I chose one intuitive reader, psychic medium Alison James, for an in-depth interview with her guides on the subject of the economy and its relationship with our holistic community. Alison took down my questions, connected with me personally and then attained the answers from a collective known as “The Spirit Counsel.”

The following is what I learned.

Why is prosperity a challenge for so many people simultaneously at this time? Is it the result of collective fear or perhaps part of the Dark Night of the Soul for us collectively, a time in which we need to reassess our priorities in life.

Alison James: When I start a reading, I always get a metaphor. What Spirit just gave me was really beautiful. It was a vision of some poles – I don’t want to say Stonehenge – but poles. First they were in a line, and then they came forward and formed a hoop. They came together in a big circle, where they were open on the top, and yet grounded into the earth. They are white poles, with a royal blue color around it, and very, very, lush, green grass.

Why is prosperity a challenge? Spirit is telling me that people are still in the old framework. I’m being shown the number 9. It feels like we’re on the cusp, we’re on the 9, but we have not hit 10.

So, we’re in an era of completion, completing one cycle?
AJ: Yes, and what they just showed me was a bull with its horns forcibly jabbed into the earth when I ask the question about the economic downturn being the result of collective fear. They show me this very virile, strong bull, and the bull just went, oomph, with its horns into the ground, and it is tearing up the ground with its horns – but it is not going anywhere. So, here you’ve got this big, beautiful bull with all the power in the world, but yet it’s standing stationary digging out the ground forcibly.

Regarding a collective Dark Night of the Soul? I get that you’d rather collect your quarter than take the chance of not having a quarter. It feels very barren, like you’re holding onto the last semblance of something. And what I get is that it’s absolute terror. I’m going to ask Spirit what would happen if that last quarter was gone. I’m going to take it to the deepest depths here and see what we get. Ha, ha, ha! I like what Spirit did. I was literally seeing a person in a darkened room, hanging onto this coin for dear life. And then when I asked that question, the shutters snapped open, all the sunlight came it.

So, it’s not the end of the world if you lose your last quarter.
AJ: No, actually it’s very dark when you hang onto that last quarter. And then I literally heard the blinds snap up, the quarter fell out of their hands like it never even existed, and the response was, “Wow, it’s nice out there!”

That was great. I’m getting the chills on that one. So, is it time to reassess our priorities in life? I am seeing the same person, same analogy, only this time they were pissed. They walked out the door and slammed it. The emotion I got around it was just that they were floating on a cloud, but now they are ready to take action – enough of this stuff that is too far out there. It’s now time to respond. They walked through the door with full intent after spending so much time floating in dreamtime.

Spirit is telling me it’s the time of physical. It’s the time to have your feet on the ground – with complete intention, putting one foot in front of the other. What I see this person doing is looking all around, walking forward, but yet looking to each side, looking up, looking down, turning around, really observing the environment that they are in with each step.

Totally in the present moment?
AJ: That is correct. So, what specific issues related to prosperity apply to the holistic community? This is going to be an interesting response, because it’s multilayered. First of all, the holistic community is represented by one person in this analogy. This person is…I don’t want to say myopic…but they’re very much in their own environment, and what this is all about is stepping outside of that environment. They’d rather stay put than to step out of their comfort zone. They feel like there is a lack of control.

So I’m going to take that person and get them outside of their comfort zone and see what happens. They are fighting tooth and nail. They are fighting to keep from getting out of their comfort zone, because that’s what they know, and they’d sooner stay there than move. I’m going to keep going with this and see what we get.

It’s almost the same as the person who is in the dark room holding onto that quarter.
AJ: Yes. There is something that can get them out of that room. I took the person and I put them outside the door and I locked the door so they had to be on the outside of the door, and they just sat against the door, and then they started to cry. And they said, “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.”

Let me see if I can present another question. Perhaps there is a different path that changes the energy completely, but it is not the path of someone telling you what to do. It’s more about a path of looking at what you already have. It is more about working with that person, with what they already have and then how to develop that gift. Yes, this does relate to the Dark Night of the Soul. The person just turned their hand and they had a brand new shiny quarter, but it happened to be gold in their hand. So they were already holding the gold.

Okay, now let me ask specifically about this group as one that serves people’s healing and spiritual needs and how that relates to their prosperity. Hmmm. It makes me cry, because I’m using one soul as a representation, and they just said they didn’t want to be hated. They want to be liked. I’m asking them, “If you were hated, what would that look like?” It would break their soul.

