Ultimate guide to crystals and stones - Uma Silbey 2016
Balancing
Personal Preparation for Crystal and Stone Work
When doing any kind of crystal or stone work, or whenever working with subtle energy, we will be more effective, have more energy, avoid burnout, and stay healthier when we are balanced. To be balanced is to be open to the heavens as well as the earth. Our crown is as open as our feet, and energy flows freely through our bodies, unimpeded by blockages. When we are energetically balanced, all of our subtle energy centers are open and functioning in optimal relationship with each other. When we are energetically balanced, our minds and bodies become calm and we feel expansive and connected with life. Along with the opening to the higher realms as well as to the earth, our heart opens, uniting both the opening to the higher realms and the opening into the earth. When we are balanced, we can easily become sensitive enough to clearly hear the voices of the stones and follow our own deep inner promptings. When we are balanced, we will have more strength, clarity, calmness, fearlessness, mental acuity, and emotional openness, and we will stay healthier.
This coupling of energy from the heavens and the earth, centered in our heart, creates the proper balance to do the work with our crystals and stones. With this balance, we will be able to equally hear the wisdom of our intellect, our psychic and spiritual minds, our heart and our belly, all of this informing and amplifying our work as well as our life in the everyday world. Through balance, all or our subtle energy centers will be in open relationship with each other, and the energy centers in our two palms will more easily work in relationship with each other, sending and receiving energy.
The following is a crystal or stone layout that will help balance us. It is one of the most important layouts that we can do in our work with stones and crystals as it will help with any condition. It will help open and balance each chakra or energy point with the others and open us so that life force, or energy, can flow without blocks and impediments. This is also the basic healing stone layout, because when we are balanced, we are setting the conditions through which healing can happen. We can do this layout for ourselves and for others. We can also lay it out in a special place in our homes so that when we see it, we will be reminded to scan our energetic bodies and see that every energy center is optimally functioning and in balance.
BASIC ENERGY LAYOUT USING CRYSTALS AND STONES
1. Have the following stones ready for your use: clear quartz; amethyst; a smaller blue sodalite or a royal blue stone; a smaller turquoise or turquoise colored stone; rose quartz; green aventurine or any pink or green stone; gold tiger eye; yellow calcite or any yellow stone; red-orange aventurine or any orange stone; red garnet, red jasper or any other red stone; black agate, obsidian or any other black stone; and two other smaller, hand-sized clear quartz.
2. Lay down on your back, legs uncrossed. If you are working with another, have them lay down on their back, legs uncrossed, arms down by their side with their palms facing upward.
3. Begin to breathe with slow, long, deep breaths until you feel grounded, focused, and in a meditative state of mind.
4. First lay the rose or green colored crystal or stone on the heart center in the middle of the chest. Visualize the breath flowing in and out of this stone and center.
5. Next, place the yellow stone on the third energy center, approximately 2 inches below the belly button in the middle of the stomach. Shift the breath so that it seems to flow in and out of this center.
6. Following this, place the turquoise stone on the fifth energy center in the middle of the throat, visualizing the breath flowing in and out of the stone and energy center.
7. Next, place the orange stone on the second chakra or energy center, near the sex organs. Imagine that the breath flows in and out of this stone and center.
8. After this, place the royal blue stone over the third eye energy center in the middle of the forehead, shifting the breathing so that it seems to flow in and out of this stone and energy center.
9. Next, place the red stone near the tailbone at the end of the spine, imaging the breath shifting to flow in and out of this center and stone.
10. Then, place a clear quartz, point upward, over the top of the head near its center. Imagine that the breath flows in and out of the crystal and the center of the head, opening the top of the head upward into the heavens.
11. After the crown, place the black stone between the legs parallel with the feet. If it has a tip, point it downward. Imagine the breath flowing in and out of the bottom of your feet, opening you to bring a connection deep into the earth.
12. Finally, place a quartz crystal in the center of each palm—in the right hand pointing it out toward the fingertips, and in the left hand pointing it upward towards the arm.
13. As the crystals or stones remain on the energy centers, feel as if the breath moves back to the heart center, flowing easily in and out.
14. Feel as if there is a clear stream of light flowing in through the black stone and up the spine to exit as a beam of light over the head, and then reversing to flow down through the spine into the earth. As it travels up and down the spine, this light or energy connects each energy center, opening and energizing it with life force.
15. Now, visualize a triangle of energy flowing between the two palms (and stones) and up the arms to meet at the third eye center. Feel the hand centers as much as the third center.
16. Next, visualize that each palm connects with each other and also the heart center, forming an interconnecting triangle of energy. As you focus on this triangle of energy, allow your breath to remain centered in your heart.
17. Feel the connection between the healing centers in the hands with the heart center. In all successful energy work, the two hands do not work alone, but only in relationship with each other. (This is true with all our crystal and stone work.)
18. Now, relax and continue to lay back with the stones upon the energy centers, being aware of the energy as it flows between each chakra and up and down the physical and subtle body. As this central cord of energy flows freely, relax and allow each chakra, energized by the stone, open and adjust. This, in turn, allows any necessary healing or rebalancing to occur.
19. With each breath, let yourself relax, opening even more to this balancing energy. If your mind wanders, let go of what you are thinking and bring it back to the stones and chakras, opening yourself again to the subtle energy as it balances your subtle and physical bodies and heals in all the ways that are needed. Do this for eleven minutes or longer, or until it seems time to stop.
20. To end this stone session, remove the orange second chakra stone first, then the throat center stone, the root chakra red stone, the royal blue third eye stone, then the yellow third chakra stone, then the violet crown chakra stone.
21. The rose quartz or green stone in the heart center, balanced with the clear quartz over the head and the black stone by the feet, along with a clear quartz crystal in each hand now form an even more basic energy-balancing pattern. With each relaxing breath, feel the connection between these stones and their energy centers, letting this awareness bring even more balance. Even with this simple stone and chakra-balancing pattern, many ills will be cleared.
22. After at least three minutes resting with this more basic balancing pattern, take the clear quartz out of each palm, then the black stone, then the clear quartz at the top of the head.
23. Rest for another one to three minutes (or more) with the rose quartz or green stone on your heart center, feeling it gently flow even wider than before. This is the most basic energy balancing layout or technique of them all. With an open heart, your mind and body can become calm, and you can be centered and at ease.
24. Finally, remove the rose quartz or green stone from your heart center and remain lying down, integrating any changes that may have occurred. Before you get up, stretch your body and feel the floor or earth beneath you so that you are grounded.
In this basic energy layout, the coupling of energy from the heavens and the earth, centered in our heart, creates the proper balance to do the work with our crystals and stones.