The Cave Lie down and close your eyes, relax your muscles and pay attention the colors behind your eyes. Feel yourself drifting down, down, as if you were a gentle leaf falling from a tree. See the leaf in your mind’s eye, follow it to the ground and realize you’re standing in forest, slowly walking a worn path through the trees, a gentle breeze ruffling your hair. A tall mountain looms in the distance. As you walk, you realize you’re heading for a clearing near the base of the mountain. You step out of the forest and a summer sun, bright and warm, lights up your face and chest. You…

The Secret Smile In Esoteric Taoism they believe that high levels of chi energy can cause one’s emotional state to expand, whatever that may be. I can verify that from my own experience; meditate when you’re feeling good and you come away almost giddy. Meditate too often when you’re feeling down and you could end up dealing with your problems Kurt Cobain-style and that’s definitely not the end result most people want. Meditation, near as I can tell, does not change you, it simply makes you more of what you already are. The simple act of breathing and quieting the internal chatter can make you calmer, but it rarely changes…

The Secret to Energy Work: Kinesthetic Memory Techniques There are roughly 4 gazillion books out there detailing methods for moving energy through the body. And whether they refer to chi, ki, prana, or The Force, almost all of them use the same basic technique: visualization. Despite this wealth of spiritual training material available, the number of people who’ve managed to achieve anything using these techniques remains pitifully small. A skeptic might use that as proof that energy work is just a load of hooey, but perhaps the problem lies not in the idea, but the approach. Most people take the word visualization far too literally; the world of meditation and…

Using Earth Meditations to Stay Calm during Troubled Times These days it seems anyone whose last name isn’t Hilton is having difficulty staying afloat. Now, most us are so busy trying to survive that we don’t have time to devote a few hours, heck, even half an hour to meditate; so let’s look at a method for quickly changing our mental state from one of fear and anxiety, to one that promotes a strong, peaceful approach to dealing with a world that has gone slightly mad. I won’t be requiring you to chant out loud, bend yourself in pretzel, or wear an orange robe for this, so it can be…