The emotions around that are really strong. They feel very tender about what they offer to the community, and they are afraid their soul would break if it is not embraced.

The next question is: A holistic practitioner may say, “What do I do now? My passion for healing or helping others is not bringing in the money I need at this time.” What advice do you have for this person?
AJ: They just gave me the image of that girl in the 1960s standing in front of the tank with the soldier looking at her as she stands her ground holding a daisy. That pretty much says it all. That’s what people in this holistic community feel like they are up against. What advice do you have for the people who are saying this? This person just looked around and the whole world was filled with daisies. The idea is that there’s plenty more where they came from, that there is more than an abundant amount of these daisies.

In this analogy, their gift is the daisy. But the holistic community sees themselves as the daisy, that they are giving every last piece of themselves away. But in actuality, the gift they share is abundant, and there is more than enough to go around. As holistic practitioners, they are mistakingly seeing themselves as the gift.

They don’t have to self-sacrifice. They can keep their own daisies and grow their own internal flower garden. All of a sudden, the image sprouted with all different kinds of flowers and grass, and then the house is built, and then the picket fence and the yard and the car emerges. As soon as you realize your own inner garden and keep it as yours, then that takes care of everything. That is the ticket. That is the key right there.

I think what’s being said is that there has to be that dividing line between who you are and what you do. The community is taking it personally, and they feel every little bit of their heart is being taken away.

Keep your own inner garden. Quit giving it away. Because as soon as you say, “It’s mine” and you keep it, then your inner garden takes off. Otherwise, what happens is you are giving every little last drop of liquid water, anything, to grow it, and then you are left depleted.

How can we put that into words that the holistic community can more clearly understand what the daisy represents to them in their life?
AJ: Well, I can tell you what the sensation is when you ask that question. It’s just like this boom of energy, expanding outward from core. It’s a pulsating energy.

By building your internal garden, or keeping your internal daisy, you become this generator, where your own energy just keeps pulsing. You own it. It’s yours. It’s grounded. It’s solid. You’re in full control of that. It’s kind of like being able to have the reins on your own joy. You are fully in the flow, and you can look over and see the person next to you doing the same thing, and they are fully in their flow. You both have that moment. But you are true to your own garden, and they have their garden growing internally.

What is the challenge right now for them? Is it competition? Is that creating a problem, where you don’t see that there is enough out there?
AJ: It’s competition, yes. I just went back to that soul and I said, “What if somebody was doing what you’re doing, or something that you perceive as the same as what you do?” And the person said, “What if I’m not good enough?” They just stop and they don’t do anything about it. They just shut down. What if you go past that shut-down point? What does that look like? A lack of knowledge? No, as soon as that person was threatened by this other competition, they went to that person and said, “Show me,” and that person very graciously turned and said, “Absolutely.”

There is no competition other than within yourself. As soon as this person reached out to someone who was perceived as a competitor, they turned to them and said, “Let me help you.” There was absolutely no competition there.

So competition is a false belief?
AJ: It is. There is some guilt that comes from learning something from someone else. You begin to think you’re only doing what they’re doing. But in reality, you’re really only doing what you’re doing. Too much thinking! You begin to think that you owe the other person. No! You can ask for help from somebody else in the community and then move on. You don’t owe them.

The way I see it is that it’s not competition, because we are all unique vessels that this information is flowing through, so it’s going to be synthesized a little bit differently in each of us.
AJ: That’s right. And you are bonded to the person that you learned it from. You are independent. That’s a piece of the problem. You feel like you have got to lock into that person, and then you actually are living off of their garden. That’s unfortunate, because then your garden withers.

What healthy ways are there to cope with the current economic challenges in our everyday life?
AJ: When I ask that question, I again see that one soul as an analogy here. All of that person’s energy is being held so tightly, internally, that they don’t see the environment they are in, here in the present now. So I ask Spirit, what happens if they let go of that energy they are holding onto so tightly? Spirit opened it up and it was like the person didn’t even realize the change.

It’s like being a hoarder and being caught up in all of that. You don’t see what you are doing, because you are holding onto the one piece. The solution is to expand enough to work with one piece at a time. It’s like they have entrapped themselves in all this other stuff – thoughts, feelings, emotions – closed down and internalized everything. The solution is to take baby steps. You can’t end up in France if you don’t take all the passageways to get there. You just don’t arrive. You’ve got to do the work. It is hard, and it is painful.

