Michele Knight's Blog, page 222

The Tree of Life – the Bridge Between Science and Spirituality

The concept of the Tree of Life is a universal one and spans science, religion, philosophy and mythology as well as popular culture. It is a common metaphor for the interconnectedness of all life and whether it is referred to as the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life, it is always portrayed as the same tree – one thing many different belief systems manage to agree on. From ancient Egyptian mythology to China and later Christianity, the roots of the Tree of Life span almost every known belief system.

In science, the Tree of Life has been used to describe the interconnectedness of all life on Earth in an evolutionary context. Charles Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species: ‘I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications.’

You don’t have to look very far in popular culture to see how the Tree of Life still influences us today. From video games like the Prince of Persia where a gigantic tree in the desert keeps an evil deity locked away, to Hometree and the Tree of Souls in James Cameron’s Avatar. In Marvel Studios Thor, Thor explains how Earth is linked to his world by Yggdrasil, the Norse mythological Tree of Life, in this case an Einstein-Rosen bridge which connects the planets in the Nine Realms.

The Tree of Life also lies at the heart of the Kabbalah – the Jewish mystical teaching made popular by celebrities such as Madonna, Britney Spears and Demi Moore. In the Kabbalah, the Tree of Life is shown as comprising of ten interconnected spheres – the sephirot. This forms the framework of the cosmos upon which everything else hangs. The Kabbalah teaches that it is the pattern from which the universe was created and by which the soul itself was born and forms a structure by which all things can be understood.

In simplistic terms, the Tree of Life is a symbolic model that forms the fractal building blocks of reality and everything else – right down to our personalities. It’s probably easiest to think of it as a map which shows the route energy takes as it flows from the universe down to find expression in the physical world.

The Tree of Life has also been linked to the Tarot from its earliest beginnings influencing the Tarot’s symbolism and development. When we see that the Tree of Life is a universal symbol that can be understood by all, then it follows that any system of divination based on this can be applied to anyone as it reflects the human spiritual and mythological journey.

The Tree of Life is an ancient symbol which is as relevant to us today as it ever was and shows us that not only are we all connected by our scientific, philosophical and spiritual teachings are connected as well.

This weeks astrology videos 30 July 2012

 

Quantum Creating Snapshots – Picture What You Want And See It Manifest!

I wonder if you read a truly inspiring story which appeared this week about Michaela DePrince, the Sierra Leone war orphan who is on her way to fulfil her dream of becoming a prima ballerina? Michaela’s father was murdered by gunmen and her mother starved to death. Placed in an orphanage in a country torn by civil war, Michaela was branded a ‘devil child’ due to a rare condition which caused the skin on her face and neck to lose its pigmentation. She was told nobody would ever adopt her. Then one day she found a magazine with a picture of a ballet dancer on the cover and her world changed forever. “I’d never seen anything like it before,” says Michaela.  “It was kind of strange because she looked so beautiful and so happy, and so I ripped the cover off and I tucked it into my underwear. I kept looking at it every single night and just dreaming that if I came to America I want to look exactly like this person.”

Incredibly, Michaela’s dream has come true. She ended up being adopted by an American couple and is now set to make her professional debut in Le Corsaire in Johannesburg. http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/...

What excited me about Micheala’s inspiring story was that without knowing it she was practicing a Quantum Creating technique. We all know that vision boards work but there are countless stories out there of people who have successfully manifested their goals – and some inadvertently, simply by putting a photograph of whatever it is they want somewhere they can see it.

Take a former client, Karen*. Karen loved the photographs her aunt and uncle had brought back from their trip to Europe. She particularly liked one they had taken from a café in Bruges – somewhere she had always wanted to visit. She could almost see herself sitting in the same cafe, so she asked them for a copy of it and placed it on her fridge door. Living in Australia, a trip to Europe was a major expenditure but Karen remained focussed, fulfilling her dream just three years later. Shortly after returning from her trip, she met her husband Mark. It was only after they married that Karen took out the photo her aunt and uncle had taken five years ago in Bruges – she’d put it away as after all – she’d achieved her goal. Imagine her shock and surprise when she saw Mark in the photo seated at the next table to her relatives! By concentrating on the photo Karen had unwittingly drawn him to her as well.

When she was a little girl Rosemary* another client, used to walk past a large and beautiful house on the way to school. She would stop at the gates and look up the driveway and tell herself that one day she would live there. When her parents moved away in her teens she took a photo of it before leaving and kept it with her. As an adult she still had the photo and placed it on her kitchen windowsill, looking at it as she washed up. When she heard the house was being sold for the first time in 35 years, she and her husband decided to attend the auction even though they did not think they could afford to buy it. Incredibly, they were the only people who turned up and their one and only bid was accepted.

