on the Throat Chakra a piece of homework I give them is to go on a drive and scream FUCK as loud as they can. For themselves, for their inner child, for their pain, their life’s journey, for past lives, and people they’ve been before.

Try it & see what happens*

Here’s to the women who don’t give a fuck ~ Janne Robinson

Somatic therapy

This blog is inspired by the wisdom of Somatic Therapy. Somatic Therapy is not something I have been trained in, but its something I’ve always understood intuitively - and you probably do too.

We see children self soothe by moving or rocking their body back and forth when they are upset. We release emotional pain by crying or running or dancing. Somatic Therapy is a way to release emotions with techniques that range from body exercises - like shaking or writing or mental exercises like body scans, relaxing the body as you scan different areas with your mind.

I have found that specifically yelling FUCK seems to help unlock latent power in people who would historically call themselves people-pleasers. Something about saying the word ‘you’re not supposed to say’ sets them free.*

~

Please watch Osho’s similar opinion on The Magic of the Word Fuck

~

*Disclaimer -

1. Don’t splash your anger on others, there should be no ~ receiver ~ to your anger.

2. You don’t have to agree, as always try things with the same philosophy of trying on a T-shirt. If it doesn’t fit, try on a new one ;)

Do you even Jhana, bro?

I just emerged from a 7 day Jhana Meditation retreat in Northern, California and it was delicious!

I have always had a deep desire to do a meditation retreat but have heard a fair share of horror stories about sitting still for 10 hours a day with no movement or journaling allowed - yikes! These stories have unfortunately really kept me from meditation retreats and also made me judge my own practice.

There are so many expectations you hear about meditation: you must sit still, you must focus, you must concentrate, you must do it for 30m at least, you must do it every day. For an Eastern Practice it has always felt oddly Western in its rigidity. I have never considered myself a great meditator because I have trouble sitting still, figit constantly, prefer movement in my meditation and feel most ‘connected’ to myself, the world around me and the universe when I’m on a difficult hike to a rocky summit.

I have known that I can access heightened states of consciousness and awareness due to my lifetime awareness of being a natural born intuitive and empath; and all the body / energy awareness it brings; and through my energetic & sound healing practice of 15 years. I never had words for these heightened states and would call them just that - “heightened states of consciousness,” “altered states,” being “blissed out,” or “in flow.”

As it turns out, these are Jhanic states: Jhana is defined as a meditative state of profound stillness and ’collectedness’ in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed.

Like other epic crossovers (i.e. rap music falling in love with country and vice versa) I find it beautiful that the engineers and tech guys of Silicon Valley have hacked meditation using Left Brain techniques and skills. The facilitators at this retreat described it best when they said they “are using Left Brain Techniques to teach Right Brain Concepts.”

Think of it as a drop down menu:

Try to Relax, is it working? If yes, continue, if no, see if you can enjoy. Is enjoying working? If yes, continue, if no, try to observe, and so on and so on. The pillars they taught gave me confidence to ease into the techniques - and my favorite part - if you get distracted just allow the distraction to be part of the experience. ‘Distraction is traction,’ as they say - this is one of the biggest missing pieces for me! You mean I can invite all my thoughts and feelings, colors, songs from high school, bird noises, random dreams, “what am I going to eat later, when is my next hike” thoughts into my meditation?!

And you know what?

It worked! Instead of trying to “quiet my mind,” I opened it up instead. Instead of trying to stop my thoughts or single focus on an object, i loved every thought, every feeling, every breeze, every birdsong, every murmur of someone talking in the background, any feeling into my awareness and loved it deeply. I started to see my distracted thoughts as a little kid running into a house and interrupting a conversation - the kid is just excited to share - he deserves love and attention - and the more he gets it the more he goes back outside to play. When you try to “stop” your thoughts you are literally putting resistance up, and not surprisingly getting resistance in return.

I like to explain the Jhana’s through my hiking analogy as that was the epiphany that I had that I realized I’ve been doing them my whole life. Maybe this will help you connect to your own pathway to the Jhanas:

For me, Jhana 1 is like being on a hike and seeing the top of the mountain I am going to summit: there is ecstatic, excitement, high levels of vibration and energy flowing through my body, almost as if I want to wiggle out of my skin, the defined area of my body begins to dissolve and become one with the atmosphere.

~ Important note I also realize this is why people don’t like hiking with me haha!! I get into these rapturous states and they’re questioning why are we friends ~

Jhana 2 is like summing the mountain: the euphoria starts to dissolve into a softer happiness, a gratitude for my body that I did it, a contentment, a non-egoic sense of accomplishment.

Jhana 3 is after I summit a mountain I send energy to everyone I love. I call it the Care Bear Stare and if you know me personally or watched the 80’s cartoon The Care Bears, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I send love and appreciation to all my friends all over the world, everyone I’ve ever met and even people i used to know. This is my way of offering friendliness and appreciation to everyone that has journeyed with me in this life.

Jhana 4 is either a) the hike down the mountain or b) when I am in bed later holding the deepest gratitude in all of the cells of my body. The most peaceful state of returning, of relaxing.

Grant, one of my meditation facilitators invited me to dive a bit deeper into Jhana 4 so later that night I did and at first it smelled like dead leaves in a forest if it had rained yesterday, the deepest most beautiful sweet delicious and dead leaves earth smell. I felt my body sink into the earth like I was being buried, but in a gentle and sweet sense - my body was returning to the earth. I felt cozy, held by the dirt around me, I felt as if my body and energy was being recycled for something new and then immediately the visual changed to spring and little buds and flowers and moss started growing on the top of the earth over me and I felt complete - that I had completed this natural and sacred cycle.

Later I journeyed with another amazing facilitator - Judah - and in writing about my experience it accidentally turned itself into a poem:

Luminous light with effervescent sparkles

Grounded dissolving bones into the earth

Shallow breaths deepen, pumping diaphragm to ignite the spark of the Solar Plexus

Light where there was darkness

Play tension like a guitar string, a song is possible

When you are powerful you don’t need bad patterns to make you bigger than others

Fractal flowers spiral into dresses with invitation to

A dance hosted in a nighttime canopy of planets and stars

Infinity folds back on itself

What is the experience?

What is experience?

Anything I try to hold slips immediately from my mind, off the shelf and into the void

There is only now

Here

And right now

There is only everything all at once at any time

Inside of nothing cradles everything

Everything turns to nothing

Stephen, another facilitator, had mentioned how when you read a poem the first time it’s lovely but after you figure out these jhanic states it’s like an instructional manual and I couldn’t agree more!

Overall, my deepest realization was that I meditate best when I am not trying to, and that is my playful and curious door into the Jhanas, meditative states, heightened consciousness, altered awareness and being blissed out.

~

So, if you are like me and have struggled with meditating or the idea of meditating - let’s begin together! Here are some helpful hints and phrases from retreat I find invaluable:

• What are you curious about in your experience right now?

