July 29, 2010 Thursday Evening, Q&A with Aaron and Norma Gentile

Keywords: chakras, energy, toning, elements

Aaron: (there has been an approximately 5 minute pause before Aaron incorporated) I am Aaron. Here is some useful information and instruction for those of you who are channeling your own guidance. Barbara was sitting here preparing for me to enter the body and she heard an unusual thought. Rather than my thought, "I am ready," which is what I usually say after her challenges, she heard the thought, "Beloved, we are ready." Now, it seems very sweet, but much as I love her I do not call her "beloved". It's not the way I address her. So she immediately was cautious. She didn't get any strong negative vibration, just that something else was there, and that she was not about to let this something else incorporate into her body.

When she leaves the body, she opens it. She wants to be sure that it's me that comes in, or an entity whom she knows and has invited in. I want to point out this because what might be thought of as more negative or neutral, rather than highly positive, speaks in subtle ways, and it came saying, "Beloved." It didn't work.

We welcome your questions. These may be questions about Norma's presentation today, about harmonics, sound, and energy. Then we will get into wider questions tomorrow.

Q: Having read several methods of tuning your chakra by various authors, some of which have no resemblance to each other, is there something other than either a syllable or a tone, or is it an intention, that makes the chakra open or spread apart?

Aaron: Let me speak briefly. I would not say it's just intention because you cannot say, "I intend to have this chakra open! Now I'm going to open my heart!" Rather, the overall intention that you carry with you for the highest good of all beings, with love, is most important. You begin to recognize that the chakras demonstrate the highest intention and the practice.

I said earlier to some of you, one hallmark of negative polarity is contraction. One sign of positive polarity is expansion, openness, non-contraction. When you are contracted, holding fear, anger, greed, then the chakras are more closed. When you are open in your energy field, the chakras are open. So it's not the intention to open the chakras, it's the intention to live your deepest truth – love, non-harm, presence, kindness – that best supports opening.

Once that intention is in place, you are led mindfully to see the places where there is contraction, to feel the chakras that are not spinning, and the areas of the body that are contracted. Then you have a vast palette of tools that can help support opening. Chanting and toning are tools. Visualization of color is a tool. We've worked with the colors related to the chakras. Mindfulness, being aware of the role of that chakra and seeing where there may be some stored fear or resistance. We keep saying, that which is aware of contraction is not contracted, for example. Then there is the free will choice to non-contraction.

The chakra is never closed, it only seems to be closed. But the "seems to" on the relative plane must be attended to. You can't ignore it and say, "I'm just going to move to the ultimate." You hold it together, sambhogakaya, the place where the relative and ultimate meet. Finding that which is fully open. The heartfelt intention to service to all beings with love and the highest good. And the power of that intention opens the heart, it opens the belly, it opens the throat, whatever seems to be closed. And you then open into that which was already open.

Norma, may I pass this to you?

Norma: Actually, my sense is to add more of a process piece behind the obvious. As Aaron is moving through Barbara, have you noticed how the room has shifted? And in asking the question that Q asked, it opened Aaron's ability to move and offer each of us something more. So I wanted to point out that by asking the question, you open the doorway to let more happen. So even ask the mundane, the stupid questions. Those are sometimes THE most important to ask.

So, mundane and stupid questions, please!

Q: I did what <background noise> vibration went through my palm, and the vibration went up my arm and into my shoulder and down my right side, and now my hip hurts.

Norma: Let me just give you a context for Q's question. He asked me, while he was playing the Tibetan singing bowl he said he felt the vibration of the bowl move into his hand, down his arm, up into his shoulder, and then down that side of his body. And my comment at the time was, it's great, that the bowl meditations [sitting in meditation while playing a Tibetan singing bowl]-- a small bowl, not a big one, a small bowl--would have been held, and you'd sit, and you'd meditate for 2 or 3 or 4 hours, then you get up and have a meal or a pee or whatever and then you come back for another 2 or 3 or 4 hours. The bowls were made literally for sitting long-term meditation. And that when you keep playing, then the sound will move through the whole body eventually, just like with silent sitting meditation you start somewhere and you feel it grow, right? It doesn't go boom, deep and completely into meditation most of the time.

