Counsel of the Seven Powers

© 2019 Lyn E. Ayre, PhD

We have within us an innate knowledge, which works through the Chakras, and which I call the Counsel of the Seven Powers. When we are in touch with those quiet voices, we can instantly tune up our system by making a few simple adjustments.

The first Power of Grounding and Balance

We often hear people say they don’t feel grounded; they feel a ‘disconnect’ between themselves and the world; they feel out of touch, out of sync, out in left field, off the beam, and so on. We really know about this in a very basic way, and at a very deep level, else why would we have coined so many phrases, to get this point across when we talk to others? What it all boils down to is that, we are not connected to Gaia, to nature, or to the earth.

There are many ways of grounding and I’ll include a few here, to get you going:

• Work with plants: in your home, office, garden, or green house. When we can smell the soil, and see the seed, roots, stem, leaf, fruit, and flower, we can metaphorically see our own parts, and how we are all connected together, and planted upon the earth. Using Aromatherapy and Herbal remedies also help us to connect to the earth.

• Sit on the grass with your Root (tailbone) connecting directly to the earth. Send your own Root down into the earth, past the dirt and the sand, the gravel and the bedrock, and hook onto Gaia, our Mother Earth with a grappling hook. Bring some of this earth-energy back up into your body in order to make you feel solidly planted.

• Become in touch with your feet, lightly stamp your feet on the floor, then jump forward one pace with the intention that you are jumping back into your body.

And what of balance? We often hear people speak about life/work balance. This is the topic I want to address, and it’s fairly self-explanatory.

So many folks live beyond their means, and it does nothing but put stress on us when we do that. We run up credit card debt, have bloated mortgages, overpay for our vehicles, are slaves to our shopping addictions, and ‘collection’ addictions. But we’re not happy.

Our lifestyle has captured us as workhorses, grinding away day by day to simply stay on the road. We aren’t saving for retirement. We’re barely making it from paycheque to paycheque. We toil away doing something we hate because, ‘we’ll never make as much money doing something else somewhere else, and we have to keep it up in order to pay down our debt’.

Or, maybe we do it all, because we have an inherent fear of being poor, as our parents were, or some such thing.

So, instead of the usual forty hours per week, we work sixty, or more. It’s a waste of a good life. We find we are strangers to our family and friends. There’s nothing to look forward to except more work. We begin to feel depressed, so we see the doctor who puts us on anti-depressants. Then, on top of everything else, we have to learn to live with the horrible side-effects that some people experience from these drugs. It’s a downward spiral, and all because we thought we needed to live a certain lifestyle.

1. But do we? That’s the question you need to ask yourself.
2. What are the ways that you stay grounded and in touch with the actual reality of life?
3. How do you keep in balance? What could you do better?

The second Power of Creativity and Relationship

It seems more and more difficult to carve out the time for creativity. It’s just not a priority. But, when we do allow ourselves the ‘luxury’ of our creative hobbies, we feel refreshed, revitalized, and alive. We say to ourselves, ‘Why don’t I do this more often because, when I do, I feel great?’ Crystals, Colour, and Chakra/Aura healing will help to heal this area.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Decide and become willing to do whatever it is you love to do; for if you are not willing nothing will happen. Make a list of all of your hobbies that feed your soul. There are so many creative expressions. They are just too numerous to list, but here are some: gardening, creating a delicious meal and plating it attractively, knitting, pottery and ceramics, drawing/painting, musical endeavors, crafts, scrapbooking, and so on.
• Decide on one project, and see it through to the end. This takes commitment and stick-to-itiveness, two very excellent qualities. It also ensures that you’re not spreading yourself too thin, a mistake many of us make. Make it fun to do. Set time aside each day or each week, and allow that time to be sacred. This time is for you. Avoid becoming obsessed with your project, as this then makes it ‘a hafta’ instead of ‘a wanna’.
• When you are done, share your accomplishment with others whom you know to be supportive. If you know of someone who doesn’t appreciate the kind of thing you’re doing, don’t share it with them. Find someone who loves what you do and is generous with their praise.
• Display your project in an appropriate place. Don’t hide your light under a bush; let the others see this dimension of you.

When a creative person is either denying themselves, or another person is demanding ALL of their attention, and they don’t make time for creative endeavors, their relationships will suffer. When we are free to create and spend time in that realm, we refresh ourselves and naturally bring that into every relationship we have. We are once again excited by life.

It’s true that it takes time to be creative, and that takes time away from your relationships. But the quality of the time you spend with your loved ones will be markedly improved if you feed the creative muse within you. Encourage your family and friends to nurture their own outlets. Then, when you come together, you’ll have something wonderful to share.

1. How do you incorporate this vital power of creativity into your daily lives?
2. How does it feed your relationships?

The third Power of Focus and Clarity

One of the cries of the people that can be heard ringing through the streets is, “I haven’t got enough time!” We all have the same amount of time, and down through the ages, we haven’t lost hours in the day. As a matter of fact, we have more usable hours, thanks to the electric light, and a world that operates 24/7.