• What needs to be acknowledged?

• Can you relax, enjoy and observe?

• Can you forgive yourself for not understanding.

• Nothing exists in our experience independent of how we relate to it.

• Can you let yourself be overwhelmed by your experience?

  
  
  If you’re interested in learning more: I found the retreat to be delightful, the facilitators fantastic. Thanks to Stephen, Judah, Grant, Owen & Jack
  

Click here to learn more about Jhana Jhourney Retreats!

How to build an altar

Why create an altar?

We create altars for many reasons:

• As a space for focus & meditation

• To conjure something into our life - like peace, abundance, love, or protection

• For manifestation

• To honor something - like our ancestors or nature

• For ritual

• To help us release.

Note: There is no ‘right away’ to create an altar as it is a deeply intuitive and individual journey - here I will share with you my personal process.

Before we begin our altar creation it is a good idea to get clarity on your intentions + purpose.

cleanse space

When I am creating an altar I usually do it with a specific intention during a celestial event. My most recent altar I created for Beltane - the midway point between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. I had a few people reach out and ask me about it and that inspired this blog.

I like to cleanse my space where I am building my altar through the sound of om, crystal bowls, koshi chimes OR with smoke, incense, and fire.

gather 5 elements + build altar

When I create an altar I like to have all five elements represented - earth, water, air, fire and aether (or plasma).

For earth I use: crystals, bones, pieces of wood, herbs, flowers and snake symbolism. I always have snake symbolism in my altar creation for the qualities snakes represent - shedding skin, transformation and wisdom. The earth aspect of my altar invokes feelings of grounding, support and symbolizes abundance, wealth and success.

For air I use a feather and say my intentions out loud, to be carried on the wind up into the heavens - much like the method of prayer flags. Honoring the air element symbolizes intellect, ideas, imagination.

For fire: I light a candle to conjure health, passion, enthusiasm, courage, adventure and life.

For water: I collect rainwater - if you are in a dry area you can take water and bless it with your hands or sacred sounds (chanting, om-ing, crystal bowls, etc). Water symbolizes emotion, intuition, psychic abilities and clairvoyance.

For aether or plasma I use a Lichtenberg figure which was a gift from a friend of mine. It is an acrylic ball shocked by electricity which creates a lightening fractal running through it.

Other things I’ll place on my altar:

• Meaningful items like gifts or statues of deities

• Actual physical money

• Tokens, like a scarab from Egypt, or a protecting eye

• Jewelry that I wear - to cleanse and to conjure

• Pictures / names of people I want included

• Items based on intentions, colors or seasons

• Written Mantras, or spells

The way I build my altar is very intuitive, and it is my opinion that however you build your altar is best for you. All my altars are different but they follow a general idea.

• Some crystals point in toward the center if they symbolize what I want to draw in - like citrine pulling in energy for abundance.

• Some crystals point out to ground energy - like tourmaline or shunguuite.

• Some crystals point up to release energy out and away - like quartz to create a ‘vent’ of energy, in my mind this creates a movement much like breathing.

You will notice when you create your altar and place significant items & crystals around it that some will ‘want’ to be turned in, out, up or down. This is part of the creative and intuitive process :)

CONJURE / manifest / pray

After I have built my altar it is time to sit with it. I thank the natural kingdom + cardinal directions and I focus on my intention. I meditate, allowing my mind to become blank fills it with solutions.

I pray saying thank you, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, and I cast spells. I ask for guidance from my guides, I sit with the older and younger version of myself. I manifest the things I want in my life, I revisit my intentions and speak my affirmations.

Release ritual

It is my opinion that altars become conscious organisms with the proper intention & ingredients. So, when I am done with this whole process I use different stones to point/send any excess energy out an actual window. This way the process becomes self sufficient after I am finished; it completes whatever other intentions it has and then releases itself when it feels finished.

Simplified Steps to create your altar

1. Set intentions

2. Cleanse space with fire / smoke / incense /sound

3. Gather tokens / amulets / crystals / things from environment

4. Build altar

5. Pray / meditate / cast spells (it’s all the same magic ;)

6. Release ritual

~

Personal note: Let me know what you thought of this blog by messaging me! I would love to see a picture of your altar if you were open to sharing!

self-inquiry e-book

Hi friends!

I am a life-long learner, a constant student and a seeker of truths - internal and external.

I sit in dialogue with myself, I meditate, I reflect on how I act, what I say, how I make others feel. There is a constant self-inquiry that goes on in my mind.

I created a free Self Inquiry E-Book to help jump start your journey to Self Inquiry and here I thought I would list some prompt questions to inspire threads of thought and streams of consciousness.

Creative questions

• Is this emotion mine?

• Where do I feel this emotion in my body? What color is it?

• I get so _________________ when I__________ / __________ because it reminds me of ___________ and I feel _______________

• If I let go of this story, how would I feel?

• Do I benefit from this story?

• If you’re having trouble making a decision in the moment, is it possible that’s not the moment to make the decision?

• If I wasn’t me, how would life or ________ feel and how would situations / circumstances change?

• If I wasn’t so ________________ I would be able to _______________ because I ___________

• Did that person mean to do that to me? Or were they just meeting their own needs and I was a casualty?

Helpful Questions during Hard & triggered Times

• What makes you say / think that?

• Can you help me understand why you feel that way?

• Do you want advice or for me just to listen?

• I am hurt and feeling triggered and I need some space to process.

• What exactly triggered this emotional response?"

• Is my reaction proportional to the situation?

• What past experiences might be contributing to this reaction?

• Am I interpreting the situation accurately, or is my perception distorted by past experiences?

• What are the underlying emotions I'm feeling right now?

• What do I need in this moment to feel safe and supported?

• Can I communicate my feelings and needs calmly and assertively?

• Am I willing to listen and understand the other person's perspective?

• What boundaries do I need to set to protect my emotional well-being?

• Is there a healthy way to address this trigger and move forward?

self discovery prompts

• What are my values?

• What are my strengths and weaknesses?

• Do the beliefs I hold, hold me back from exploring further?

• Are my actions in alignment with my goals?

• What do I think of myself?

• How do I contribute to life / relationships etc?

• What gives me purpose and meaning?

• Am I present in my life?

• What is holding me back?

• What am I afraid of?

• What am I grateful for?

• Do I meet my own needs?

• How do I express myself?

• What do I want to learn next?

• Who do I want to become? What steps am I taking to become that person?

Musings

Remember:

• You are exactly where you need to be

• What you’re feeling is real

• All your feelings are valid

• If you are too ‘certain’ about the person you are right now you could be destroying the person you’re supposed to be

• You can’t consider the end of something when you’ve barely just begun

• Whatever is happening to you is a direct result of your internal environment

• Times you are afraid is the exact time you can be brave

• Your brain is trying to help you survive - not make you happy!