And so part of this discomfort you are now experiencing may be that you stopped playing the bowl a little soon. The other part is what we talked about earlier where you began to vibrate-- oh, we didn't talk about it, yes--you began to vibrate and open rivers of energy in your body by playing the bowl that maybe haven't been opened in awhile. So there's may be some spring cleaning going on.

So one thing you can do is, perhaps just notice how you're sitting. Sit in a way that feels the most comfortable or open to you, and just tune in to the discomfort and ask the discomfort if it's really still you, is it really in tune with your male body? So that's more almost of a psychic trick there. But just tuning in, and instead of trying to push or pull or even judge it as being painful, just feel the discomfort. And this goes for anybody that might be noticing something where the rivers open and you've hit a block. Just notice whatever you're feeling and just ask, "Is this really in tune with my male or female body? Is it in tune with me now?" Chances are this is a remnant of a tenant, an energy that we might think of as a renter or some sort of energy that you no longer need, that you've moved through. You've got the mental "Aha" but for some reason the body didn't quite let go of the whole process. Or there may be a little more of an "Aha" to get, in which case you'll get it in dream state or doing the workshop tomorrow, or somebody will hand you a book. The mental information will come to you if you need it.

So if you're okay letting go of it and letting anything you might need to know about it come to you in a different fashion, usually it works pretty well just to ask if it's really yours and see what happens. As I've been talking, have you been trying that? Have you noticed something happening there? Okay. Try it.

And same for anyone else. Just tune into any discomfort, anything you're noticing, any place you're noticing that might be a little less open than anyplace else. Is that really in tune with my body? Is that really mine? Is that really me now?

And you can give it permission to go on its own journey, to go wherever it needs to go to. Everything is in growth and evolution. So we only slow stuff down if we don't let it evolve by leaving us. What a blessing it is to just let it keep learning and growing.

And how's that doing?

Q: We'll find out tomorrow!

Norma: Did you notice a shift or a change at all?

Q: Maybe.

Norma: So just keep asking. I never rule out that something can actually be physically a muscle pull or something. What I notice is if you ask a question and you notice that it gets worse or better, a muscle pull shouldn't get better just by talking to it. So that means there's definitely an energetic component going on. So just keep asking and just notice what happens.

Aaron: With any body pain, one needs to observe the distinction between the pain and the resistance to the pain. Sometimes there can be a concept of equanimity and yet still holding the pain.

Look at your body now, Q. Breathe deep into the pelvis and belly. Can you feel the subtle contraction in the pelvic area?

Q: On one side.

Aaron: It's subtle. I think what happened is a reaction. As something opened there was at another level that said, "Oh, is this safe?" (contracted sound) Holding it down. Also with the hips and pelvis, grounding. Grounding can happen in two ways. One is, let us call it balanced and wholesome grounding, and one is the rock that's embedded in the earth and doesn't want to be budged.

The image that comes to me is of a flying tree. Have you ever seen a flying tree? I don't mean as tossed up by a tornado. Think of a large maple tree with its winged seed pods. The seed pods, as they begin to appear on the tree, are grounded into the tree. But right there in the seed pod is a new tree, and at some point they've got to let go of the parent tree and take wing, and land on the fertile soil and root themselves.

Ask yourself, I'm replying here to Q but anyone who's having pain in the hips, pelvis, lower spine, "Am I unwilling to fly? Am I holding with tension in the hip area? Can I let go and just release and open?"

Looking in another direction, you can also simply ask after the pain, "If I were not feeling this pain, what might I be experiencing?" Pain in a sense is grounding because it gets your attention and it pulls you in.

The pain will occur in an area that already experiences some kind of weakness, physical, karmic, whatever. It is usually a habitual place for pain to reside but not always. "If I were not experiencing pain here, right now, what might I be experiencing?" Wonder! Lightness! Freedom! Too much freedom? Maybe. Just begin to ask the questions.