The big difference, between then and now, is the sheer number of choices available to us. We can sometimes be like a kid in a candy store with the myriad ways we can proceed, and the vast number of items we can buy, use, create. This may leave people feeling un-grounded, floating in a sea of ‘too much input’. We need to again narrow our view. Meditation can help with this.

Here are some ways to create focus and clarity, and stay in the now:

• Use your breath to come back to centre. There are many breathing techniques in this book and elsewhere, which easily help you to switch from being overwhelmed to being in your own power. One of my favourites is to breathe in while looking at the sky and breathe out while looking at the trees. Alternates are: breathe in while placing your attention on your Crown and breathe out with your attention on your tantien (just below your navel), or breathe in while placing your attention on your right shoulder, and breathe out with your attention on your left shoulder.
• Sing or hum a song from your childhood. This brings you back to a simpler time and helps to gather your energy back to you.
• Use the UnPlug Meditation in the vocalizing section of this website. Simply see yourself unplugging from all outside concerns, and bring your energy home.
• Do a simple repetitive task such as bounce a ball on a paddle, or play with a slinky, or pick up jacks. This puts you into a theta state, and helps to re-focus your mind.

When we focus, we find we have all the time in the world, and can accomplish most everything we want to.

1. In what ways do you re-focus and enjoy the power of now in order to gain clarity?
2. How is your attention divided?
3. Where does your energy go when you are not focused?

The fourth Power of Love and Devotion

The question is: Is LOVE what it will take to end war, famine, crime, poverty, and disharmony? So far, we have 100% of voters on my blog (2007) in the affirmative. When we LOVE, we give, we share, we accept, we support, we comfort, and we come to the aid of…

My only job is to LOVE. I remember going to a peace meeting a few years ago. We were asked to send peaceful waves out to the middle-east, and hopefully shift some of the dense energy there.

I immediately found myself walking on a dusty dirt path leading towards some low white buildings. There were no doors or windows, only rough openings into the space. Even at just five foot two, I had to duck down to enter.

I found a man dressed in white, wearing a white hat, and crouching against a white wall. He had olive skin and brown eyes. I gazed deeply into those eyes, and let the truth pass between us. Although I’d not seen a picture of him, I knew he was the man who had caused a lot of the war, along with many westerners. He was the man everyone was hunting. I squatted in front of him, and asked him, what do you need to have in order to end this? His reply was, ‘LOVE’. He was so very tired. I said to him, ‘Just stop this. Stop, and send LOVE yourself even if you feel you were wronged. Once you change, the world will change.’ He said he’d never learned how to LOVE, and didn’t know where to begin.

I think there are a lot of us who feel exactly like that. We just don’t know how, or where to begin.

• In that moment, I knew what it would take to create a world of health, peace, joy, and happiness; it was LOVE. Any hatred we may be feeling towards anyone for any reason needs to be released.
• If we are working on the principle that WE ARE ONE, then let’s embrace that concept fully, and actualize it. He is a part of me; as I breathe out he breathes in; as he breathes out, I breathe in. There is no escaping this simple truth.
• The scalpel that removes the cancerous area from the whole, can be wielded with love, and thereby effect a harmonious healing. A scalpel that is wielded with hate produces a hateful permanent ugly scar with lots of adhesions and future discomfort.
• In the end, I feel the only question will be, ‘How well did I LOVE?’ I hope my answer will satisfy the powers that be. How about you?

Perhaps these questions will help you sort out your feelings.

1. In what ways do you shift the energy of hate, and all the terms associated with it, and enter into the peaceful, beautiful power of LOVE?
2. Do you lean on some form of prayer, Higher Power, or hand-on healing that will help with this?
3. Do you tend to your daily devotions, through any religious or spiritual practice, which enhance this practice?

The fifth Power of the Word and Inner Journey

Often, we just don’t know what we want. We vacillate between this and that, not knowing which way to go. There are some simple tools we can employ to help us. Many of them seem so obvious that we discredit them before we even try them out ie: breathing deeply, and drinking water. But, they work, and have been used by people of all walks of life, down through the ages.

What do I mean when I say the ‘Word’? I’m referring to the written word, the spoken word, the sung word, and storytelling.

The word ‘Journey’ simply identifies that this is a special task we are doing for ourselves, so that we can grow, and heal spiritually from the wounds we have suffered and still relive, which have been inflicted upon us, and the wounds that we have inflicted upon ourselves.

