I’m only a little rebellious, but even in my more traditional days, I never liked the “You are dust and to dust you shall return” motif of Ash Wednesdays and memorial services. (Also, making the sign of the cross with ashes on the forehead closes off the 6th chakra/3rd eye energy! But that’s another issue…) It always seemed so morbid and well, off, to me somehow. I could never articulate why I felt this way until I shifted into a mystical energy paradigm many years ago.
I now know that at my core I am pure consciousness, pure energy, pure spirit—as each and every person is. Thus, saying I came from dust and will return to dust is just not accurate, besides being (to my mind anyway) dismissive and disrespectful of my body. Yes, my body is formed from earth dust and stardust, but my body, too, has consciousness and energy and as we know from science, energy can never be created or destroyed. Thus, even though my body is material on one level, it is also energy that is emotionally aware on another level. [If you doubt this, read up on the scientific studies about cell memory from organ transplants. A naturopathic doctor who’s also an energy healer reported this past weekend about one he’d read where a macho biker dude received an organ transplant from a female artist who loved the color pink. After the transplant, the biker started painting everything—you guessed it—pink… Here’s another similar story.
However, I do think that “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” can be a good way of remembering that all form is impermanent. All material form manifests and dissolves, and thus, we must remember not to attach permanence and identity on the impermanent, even our bodies. Essence is who we really are. Forms are simply forms of us. Your body is a form of you, but you are not your body! You contain your body, but your identity is found in your essence—who we all are at the core.
Ultimately, though, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” fails in acknowledging that all forms are also on a deeper level, energy and conscious, and therefore eternal and do not die. The energy of our bodies goes on infinitely and eternally.
This became evident to me again when I was working through some issues in my tissues right before Ash Wednesday. I found, for about the kazillionth time, that my body remembered emotions from an experience I had long forgotten about. In releasing those emotions (which happened to be buried so deeply, they only emerged while I was sleeping and dreaming), I discovered a liberating idea: My body is the necessary tool for the Divine to experience and record life on this dense vibrational level of the material world. My body, then, is my Divine or Sacred Witness.
Think about it. In this multi-dimensional universe, it is only possible to experience the densest layer of it if you exist in the densest layer. If you are out-of-body, you experience the universe in a different vibration and dimension. You might be able to see the densest layer but only through it’s energy dopplegänger. The only way you experience and see the dense layer is by having a dense layer yourself, i.e., a body. For example, let’s say you want to experience life as a bunny. You’re going to have to be embodied in a bunny body, with bunny fur and see the world through bunny eyes. You could imagine it, but it’s not as real as being embodied as an actual bunny. Or let’s say you want to experience Scotland. You could imagine it. You could read about it. You could look through a picture book or watch a movie about it. But the only way you’re going to experience and know Scotland: what it looks, tastes, feels, sounds, and smells like is by taking your body to Scotland firsthand.
Thus, your body is how the Divine experiences life in a body. This is why your body is called the temple of God. It houses the Divine Spirit or Essence at the core of you and observes all that is occurring in your life through your eyes. This is the beautiful crux of the divine incarnation in humanity and all sentient life forms.
Amazing, isn’t it? Your body is the sacred witness, the sacred lens through which God sees and experiences your life! This seems so obvious to me, I’m not sure why I’ve never thought of it this way or had it explained to me this way. Your body is what ensures that the Divine experiences everything you on this level do. And your body doesn’t miss a thing, even if your conscious mind does! That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to listen to your body when you’re charting your life path. Your body is far more tuned into the bigger picture than your conscious mind is. It remembers emotions and experiences your conscious mind has long forgotten, as I learned again while clearing my dream-remembered emotions.
So what does any of this have to do with energy healing?
I’ve found that keeping the idea of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” as a belief about my body, stresses out my body with fear, and keeps it from healing. When you let go of the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” motif, the body can heal easier and faster. Because your body is also energy, we can help the body consciously connect with that awareness. And though energy can not be created or destroyed, it can be transmuted into different forms and into different levels of energy or vibration, which is what promotes healing on the material level.
This is what you can tell your body.