~

thank you for reading

I hope you enjoyed these questions and got a lot of insight out of them!

I would love to hear from you! Please share your feedback in comments, shares, or likes and let me know what you thought of my Free Self-Inquiry E-Book!

Sending you much love & in gratitude

xoxox

Jess

Crystal singing bowls & vibrational Medicine

I have been lucky and infinitely blessed to have played crystal bowls for different audiences throughout California, Arizona, and Puerto Rico.

I discovered Crystal Bowls at the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine Conference in San Diego in 2014. At the time I was working at a Subtle Energy Laboratory in San Diego and was invited to attend the conference. In the corner I saw all these beautiful and mystical crystal bowls set up and on a break I sat down and played. I was immediately entranced and transfixed by the sounds and tones coming out of them. I felt that the sound was not only playing around me and singing sweetly to my ears, but I physically was feeling the sound waves traveling and dancing through my body. I felt like I was on an inner journey throughout the time that I played, time seemed to dissolve and I felt, as the shaman’s say, outside of time. The picture below is actually the exact moment I fell in love with them. Thank you to Amelia for capturing.

At the time I was studying under Eileen Day McKusick and loving my deep dive into the science of sound and all the magic the world of vibration had to offer. It made so much sense to me as I was already an energy healer, so I understood intention and non-localized healing. I had a scientific background and understood the body and it’s different systems, it’s structure and it’s function. I had studied subtle energy in a clinical setting through the thermosphere - specializing in the infrared heat the body emits. I was currently studying subtle energy in a laboratory setting - in a Faraday cage or copper shielded room that blocked out all electromagnetic waves. The Master’s Program that I had started specialized in Human Consciousness. All the roads were leading me to “Rome” whereas “Rome” was this understanding of this foundational origin place of sound waves / wave forms and vibration.

We all remember in science class ~ 3rd grade where we’re taught everything in this whole universe is vibration, including us, our parents, space, even the chair we’re sitting on, and then we glossed over that and starting learning about something else.

But what if waveforms and vibration is actually everything? and in the study of vibration we can come to understand (perhaps not everything) but a lot more things than we do now with our rigid cosmology or view of the world and how it works?

In Traditional Chinese Medicine they believe that illness occurs when there is a blockage or stagnation of a meridian (or channel of energy). Using Acupuncture and herbs they can help loosen this blockage to create flow, and thus health.

If you think about it - a truth we can all agree on it: MOVEMENT IS MEDICINE. If you are sluggish vs active = you might be feeling sickish vs healthy. If your body is stagnant vs in flow = you may feel sickish vs healthy. Mixing East & West theories: if your veins, meridians, arteries, or nadi’s are slow or lagging - this can cause physical, emotional or mental health issues. Another example is - when you are in flow state, how easy everything comes to you - it’s almost like you are aligned with the universe and the universe sees that and conspires on your behalf.

Following this rabbit hole even deeper, there’s an underlying idea of movement, waveforms, or vibration and it’s relationship to harmony. If you are vibrating lower than your equilibrium you may feel low, sad, depressed, sick, unable to get out of bed etc; if you are vibrating higher than your equilibrium you may feel anxious, overwhelmed, hypervigilant, easily irritated, angered, etc. When you are operating at your equilibrium or homeostasis - defined by google as ‘a self-regulating process by which a living organism can maintain internal stability while adjusting to changing external conditions’ you feel calm, steady, secure, adaptable, flexible. This relationship between waveform / vibration - which is everything - and the balance or harmony of that waveform / vibration - which influences how we respond to everything, is paramount.

Using Crystal Bowls, Tuning Forks, Drums, Koshi Chimes, Tibetan Bowls, etc we are activating vibration with vibration. We are following the Universal Instruction. The Playing Book, if you will. Something that always troubled the back of my brain was what if “…in the beginning was the word,” is a mistranslation from “…in the beginning there was sound.”

All of our ancient cultures did sound healing with the different instruments they made based on their geography. What if they were on to something? If you’ve ever participated in a Crystal Singing Bowl or Sound Healing event in general you know what I’m talking about. The energy, tones, frequencies and harmonies that come out of these are ingrained with healing energy, inspirited with power and deeply-rooted in ancestral wisdom.

If you haven’t attended some sort of Sound Healing event - whether it’s with bowls, voice, gongs etc I highly recommend it. If you have - with me or anyone else - I’d love to hear about your experience!

~

Personal Note: My intention with sharing my life through social media has always been complete transparency and authenticity. I have always wanted to share exactly who I am, but in doing so I have found my social medias are primarily travel & fun and don’t really focus on what I do at all. My healing work is my life’s mission and it is wholly sacred to me, and perhaps I have felt that promoting it on social media’s feels boastful or prideful; and therefore against what I stand for as healing is generally private. I have decided to share this truth / vulnerability here, with you now, to help myself overcome this obstacle.

I am (apprehensively) happy to announce I have finally made a new life’s-work-related, sound healing-devoted instagram that focuses less on my travels and fun and more on my life’s work and sacred mission. I’ll be posting my blogs / events / excursions and availability here <3

Please give me a follow on ig: @wellnesswanderer_jess

<3

Why do I have soooo many Tattoos?

Thank you for asking, I would love to talk about this as it’s a question I get so often.

As a Cancerian girl growing up in Michigan around the Great Lakes, water, specifically rivers, lakes, and streams were an important part of my childhood AND I grew up with a creek behind my parent’s house. Every year my family camped on Lake Huron since I was 5 years old, we camped on the Canadian side so every night I watched the sun set over the water, Michigan invisible on the horizon.

As I’ve written about before, my dad blessed my childhood with divination tools like Tarot, Numerology and Astrology. I already had a curious mind about all things “woo” and mysterious so this found me traveling down different windy roads with topics like spiritualism, Theosophy, the Golden Dawn, quantum physics, and this eventually (as all things do) lead me to the subject of water.

I was a voracious reader and one fateful day I came upon Dr Emoto’s Hidden Messages in Water at 16 years old. Dr Emoto was a Japanese researcher who’s focus was intention and he wrote about different experiments in this book.

In one experiment they put 3 plants in a closet (in order to avoid sunlight as a variable). They watered these plants every day but for Plant 1 - the intention was to speak good things to it. For Plant 2 - the intention was to speak negative things to it and for Plant 3 - the intention was to ignore it.

Guess which plant died?

The plant that was ignored.

This blew my tiny teenage brain.

I learned an ancient truth: there is so much power in intention.

… The book carried on.

Dr Emoto and his team did experiments with water and intention where they would take water from the same source (to avoid variable) and poured the water in different glasses and taped a range of intentions to the different glasses. These intentions were across a spectrum, from “love” and “compassion” all the way to “hate” and “greed.” The researchers would freeze the water and image the crystals with microscopic photography.