In this analogy, this soul just wants to do the huge leap frog and just arrive without doing the work. There’s a bit of fantasy going on, and the fantasy is just that you’ll just arrive there, and that’s not the truth. It really does take one step in front of the other, and going through the steps – the good, bad and the ugly. And with that comes the true beauty of that passageway. This soul wants to just get it, and have it, but there are all the steps that it takes to get there.

That’s because the holistic community is so focused from a soul perspective that they need to ground it more?
AJ: Yeah, this is just literally physical, physical, physical. Spirit just said, “Get real!” What getting real means is getting physical, getting grounded, getting your feet in the dirt. Spirit give me one thing, and they said “embodied.” People have been out of their bodies for a long, long time, and the call now is to get home, go home, and get in the body.

And Spirit reminds us that we have more value than we know. Spirit is showing me a home, and there is a ton of stuff there that has economic value. But we’ve got too much physical stuff. The paradox is that the more you are in the physical, the less physical stuff you need. That’s the balancing act that’s been happening. People have been collecting more physical stuff when, ironically, they just needed just more physical, grounded in the body.

It’s about being in your own body, and bringing soul into body. Not doing that leads to physical hoarding, which has no spiritual value whatsoever.

What must be in place and working in order for us to manifest prosperity in our life?
AJ: Spirit just tells me that you have got to make a decision. You either keep your stuff or you lose your soul. They are going back to that daisy analogy. The key is staying grounded – without grounding to the things. If you can do that, you’re going to do good in this time.

How do you do that?
AJ: Spirit just showed me a meditation. The person is literally sitting in one of their prized possessions. Spirit is showing me this really incredibly cool crystal, a massive crystal. And it is as if the person is impregnating the crystal with all their energy. This crystal is getting brighter and brighter and brighter, but eventually the person is no longer there. They are existing in the crystal. Here’s their body sitting there, and nobody’s home because it is living in the crystal body.

So I ask Spirit, how does that person get back their essence, their energy. Spirit says that they are not the crystal, they are not the power of the crystal, they are the power of their own self. The power resides within them. You can convene with this beautiful object, but you have got to keep your energy in yourself. You can be friends with these physical things, but they walk beside you, they are not you. It’s like two friends. You can’t get in somebody else’s soul.

So it comes back to recognizing and celebrating the value of yourself.
AJ: And, keeping it to yourself, and nurturing it. Build up your body to be a good vehicle. That takes work. You do that, then the energy can flow through you. You still have to have your own energy source. The key is being able to embrace your own personal power. And when you have your own personal power, you also have to be responsible for how that plays out. Power can be an unwieldy tool if you don’t know how to use it. It’s like having a blow torch.

I think that’s where the step-by-step process comes in.
AJ: Yes, because power is a very, very scary tool. That’s another key that Spirit is telling me. If you do retain that power within your self, your own self power, and you don’t know how to wield it, it becomes a blow torch. You have to understand how to hold your own personal blow torch, so to speak, and then you can build some beautiful things with that flame. But you have to be able to control it, and that’s where the work – and the effort – comes in. It’s like you are your own Sun. You don’t have to go live in the Sun to be powerful, but when you have got yourself attuned properly, you can bring that Sun energy through you and you won’t get fried.

How are the changes of transformation taking place now affecting the manifestation process, individually and collectively.
AJ: People are locking down, number one. It’s getting more and more intense and people are panicking more and more and more. It’s just accentuating. It feels like you’re in the pressure cooker, and the pressure is building tremendously and it is getting almost unbearable.

This is part of the evolutionary change, right?
AJ: Yes, and the thing is you can bring the pressure down and open the pressure cooker and just say, “No thank you.” People feel like they are inside the pressure cooker, the lid is closed and there are no options, no choices. They feel like they can’t do anything because there is some power greater than them who is in control. Actually, they are the only ones holding down the lid, creating the pressure on themselves. And as soon as they realize that there is nobody holding the lid down on them, everything changes. It’s a self-imposed pressure cooker.

But there’s a theme here, too, about individuality, about being your own flower, your own garden. All the energy’s been applied externally, versus internally. Ironically, here we are doing all this healing work and transformation…and you can find Spirit in all different types of work. Healing happens on many levels. Spirit says, “Everything is a healing art.” Every thing. Every person is doing some form of healing art. Even the person who is polishing your car. Who’s to say they are not healing your car and saying a prayer over your car for a safe journey.

