“Most people talk about Algol as the Demon Star and how it is a very negative star bringing very unfortunate events. You have to know the backstory here as Algol is the eye of Medusa and Medusa was a beautiful, benevolent priestess of Athena. Poseidon saw her and was attracted to her but she was not interested- so he raped her in Athena’s temple. Athena got mad at Medusa, victim shamed her and turned her into a gorgon with snakes for hair. Pre-partriarchal Medusa is connected to the Sanskrit word Medha- which means ‘Sovereign Female Wisdom”. Mythologist Joseph Campbell said that “the Greeks used the Medusa story to justify the destruction of idols and temples of an ancient goddess mother wherever they found them.” She was a powerful leader of an ancient, older matriarchal religion and by decapitating her they attempted to obliterate her. Yet she is still up there menacing everyone in the form of fear of this star!”
“Algol is rich and potent when it comes to intuition and power- but she/we must work with our anger and rage in healthy, constructive ways so things do not get out of hand. Medusa had every right to be enraged- in the Greek myth she was raped, victim shamed and then murdered. But there are constructive ways to work with rage and then there are destructive ways….”
The vagus nerve runs through the face, ears, and neck. Massaging and touching these areas and cultivating sensory awareness throughout the body can naturally stimulate it, according to Dr Arielle
A 2015 article in the Health Science Journal demonstrated that even a single session of what is called “havening” can vastly improve depression and anxiety while improving work and social adjustment. During havening, a negative event and the associated emotional state are recalled while the practitioner applies a gentle touch to the forearms.
2. Posture and Spinal Movements
Proper posture contributes to maintaining both physical and mental health. As Ms. Schwartz writes in her book, common spinal misalignments can strain the nervous system and negatively affect the vital organs.
One effective way to enhance the functioning of the autonomic nervous system is by engaging in a variety of movements that promote spinal flexibility and correct common imbalances.
Ms. Schwartz talks about moving the spine in six directions: curling your tailbone back, which will lengthen your torso and lift your chest, then curling your tailbone forward, rolling your shoulders forward, and bringing your gaze down. Next, lean your upper body to the right and lengthen the left side of your body. Then, switch sides, bending toward the left and lengthening the right side of your body. Lastly, do a gentle twist to each side of the body. Lift your arms above your head, draw your right arm back behind you, and place your right fingertips on the chair or floor behind you and your left hand on your left knee. Take several breaths and then take the twist to the left.
According to a 2022 study published in Neuromodulation, spinal cord stimulation can help restore autonomic nervous system regulation and increase parasympathetic activity.
3. Eye Movements
The eyes provide great insight into how a person is feeling. This is because they are closely tied to the autonomic nervous system.
When your stress response is activated, your pupils dilate to help you scan the environment. When you feel safe, your eyes tend to sparkle and express warmth, signaling that your social engagement system is active, Ms. Schwartz wrote in her book.
Given the connection between the eyes and the vagus nerve, one way to achieve natural vagal stimulation is to practice stretching and engaging the eye muscles, which can help them relax. The eyes have a direct connection to the muscles at the base of the skull, so moving your eyes can also release neck muscles, increasing blood flow to the brainstem and vagus nerve, Ms. Schwartz wrote.
According to Ms. Schwartz’s book, specific movements to stimulate the vagus nerve include stretching and releasing the eye muscles by bringing them to the left and right without turning the head. Another option is to bring both hands behind your head for support, bringing your gaze toward your right elbow. Stay in that position for several breaths and observe for subtle cues that your body is relaxing. After 10 breaths, repeat the process, bringing your gaze toward your left elbow.
4. EMDR
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of cross-lateral movement, but it’s also an eye movement, making it extra potent to stimulate the vagus nerve.
Ms. Schwartz wrote that feeling unsafe could disrupt neural connections between different areas of the brain, interfering with the brain’s ability to integrate information at cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor levels (e.g., coordination and balance). Therefore, to effectively regulate the vagus nerve, it’s crucial to use brain integration strategies that foster healthy neurological connections between the left and right sides of the brain, as well as between the upper and lower brain centers.
One of the most well-known therapeutic applications of brain integration is EMDR, which uses bilateral eye movements to facilitate communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This process mimics rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, according to a 2008 article in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders.
According to Ms. Schwartz, cross-lateral movements can help create a coherent nervous system state, allowing people to make decisions, handle conflicts, and respond to stress more integratedly and effectively.