Others?

Q: I have some curiosity about the chakras. My orientation is towards the front and yet today we were speaking a bit about the back. Barbara's explanation or description was like offset from the others, so I was curious about, can you describe the back chakras, and is there a different in function between the front and the rear, back, whatever? That's my question.

Aaron: Your body has a number of different energy meridians. The back chakra meridian is another basic meridian. The back chakras work more in support to the core meridian. They function on their own independently but also more in support. They lie between the front chakras so energy flows from, for example, one here below the heart directly up to the heart and down to the solar plexus. Thus, they provide an alternate pathway for energy flow. I don't know if Norma has anything to add here.

Norma: I agree. I usually see the back chakras as being where the guides, the angels, the support staff, literally connect to us, and the front as being what emanates out of that supportive structure.

Everyone's wired a little differently so when I talk about chakras or locate them some way, that's where it is for me. And everyone's a little different so the question is, within your wiring, where exactly does that chakra fit for you and how does that fit. Some psychics see chakras as spheres instead of cones, some see them as nested sets of cones, some people see them located differently. There are the 7 major chakras; there are an additional 7 minor chakras in front and back. So really it's learning, I think, to just trust your intuition and what you're experiencing.

And if the toning has helped to open some awareness back there, then also you should feel some more sense of something new happening and hopefully just some more insights, or not.

Sometimes people expect great strides, right? And you have nice gray hair so I suspect you've been around the block even more than I have. So you know that real learning comes step by step by step, and sometimes we miss that we've gotten a couple of steps because it just happens. And sometimes when you open the back, that's what will happen, your guides and angels become so much more accessible that you just get stuff, you suddenly realize, "Wait a minute, last week I wasn't just able to get stuff like this." But it happens.

Q: I'd like to follow up on the question.

Aaron: Let me say one more thing about the back chakras first. When we did the Spiritual Bathing mudra in Intensive Two, sitting with your partner and moving the hands, starting here and moving (demonstrating) ... there, there, here, here, the back hand was touching the back chakras, the half chakras, the front was on the core chakras.

Q: My question is along the same lines. What do both of you recommend for fully opening the back chakras?

Aaron: Sing to them.

Norma: Have fun with them! Have other people sing to them in a choir. Chant. Just be aware. Just knowing will do it.

Aaron: Let me add here: swimming. Not even swimming so much as floating on your back in the water and kicking the feet. You don't have to use the arms, but a flutter kick, is good. If you swim on your front you have to breathe, but if you float on your back you just kick. That kicking motion helps to open the back chakras.

And again, intention is primary.

Norma: I do have something to add. I think that's also because we have fear patterns in the back side of our body and our energy field a lot, so it makes sense that we've contracted, pulled in. So opening there, if you're lying in the water you know what's underneath you (unless you're in the ocean) and it's safe, so it's open. You can feel, particularly in this lake, you can go someplace and just imagine feeling the sandy bottom. You can stand in front of a wall and feel the wall, or you know, if you have a tree, I have people do it with trees a lot.

They're saying, there's not a race, and to just let it open at its own rate because we do store so much stuff back there that we may not always have the tools to deal with everything. So it's okay to just let it open at the rate it's ready to open.

Aaron: Hold the intention for opening. Ask in your meditation before bed for information in your dreams. What's holding it closed? What do I need to know? Lucid dreaming or, not even necessarily lucid dreaming but simply remembered dreams will help give information about why it's closed, what habitually holds it closed.

Q: Aaron has helped us to purchase tuning forks to use with the various chakras in toning, and today Norma's toning exercise was a little bit more casual, would be the word? And so I'm confused about using toning with opening the chakras, if we should use the tuning forks or just be more casual?

Aaron: Both, either. Each chakra has a predominant color and tone. As Norma said today, each of you is wired differently. So although, for example, F is the traditional tone for the heart chakra, maybe today yours is F#...

Norma: E-flat, I like E-flat for my heart chakra!