So the holistic community, in some regards, does put itself on a pedestal and thinks it’s separate from the rest of the world.
AJ: Yes, and there is actually no separation here. We’re stepping into plain old day-to-day reality. And that’s what we’re fighting. What’s happening is that all us healers are called to just be people, just doing what we do. And if we just happen to work with Spirit in a different way, hey, it’s just the way we’re wired. But there is no “Get Out Of Jail Free” card because you’re holier than thou. No way. Spirit said to be who you are, be your own person and do your work, no matter what that looks like. You’re not any grander than the person standing next to you, nor are they grander than you – just human.

Is there going to be a need to maybe change language or something for the spiritual community to fit in more with the physical world?
AJ: Spirit just said recalibration. Spirit just said, “How are you in your body today? How did your soul touch another soul today, and how did that soul touch you?” They are talking about souls in bodies.

And the question is, “Am I home?” This is going to be the fight, because when you ask, many people in the holistic community think home is in Spirit. But home is here, in the body, in the world. Ask yourself, “What do I need to do now?” Ask yourself, “Am I okay?” Be extremely practical. I’m not getting any esoteric language or anything like that. It’s all very pragmatic. All the glitzy sparklies are out of it. It’s like breathing air and the language is very different. It’s all about asking someone, “Hey, how ya doing?”

What can the holistic community do to raise its self-value?
AJ: Some people within the holistic community want to be the Sun, but they can’t be the Sun. They are just human, and life is just life. Some people want to be bigger than their britches, and by doing that, they’re not being in their britches. They’re trying to be somebody else’s. It’s about them wanting to have more than they are, and it’s a really great disservice. It’s more about wanting more bells, whistles, pops and such, but at the same time, you can’t be that.

Spirit said, “Be who you are. See who you are.” And by being only who you are, that’s when you begin to generate your own energy, and then you just radiate. Even if you’re in the most mundane of situations.

There’s a lot of power in a single rock. That rock is a just a rock, and yet that rock contains all the wisdom of the ancients, and all the time before and everything else. Its power comes entirely of itself.

Yet it does not forget that it is a rock.
AJ: No, and we need to be the rocks. We need to be a whole lot of rocks, but rocks with legs. It’s about just being pragmatic and down-to-earth. It’s bringing Spirit to earth. Finally.

How can members of the holistic community support each other during these times of change?
AJ: What I hear from Spirit is this: “I’m not going to be with you if you don’t play nice.” This is like what I learned in kindergarten. Basically, how we can support one another is by not supporting a person who is not playing nice. Call them to task. Instead of getting wrapped up into their drama with “Oh, poor baby!” – it’s more like, “You need to get yourself together.” It’s about calling everyone to be real.

That’s what I’m getting for an overall theme of this session. It’s about challenging a person to be everything they truly are, to truly be who they are. That’s how the community can help one another. Challenge each other to be real. Feel all those emotions, even the ugly ones.

There’s a huge thing about not being angry in this holistic community. Anger is simply power. Power is that blow torch that we were making reference to earlier, but you have to learn how to wield it. All those other emotions – despair, fear, anger, have been kind of out of the vocabulary and the feelings of the holistic community, and now we are walking into those. We are walking into the dark soul and bringing in the light, and it’s not always pleasant.

Now it is time to draw your own power back and to bring light into the shadows, and those shadows are actually pretty damn cool, because they have the most power. Ironically, we’ve been trying to get power from all the sunshine, and we find ourselves with it in the darkness. It is in the darkness, but we just need to shine light on it. There’s nothing to be afraid of in the shadows, in touching those core emotions and learning how to wield our power.

It’s about being able to walk hand-in-hand with somebody when you are in mutual tragedy. We’re being called on to walk in our truth – good, bad and ugly.

I cannot even begin to describe the excellence, importance and value of the information you two have assembled here. Everyone should read this, twice. You’ve put forth a lofty call to action that’s going to challenge the entire community and I’m absolutely thrilled to see this. Circumstances are what they are to help nudge us all in a better direction, at a pace we can choose, but this article flat out tells you where to focus if you want to get on your horse and ride through it flying your own beautiful flag. Absolutely fantastic and thanks to you both. Suzanne Ahjira 

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