1) Center your breathing and focus your mind on an image, word, or a point in your body.
2) After reaching a calm, meditative state, visualize your body however you’d like: as a mirror image in front of you, as a collection of many cells, as one master cell talking to all the other cells, whatever works for you.
3) Begin by talking to your body and its cells and organs. Thank your body for being a divine or sacred witness to all that you have experienced. Thank your body for allowing you to be in this place in this time so that your soul can grow in this excellent virtual physical learning environment. Thank your body for recording and being a public witness to all your joys and sorrows and all your triumphs and tribulations. Your body has been there with you all along, your constant companion, faithful to the truth of your perceptions, emotions, and physical sensations in all your experiences.
4) Remind your body that its energy is eternal, always stored in Divine Mind. It doesn’t need to worry about impermanence, about dying, about being destroyed or becoming “dust and ashes.” The Divine Mind knows everything it has experienced and will remember it all. This will free your body of a lot of worry and help it heal.
5) After thanking your body, bring something to mind that was difficult for you that you might still be struggling with. Tell your body it’s time to release and transmute whatever is stored and recorded in your body and your body’s energies from that experience into higher Light for safe-keeping. You now know your body was recording it so that it could be healed/transmuted later and then just tell it to release. Visualize this being released into the Light, like your body or its cells are giving off this energy floating upwards into the Divine Light. That way your body no longer needs to carry it. You may want to visualize this with a symbol like a video or DVD coming up and out of your body and cells and being delivered into eternal memory. Tell your body it has done its duty: observed and recorded and stored until you were ready to shift and heal it, and now its time to transmute it. The Divine Light will hold your body’s observations so your body doesn’t need to carry it anymore. Then just see it all dissolve or turn into Light.
6) Thank the Divine for recording and witnessing everything you’ve experienced in body. Thank the Divine Self for healing and restoring you to your core Wholeness in the best way possible right now, for clearing your body so that it is renewed and refreshed to witness your life anew. Feel the Divine Love for yourself and your body.
By transmuting the old memories and experiences into higher Light, you clear out old, heavier vibrations. This will not only lift your body, but lift your experiences in life into newer lighter, more joyful experiences.
Remember, you are not merely ashes--as precious as those ashes are-- as precious as earth dust is—and to Spirit you shall return!
I now know that at my core I am pure consciousness, pure energy, pure spirit—as each and every person is. Thus, saying I came from dust and will return to dust is just not accurate, besides being (to my mind anyway) dismissive and disrespectful of my body. Yes, my body is formed from earth dust and stardust, but my body, too, has consciousness and energy and as we know from science, energy can never be created or destroyed. Thus, even though my body is material on one level, it is also energy that is emotionally aware on another level. [If you doubt this, read up on the scientific studies about cell memory from organ transplants. A naturopathic doctor who’s also an energy healer reported this past weekend about one he’d read where a macho biker dude received an organ transplant from a female artist who loved the color pink. After the transplant, the biker started painting everything—you guessed it—pink… Here’s another similar story.
However, I do think that “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” can be a good way of remembering that all form is impermanent. All material form manifests and dissolves, and thus, we must remember not to attach permanence and identity on the impermanent, even our bodies. Essence is who we really are. Forms are simply forms of us. Your body is a form of you, but you are not your body! You contain your body, but your identity is found in your essence—who we all are at the core.
Ultimately, though, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” fails in acknowledging that all forms are also on a deeper level, energy and conscious, and therefore eternal and do not die. The energy of our bodies goes on infinitely and eternally.
This became evident to me again when I was working through some issues in my tissues right before Ash Wednesday. I found, for about the kazillionth time, that my body remembered emotions from an experience I had long forgotten about. In releasing those emotions (which happened to be buried so deeply, they only emerged while I was sleeping and dreaming), I discovered a liberating idea: My body is the necessary tool for the Divine to experience and record life on this dense vibrational level of the material world. My body, then, is my Divine or Sacred Witness.