• Journalling is a very important tool of self-discovery. As long as upsetting thoughts are running through our heads, and trying to scramble our brains, nothing much will be accomplished. The process of stopping and writing things down gets it out of our head and onto paper where we can see it. We may end up having a good chuckle, or a good cry, and that’s the end of it. On the other hand, we may not have known that this is how we feel until we read our words. Startled, intrigued, mystified, we go on to ferret out even more until we feel satisfied that we’re at the end of it. Only then can we do something to shift our behaviour, thereby changing the course of our lives.
• Talking things over with someone is good therapy. An objective helper can be a good sounding board, as we do our best to become honest about how we’re feeling and what we’re thinking.
• Sometimes, hearing ourselves, say things out loud, gives us a start. We had no clue that was bothering us. But, now it’s out in the open. We see we’re not being judged, or cast out. We feel compassion coming our way, perhaps for the first time in our lives, and are told that what we’re going through is part of the human condition, and we can get through it. We felt heard.

Discovering who your spiritual helpers are is very important in this process.

1. Have you had any encounters such as the ones I’ve had? Feeling like I’m up against a thick loving energy; plants producing flowers out of season; smelling perfume or pipe tobacco; hearing an idea and never having had that thought before. There have been many. Perhaps something else has happened to you.
2. Who is your Higher Power? What does that look like?
3. Do you feel willing to put your faith in the Spiritual Beings around you, and go on this inner journey?

The sixth Power of Dreams and Intention

As we cycle from Beta brainwaves that allowed us to be animated during our waking hours, into Alpha waves, which induce relaxation, into Theta waves, the precursor to both sleeping and awakening, we enter Delta brainwaves, and go to sleep. Our body is deeply relaxed, but our mind is not still. It is sorting through the day, and filing things away for later, resolving issues, and offering answers, often in the jumbled and symbolic reference of a dream, and sometimes a nightmare. Dreams have been relegated to the world of the mystics and magicians, the soothsayers and psychics. But they are ours to unfurl and reap the rewards. Working with Sounds, Symbols, and Light Activation may help you with this part of your life.

• I keep my phone by my bed as an alarm for morning. So, it is always handy to speak my dream into the Notes section for further review the next day. Word to the wise, read your notes aloud, and make sure it says what you want it to say. Then quietly say to yourself when you’re done, “Go back to sleep.” Over time, this will become a good habit to have. It will definitely help you sort out the symbolism of your dreams, thereby telling you what you need to know. Perhaps a Dream Journal would be helpful.
• In each global culture, people generally dream about the same basic things, and that is how authors from various countries can write dream books with the symbolic meanings of the everyday items in our dreams. Buy a few dream books to start you off.
• When people ask me what their dream could mean, the main thing I say is do this…

Your dream was about a white horse in a paddock who was beginning to get quite nervous and upset. There was a red bucket close by, which you picked up. You saw that it had some feed in it, so you offered it to the horse. She was not interested, lowered her tail, and turned her back to you.

Take all of the things in your dream and ask yourself:

1. What does horse mean to me?
2. What does white symbolize?
3. What does a bucket mean?
4. What does red symbolize?

Analyze each aspect of your dream. Over time you will come to understand your own symbolism.

Dreams and Intentions are the domains of the Third Eye, our psychic vision. Perhaps you’re being led to develop this part of yourself more fully.

Through the use of Intentions, you can dream about a particular thing in order to receive an answer. Of course, this doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try. Create your intention, “I hold the intention that I will dream about the meaning of being surrounded by five blues cars today. I intend that the symbolism make itself known more directly, so that I can understand what I need to know. Thank you. And so it is.”

You can request a dream about a certain thing in order to heal it. “I hold the intention that my next dream about my relationship with ___ will be remembered, so that I can see what needs to be healed. Thank you. And so it is.”

Recurrent dreams are really trying to get your attention to heal something. Be steadfast in learning what that might be. Don’t ignore them. 

The seventh Power of Connection and Inspiration

I’ve heard it said that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, rather its connection. This is why twelve-step meetings are so many and varied, and why they work so well, and have such great success.

• There are all kinds of connections people can make – to home, to our country, to our family and friends, to our spouse and children, to our inner self, to a Higher Power.
• When we are connected, we feel alive and vital. Think about an electrical cord… as it sits on the floor unplugged, it’s pretty much useless. But, when we plug it in, all manner of things come to life. In my book, The Healing Tree, I’ve written a lot about unplugging from things that drag us down, like bad habits, poor choices, and unfortunate events.
• In this section, we want to plug in to people who nourish us, those we were born to help and mold, and our Higher Power that we can count on for strength and guidance. We need to connect to who we are, and what our values, morals, and ethics are. Where am I not connecting? What can I do to change that?
• Working with Angels and Archangels will help us find answers to the questions we pose. Discover the general qualities of some of the Angels and Archangels you’re currently attracted to. See if some of them are attributes that you yourself possess, or ones that you feel you need in order to heal your life.

Some self-querying for spiritual growth…

1. Can I learn to work with energies that nourish me?
2. How do I connect to my inner self, to others, and to my Higher Power?
3. Where does my inspiration come from?

Love Lyn

“Rowboat” watercolour by my spouse, Norman Ayre, (C)1991

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream.