A Brief Guide to Centering and Grounding

[Mnemosyne]

By: Mnemosyne [Copyright 2007]


Centering and grounding are two of the most basic and foundational practices that energy workers and Vampyres should be familiar with. Although there is a lot of information on centering and grounding available, they are practices that are often ignored simply because they are so very basic. In this article I’ll be presenting you with some detailed definitions of centering and grounding as well as reasons why the Vampyre should practice these skills frequently. I’ll also share some simple and highly effective ways of doing these techniques.
Please be aware that this article and the techniques I’m presenting here require a background understanding of the basic 7 chakras commonly referenced in most modern Western occult and magical studies. For those who are unfamiliar with this system, you can find detailed information in the book Wheels of Life: A Users Guide to the Chakra System by Anodea Judith. Those who are unfamiliar with the chakra system I refer to can still center and ground by adapting the exercises presented to the energetic system that works best for them or by using one of the many varieties of exercises that can be found elsewhere. Other methods that do not incorporate the 7 Chakra system can be found by searching through books or websites on magical practice. It is beyond the scope of this article to present information on all of the methods available since there are so many.

What is Centering
Centering is a way to focus you on your own personal energy and awareness of inner self. It is also a way to find or create an energetic place of balance within the etheric body from which you can realign and manage scattered or fragmented energies within the etheric body. Quite often, when dealing with the day-to-day interactions with others and the energetic connections we make as Vampyres; it’s easy to temporarily lose energetic focus and inner balance. This can lead to feelings of being scattered, over extended, “spaced out”, and as if you are being pulled in too many directions all at once. Instead of being inwardly guided and directed, when you are not centered you run the risk of being overly outward oriented as well as disconnected from a sense of personal independence and unity. Another sign of being off of personal center is that instead of being influenced by your own ideals and inner wisdom, you may begin to react and live dominantly through whatever random outer events and influences come your way. The sense of inner-guided direction takes a backseat to the thoughts and influences exerted on you from everything else around you. For the Vampyre, being off of center can be very serious as it leaves you more open to un-wanted and unconscious energy drain. In much the same way as a full glass of water will spill out when it knocked side to side, your energy spills out when it is not held on a stable and balanced foundation.
Centering is especially important for the Vampyre because many of the energies and influences we take in can be overwhelming if we cannot connect to a stabilizing source within. Although many occult texts recommend centering before rituals or magical workings it should be noted that these recommendations are directed at normal magical practitioners, not Vampyres. A Vampyre can benefit from centering several times a day. This is mainly due to the greater consumption and expenditures of energy we engage in on a normal and regular basis. Ideally, a Vampyre should be able to get to a point where maintaining center is so second nature that it is an adjustment made almost instinctively whenever the slightest suggestion of moving off center appears. Because being off of center affects the energetic body in an unfavorable way, it also can by relation affect the emotions, physical body, and spiritual connectivity in less than favorable ways. Some examples of this undesirable influence include health problems, depressed moods, and a general feeling of the loss of personal spiritual progression or connectivity, among other things.

How to Locate Your Center
The first step in centering is to find the place on your etheric body where you hold and store the majority of your own energy and the processed energies of others. This place will be different for everyone but generally can be found in either the navel chakra area
the solar plexus chakra, or in the heart chakra area. Those Vampyres with the strongest tendencies toward Mradu (or warrior type of class) may find their energy sits in the navel chakra most comfortably. This is the area many martial arts focus on. The Kitra (or those inclined toward healing and counseling) will often find their center residing in the heart chakra and the Ramkht (or those inclined toward priestly duties, focused service to the gods/Ancients and teaching) will often find their center in the solar plexus chakra. The reason for this is that these energy centers tend to be the most established and actively used in relation to the energetic attributes and talents each type most often uses. Because of this, the energy will concentrate and rest there and over time this will become the Vampyre’s dominant energy center where they store and carry the majority of personal and processed energies.

How to Center
To center, first begin by locating where your energetic center actually is. One of the easiest ways for a Vampyre to pinpoint the area (if they are not already aware of it) is to imagine the act of feeding and to feel what area out of the three mentioned previously seems to respond strongest to the thought. There will usually be a feeling of weight, a tingling in the area, or some other subtle (or strong) feeling that will be noticeable if you pay attention to looking for it. This feeling can often be felt when you are thinking about feeding because this area is accustomed to receiving energy a bulk of the energy when feeding. It is much the same principle as thinking about a physical meal and having your stomach grumble if you are hungry. After you have located the area where your personal energetic center resides it is a fairly straightforward process to actually center yourself. Go somewhere where you can be alone for a few minutes. If you are at work or surrounded by people, a bathroom (or bathroom stall) is always a good place to find a few minutes of undisturbed alone time. Although this may sound a little weird at first, I assure you I’ve done many small meditations and practices in the bathroom and it is one of the best and most convenient places readily available for anyone at anytime. Once you have found an area to do the practice in begin by closing your eyes and imagining the area “pulling in” and almost closing on the in-breath and “pushing out” and almost opening fully on the out-breath. When visualizing the pulling in feeling concentrate on pulling in ambient energy from the environment around you. When visualizing the pushing out feeling visualize all of the accumulated energy in your center swirling around and feel its force. This may generate some feelings of heat, coolness or tingling depending on your nature. Do this for a minimum of 5 slow breaths and be sure to keep your concentration focused exclusively on what you are doing with your energetic center and not on your actual breathing. It is also a good idea to breathe quietly if you are doing this in a bathroom stall where others may hear you or they may wonder what exactly you are up to in there! After you’ve done a minimum of 5 breaths and can feel that your center is fully activated briskly rub both of your hands together (or simply activate energy to flow into your hands if you are used to moving energy to them) and then place them over the area. In effect, you are cycling your own energy and directing it to move to center by doing this. Spend a few moments enjoying the feeling of being centered and balanced and take note of how your center feels at this time. When you are not able to practice a full centering practice session you can activate centering in yourself simply by returning to the memory of this feeling and holding a visualization of your center being solid and powerful. Once you have gotten the hang of centering yourself it should become easy to feel your personal center of power any time you direct your attention there. When you find yourself feeling scattered, energetically pulled in too many directions, or when you notice any of the symptoms of being off center, move your attention to your center and activate it inwardly. You can do this even while standing and talking with someone at the same time. Being centered is especially helpful when dealing with people who make attempts to take your energies from you. They will find it is hard to take energy from you because you are already actively involved in using it and it is directed and already in use rather than just randomly moving around unattended.

