{"id":9961,"date":"2014-07-01T01:10:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T06:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=10309"},"modified":"2014-06-22T07:01:32","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T12:01:32","slug":"musings-of-a-hereditary-witch-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2014\/07\/01\/musings-of-a-hereditary-witch-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Musings of a Hereditary Witch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grounding: A Pet Peeve<\/strong>
\nWhen I was first introduced to the Pagan community in the early 90\u2019s, I noticed a trend with workshop leaders and with some of the ritual leaders when it came to grounding. They would start off in a dreamy voice\u2026
\nClose your eyes\u2026take a deep slow breath in\u2026now breath out slowly\u2026 (repeat a few times)
\nNow, drop a cord or visualize roots extending from your feet\/base of spine\u2026allow all negative, pain, sorrow\u2026 (etc.) to flow from you and into Mother Earth, She can take all of this from you\u2026now bring up Her healing energy\u2026
\nOk, stop right there. Our beautiful Mother cannot take all of your pain, sorrow, negativity or whatever. Not, that is, unless you extend that cord or your roots all the way down to Her Heart Center, that fiery core, and ask that it be transformed into something healing and loving for all of Her children.
\nWhy?
\nWell the first thing that comes to mind is: what makes some people think that She wants any of our negative energy? Has She asked you for it? Did She say, \u2018Yes, dump all of your negative energy into me along with your garbage, nuclear waste, and poisons. What\u2019s one more negative thing being dumped into my body\u2019.
\nThe second thing is that if you are not responsible to what happens to that negative energy, if you are just dumping it, then that negativity is resting in the top soil. What if someone with empathic sensitivity comes along and picks it up unconsciously? Have you ever been out somewhere, feeling fine one minute and the next your mood changes and the slightest little thing sets you off and you don\u2019t know why? Of course sometimes we just walked by someone and pick up their negative energy, but it\u2019s the same principle. We always speak of self-responsibility within the Pagan community; shouldn\u2019t this be one of the things we are responsible for?
\nYears ago I was explaining this to some students, about sending the energy all the way down to Mother Earth\u2019s fiery center and asking for it to be transformed. One student said that, that wasn\u2019t the way she\u2019d been taught by another teacher. The teacher she named was well known in our area as a Shamanic teacher and healer, though I\u2019d never met her. I told my student that this is the way I teach grounding.
\nWell, I got a call from the local Shamanic teacher, a very nice woman, whom I am friends with today. She told me that her former student had shared with her the grounding technique that I use and that she never considered running the energy to the core or transforming the energy into something positive, she just assumed that it would just take care of its self. She also mentioned that she had been teaching grounding for 20 years.
\nMy grandma, who was a wise woman, taught me to always ask the earth to take away any negative energy I might be holding within and to transform it into something wonderful and healing. This is not the \u2018only true and right way\u2019 to ground. Much has changed within the Pagan community since the 90\u2019s and with that many of the things being taught at that time has evolved. If you take anything from this post, I hope it is being mindful of how you dispose of your energy to Mother Earth.
\nBlessings on your Hearth & Home,
\nElayne<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grounding: A Pet Peeve When I was first introduced to the Pagan community in the early 90\u2019s, I noticed a trend with workshop leaders and with some of the ritual leaders when it came to grounding. They would start off in a dreamy voice\u2026 Close your eyes\u2026take a deep slow breath in\u2026now breath out slowly\u2026 (repeat a few times) Now, drop a cord or visualize roots extending from your feet\/base of spine\u2026allow all negative, pain, sorrow\u2026 (etc.) to flow from you and into Mother Earth, She can take all of this from you\u2026now bring up Her healing energy\u2026 Ok, stop right there. Our beautiful Mother cannot take all of your pain, sorrow, negativity or whatever. Not, that is, unless you extend that cord or your roots all the way down to Her Heart Center, that fiery core, and ask that it be transformed into something healing and loving for all of Her children. Why? Well the first thing that comes to mind is: what makes some people think that She wants any of our negative energy? Has She asked you for it? Did She say, \u2018Yes, dump all of your negative energy into me along with your garbage, nuclear waste, and poisons. What\u2019s one more negative thing being dumped into my body\u2019. The second thing is that if you are not responsible to what happens to that negative energy, if you are just dumping it, then that negativity is resting in the top soil. What if someone with empathic sensitivity comes along and picks it up unconsciously? Have you ever been out somewhere, feeling fine one minute and the next your mood changes and the slightest little thing sets you off and you don\u2019t know why? Of course sometimes we just walked by someone and pick up their negative energy, but it\u2019s the same principle. We always speak of self-responsibility within the Pagan community; shouldn\u2019t this be one of the things we are responsible for? Years ago I was explaining this to some students, about sending the energy all the way down to Mother Earth\u2019s fiery center and asking for it to be transformed. One student said that, that wasn\u2019t the way she\u2019d been taught by another teacher. The teacher she named was well known in our area as a Shamanic teacher and healer, though I\u2019d never met her. I told my student that this is the way I teach grounding. Well, I got a call from the local Shamanic teacher, a very nice woman, whom I am friends with today. She told me that her former student had shared with her the grounding technique that I use and that she never considered running the energy to the core or transforming the energy into something positive, she just assumed that it would just take care of its self. She also mentioned that she had been teaching grounding for 20 years. My grandma, who was a wise woman, taught me to always ask the earth to take away any negative energy I might be holding within and to transform it into something wonderful and healing. This is not the \u2018only true and right way\u2019 to ground. Much has changed within the Pagan community since the 90\u2019s and with that many of the things being taught at that time has evolved. If you take anything from this post, I hope it is being mindful of how you dispose of your energy to Mother Earth. Blessings on your Hearth & Home, Elayne<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}