5. Breathing
The heart and lungs are deeply interconnected with each other and the autonomic nervous system, making breath regulation essential for maintaining nervous system balance.
Long, slow exhalations stimulate the vagus nerve, initiating a parasympathetic relaxation response that calms the body, according to a 2018 study in the Mental Illness Journal. Alternate nostril breathing has also been shown to affect the parasympathetic nervous system significantly.
People regulate their nervous systems through breathwork, Romy Michelson, drama therapist in South Africa, told The Epoch Times. By finding a quiet space within themselves, her clients can repeatedly return to this state, which supports vagus nerve regulation, she added. Ms. Michelson said she had observed that clients feel empowered when they regulate their vagus nerve, realizing there are alternatives to increasing medication. Even taking one deep breath can activate a state of calm, she noted.
6. Humming
When we perceive a threat, the tone of the inner ear muscles slackens, increasing sensitivity to high- and low-frequency sounds, Ms. Schwartz wrote in her book. Hearing a low-frequency threat, such as an animal growl, triggers an immediate sympathetic nervous system response, engaging self-protective defenses.
Similarly, high-frequency sounds in nature, like the screeching of monkeys or birds, often signal potential threats, causing the brain to interpret these frequencies as dangerous, according to Ms. Schwartz. Conversely, when we feel safe, the inner ear muscles tense, enhancing sensitivity to the human voice. These “sounds of safety” activate the social nervous system, promoting a full-body experience of ease, she wrote. Relaxing sounds, including music, ocean waves, humming, gongs, and singing bowls, can be a powerful way to stimulate the vagus nerve.
According to a paper in Frontiers in Psychology, singing has been shown to regulate the vagus nerve.
7. Cold Water Exposure
Vagal tone can be increased by enhancing the activity of your parasympathetic nervous system through cold exposure, such as a cold shower.
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A 2008 study showed that although the sympathetic nervous system is initially activated when exposed to cold water, repeated exposure and acclimation to the temperature lead to a shift toward increased parasympathetic activity.
8. Laughter
Laughter stimulates a rhythmic breathing pattern that activates the parasympathetic nervous system, regulated by the vagus nerve. When the rhythmic breathing from laughter activates the parasympathetic system, it stimulates the vagus nerve.
The rhythmic breathing and muscular activity involved in laughter activate the vagus nerve’s parasympathetic pathways. This helps counterbalance the sympathetic “fight-or-flight” stress responses and improves vagal tone for overall bodily regulation and relaxation.
Capricorn 28 A mirror covered with a fine film of dust
Seeing through a glass darkly. Remembering the way it’s always been. Consciousness glued to the scene of past visions, old cycles, everything that has gone on previously and seems to be repeating itself all over again.
Doubt coloring all perceptions. Self-judgment hounding the viewer. A bias against the self and all it’s old familiar worlds and those who people those worlds. Suspicion. Seeing the worst, looking for flaws.
An introspective frequency. So many inner voices saying, “this is what you’re like,” “there it is again.” Susceptibility to the influences of negative opinion, belief, assumption.
Yet the need here is to constellate all this, to work it out. The self is given over to a greater task. This involves the collective purging of ghosts. The self takes these things on as its own. But the burden of responsibility lies with us all.
It is a reckoning, a calling up of shadows, a bearing of the soul. It is the clearing of the ancient decks. Sometimes it gets tangled up in these wastelands. For it is so fascinating and compelling to be in on the bad news that we have all been so very lost for so long.
The task is graphic and explicit. Take on and take up all the understuff, see it through and be done with it. The hardest part is to be done with it. We get caught in the cycles and keep on looking in that rear view mirror.
There is an awakening possible amidst this shadow task and its endless ripples. We come to realize that we can release any and all blame, as we see the whole picture and cease demanding that it should have been otherwise. All is as it needs to be.
In the vast pool of consciousness inside us and surrounding us, there exist three types of thoughts we can choose from; positive, negative, and neutral. When we realize which type of thinking we are dwelling in, the moment we become aware of it, we can catch a glimpse of this glorious spiritual opportunity to become free.
POSITIVE THOUGHTS – Positive thoughts open the heart and feel expansive and liberating in your body. They are a healing empowering force in your mind, and instigate the appreciative vibration, producing sensations of gentleness, confidence, peace, and/or warmth around the chest and heart.
