holidays
Aura Awareness Day
It’s not just us. The world knows that there’s an energetic part of reality. International Aura Awareness Day was established in 2002 to create awareness of this. Aura Day takes place the fourth Saturday in November.
There’s a reasonable agreement on what an aura is, although there’s a huge range of theories about how it works, and what knowing about it can do. Early Spiritualists, Swedenborgians, and others mentioned the “subtle emanation around living beings”, medieval Christians as well as Hindus and Buddhists represent holy people surrounded by light, which indicates that some people have always been able to perceive auras. In Greek, the word aura means breeze or upper air, in Latin or breeze or breath.
Some people can see auras, others can’t. I know I don’t, but we used to annoy my sister because her aura was palpable by almost everyone, and we would play with it.
We think of auras as surrounding people, but all living things have energy fields: plants, animals, and perhaps other things we would consider inanimate. Certainly no one doubts that a magnet is surrounded by an energy field. But auras aren’t magnetic, they’re something else, and this field responds to physical, psychological and spiritual changes. Some humans can see them, some cameras and other devices can record them. They can be used to diagnose and sometimes affect moods and illnesses. Some say fixing holes in your aura can keep energy from leaking out. Similarly, some emotions can taint your aura, causing physical illness, which clears up when the aura is energetically cleansed.
As energy within the body is said to run through meridians, it is also said to radiate out from the body in layers, sometimes described as etheric, emotional, mental, astral, celestial, spiritual, and other terms used to explain how that layer interacts with different parts of the aura. Each layer seems to serve a different function. Some are tight to our body- and may be the energetic component of the physical body, while other parts can extend yards out from us. These fields also change in size and shape (and color).
Those who read auras say that certain colors can tell us what’s going on in our energy field. With the advent of aura technology, we can all get a peek at what our auras are doing- before and after meditation comparisons are fun.
Red – fearless and passionate
Pink – Deeply sensitive and gentle in nature
Orange – creative and full of emotion
Yellow – Confident and happy with high self-esteem
Tan – Practical and detail-oriented
Green – Natural born self-healers who are drawn to nature and animals
Blue – Caring, nurturing, and protective
Purple – Charismatic with a powerful personality
White – Spiritually motivated, positive, and uplifting (These descriptions are from the National Day Calendar holiday description.)
Happy Occult Day!
November 18th is Occult Day! (It’s also Fool around with a Guy with a Mustache Day, hence the image of Dr. Strange)
The history, origin, and the founder of the Occult Day are unknown. There is no mention about the year at which the celebration had first occurred. However, Occult has been existing in every culture, religion, and tradition. It refers to everything that is taking place beyond the normal human’s perspective. It includes the magic, alchemy, astrology, spiritualism, extra-sensory perception, religion, and divination. Occult refers to the “knowledge of the hidden.” It sometimes gives the meaning as the knowledge that “is meant only for certain people” or “must be kept hidden.” (Happydays-365)
Most often occultist is the study of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond the pure reason and the physical sciences. Occult is the life beyond the natural world for the normal people. Almost every culture and religion has the practice of occult. The Day is the perfect time to get involved with your inner self in a spiritual form.”
For goodness sakes, working most of the apps on my phone are ‘occult’ to me! Occult seems to simply be the stuff you don’t know. We seem satisfied to let someone else understand and handle our plumbing, electricity, health care and politics (etc. etc.) so we can study what we want to study. I want to study the mind-body connect, how to manifest a better life, heal with energy, communicate with plants, animals and other beings…. The folks who come to CTCW ARE more likely to understand things some folks consider “occult”, mysteries impossible to fathom. But the first step is to simply start. We may or may not understand the mysteries of sports, fashion, sitcoms or other “common knowledge”.
How do you decide what hidden things, things you don’t know, that you’ll put effort into learning? Have a happy Occult Day, and if you missed the conference this year, I hope you make it next year!
Happy Beltaine!
Have a bonfire, collect water from your well, or a holy well and save it for use during the year, as it has special healing powers. No well? collect dew, it’s holy water too. In theory you do this by spreading a sheet on the damp grass and wringing it out, but I am not sure how well that would work. You could wash your face with it, it’s supposed to be great for the complexion! Collecting wild flowers and spreading them around the house or giving them to people you want blessed is supposed to be good luck.
Universal Day of Peace and Healing
Since 1986 the Quartus foundation has designated December 31 the Universal Day of Peace and healing. http://www.quartus.org/world-healing-day/