The important things to remember when choosing an image for a dream you want to manifest is that first you must know what it is you want. You have to be specific. Second – you have to be passionate about it – it has to be a dream that inspires you and infuses your heart and soul. There’s no point in trying to manifest something just because you think it will impress others. You have to love the vision to make it a reality.

Lastly – look at your image as often as you can. Put it somewhere you will see it all the time – like your fridge door or windowsill or like Michaela – take it out and look at it. And above all – give it time to manifest. As all these stories prove – your goal will arrive – but in its own time!

* Client names have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Psychic Development for Beginners – Reconnecting To Your Sixth Sense

Whether you consider yourself psychic or not, chances are you’ve been in a situation where you’ve had a ‘gut feeling’ about something or someone that turned out to be spot on. If so, did you put it down to intuition or merely a coincidence? If it’s the latter and you’re not an out-and-out sceptic, chances are you’ve lost your connection to your sixth sense.

We’re all born with or intuition intact but usually we come under pressure to disregard or deny our abilities at a young age. We’ve only got to look at the language we use to see how it happens. Suppose you said to a parent or teacher you had a ‘good feeling’ about something that turned out to be correct? Provided you framed it in those terms you would probably be praised. Now think about their reaction if you said you were picking up a psychic feeling – chances are they would think you were mad. We all want approval, especially when we are young so we’re taught early on to be careful how we say things. It’s even more difficult for boys as being sensitive isn’t usually a quality that’s encouraged – and the more sensitive a person the more psychic they usually are.

So, if you’ve lost your connection to your intuition how do you get it back again?

First, start to trust what you feel and what your intuition is telling you. This may be difficult at first as your logical left-brain may tell you something else entirely. The more you have confidence in what you are feeling and let it guide you the better the results.

Second – practice! Every time you meet someone new, go for a job interview, face a challenge or even meet someone new see what pictures, words or feelings spring to mind. Make a note of these – you may be amazed how accurate those first impressions are!

Next – write down or even draw or paint any hunches, dreams or coincidences – you may find hidden messages or opportunities in them that aren’t apparent at first.

Last – why not think about starting a psychic development group? You can compare results, share ideas and even work through problems as well as giving each other support and encouragement.

 

Remember, you are already intuitive. Your sixth sense is alive, well and fully functioning. The fact you are here is living proof of that. All you need to do to reconnect to it is open up the channel and let your intuition flow once more.

 

 

Is Consciousness the Real ‘God Particle’?

The physicists who discovered the Higgs boson hate the term ‘God particle’. After all, physics has taken great steps to disassociate itself from religion. However, ‘God particle’ is certainly good for generating publicity. The fact that the Higgs boson is thought to be one of the basic building blocks of the universe is seen as taking physics one step closer to explaining creation – or why were are all here. Hence the term ‘God particle’.

However, many physicists feel that the Higgs boson may only lead us to better understand a small part of our universe. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe containing thousands of trillions of stars. Yet, all this only accounts for just four per cent of everything contained in our universe. The rest is made up of what is known as ‘dark matter’ or perhaps even more exotic particles than the Higgs boson. It may be the Higgs boson enables us to understand this more.

But that still doesn’t answer questions about life or the evolution of consciousness. How did we and everything else that is living come to be? Many physicists including Professor Menas Kafatos author of The Non-Local Universe, believe that the key to answering why we are here lies in asking why are we conscious? Professor Kafatos’ ground breaking particle experiments in the late 90’s proved that particles are ‘entangled’ – even when separated by billions of light years! This discovery defies theories on the speed of light. Prior to this, Richard Feynman discovered that particles have no fixed form at all – they exist within the quantum field as pure potential or a ‘wave’ and only collapse into particle form when observed.

Mind-bending stuff but what this shows us is the universe itself exists as pure potential. The emerging theory is now that the entire universe is an all-pervasive, conscious field which what we call ‘mind’ is plugged into. Think of it like the film The Matrix except of course this is completely benign. This all-encompassing consciousness created individual consciousness – in other words ‘us’ and also every living thing. Our ‘mission’ is if you like to go out and have experiences which are uploaded into the universal matrix – hence free will. If so, consciousness is the true ‘God particle’ as it would form the building blocks of creation, something all of us would be contributing to every single second of our existence.

How much more empowered would we all feel if we knew we were part of something so immense? Also, it would answer many questions as to life itself and what ‘reality’ really is. Quantum entanglement proves all partciles in the universe are ‘entangled’. The unified field theory points to us all being part of a universal consciouness. We are therefore all joined on every level. So, did we bring the universe into consciousness or did it bring us? As Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson summed it up: ‘In some sense, the universe knew we were coming.’

Don’t Just Dream – Dare to Dream BIG!