What did they find?!

The researches found that the water in glasses with loving intentions taped to it formed beautiful crystals, and the glasses of water that had negative intentions taped to it had trouble forming crystals all together, they looked almost deformed.

Teenage Jess’s mind was blown again, and, as a creative person who had always used their outward appearance as their creative expression I had come to learn another truth.

If you have an intention and you wish it upon water, that water will hold and carry that intention.

My brain immediately linked “intention,” “ink,” and “water” to tattoos on the skin. ‘Maybe this is why our ancestors, who knew so much about the stars, and had rituals and ceremonies and walkabouts, maybe this is why they had been found, discovered and unburied with tattoos inked into their skin,’ teenage Jess pondered, creating the connection between tattoos and ancient civilizations. (Not surprisingly, I grew up with an interest in the mysteries of the world, like the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, Lemuria, Egypt; until growing up I realized all places are mysterious and magical, they’re just waiting for their magic to be rediscovered.)

Another fellow tattooed person, after hearing my reasoning, had a similar thought and said to me “When I started getting tattoos, it mostly felt like they were just being uncovered, rather than inked on.”

(continued after picture…)

I realized that maybe, just maybe, if I intended something… created an image of that intention, and that magic that intention contained… and inked it into my skin… could I actually change the frequency of my body, which is water and therefore holds memory?

If I ink something ancient, like the Flower of Life, the Sri Yantra, or perhaps the Unalome… does that match my frequency with the intention of that symbol, that has been revered, respected, for millenia?

Does that literally, metaphorically or even metaphysically invoke the power that the symbol has held for me and/or my life?

Can I literally harness the magic and power of the universe through intention, ink and water?

Teenage Jess cried “YES!” Twenty-year old Jess agreed and 30 something Jess still agrees, and not only that, but is so proud of Teenage Jess for making that discovery for herself and committing to it.

<3

My life has always been magic, and will continue to be nothing less than magic; maybe it’s not necessarily because of the “ink,” but it’s definitely linked to “water,” and 100% because of “intention.”

<3

Very special shout out to Janice Rodriguez for taking the time, one fateful night & stepping up to the task of counting all my tattoos - she counted 65, with room for error <3

I’m in my villain era

aka what are boundaries and why we need them :P

Over New Years 2022-2023 my friends and I were skiing at Snowbowl in Flagstaff, AZ talking about our New Years resolution. I stated “I’m in my villain era.” When my friends asked what that meant I responded with “I’m matching energy. Giving energy to those who give it back, not overextending and putting my needs first.” I’m a verbal processer, so when I say things out loud I’m literally processing my thoughts and feelings and discovering my truth while I talk. I realized that what I mean by “I’m in my villain era,” was simply me setting boundaries.

Boundaries are a vital aspect of self-care, they are often misunderstood. Many people view setting boundaries as being selfish (especially if we are not used to setting them!), but in reality, boundaries are an essential tool for protecting our emotional and physical well-being, maintaining healthy relationships and managing stress.

Especially as highly sensitive individuals (HSP), empaths, and lightworkers, we may find ourselves taking on the emotional burdens of others without even realizing it. Asking “is this emotion mine?” was very helpful for me in understanding that sometimes what I was feeling wasn’t mine, and in fact the person in line next to me at the grocery store! It was easy to figure out, once I learned to ask myself this question. because my mood would shift SO drastically, the emotion just simply couldn’t belong to me.

people pleasing

In childhood there can be certain instances in which we learn or are trained to become “people pleasers.” Through conditioning we can learn that our worth is connected to how well we please our parents. When we are constantly rewarded for meeting their expectation, or punished for not, we learn to bend to their needs, rather than meeting our own. We can learn that our value is dependent on their mood.

If we grew up in a strict and/or violent home - approval can become equivalent to safety. In this case we may ‘people please’ as a way to control the situation to manipulate the outcome, in order to create safety.

Sometimes we may feel responsible for other people's feelings and needs, and as a result, neglect our own. I know I have been guilty of every time a friend needs me I show up ASAP to help them regardless of my emotional, mental or even physical bandwidth. If we suffer from low self esteem, lack confidence or fear rejection we may seek the validation of others and eventually can lose ourselves in the quest for others’ love and appreciation.

Have you ever said “yes” to something you absolutely WISHED you said ‘no’ too? Could you feel your life force start to drain because you knew you overextended yourself again? Have you ever hung out with someone who energetically just took everything out of you and gave nothing back, and by the time you got home you needed a nap?

how to set boundaries

Setting boundaries is not about being selfish or uncaring; it's about recognizing our own needs and communicating them to others. It's about taking responsibility for our own emotions and wellbeing, rather than expecting others to do it for us. If we keep giving and asking nothing in return, a person has no reason to cut themself off from the endless supply you’re giving them. This happens often in relationships between a narcissist and an empath and we we refer to these people as ‘energy vampires.’

Boundaries can be as simple as saying ‘no,’ to setting limits on how much time we spend with people, and who we spend time with. It's important to remember that boundaries are not about controlling others; they are about respecting ourselves and our needs enough to take control of our own lives

In order to properly set boundaries, we must first identify our own needs and priorities. Self-reflection is key here, and so is self respect. We must learn to recognize when we are overextending ourselves and when it's time to take a step back. This can be difficult, especially if we have been conditioned to prioritize others over ourselves, but it's a necessary step towards self-care and wellbeing.

Communicating our boundaries can also be challenging, but remember! this is not about being confrontation- it's about being clear with our truth and assertive in our communication. We can communicate our boundaries with kindness and respect, while still being firm in our needs.

Setting healthy boundaries is a beautiful and necessary type of self care - we are creating space for ourselves, our needs, which blossoms into our growth and evolution. When we allow ourselves to prioritize our own needs, we become more resilient in the face of life's challenges. We also create healthier relationships, based on mutual respect and understanding.

When we create boundaries we benefit everyone around us. We are being more true to ourselves and more authentic, which is deepening our integrity and the quality of our relationships with those around us because we are living in our truth!

Like life, setting boundaries is a constant thing, it spirals around with us as we learn lessons and grow. Because of that we may have to revisit boundaries with certain people, but we can rest assured that those who love us and want a relationship with us will honor our boundaries.

Remember: ‘No.’ is a complete sentence! You are allowed to take up space in the world. Your needs are just as important as those around you. You are here for a reason and the universe needs you <3

emotions are like puppies

Emotions are like puppies. They all want to be loved and held and cuddled. They are also all worthy of love and cuddles.

In my perspective there is NO SUCH THING as a bad emotion. Anger and sadness deserve as much love and affection as joy and ecstasy. Joy and ecstasy are easy to love because they feel good! Anger and sadness may be harder to love, but they have more to teach us.

