Self-Love Healing Rite

This fire element ritual might become a regular practice for you, as it is fortifying to your spirit and feels simply wonderful. Gather the following:

• A large red pillar candle
• An orange
• Bergamot essential oil

Take the large pillar candle, anoint it with bergamot essential oil, and charge it with positivity toward yourself. Scratch your own name into it and write: “I love [your name].”

Light the candle and say four times:

    I love me. I love [your name].

Light the candle every night, and repeat this spell before bed and every morning when you arise. Your mood and sense of self will continue to grow in positivity.

Color Connection

Color is a form of energy that can be broken down by individual vibrations. We use colors in our homes and at work to affect moods. The right colors can calm, energize, or even romanticize a setting. Colors promote many desired states of being. Anyone using color is tuning in to the vibration frequency of that particular color. Some psychics have the skills and training to read your aura; they can literally see the energy radiating out from your body.

Other colors not in the spectrum or chakra exist in crystals and stones, and are significant in their own right: brown, gray, black, white, silver, and gold.

Brown: the color of humility and poverty; represents safety and the home.

Gray: the color of grief and mourning; symbolized resurrection in medieval times; gray is the first color the human eye can perceive in infancy.

Black: protection and strength; fortifies your personal energies and gives them more inner authority; symbolizes fertile, life-giving, rich earth, and nourishing rain in Africa.

White: purity, peace, patience, and protection; some cultures associate white with death.

Silver: relates to communication and greater access to the universe; indicates a lunar connection or female energy.

Gold: direct connection to God; facilitates wealth and ease.

The color spectrum is correlated with seven basic vibrations. These are the same vibrations that comprise the musical scale, and the same vibrations that are the foundation of our seven-N/vibration chakra system. The “lightest” vibrations are at the top and the “heaviest” vibrations are at the bottom. By now you should know that the color system is composed of seven colors, all visible in the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. A great way to remember the colors is by their collective acronym, which sounds like a name: Roy G. Biv. Consult the following color guide when you are choosing a color for any aspect of your life.

Color management can help you on the most basic level each day. To combat feeling depressed, wear yellow to raise your energy level. If you have a business meeting and you want to put your colleagues at ease, wear earthy colors like brown or green. You can experiment with different combinations, too. Remember, the purpose here is to find your soul colors. 

The Scent of Happiness

The minute you walk into someone’s home, you can almost immediately tell how happy a household it is. Much of that is determined by the smell. A home with the fragrance of sugar cookies or a freshly baked pumpkin pie is one you may well want to visit often. Similarly, a space redolent of the bouquet of lilies or tea roses is one where the residents take care to make their home beautiful to both the eye and the other senses. There are lots of small things we can do in regard to “energy maintenance” for our home. To sweeten any mood, this recipe works wonders on you or anyone in your environment who might need a lift. Combine the following essential oils:

• 2 drops neroli
• 4 drops bergamot
• 4 drops lavender
• 2 drops rosemary

Add the mixture to a quart of distilled or fresh spring water and spray the air for an easy home makeover!

St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)

This is one of the most relied-upon of all herbal treatments for mild to moderate depression, PMS, perimenopause symptoms, and general immune and mood boosting, It is so popular now that you can find the extract in capsules at most pharmacies, grocers, herbal supply stores, and the like. Take three to six hundred milligrams per day to brighten your days. You can also find St. John’s Wort as a tincture if you prefer a liquid extract.

Opal—Cupid’s Stone

In the classical era, humans believed that opals were pieces of rainbows that had fallen to the ground. They also dubbed this exquisite iridescent gem Cupid’s stone because they felt it looked like the love god’s skin. The Arabs believed opals fell from heaven in bright flashes of lightning, thus gaining their amazing fire and color play. The Romans saw opals as symbols of purity and optimism. They believed this stone could protect people from diseases. The Roman name for opal is so beautiful and evocative—cupid paedros, meaning “a child as beautiful as love.”

Saint Albert the Great was one of the most learned men of the thirteenth century, a student of the natural sciences as well as theology, literature, and languages. He fancied mineralogy and waxed on about opal: “The porphanus is a stone which is in the crown of the Roman Emperor, and none like it has ever been seen; for this very reason it is called porphanus. It is of a subtle vinous tinge, and its hue is as though pure white snow flashed and sparkled with the color of bright, ruddy wine and was overcome by this radiance. It is translucent stone, and there is a tradition that, formerly, it shone in the nighttime, but now, in our age, it does not sparkle in the dark, it is said to guard the regal honor.”  

Opals had many superstitions attached to them. There was the belief that an opal wrapped in a bay-laurel leaf could cure any eye disease and combat weak hearts and infection. In the Middle Ages, opal was called ophthalmios, or “eye stone.” The great Scandinavian epic the Edda contained verses about a stone forged by the smithy of the gods to form the eye of children, doubtless a reference to opal. In olden days, it was thought that an opal would change color according to the mood and health of the owner, going dull and colorless when the owner died. Blond women favored opals because they believed they could keep their hair light in color. (I trust they were not using black or dark blue opals!)

It was ever believed that an opal could render the wearer invisible, making this the patron stone of thieves. Black opal has always had top ranking among opals, being the rarest and most dramatic type. One legend told that if a love relationship was consummated with only one party wearing black opal, the gem would soak up the passion and store it in its glow.

Mood Magic: Blue Moon Balm

For a dreary day and a dark mood, use the strength of the olden unguent to release both mind and body. This desert plant produces a protective oil, which works as both a sunscreen and a moisturizer. Combine the following oils with either four ounces of unscented body lotion, or two ounces of olive oil or sweet almond oil:

• 2 drops chamomile oil

• 2 drops neroli

• 8 drops aloe'

• 6 drops rose oil

Shake the oils together and place in a corked pottery jar. Sit quietly in a room lit only by one blue candle, and rub the balm gently into your skin after a bath. Pray aloud:

Work thy spell to heal and nurse.
Blessed balm, banish my pain.
Harm to none and health to all.