Understanding the Symbolic Halo in Paintings and How It Relates to Creativity

I'd mentioned a band of energy around my skull and a friend asked for a fuller explanation. This explanation comes from my years of experiencing my energy body and what I did to effect changes to it. I was born with this awareness. I didn't know until my early twenties that others didn't share this experience.

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When you see Christian paintings with halos, the halos are symbolic of a band of energy that goes around the crown of the skull.

Think of the spine as a 220 volt current, and the body 110. In the arms and legs you have a strong lines of current. Same for chest and back.

The restrictions in the flow of energy in the body are a reflection of and embodiments of the patterns of thought on the mental landscape.

The muscles tend to hold those restrictions, so when I did the bellows breathing, the muscles in my arm would spasm as that restricted flow opened up.

Took a year of doing bellows breath 3 to 4 hours a day to open the various restrictions in energy flow around my body.

Depression is restrictions in the energy flow in the body that don't manifest as pain. When you are sick with the flu and have aches and pains, those are restrictions in the energy flow, but the restriction that cause depression don't manifest as physical pain.

When you had that experience of muscles of your back in spasms (when I touched your back to transfer energy), that extra current released some restriction and tension in those muscles. Now when you get to the head, there is a really tight band of energy that runs around the skull. It's supper strong, super intense, and very difficult to change the flow. When I did bellows breathing and managed to open that band slightly, the released force would throw me out a bed into a wall.

When I experience that flow now, it feels like a tight, metallic band.

Many years ago while in therapy I was doing five 12 step groups a week. Since there was a lot of quiet time, I would visualize a current of energy going from my spiritual eye back to the medulla and then back to the spiritual eye.

I basically did this for an hour a night, for six months. As time when on, I could feel the flow of energy.

Then one of those bands rolled on one side of my head. That's when I started to go into high moods of creativity, connecting to info in the universe, not in my mind.

11 weeks later the other side rolled, and my states of intense creativity and connection to a deeper understanding coming in from outside my mind continued.

11 weeks later, the tight bands of energy around my face opened up.

This was all accompanied by my getting my brain re circuited, a very odd and strange process. Think skull being drilled and ants walking on skull. But when those new circuits opened, I could stay in a high mood as I taught.

The work I'm doing now is to again open that band around my crown.

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My friend asked me about how this relates to her experience of Satori, an expansion of consciousness and feeling connected to the wider universe.

Yes you can experience Satori, and hold on to the experience, and experience it again, but at some point you return to the mind, the energy body that is an expression of the mind, and the body. And if the energy flow is restricted, that's what you return to.

When I was young, I thought deep meditation would make me great at relationships, but I was terrible. I was raised in a dysfunction environment and that was the mind and body I returned to when I wasn't meditating. The lessons I learned growing up where embedded in my mind. I needed therapy to start unlearning those lessons.

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Bill Johnson is the author of a writing workbook, A Story is a Promise, available on Amazon and Smashwords. The ideas in the book came from his spiritual experiences.

The Outsider As Character Type - Review of The Outsiders

The outsider is an enduring character type in fiction, TV series, and movies.

There are many reasons for this.

When an outsider arrives in a new environment, he or she upsets the current status quo. This naturally generates dramatic questions. What will be the outcome of this upset? Will the outsider replace a current leader? Change the direction of a group?

Another form of this character type is someone within a group who changes.

An example of this is S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders.

The POV character is Ponyboy. He's a Greaser. Wears his hair long, carries a switch blade, and fights in rumbles with his gang against others, mainly SOCs, pronounced SOSHes.

He's also a high school freshman who gets straight As.

His family is a brother named Soda who has already dropped out of high school, and an older brother, Darry, who at 20 works two jobs to support his brothers after the death of their parents. Darry also yells at Ponyboy a great deal out of concern that his conformity to being a Greaser might lead him to become a hoodlum. Dally, a wild man and member of the gang, has crossed that line, robbing gas stations and committing other crimes.

Johnny is another young member of the gang and his actions drive the story. Before the story begins, Johnny had been stomped by a group of Socs, well-off kids who drive fancy cars and appear to want for nothing.

The Socs and Greasers are tribal enemies who fight whenever their paths cross.

Johnny enjoys sunsets. He's a sensitive soul but has been born into this Greaser tribe.

At a fair, Johnny and Ponyboy end up spending some time with Cherry, a cheerleader, and another Soc girl, because their dates came to the fair drunk. The girls are impressed by Johnny's love of sunsets, and Cherry has a way of making Ponyboy understand that she has a depth of understanding about life he'd never suspected. She also conveys that just being a Soc does not guarantee an easy life, which is a revelation to Ponyboy.

When a fight with Darry sends Ponyboy out of the house, he and Johnny are cornered by Cherry's angry boyfriend and a few others near a fountain. One of the Socs says he's going to kill Ponyboy by holding his head under water. Johnny stabs and kills the Soc and he and Ponyboy are now on the lam with the aid of Dally.

They have to cut their long Greaser hair to hide out in an abandoned church in a nearby small town.

A fire erupts in the abandoned church. Ponyboy and Johnny rush into the burning building to rescue some trapped young boys.

Ponyboy rescues several boys and gets out, but Johnny is seriously wounded. Pony and Johnny are now celebrated as heroes.

It comes out that Cherry and another Soc are willing to testify that Johnny was just protecting Ponyboy. They are going against their tribe. Pony again must confront the idea that all Socs have an ideal life with no concerns.

The novel ends with Pony reunited with his brothers, but with a deepened understanding of life. He now appears ready to want the better life that Darry wants for him.

The Outsiders provides a wonderful example of the drama that can be created by a built in conflict between tribes and the conflict when a tribal member challenges the status quo.

Changes in the status quo of a family, clan, or tribe fuels many novels. It embeds conflict into the fabric of a story's world.

Hinton's The Outsiders is a novel that has spoken to different generations of young people trying to find their place in the world.

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For more essays about the craft of writing, visit my website at http://www.storyispromise.com

To find A Story is a Promise on Amazon, use this link, https://www.amazon.com/Story-Promise-Spirit-Storytelling-ebook/dp/B004V020N0/?geniuslink=true