Anger Protects

I believe that Anger is a Protector Emotion. Have you ever felt sad or powerless for so long that finally Anger came to protect you? To light a fire under your ass, to initiate and instigate you? To pick you up and out of sadness and depression and throw you into action?

In some schools of thought Anger can live in and around the Solar Plexus Chakra which has to do with our drive, determination, will and ego. It makes sense that Anger can be instigating! It’s literally pushing us forward into our destiny. Ego is not necessarily a bad thing as it’s purpose is to protect the Inner Child. It can be seen as negative if it runs our life without us knowing.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. ~ Dr. Carl Jung

There is no such thing as a bad emotion

Sometimes as children we are taught there are ‘bad’ emotions but this is a lie. When a child is angry or reactive this can mean a boundary is crossed. Sometimes children do not feel comfortable hugging family friends because they can feel like strangers (if there is a lot of time between visits). Parents, sometimes embarrassed by this, will override the child’s boundaries. This can teach a child at young age that their bodies are not their own and they have no bodily autonomy. Obviously this is problematic at the time and later in life when children grow to pre-teens and young adults. If their voices and boundaries didn’t matter then, why would they matter now?

Sometimes parents do not like when children say “no,” as it’s seen as an act of defiance; but it can also be a child setting a boundary. When parents deny a child setting healthy boundaries it strips them of many things. Let’s dive deeper down this rabbit hole: a classmate wants something they have, do they say no? An older person wants to touch them inappropriately, can they say no? Someone hurts them, do they tell? How can they with no voice, no boundaries and no bodily autonomy?

all emotions are valid

Sometimes in childhood when we’re joyful the volume of our voice increases and a parent or peer shushes us and tells us we are “too loud.” This is around the time we learn that our joy isn’t welcome which can cause us to emotionally shut down and physically tighten around the diaphragm. This tightening can cause shallow breathing and a low vagal tone. ‘Vagal tone is a measure of cardiovascular function that facilitates adaptive responses to environmental challenge. Low vagal tone is associated with poor emotional and attentional regulation in children and has been conceptualized as a marker of sensitivity to stress.’

All emotions are valid and the whole point of an emotion is expression. Dr. Candace Pert writes in Molecules of Emotion that an emotion’s full lifespan is a matter of seconds. It begins, climaxes (if allowed) and then resolves itself. By fully experiencing our joy / sadness / anger / ecstasy we are allowing the full expression and complete lifecycle of that emotion.

the only bad emotion is a stuck one

There are many schools of thought on this: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes that certain emotions will cause certain meridians and chakras to become discoherent and/or stagnant; by using herbs and acupuncture you can clear congestion and bring about wellness or ‘balance.’ Grief can sit in the lungs, frustration in the gallbladder, anger in the liver, overthinking in the stomach / spleen, emotional and mental digestion in the stomach / intestines and so on. In my experience, the only ‘bad’ emotion is a stuck one, as stuck emotions can cause physical ailments.

When I went through my healing crisis around 20 years old I was only able to fully heal my physical body by also balancing my mind and emotions. I talk about this often as this is when I came to realize that ‘healing’ comes from integrating the mind, body and soul as they are all interrelated; this is also when I dove much deeper into holistic healing, TCM and Ayurvedic medicine.

Later in life during my Saturn Return (Dark Night of the Soul) I was able to use and benefit from what I had already learned to help heal my 27 year old body from shingles. Shingles generally lasts for 3 months and is super painful as it affects the nerves, mine manifested in my face and neck. Luckily, I only suffered with shingles for a week because I came at it from an emotional and mental perspective, as well as treating it physically.

If you ever need another guide on relating emotions to physical illnesses, Dr. Louise Hay has compiled a list you can find here.

emotions are like puppies

And finally, emotions are like puppies. YOUR puppies. Joy and ecstasy are your adorable clean fluffy puppies and anger and sadness are your adorable fluffy puppies that accidentally got covered in mud. The important truth is that they are the same and they are yours. Your fluffy clean puppies come to you for love and you pick them up and hug them easily without hesitation because they’re clean.

Your silly adorable puppies that fell in mud cannot get the mud off themselves, so they are coming to you for help. They need your love, acceptance, and require more time and patience then your other puppies to remove the mud. Once you remove the mud you see the truth - that they are just as deserving and worthy of your love.

This is the same for your emotions, they are all valid and they deserve acceptance. In accepting your emotions and loving them for who they are and what they’re teaching you reduce resistance, you quicken the healing process, and integrate the lesson quicker.

Healing is not fixing the parts of you that are ‘broken’ - healing is loving all parts of yourself anyways <3

---

I dedicate this blog to my adorable fluffy Toby (pictured) when he got sprayed by a skunk twice - in the same week - during the winter - at night - after I had showered and was cozy in bed about to fall asleep :p

Furever Toby <3

How to Prepare for Eclipses & Eclipse Seasons

Eclipses show up about every 18 months so to have two eclipse seasons - 4 eclipses - in one year is a rare event. (Although I feel like anytime I explain a celestial movement lately, it’s been a ‘rare event.’)

Our first Eclipse Season this year started on April 30th, 2022 when we experienced a partial Solar Eclipse in Taurus and then ended with a Full Moon Total Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio on May 16th, 2022. Remember what you were going through during this time. Look back at your journal or planner or voice recordings.

This has been a very intense year astrology speaking.

This August - October we had SIX planets in retrograde: Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Mercury rules how we think and communicate. Jupiter how we expand, learn and grow. Saturn holds stricter lessons for us, how we work and what we produce. Uranus rules our imagination in a rebellious nature. Neptune rules how we dream and wonder. Pluto rules how we transform and are reborn.

If you were feeling very intense emotions and experiencing life just dissolve underneath you and then just as quickly expand around you, this is why.

Mercury was our first planet to go direct on October 2nd, but the shadow can last a several days to weeks later. The other planets will follow suit going direct from now until January 2023: Jupiter goes direct November 23rd. Saturn directs October 23rd. Uranus is direct January 22nd, 2023. Neptune directs December 3rd and finally Pluto goes direct October 8th.

Eclipse season shows us change is necessary.

Eclipse Season means chaos - and there are many astrological warnings to not begin anything new nor manifest. This is because Eclipse Season is highly transformational already. You are moving through a new ‘portal’ or ‘dimension’ of your life. This can mean things are already ending; you are shedding the skin of your past and blossoming into something new already. Thus, if you try and manifest during this time - the things you manifest might not be what you want after this cycle ends.

There is a Full Moon in Aries on October 9th - this ignites the firey activations inside of us that need to come out and be expressed (perhaps just to release them) while balancing the need to take care of ourselves - with the sun illuminating Libra.

On October 25th we have a New Moon Partial Solar Eclipse in Scorpio. Solar Eclipse energy is known to bring about destabilizing new beginnings. Scorpio, as we’ve spoken about before, rules the underworld aka death; but whereas death is transformation. Keywords are new beginnings, destruction (which leads to creation), and transformation. Think: KALI!

