Last week we talked about the body as the doorway and the clairs as extensions of your physical senses. We've all had the "knowing-before-the-knowing" moments that live in our bodies!

Opening the body to receive requires that the body first feel safe enough to open. You cannot do psychic work, or body work, or any kind of intuitive work, from a body that is braced and bracing. Most of us are braced almost all the time, in ways so habitual we've stopped noticing. It shows up in the shoulders that won't drop all the way down, the belly that tightens the second things get uncertain, and the breath that stays shallow and high in the chest because a deep breath might mean you start crying in relief. The brace keeps out more than just the scary stuff, Enchanted Sister. It keeps out the signals we WANT to receive, too.

Before you go any further with the clair work we started last week, I want to give you the three practices that have to come first.

Grounding

Grounding is the practice of returning your body to the earth and reminding your nervous system that you are, in fact, on solid ground (surprise!). The simplest version is bare feet on grass, stone, dirt, or sand, although if you live in a Connecticut winter like I do, the floor in your kitchen will work just fine in a pinch. You can also visualize roots growing from the soles of your feet down into the earth, feel the actual weight of your body pressing into whatever is holding you up, or move your body until your heart rate rises and then settles itself back down. Co-regulating with another warm grounded body works too, whether that's a friend, a partner, or your dog.

Clearing

Clearing is washing the energy of the day off your skin and out of your space before you try to do anything sacred in it. A shower works beautifully if you set the intention that the water is carrying away whatever isn't yours to hold onto. Smoke from incense or herbs moves through a room and shifts what's been hanging out in it. Sound (bells, clapping, music, your own voice) changes the frequency of a space faster than almost anything else. It doesn't have to be elaborate, and you don't need a fancy bundle of anything. It just has to be intentional.

Protecting

Protecting is marking the edges of your energetic field on purpose, the same way you'd lock your front door before you went to bed. A spoken intention works well here...something like I only receive what is for my highest good or I only accept communication in love and light. You can visualize a boundary of light or color around your body. You can also, and this might be my favorite, say the word stop out loud and firmly when something is trying to come in that you don't want. You are always allowed to close an energetic door!

A word about fear

Fear of doing this work isn't a moral failure or a sign that you're not cut out for it. It's a wall your body built at some point in your life for a perfectly good reason. We don't tear that wall down. We lower it slowly, with practice, with anchors, with the gentle and consistent reminder that the earth has been holding us our entire lives and has no intention of stopping now. The brace softens when the body believes it's safe. Your job is to build that safety, one small grounded moment at a time.

You know that moment in the grocery store when you suddenly need to leave a particular aisle? Or when the phone rings and you know who it is before you look? Or when you walk into a friend's house and immediately feel that something is off, even though everyone's smiling and the coffee is brewing and nothing has been said?

That's not a coincidence and it's not your imagination. That's your body talking to you.

The door your mind cannot open

The longest day of the year arrives today, and Litha is shining light on something specific for us in Enchanted Journey. The Summer Solstice is the peak of the year's light, the moment when everything alive on this earth is most fully, sensorily, undeniably here. And here (in your body, on the earth, in the present moment) is the only place the door to body wisdom actually opens. Your mind cannot pick that lock. You can think harder, plan better, journal longer, and make the most perfect decision, and the door still won't budge. It opens when you drop into your body.

Most of us, though, live almost entirely above our own necks. We plan and analyze and second-guess and review, watching our lives from a slight distance like we're narrating them instead of living them. We've been taught (often by people who meant well) to trust the mind over the body, the spreadsheet over the gut, the careful decision over the inconvenient impulse. So when our body tries to tell us something, we miss it. Or we feel it and immediately explain it away.

Your psychic skills are not what you think they are

This is where the clairs come in, and I want to demystify them right at the start, because they are not supernatural abilities reserved for psychics in velvet curtain rooms with crystal balls and a jewel toned aesthetic. Clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairalience, clairgustance, and claircognizance are extensions of your physical senses. Your body already has a complete sensory operating system (sight, sound, feeling, smell, taste, knowing) and the clairs are that same system listening on a deeper level. You already use them, Enchanted Sister. You're just not always crediting yourself for it.

Clairvoyance tends to show up when your body is busy doing something automatic like washing the dishes, walking the dog, or driving a familiar route. A flash of an image or scene drops in. The thinking-brain is occupied, so the channel finally has room to open.

Clairsentience is the clair most of us actually live in without realizing it. It's the gut punch with no source, the wave of sadness that isn't yours, or the warmth in your chest when you walk into the right room. This is your body reading the energy of a situation before your mind has time to catch up and put it into a sentence.

And claircognizance is the bone-deep knowing that has no explanation. You just know. The body is certain even when the mind would prefer a footnote and a citation.

The real reason we don't lean in

Which brings me to the real reason most of us don't lean into this work, and it's not skill, it's fear. Fear of what might come through, of doing it wrong, and of what it means about us if we actually let ourselves trust a feeling before we have a logical reason to. That fear isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a nervous system response that makes complete sense in a world that has consistently told women not to trust their own knowing (and another opportunity for me to "yell about the Witch Wound", ha!). The fear is learned, which means it can also be patiently unlearned.

Litha's invitation is to start questioning that pattern.

Your practice this week

Pick one clair (either the one that feels most familiar to you, or the one you most want to develop) and for the next seven days, keep a small log. Note every time you receive something in that mode. A flash of an image while you're folding laundry, a wave of someone else's feeling at the grocery store, or a sudden knowing about something before you had a reason to know it. You are not trying to manufacture experiences here, and you're not testing yourself. You're simply learning to notice what's already happening.

The signal has been there all along, Enchanted Sister. This is just the week you start turning up the volume!

Click here to view the Psychic Skills lessons in the class site. We're exploring lessons 1–3 over in the community this week!