Aaron: ... Whatever it is, don't try to force the F on it. For most of you it will resonate with the F. When it is in balance and open it's more likely to resonate with the F, but if you come to the heart chakra that's closed and down at E or E-flat, and you try to superimpose F on it, it's going to shrink back. When if you sing the note it wants to hear, gradually it will come up and open, begin to vibrate, and then it will enjoy the full F.

Norma: So start wherever you are, and that's the idea of letting the voice drop for that first chakra. And then just find where there's natural resonance coming up.

I know there are books and things... I just find, again, the energy field is like a moving tableau, so as you're working, the question is, what makes it fun? What makes your body feel alive? What makes you feel good afterwards? What note do you want to feel like you're singing? Or even a mantra or a chant.

Aaron: We're going to need to stop. I know Norma needs to go, and I want to leave us time to do this element dance. All of these are tools, working with the chakras, the elements, (etc). You come here to Venture Fourth with the intention to service in the world from as open and centered a place as is possible. We are simply providing you tools to get to know that centeredness and live from it as fully as you can in that moment.

It's not always going to be perfect. Barbara tells a story of snorkeling in a tropical sea. The swimmers had been told by the boat captain that there were some sharks in the water but that they were not dangerous. But she didn't hear that, of course. Her children told her any instructions she needed to know and they left that one out.

So she swam off, exploring different reefs, and suddenly came, perhaps as far as I am from D here, a shark! Ohh! She could feel all the chakras closed. Terror! Instead of backing away gently, she turned, doing everything wrong that she could do in terms of attracting the shark's attention.

She got part way back and passed a group of teenagers who were from the same snorkeling boat. The first thought as she swam past them was, "Ah, they're between me and the shark!" Then she said, "What did I say?" Great embarrassment. My highest intention is not to cause harm. I've got to go back and tell them there's a shark there. Everything in her fear-based body and ego said, "No way! There's safety on the boat!"

But of course the deeper truth won out and she swum back and she said to them, "There's a shark right back there around the corner of that reef." "Oh really! Let's go see!" Because they had heard the captain say, "The sharks won't hurt you."

Predominant for her as that happened was her observation of the chakras and how with the terror, everything closed. And as soon as there was the strong intention not to do harm to others by putting them between herself and danger, the heart had to open. The chakras opened. It was the opened chakras that enabled her to go back.

Okay. Norma, our blessings, our thanks...(hugs)

Your loving energy is beautiful. We appreciate it.

I'm going to release the body.

(recording paused)

Barbara: So we're going to work with earth, air, fire, and water. We have 18 of you so we have 4 or 5 with each element. We're going to go up the hill there. The 4 or 5 of each element are going to get together in a football-like huddle, connect with each other, talk just a little bit but mostly together feel, act out, and be that element. How does it feel?

Here you're not balancing the element within itself, like earth with how much water in it, or air, or fire; just the earth element. Tomorrow we're going to go into balancing each element, but this is just the earth element, just the water element, just fire, just air. What is the function of that element? How does it feel? How does it feel to be that element?

Then after a few minutes I will invite you to merge. You can do that in any way that feels appropriate. The earth element may be hunkered down and perhaps the air sees them hunkered down and decides to blow through. Just holding hands and strolling through. Or water might lie down on the ground and inch under the earth. How does it feel?

At first try two different elements merging, these two and those two, it doesn't matter which. And then bring in a third and a fourth. Silent dance. Play with it. Are there any questions?

Q: How do we decide who is which element, if we're supposed to be silent?

Barbara: I'm going to ask that. How many would prefer as their first choice to be earth? Put your hands up. 4, okay we've got 4 earth, 5 earth. How many would prefer to be water? 6. Is there any of those waters who would be happy being air or fire? Okay, who needs to be water? 4, is there one more? ... 5 water. Then we're left with 4 air and fire. Who wants to be air? 3, is there one more who would be air? 4 air. Fire, we should be left with 4. Okay.

So go and do it. I'll be up there with you. Spend a few minutes in your small group just being that element, and then let yourself, your group of element, be attracted by another group and drawn to it to interact together.

(session ends)