Total Lunar Full Moon Eclipse on November 8th in Taurus. A Total Lunar Eclipse has the power of THREE full moons!! The moon rules emotions and the subconscious as well. Full moons are time to release so get ready to purge the inner corners of your soul. Action: SELF CARE.

Then Eclipse Year that began this spring finally comes to a close…

sigh of relief

…And THEN - because this year’s intention was to pluck us up from our roots so that we let go of what we thought life would be, so the universe can lay out its plan for us - Mars goes retrograde in Gemini on October 30th. This is not ideal due to the fact that this placement can be very inflammatory. HOWEVER…. after your evolution through 6 retrogrades and the completion of a 4 eclipse year - you just might be prepared to handle whatever this Mars retrograde throws at you :)

How to Prepare for Eclipses & Eclipse Season

Things you can do for this Full moontime & Eclipse Season:

• Clean: out your closet, your pantry, your house.

• Organize: your thoughts by journaling. I organize my very fast thoughts with voice memo’s on my phone :)

• Releasing / Purging: write things that you would like to release (old patterns old discomfort and tension) down on tiny pieces of paper and then burn them to softly release them away from you.

• Own your shit: repressing things doesn’t help anyone. Remember what we don’t like in other people is sometimes because it’s a wound reflected in ourselves. People are mirrors.

• Notice when you get triggered: Anger & frustration are great times to ask yourself “why is this visiting me right now,” “what does this emotion have to teach me?”

Pro tip to remember dreams: when you wake up don’t immediately move. The position you’re in can encapsulate the dream; so upon waking, stay as still as possible, grab your phone and do a voice recording.

Pro tip to lucid dream: look at your hands throughout the day as a symbol for when you dream. When dreaming, see if you can look at your hands and that will symbolize you ‘waking’ in the dream. Once awake in the dream, ask the dream characters where you are, and what time and day it is.

Eclipses are powerful times to learn more about yourself. Allow everything to be a teacher. Take this time to love yourself and be compassionate to yourself. Practice very gentle self care and alone time! Salt baths, journal, walks in woods with the tree canopy above your head!

Crystals - a how to guide

I love crystals. And honestly, who doesn’t? Who can deny the absolute awesomeness of an insanely colorful, completely natural, divinely manifested and moleculed, stunning shimmery organic compound that houses a crystalline consciousness?

Crystals, along with rainbows, shooting stars and love, show us every day that the world is a magical place.

Since I was a child I was mesmerized by the crystals in my family home. My dad had crystals on all of our shelves and countertops, crystals hanging from the ceiling in the corners of rooms, crystals in the window that would playfully cast rainbows on the opposite walls when they caught the sun. His best friend’s gift to me when I was born was a beautiful quartz crystal. I have been surrounded by crystals my entire life. Literally. 

On family vacations after I was done running or swimming off all of my energy I could be found strolling the beaches of the Great Lakes, neck bent and head down looking for the ~ perfect stones ~  to take home with me to adorn my dresser to remind me of summer, or vacation, or a just a time away from normal life. 

To this day one of my favorite gifts to give is rocks or stones from my wanderings around the world. Several best friends boast rocks from Ireland, shells from Bali and the isolated beaches of Vietnam, and even rocks from my trip to Mount Everest Base Camp :)

Rocks, stones, shells; things from the mineral kingdom have always held a special place in my heart and they continue to do so. But now the mineral kingdom and I work together for a larger purpose and vision.

I have studied the metaphysical and healing properties of crystals since childhood. I have always intuitively understood them and later in life I studied with a Crystal Gridding mentor and was Certified in Crystal Healing in 2015. I use Crystal Grids in all of my sessions. Honoring the Mineral Kingdom and welcoming them into a session is an amazing way to help unstick you, unsabotage you, expand you and ground you.

Crystals have been used for many different purposes for thousands (if not millions) of years. Crystals amplify energy, which is why today they’re used in clocks and computers. However, I’m not here to convince you of this truth. If you’re here reading this, you’re here to learn how to select and clean your crystals and what crystals to use and why :)

First things first, how do you select a crystal?

I find the most important thing when it comes to finding a crystal is finding it in-person. I know this can be kind of annoying with the convenience of the internet. Of course, this can be done at a distance, like all things, but in this case it is my personal preference to find a crystal in-person. This is a sacred ritual, because you are not so much choosing the stone, as the stone is choosing you. 

In-person is also important in the way you feel the crystal.

I’ll share with you my process: after finding the local crystal shop, I find a shelf or area of crystals that I feel drawn to. This can be through my eyes (sight) or by how they feel inside my body/ heart (intention). I stand near this area, close my eyes, rub my hands together and ask “which one of you wants to come home with me,” (you can totally say something else, but this is what I say!)

After rubbing my hands together I scan over the shelf with my left hand, palm facing down. This is because the left hand is the receiving hand. As I slowly scan, I wait for what feels like a *ping!* on the palm of my left hand, open my eyes and I’m looking at my new crystalline friend.

If you’re only looking for one and you find there are several crystals under your palm at this point you can take them aside, separate them and do this process again.

Awesome, now I have my crystal, now what?

Great question! Now you need to clean it!

Once bringing my new friend home I smudge them using Palo Santo or sage (depending on how you’ve locally and ethically sourced that item) clean them off with the smoke. 

You can also clean your crystal with soap and water OR salt water - important exceptions for water cleanses are: selenite, labradorite, tourmaline, kyanite, lapis and opal.

If you are an energy or sound healer you can use your modality - sound, vibration, tuning forks, crystal bowls, 528 frequency, your voice etc.

You can use your intention, meditation and the breath.

You can bury your crystals and allow the earth’s negative ions and the mineral kingdom to wash them clean.

If you have a large stone that has a geode formation and large opening you can clean your new crystals using your other crystals! I have a beautiful hollowed amethyst that cleanses my rings and other gemstone jewelry. Kyanite (listed below) is also the crystal-cleanser-of-crystals!

You can leave them in your windowsill and allow them to be cleansed by sunlight and moonlight. 

Great, and then….?

Now, we ENERGIZE them!

So your new friends are almost ready to go! Oftentimes, the method you used to clean the crystal can also charge them - with the exception of cleansing them with soap/salt water. I like to energize my crystals with the light of the next full moon, now if I’m being fair, this may be my Sun in Cancer talking, but I feel like the moon has a special relationship with crystals and that is my initial energy boost! 

I also energize my stones with the power of sound. Sound is Sacred.

Crystal bowls, Tibetan bowls, digeridoos, Koshi Chimes, the music of thunder and rain, or the sound of monks chanting Om. Sound is incredibly powerful and gives rise to form. In the last few years we’ve been able to see the shape of sound visualized via the images of cymatics which is awe-inspiring.

Which ones are the best* and/or your favorite?