NEGATIVE THOUGHTS – Negative thoughts have a clinging tight gripping sensation in the body. You’ll feel an actual holding of physical tension, the breath is shorter, the belly is harder, and the lungs and diaphragm are more contracted and controlled. The mind is grasping onto the body in fear. The tighter the mind clutches onto a negative idea, the more pain and less pleasure the body experiences. Negative thinking manifests whenever we believe our life circumstances do not match up with our soul’s highest destiny, and this threatens our feelings of peace, happiness, and ease of survival.
NEUTRAL THOUGHTS – Neutral thoughts are created from an equanimity of the mind. They don’t feel numbing to the body, yet there is also no positive or negative emotion attached. They are not boring and dry like mathematical thoughts, as they have the perfect balance of positive and negative thoughts within them. Spiritual freedom and peace of mind are the bases of purely neutral thinking. Dwelling in this space 24 hours a day makes you feel lighter, more spacious, and liberated because the ego is less fiercely attached to its desires, beliefs, and opinions.
I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and became animal, I died as animal and I was human. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die, to soar With angels blest; but even from angelhood I must pass on: all except God perishes. Only when I have given up my angel-soul, Shall I become what no mind has ever conceived. Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones, To God we shall return.
On this journey it’s common to have periods where we feel in limbo, unprotected, unsure of what to do and what to expect… To *trust* is in many ways our only real option at those times, and that can be terrifying. It’s also a deep spiritual lesson.
To be in a situation where the only thing we can do, is to let go and open up.
This is above all about trust in our souls, our higher wisdom, and in the universe.
This can be a major breakthrough – however, there are blocks to this ending “well”. Belief systems where “life is hard” or “love hurts” are key, are big stumbling blocks we’re forced to confront in these situations. Otherwise they will torture us unnecessarily.
So ask yourself, are you able to trust that things can work out?
Do you really believe life can be so good that the universe helps you, that you live “happily ever after”? If not, it’s based in energy programming taken on from the world.
Those “virus programs” will only keep hurting you and blocking out the reunion and happiness you desire – so get to grips with clearing them once and for all now to open up to your dreams.
Above all, when things feel confusing, when the future looks uncertain – stop thinking. Stop trying to see the way there with your MIND and your HUMAN self.
Instead, tap into your intuition – which is your soul silently speaking to you. It will always work to guide you, and it is always in touch with the greater oneness, the universe and your highest purpose. But you must make the time to listen. To go within.
You can transmute more energy than the sun. It is like having a superpower.
Scientists say that the heart is more than just a pump as we thought.
It seems that it contains 40,000 neurons, an electromagnetic field 60 times more giant in amplitude and 5,000 times more intense than that of the brain.
The heart is a state of intelligent consciousness.
To raise our energy, we must first understand how the process works.
Electromagnetic energy runs up through your feet from the center of the Earth.
It travels to your heart, taking love information with it as it continues up and out through your crown chakra.
The flow of energy does a complete circuit.
As the flow comes back into you, it brings with it the love of others and the universe.
It will be hard for anyone with a low energy body to feel that universal love.
Your body will only take as much electromagnetic energy through it as allowed by your vessel’s health.
Tuning your instrument, i.e., your body, to a higher frequency level, allows for a greater volume of energy to flow through you.
You can’t run much energy through a faulty, run-down system.
When you bring your body and intention to a high-grade level of energy, you will have immensely raised your vibration.
Energy And Breath Exercise Can Raise Your Frequency
Controlling your breath and practicing meditation is a great way to raise your frequency at home or on the go.
Energy is all around us and connects us with everyone and every living thing.
Energy is constantly swirling in the universe, and we are all interconnected with that energy and frequency.
Each of us has a unique frequency; in essence, we are part of the same divine radiance, which created the infinite cosmos.
You are part of the divine when you are in touch with this feeling.
Being that love is our true essence when you feel the love at that moment, your energy vibrates at a much higher frequency.
Positive And Negative
With positive thoughts and feelings, and by practicing a healthy lifestyle, you can support a brighter energy field.
You can also lower your frequency by living in a state of fear, negativity, separation, or fill your bodies with unhealthy substances like fast food, alcohol, and drugs.
These are low vibrational, which blocks your energy and frequency. You can tend to become clouded and dark.
Your energy vibration sends out a frequency that behaves like a giant magnet, attracting human feelings.
The vibration of energy you draw to yourself will be the same or less than the energetic personal field you release.
The level of vibration that goes out determines the caliber of energy you attract. It is worth noting that this rule also works in the negative.
The auric energy field that emanates from your body is of your making.
Angela Cordova Dunning... Psychotherapist 