The sad fact is as we get older our ambitions seem to shrink. What did you dream about when you were little? Did you see yourself as a vet, a ballerina, an explorer, an award-winning journalist? Today as you sit on the bus going to work or soak in the bath after a long day, what sort of fantasy future are you indulging in? Is it a passionate relationship, financial freedom, running your own business? How does this contrast with what you have? For all too many of us our dreams start to disappear as we come under pressure to be ‘realistic’. Our goals end up getting smaller and smaller as a result – limited by what others have led us to believe that we can achieve – usually due to their own disappointments. But there’s no need to abandon our dreams. By tapping into your resources you can reconnect to them and guide yourself to a vibrant and amazing future.

1: Let go of deep-rooted, limiting beliefs that block your progress. Have you been told that you shouldn’t ask for help to achieve your goals or that you shouldn’t rock the boat/be overly ambitious? Perhaps you’ve been made to think spending money on creative projects is ‘wasteful’? Examine the source of these beliefs. Is the person who planted them leading the kind of life you want?

2: You didn’t create your dream as a means of taunting you, you created it to come true. Free your dream from the expectations and rules of others. Ask yourself what you would choose from your life right now to keep in your dream life and what you would change. Now, start to do that.

3: Connect back to your passion. Think of your dream. Are you excited and maybe even a little scared? Bingo! That’s your real dream. Dreams ask us to expand our comfort zones – hence that tingly scary feeling.

4: Be a movie star! Think of your dream as a movie. You are both the director and the star of this film. Start by imaging the first scene of your movie as you living the most amazing life – you are living your dream! Now, you can move the location, add more ‘actors’. Where are you living? Where are you more specifically – perhaps you are in your garden, at a party, on your yacht? What are you like in this scenario? How are you dressed? Is your hair or make up different? What changes to your appearance have you made? Who are you with? Your partner? Children? Friends? Or someone you’ve yet to meet? And lastly – how do you feel? This is the most important part – by connecting to the emotions we are feeling in the visualisation we make it all the more real.

5: Dream BIG. Often we limit ourselves by dreaming too small – what we think is ‘achievable’ for us. You might not have the same goals as when you were younger – for example, if you’re 40 then you may feel silly dreaming about being a ballerina now. But there’s nothing stopping you from learning other forms of dancing such as ballroom or salsa and becoming a ‘star’ at that.

Remember – if your dream is not coming true perhaps it’s because you need a bigger dream!

Love and the Destiny Paradox – Fate vs. Free Will

What we believe shapes our world and no more so than in the area of relationships. Do you believe there’s one special ‘soul mate’ out there for you and that when you meet them you will be overwhelmed by a feeling of love at first sight or just ‘know’ you are destined to be together? If so, you are high in what psychologists call ‘destiny beliefs’ – the feeling that your life is ‘fated’ in some way.

If however, you believe that there are many people out there with whom you can have a deep soul connection, that often relationships become more important over time and that working together through challenges can strengthen your connection then you have what is known as a ‘growth belief’ – that relationships require effort and that love is everywhere but you may have to look for it.

Of course, there are many examples out there of people who have fallen in love at first sight and are still together 30 years later just as there are examples of people who took their time getting to know their partners only to end up in the divorce court a few years’ down the track. Nothing as complex as human relationships can be expected to conform to any given system. However, what we focus on becomes our truth. If we truly believe that there is only one person out there that can make us happy we automatically limit ourselves. For example, we may cling to a relationship that is toxic or no longer serves our growth because we believe there is no one else out there for us. Or if we lose our partner we may believe we are now ‘fated’ to be alone for the rest of our lives condemning ourselves to loneliness.

I firmly believe that there are many souls with whom we have entered into soul contracts with often over several lifetimes. Together we agree to cross paths once more. Often these souls have much to teach us in soul-growth terms – that’s part of the contract and there’s no doubt we often do our greatest growth in relationships. However, while we can say therefore that encountering these souls is ‘fated’ or part of our destiny, we always have free will. We can choose whether we get involved with them or not, or if we do, how long we remain in the relationship. Soul contracts can be changed at any time – this is how free will works.

And as for there being only one special ‘soul mate’ who can make us truly happy – that doesn’t say much for the unlimited abundance of the universe! Each and every one of us has many many special soul connections with others forged over many lifetimes. And with seven billion souls on the planet do you really believe there is only one destined for you?

It’s clearly no better to have a ‘destiny’ or a ‘growth’ belief. We need to have a ‘destined for growth’ belief that operates across all aspects of our lives. When we see ourselves as being here to fulfil a destiny that includes growth in all areas of our lives – including our relationships, we set up a belief system that allows us all true abundance.