What is Grounding
Grounding is the next basic practice that you should be familiar with and have a good working knowledge of in order to maintain a beneficial and comfortable flow of personal energies. Basically grounding is used for the same reasons people ground electrical appliances. It limits harmful “voltage” surges and redirects excess energy that can overload a system by re-directing it to another path (the earth) around the system. Signs that you may need to ground are easy to recognize by their discomfort. Feeling jittery, dizzy, overly “keyed up” for no good reason, anxious for no apparent reason, shaky, twitchy, nauseated or excessively hyper are all warning signs that there may be excess energy in your system that is running rampant. If this condition is left to persist, you can literally experience an energetic surge that can temporarily burn out areas of your etheric body leaving you ill for days (or even weeks) and with any number of energetic and related physical problems. Some vampires have even found that when they are not grounded they sometimes may even cause electronic equipment around them to malfunction by unknowingly surging energy into the equipment and causing it to overload and shut down.
Many Vampyres find that grounding is very important after an exceptionally high energetic intake as to avoid overload and later burn out. Some Vampyres will unconsciously ground after a high intake but it is good idea to be aware enough of what’s going on in your system, and to be conscious of the process, in order to avoid the unintentional problems detailed above.
Grounding is something that should be done any time you have taken in or have worked with any significant amount of energy or prana. In common magical practice grounding is often done before a ritual or working to expel stagnant or non-beneficial energies and after a working to expel excess energies that have been generated. For the Vampyre, after feeding and processing the prana, grounding is a very good practice to remove non-beneficial energy and excesses that system does not need. Being a glutton may feel good while you are stuffing yourself but the later backlash of having more than you can handle and process is not pleasant or worth the pain.

How to Ground
Besides being a very basic and key practice, grounding is a really easy thing to do. Many complex visualizations and fancy techniques can be found in a variety of occult books but the fancy bells and whistles are really not needed. Many of the techniques masquerading as grounding exercises that you can find in occult books nowadays actually have a variety of other techniques combined with them that convolute the actual process itself. Centering, chakra alignment, energetic cycling and a host of other energy work processes are typically added on. I suspect it is because grounding is so very simple and basic that occult authors may feel they need to dress up the process to make it seem “bigger” somehow.
One very basic way to ground (devoid of all the fancy stuff) is to concentrate and visualize what is called the earthstar chakra. This is a chakra not commonly shown on most basic chakra diagrams but it does exist. You can easily find it for yourself by simply feeling for it. It is located about a foot below your feet, although still connected to your etheric body. Once you can feel and visualize this chakra concentrate on opening up the minor chakras located at the bottom of each foot. They are there as well but also not shown on most simplified diagrams. These chakras located at the bottoms of your feet are 2 of the minor energetic chakras that your etheric body contains and are a part of the system of lesser chakras, minor chakras and energetic meridians contained in the energetic system of the body. There are literally hundreds of these kinds of lesser types of centers but for the purpose of this article and exercise you only need to be aware of the ones mentioned.
Begin to ground by moving energy out from the bottom of your feet into the earthstar chakra. Once you can feel this occurring (you should feel a tingling at the bottoms of your feet, heaviness, heat, or some sort of sensation) visualize any excess or non-useful energy moving out of your system down through your body and flowing out into the earthstar chakra. Because the earthstar chakra is connected to both your etheric body and to the earth itself to a degree, the unwanted energy will naturally move out into the earth itself and ground itself away from you.
The second basic method of grounding is to use your hands. There are also similar lesser chakras located in the palms of each hand. To ground using your hands simply crouch down and place your hands palms down in front of you near your feet. Concentrate on sending all the excess energies out from the chakras in your hands into the earth star chakra and into the earth itself from there.
The exercises and knowledge presented here can be of a great benefit to Vampyres if used frequently and consciously. Hopefully this article will give you some new ideas and practices to try which will prevent the unwanted effects of being off center and un-grounded from happening to you. In much the same way as a daily exercise routine can strengthen and aid the physical body and add to its overall health, the exercises presented here will help strengthen and add to the overall health and resiliency of the energetic body and aid in keeping your etheric body operating in top form.





Resources and inspirations used for this article:

Internet:
Grounding and Centering (etheric body related)
http://www.robinwood.com/LivingtreeGrov ... enter.html
http://www.pjentoft.com/center.html
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/wic ... t/111978/1
http://www.homestead.com/crystalforest1/Grounding.html
http://www.rose-ariadne.com/witchcrafthistory/76
http://www.psychic-experiences.com/psyc ... s-aura.php
Electrical Power Grounding:
http://www.codecheck.com/grounding.htm

Books:
Wheels of Life: A Users Guide to the Chakra System by Anodea Judith
Solitary Witch by Silver Raven Wolf
The Witches Shield by Christopher Penczak
Prime Chaos by Phil Hine

[deacongray]

Wow that has to be one to the most complete articles I have seen recently! It is very good and explains a lot! Thanx Mnemosyne

[SoVeReIgN]

[darknessbeloved]

So helpful!Thank you D.B