If you're just beginning your journey into crystals I recommend getting "The Crystal Bible" or a similar reference-style book. This will have a comprehensive list of all crystals. Here I will share my favorite ones.

I use crystals in my work to amplify the frequency of the intention I am sending or what specific tone I happen to be using. Metaphysically, all crystals have specific properties that can help accentuate a quality, help a problem and/or bring about a solution.

Most of these stones I take with me wherever I go, and have them in several different sizes or jewelry to make them easily portable.

It’s impossible for me to have one “favorite” stone: so listed below are [most] of my favorite stones.

*contains opinions :)

Amethyst - connects you to the outer realms of magic and mystery. It opens up your higher chakras and allows your psychic abilities to strengthen. It helps balance mind, body and soul and activates your spiritual awareness. Can promote serenity and calmness. Can assist in enlightenment. It can also help dissolve surrounding negative energies. I love using Amethyst, Citrine and Rose Quartz together.

Angel Phantom or Amphibole Quartz - is called this because the crystal can contain phantoms or tiny rainbows that are considered conscious / angels / spirit guides. Angel Phantom helps to connect you to the angelic realm and helps in meditation and channeling, and like amethyst, it helps with receiving divine guidance from above. Helps connect you with spirit guides, with lucid dreaming and astral travel. It helps amplify the power of other stones.

Citrine - just embodies the feeling of happiness. Citrine is generally used for the solar plexus although I use it on other chakras. It helps with creativity, strength, success, increasing energy, optimism and joy. It can increase confidence and help you reclaim your your personal power. Citrine reminds of the quote from Lord of the Rings: “I give you the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”

Labradorite - like amethyst, I often wear this stone, as well as using it in my healing spaces. Labradorite looks how the Aurora Borealis feels. Labradorite is a shaman’s stone in the way that it protects you, activates you and allows you to transform by unlocking your true power. It is said that it was born of cosmic energy and helps you transcend your blockages by letting things rest and becoming who we were meant to be. I love wearing Labradorite and Moonstone together.

Lemurian crystals - are different from normal quartz crystals. The Lemurian crystal will have striations on one or more sides - this is said to be similar technology to a barcode - if you hold it right and tap into it correctly - you can download the information that it holds. The reason I like to use them is because it holds all the information of all crystals in the world - so if you're traveling and want to use citrine, but all you have is your Lemurian crystal, you can tap in and summon the energy of citrine through your Lemurian crystal. For more fun, google the ancient land of Lemuria.

Kyanite - the stone that cleans all other stones because it does not absorb negative energies. I have tiny pieces of kyanite that act as my cleansers in between moon phases. Kyanite balances us, removes blockages in our body and from our path. Kyanite protects, shields, and unfucks your life.

Moldavite - is an extraterrestrial stone, that many believe have come to us at this time to help us transcend into the next vibration or phase or dimension. I touched Moldavite at a music festival once and my body wouldn’t stop vibrating for hours. It is extremely powerful and very grounding, yet expanding and because of its cosmic otherworldy nature can assist in connection to higher dimensions. It helps with spiritual awakening and transformation. I like using Moldavite in my clients’ Merkaba. Moldavite and Nuummite work well together.

Moonstone - is another stone I wear daily. I love using Moonstone with Labradorite as they are sister stones. As a Cancerian woman I am ruled by the moon, and I find Moonstone (and Labradorite) are the stones I am most consistently attracted too. Moonstone holds and stewards moonlight, it helps with clarity, connection to the moon and thus your phases and feminine, wild creative side. It helps soften and assist spiritual awakening and increases sensitivity to psychic abilities. Moonstone helps with dreaming and also is a stone of protection.

Nuummite - is very grounding and cleansing but also connects to higher realms. It is very ancient and carries with it deep earth wisdom. It helps with past lives, dreams, Akashic Records, and psychic abilities. It can connect you with your spirit guides. Nuummite is a powerful amulet that can shield from dark energies and also cleanse the field from dark energies, negative energies and thought forms.

Obsidian - is a classic cleansing stone! I use Obsidian and Selenite together - one white, one black resulting in total harmony. Obsidian cleanses the field from dark energies, and protects you by absorbing negative energies and it is very grounding. It can dissolve old ways of being, old thought forms and attachments. Obsidian keeps your (third) eye open and you aware of your surroundings. It can help you see truth.

Preseli bluestone - is the only stone I’ve ever owned that came with an actual warning. I got my Preseli bluestone from it’s native land - in the stone circles in Ashbury, England. It has a strong connection to the heart and it is advised to use it sparingly at first while you become acquainted with it’s strength. It is known as the Merlin Stone. It helps with past life regression and clearing the old versions of you in this life so that you may move on unencumbered.

Rose Quartz - the gentle and compassionate healer stone. Rose Quartz is very powerful healing stone but because it’s wisdom teaches gentleness it can be used with any very powerful stone to allow the receiver to receive without becoming overwhelmed. It heals emotional wounding and promotes love, and connecting to oneself and one’s heart. Enhances inner peace. Helps you align with yourself and your soul purpose.

Rutilated Quartz - helps enhance your intuition, it promotes self trust. It connects to higher angelic realms and dimensions. It is a conductor of energy, helps in channeling and amplifies energy. It resonates and balances all 7 chakras. It helps you see truth and increases spiritual healing and guidance. It can be used to magnify the power of other stones. Rutiliated Quartz is a Sorcerer’s stone.

Selenite -  the classic cleansing stone. I always have one in my healing space. It absorbs, cleanses and dissolves negative energy. I like using Selenite with Obsidian. I have several sticks of Selenite including a Selenite dagger to remove attachments and thought forms. Selenite is a purifier, helps with rejuvenation and, like moonstone, contains divine feminine energy. It helps to connect to angelic realms and teaches us that there is power in softness.

Shunguite - literally has antioxidants in it. I keep my Shunguite Pyramid in my shower to access its water purification abilities. Because it has antioxidants in it, it is thought to have antinflammatory properties. It can activate all 7 chakras. It cleanses and guards against all negatives energies including EMF’s. It’s a stone of protection.

if you have any questions regarding crystals please just let me know! I’d love to help you find your new friend :)

Faraday Cage Experiments at the California Institute for Human Science

Eileen McKusick teamed up with me when I was working at a Subtle Energy Laboratory in San Diego, California around June of 2015. We had met a year prior at the Annual Subtle Energy Conference located on the campus of the California Institute for Human Science (CIHS) in May of 2014.

During this conference I was performing Electrophotonic Imaging of the finger tips based on the Korean Su Jok hand acupuncture system with one of my Subtle Energy (SE) measuring devices. While I was running my device, I heard Eileen speak on plasma and Biofield Tuning; I was immediately drawn to her charisma, knowledge and down-to-earth nature. We spoke after the conference and became instant friends.

I gave Eileen a tour of the Subtle Energy Laboratory and all of the different devices between the Lab and CIHS's lab. Eileen wanted to do some research regarding her Biofield Tuning sessions; specifically her group distance sessions.

She noticed when she did group distance sessions there would be noticeable temperature variations within the room. Also, people gave her feedback about how it felt that she was in the actual room with them, even if they were miles away! So we put our research hats on and decided to run an experiment in the Faraday cage we had on campus; CIHS's Faraday cage is a special copper-shielded enclosure created to block Electromagnetic waves from entering.

We had Eileen enter the Faraday cage and use a glass of water as the hologram of the people she was going to tune. We were measuring and quantifying any emittance of biophotons (light particles emitted by a biological organism) from the glass of water with the BioPhoton Counter. While we were waiting, Eileen also began to tune herself in preparation and also as a test run to make sure she could tune in a completely dark, microwave free, completely isolated chamber all the while being grounded.

Observations:

• From Eileen McKusick: “As a control, I decided to first do a session on my own hologram to try out the Faraday cage before I did a session for 300 people. I was working on myself and I hit an obstacle around self-love on the right side of my heart, in an area corresponding to a trauma I experienced between the ages of three and four. In that moment of encountering a painful aspect of this wound that I had never encountered before, I realized that I was being witnessed. I felt that I was being witnessed by the universe, nature, the whole, God -- whatever you want to call it.”

• Eileen also noticed significant temperature shifts in the room. When she first entered the room the temperature went up 1/2 a degree (which can be expected due to body heat). During the control the temperature went DOWN and then the temperature increased 2.5 degrees during the group tuning which the thermometer noted as well and is considered significant.

• The BioPhoton Counter came out variable and we wondered if using a crystal instead of a glass of water would have been a better idea

Next Steps Moving Forward:

• We would like to do more testing & we find it beneficial to conduct experiments in a Faraday Cage where all microwaves and other outside influences are removed

• Next time we would like to use a crystal instead of a glass of water as we think the structured organization of the atoms of a crystal would hold the hologram better

Overall, it was a fun experiment to perform and resulted in more questions and ideas for better study design in the future! At its root, science is a method of inquiry and we look forward to continue applying it to Biofield Tuning and other energy healing modalities in order to discover and understand more!

Sources:

www.cihs.edu

Subtle Energy Research at the California Institute for Human Science

Sometime in the year of 2013 I worked for a company called Psy-Tek Subtle Energy Laboratory in Encinitas, California that happened to be on the same campus of the California Institute for Human Science (CIHS). I was hired by Psy-Tek because I was a Certified Clinical Thermographer, and Certified Clinical Thermography Trainer, which I had been for years at the time working all over the United States offering safe health scans for women who preferred scans without the harmful affects of radiation.

While at Psy-Tek I became trained to research subtle energy using a variety of different subtle energy measuring devices from all over the world. We tested different products, services, modalities and even people - and their effects on their subjects. Different energy healers like Reiki practitioners, Pranic Healers, Theta healers and Biofield tuners would come in and want to know how effective their technique was. Sometimes we tested products like energy patches or Pulsed Electromagnetic Frequency (PEMF) mats or other various things that had been ‘energetically-altered’ to give the wearer a boost in health so that they would feel more vibrant and lively. Sometimes people would just be curious if a new diet or supplement was working and ask us to do a case study for them. Chiropractors, Acupuncturists and other holistically-minded people would have their patients come in to do a ‘before’ and ‘after’ scan to see the reduction of inflammation or the alignment of chakras.

We used Thermography to assess inflammation; Thermography is really just medical-grade night vision and was given from the military to the medical field because they realized the medical capabilities to assess a person’s inflammation as it relates to their body. We know that inflammation is the beginning of any degenerative disease so this scan has huge indications as far as catching disease early. We used this scan for baseline ‘before’ images to assess if a specific product or modality was able to reduce inflammation.

We used a Russian device called the Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) and its successor called the Biowell and its attachment called the Sputnik. The GDV used Russian Technology called Kirlian Photography along with the Korean Su Jok Hand Acupuncture system. When these two technologies were united they were capable of measuring the health rays emitting from the fingertips, and then interpreting the health rays through the map provided through the Su Jok Hand Acupuncture system. The Sputnik is an attachment to the GDV and is able to map coherence in the environment and therefore assess if coherence is going up or down.

Subtle Energy Researchers: Eileen McKusick, Dr. Shamini Jain, Dr. Richard Hammerschlag, me, Dr. Paul Mills and Tiffany Barsotti M.Th, PhD.

At CIHS they had a Faraday Cage and Biophoton Counter - the Faraday Cafe is a copper shielded room to protect from all microwaves in our environment (think: WiFi). We tested the efficacy of remote healing sessions whereas the practitioner would be in the Faraday Cage sending energy out to clients, and vice versa. The Faraday Cage combined with the Biophoton Counter was how we were able to measure and ‘count’ the number of Biophotons (light emitted by a biological organism) emitted by the practitioner or by the client. What I found most interesting about the Faraday Cage is when I went in it I felt like I was going to pass out (I was around 25 years old at the time) - but when older people (50+) went in it they felt a deep sense of calm. I note our ages because this finding feels important - older people had not grown up with the microwaves that surround us daily, and younger people have - to me it was almost as if the microwaves we are surrounded by are a part of us, so taking them away stripped me of something my body was used to receiving.

When I started my Masters degree in Consciousness at CIHS I started using the Infiniti Biofeedback Software to run experiments for my Master’s Program and did research on the healing modality called KALOS developed by Dr. Valerie Gersch. Kalos blends Chinese medicine, energy healing and applied kinesiology to find and address the root cause of imbalance or illness in the body.

Dr. Gaetan Chevaliar, Dr. Hope Umansky, me, Dr. Juan Acosta

Lastly at CIHS we used a device called the Apparatus for Meridian Identification (AMI) which was able to measure the efficacy and efficiency of energy healing on the body in real-time by assessing how the treatment was affecting the meridians.

Working as a Subtle Energy Researcher at Psy-Tek and CIHS was groundbreaking, heart opening and mind expanding. I was able to research many different modalities such as Reiki, Theta healers, Pranic Healers and Biofield Tuners. I was able to work alongside people curious about their health and wanting to measure the effects of their own personal research / treatments and changes in lifestyle. I helped people learn more about the inflammation in their body. I watched how some modalities were more effective than others and watched these results in real-time.

My background is in the medical field and then because of a sickness caused by the allopathic medical model I switched early on to the alternative / holistic side of medicine. My understanding of anatomy and physiology, combined with my knowledge of ancient traditions like TCM and Ayurveda, with the addition of my subtle energy research background make me extremely well-rounded as a healer which is why many people use my services and keep coming back!

If you’re curious to learn more or would like to make an appointment to talk with me please click here.

Xoxo