 

 

 

 

This weeks free Astrology video with Michele Knight

Simple Steps To Learn Psychic Tarot Reading

If you’ve been practicing your Tarot skills then you’re beginning to realise there’s so much more to the cards that just the standard interpretation. So let’s take a look at how you can start to open up your Tarot readings to include amazing psychic insights – it’s easier than you might think!

First of all you need to enter an ‘open’ psychic state. To do this, get comfortable – sit or lie down, close your eyes and relax. Take a deep breath and imagine pulling that breath down into your body through your crown chakra. Breathe as deeply as you can and draw your breath through all the energy centres of your body then down your legs and out through the souls of your feet. Repeat this process seven times (once for each chakra) and feel the energy coursing through your body. Now, open your eyes and rub your hands together. Imagine you are charging them up with psychic energy. Open your eyes wide and imagine your eyes are now ‘psychic’ eyes – able to see things you would not normally pick up.

You’re now ready to begin your reading. Take your Tarot cards and ‘swish’ them around. Pass your hands over them. You may feel a tingle in your fingers – almost as if a card is saying: ‘Pick me! Pick me!’. Turn the card over and try to see more than just the picture. What is it saying to you? Does the picture remind you of anything – an event in your life? A person?  If the card shows a person what emotions are they depicting?  Where are they? How does that place make you feel? Allow yourself to make up a story and if you see words, pictures or symbols that appear to be ‘hidden’ in the card don’t ignore these.

Jot everything you are picking up in your Tarot journal. Don’t be afraid of what you write as nobody is going to see this except you. Let’s say you picked the Queen of Pentacles. Now, you need to steer away from just a straight description of the card which shows a woman seated on a stone throne in a lush country setting contemplating a pentacle. To her right is a hare. What do these things remind you of? If this card showed an experience what kind of experience would it be? Say you had picked this card in answer to your question: ‘What’s coming up for me next week?’. You need to tune into what the Queen represents – sensuality, contentment, material security or who the Queen may remind you of – if you thought ‘This card reminds me of my beautician Kathy – she’s a sensual Taurus’ – now you’re on the right track!

Write  down what you think this card may forecast for you – again, don’t worry about the literal interpretation of the card – go with what you gut is telling you it means. Now you can refer back to it and see how accurate you’ve been. When you’re done, don’t forget to close down your psychic centre by standing straight up, raising your hands above your head and imagining pulling down a curtain of light over you from your head to your toes. Say: ‘I thank you for the insights I have received, my reading is now over.’

Practice this as often as you need to and you will find an amazing new psychic dimension opening up in your Tarot interpretations.

Empathy, Psychic Skills And Science.

Empathy – the ability to ‘tune in’ or experience another’s emotional state or pain, is a key to not just psychic development but to our spiritual development – whether we consider ourselves ‘psychic’ or not. Let’s say someone close to you accidentally hits their thumb with a hammer. Chances are you react in much the same way they do – you may wince and even say ‘Owch!’ (or worse!) at the same moment they exclaim in pain. Although you are not the one who is injured, you may even feel a little pain yourself. Similarly, if a friend is extremely emotionally distressed although you are not the one who is upset you may find yourself identifying with their emotions and even crying as well. Why? Neuroscience has the answer.

Recent scientific studies have shown that seeing other people touched activates sensory areas in our brains as if we are experiencing the touch ourselves – that we literally ‘feel with’ others. Giacomo Rizzolatti and his team at the University of Parma first discovered ‘mirror neurons’ two decades ago – the neurons in our brains which allow us to understand other people’s actions by firing off the ‘mirror’ cells in our brains which would control the actions if we were performing them.

Now a group of scientists led by Dr. Christian Keysers has advanced this study by getting participants to watch short film clips of people being touched while using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record their brain activity. The scans revealed that the somatosensory cortex, a complex of brain regions processing touch information, was activated during the films – although participants were not being touched at all. This year another study conducted by Professor Michael Schaefer of the University of Leipzeig found that this ‘mirroring’ is linked to how ‘empathic’ we believe we are. After monitoring participant’s brains while they watched clips of hands being touched, those taking part were then asked to complete an Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) test which measures four specific ways in which we empathise with others. Not surprisingly, those who scored the highest on the IRI had also reacted the strongest to the film clips.

This not only suggests we are truly all connected but that our brain’s mirroring  responses are in fact associated with our personal empathic ability. How much you empathize with other people seems to reflect how strongly your brain—your primary somatosensory cortex—“feels with” them when you see them being touched. Spiritually, the more we open up ourselves to understanding others the more ‘empathic’ we become. Whether we want to use this to further develop our psychic abilities or just to emotionally connect on a deeper level with the world around us – all we need to is imagine we are reaching out to touch someone and our brains will do the rest.