Think about it. In this multi-dimensional universe, it is only possible to experience the densest layer of it if you exist in the densest layer. If you are out-of-body, you experience the universe in a different vibration and dimension. You might be able to see the densest layer but only through it’s energy dopplegänger. The only way you experience and see the dense layer is by having a dense layer yourself, i.e., a body. For example, let’s say you want to experience life as a bunny. You’re going to have to be embodied in a bunny body, with bunny fur and see the world through bunny eyes. You could imagine it, but it’s not as real as being embodied as an actual bunny. Or let’s say you want to experience Scotland. You could imagine it. You could read about it. You could look through a picture book or watch a movie about it. But the only way you’re going to experience and know Scotland: what it looks, tastes, feels, sounds, and smells like is by taking your body to Scotland firsthand.
Thus, your body is how the Divine experiences life in a body. This is why your body is called the temple of God. It houses the Divine Spirit or Essence at the core of you and observes all that is occurring in your life through your eyes. This is the beautiful crux of the divine incarnation in humanity and all sentient life forms.
Amazing, isn’t it? Your body is the sacred witness, the sacred lens through which God sees and experiences your life! This seems so obvious to me, I’m not sure why I’ve never thought of it this way or had it explained to me this way. Your body is what ensures that the Divine experiences everything you on this level do. And your body doesn’t miss a thing, even if your conscious mind does! That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to listen to your body when you’re charting your life path. Your body is far more tuned into the bigger picture than your conscious mind is. It remembers emotions and experiences your conscious mind has long forgotten, as I learned again while clearing my dream-remembered emotions.
So what does any of this have to do with energy healing?
I’ve found that keeping the idea of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” as a belief about my body, stresses out my body with fear, and keeps it from healing. When you let go of the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” motif, the body can heal easier and faster. Because your body is also energy, we can help the body consciously connect with that awareness. And though energy can not be created or destroyed, it can be transmuted into different forms and into different levels of energy or vibration, which is what promotes healing on the material level.
This is what you can tell your body.
1) Center your breathing and focus your mind on an image, word, or a point in your body.
2) After reaching a calm, meditative state, visualize your body however you’d like: as a mirror image in front of you, as a collection of many cells, as one master cell talking to all the other cells, whatever works for you.
3) Begin by talking to your body and its cells and organs. Thank your body for being a divine or sacred witness to all that you have experienced. Thank your body for allowing you to be in this place in this time so that your soul can grow in this excellent virtual physical learning environment. Thank your body for recording and being a public witness to all your joys and sorrows and all your triumphs and tribulations. Your body has been there with you all along, your constant companion, faithful to the truth of your perceptions, emotions, and physical sensations in all your experiences.
4) Remind your body that its energy is eternal, always stored in Divine Mind. It doesn’t need to worry about impermanence, about dying, about being destroyed or becoming “dust and ashes.” The Divine Mind knows everything it has experienced and will remember it all. This will free your body of a lot of worry and help it heal.
5) After thanking your body, bring something to mind that was difficult for you that you might still be struggling with. Tell your body it’s time to release and transmute whatever is stored and recorded in your body and your body’s energies from that experience into higher Light for safe-keeping. You now know your body was recording it so that it could be healed/transmuted later and then just tell it to release. Visualize this being released into the Light, like your body or its cells are giving off this energy floating upwards into the Divine Light. That way your body no longer needs to carry it. You may want to visualize this with a symbol like a video or DVD coming up and out of your body and cells and being delivered into eternal memory. Tell your body it has done its duty: observed and recorded and stored until you were ready to shift and heal it, and now its time to transmute it. The Divine Light will hold your body’s observations so your body doesn’t need to carry it anymore. Then just see it all dissolve or turn into Light.
6) Thank the Divine for recording and witnessing everything you’ve experienced in body. Thank the Divine Self for healing and restoring you to your core Wholeness in the best way possible right now, for clearing your body so that it is renewed and refreshed to witness your life anew. Feel the Divine Love for yourself and your body.
By transmuting the old memories and experiences into higher Light, you clear out old, heavier vibrations. This will not only lift your body, but lift your experiences in life into newer lighter, more joyful experiences.
Remember, you are not merely ashes--as precious as those ashes are-- as precious as earth dust is—and to Spirit you shall return!
