om – shawntelle marie

Posted on October 31, 2019January 12, 2021 by Shawntelle Moncy — 1 Comment

Hindu Cleansing Ceremony Experience – Bali, Indonesia

I recently traveled to Bali, Indonesia, which currently is a sought out destination, but it is the religion and culture that most intrigued me about coming to this beautiful island.

About 60 percent of the country of Indonesia is Hindu, a lot of Muslim and a little Buddhist. I had the wonderful opportunity to partake in a traditional Bali Healing Ritual with a healer in Bali and it was a exceptional experience to cleanse the spirit and to learn more about the Hindu religion.

A strong Hindu belief is that water is cleansing, for this reason, I was completely drenched in holy water and flowers by the end of this experience.

Before the healing experience, we met with the Balinese healer, her name was Desak, to do a palm reading, she sensed our emotions of our past and what we needed to do moving forward in our current life.

After this, we walked to an extended deck over a river, where I sat criss-crossed across a bunch of flowers. Desak poured holy water and flowers over me, to wash away negative energies and let them drop down to the river and flow all the way to the ocean to cleanse my spirit. This ceremony is called a melukat ceremony.

During the holy water being poured, she was saying ancient Hindu mantras in a deep voice, like you would when you meditate and say you’re “OM’s.” These mantras were based around cleansing the spirit, banishing negative energies and for protection.

As soon as the water started to hit me, emotions came to me that I couldn’t even explain. I started to cry and I wasn’t even really sure why, but the healer wanted me to let them out, to yell, to cry, to weep, to express myself and let go of these emotions, to rid them with the water all the way to the ocean.

She hugged me and knew exactly how to help me let my emotions go, she knew exactly what to say, even though I did not tell her why I had these emotions.

She guided my breathing in a way to let energy flow, bad energy out, good energies in.

Something stuck with me this day, she said, “never keep this in again.” It’s strange that even if you don’t have a dramatic experience during the time of this ritual, it brings out feelings you didn’t know you even had, but it may only be because you never truly let it go, just buried it.

After the cleansing was done, it was time to bring the power. Desak then poured more holy water and flowers on me, and each time she did, she blessed me with the power of wisdom, the power of knowledge, the power of love and the power of harmony.

With holy water, she blessed my hands and my knees, she blessed my feet, for everywhere I walk, the Universe supports me.

This experience was like no other, at one point my whole body was tingling and I almost felt like I was going to pass out, it’s something that I cannot explain.

By the end of this healing session, I was sitting criss-cross for probably over twenty minutes without really feeling it, it took about five more minutes of help to start walking again.

After this, they handed us our offerings for our blessings.

Everywhere in Bali, you’ll see offerings, in front of doorsteps, on the streets, on the counters, literally everywhere! There will be rice, incense, fruit, flowers and a number of other things.

This is an offering to the God’s and is put there every morning for people to pray to the God’s and The Universe. We were able to have our own offerings specific to cleansing.

The purpose of a Bali blessing is to bring more harmony between yourself and the universe, balance the chakras, release karma from past lives that might still plague you, and encourage prime health, happiness, safety, finances and a bright future.

We did this by following Desak’s prayers to the God’s, drinking holy water three times, blessing our offerings with holy water, placing rice on our third eye’s and our throat chakras.

We ended the ritual by Desak putting a small bracelet of black, red and white around our wrists to represent connection to the God’s, connection to nature and connection to the Universe.

Afterwards we ate our foods of our blessing together and were able to share them with people we choose, I shared some with our healer. 🙂

[tp_cheapest_flights_shortcodes origin=”SEA” destination=”DPS” subid=”direction” off_title=”false” currency=”USD” paginate=”false”]

This was one of my favorite things about coming to Bali and was truly an experience I will never forget.

Posted on October 13, 2019January 13, 2021 by Shawntelle Moncy — Leave a comment

Full Moon Self Care Ritual

There are plenty of different rituals and beliefs about how to spend your time during a full moon. This is the phase of the moon where you bring in the energy of the Universe to celebrate your achievements for the goals you set for yourself during the new moon, leading all the way up to this time.

For this reason, I take the time of the full moon to reflect and have some serious self-care time for myself. Self care is different for everyone, but I recommend taking it to the next level on the phase of the full moon, doing something a little extra that you don’t normally do.

Self-care is something that we may forget to do in the today’s world, where there are so many distractions that you feel like should have your attention, rather than simply making yourself happy. But you cannot be effective in any of your tasks if you are not aligned with your energy and feeling full.

So here is my self-care ritual that I like to do on a full moon, I feel so peaceful after this ritual and I hope it can help you feel peaceful on this full moon as well. 🙂

The Aura

As you guys may already know, I am huge on creating the perfect aura, every day but especially for rituals. For me, this just keeps me in the zone, keeps me peaceful and makes me feel good about being the space that I’m in.

So first things first, cleanse your space with a sage smudge stick or with palo santo. This gets rid of all the negative energy in your space, cause you don’t have time for that shit tonight.

Light as many candles as you have, light some incense, lay your crystals about (and remember to afterwards put them in the moonlight to be charged).

Meditation

Do a short meditation, just to clear any of the thoughts remaining in your mind from the day and start fresh. Focus on taking deep, long breaths during this meditation and it may be nice to end your meditation by putting some relaxing essential oils, such as lavender or a balancing blend on your wrists and inhaling them in. I will list some of my favorites at the end.

A Flower Mandala

I do not do these often, but every time I do, I feel so aligned and peaceful by the end of it. If you don’t know what a flower mandala is, it’s basically flower petals that you take and create a mandala on your floor, which you can combine with crystals, candles or whatever you wish.

I love doing these because it is so different, but it is incredibly peaceful to do. At first you may overthink it and it may feel awkward and you may second guess yourself, but as soon as you let that go, hours can fly by in what seems like only twenty minutes.

I consider this a form of meditation, because focusing on on some sort of art, really keeps your mind from wandering off elsewhere.

Turn on some slow music or frequencies while you do this or if you prefer silence than do that! And drink some tea, wine or whatever it is you drink to spoil yourself. Take as long as you want to do this!

Here is a quick picture I took of my last flower mandala. I drew this inspiration to partake in these by @sallymustang, I recommend looking up some of her work on Instagram.

Though I feel it’s important to say to not compare yourself to ANYONE else, the point is not how pretty your mandala is, it’s about creating art and creating peace for your mind.

A Bath Ritual

After your mandala, take any extra flower pedals you may have and draw yourself a warm bath, with the flower pedals, essential oils (highly recommended), bubbles, crystals, candles whatever it is you feel would be your best bath!

I put a crystal in the bath water sometimes if I feel the chakra associated with that crystal needs balancing.

During bath rituals I really like to listen to singing bowls, you can find plenty of videos of these on Youtube. I like these because they tend to just echo and vibrate the whole bathroom and of course you can choose a specific vibration that will attract something specific to your life, which for me lately has been abundance.

While in your bath ritual you can read, meditate, do mantras, affirmations, gratefulness practices or even sleep. Do whatever it is you feel your soul needs!

Skin Care Routine

I believe a skin care routine to be a ritual within itself. Today is the day to do your full skin care ritual, your skin has already been being steamed by the bath water, follow it with your face wash, exfoliant, toner, a mask and a finishing moisturizer or skin oil. My favorite skin care brands for things such as this is Aveda, as it’s scents are plant based and smell so lovely.

If you want to put on lotion, do some hair care or whatever, feel free to do so. 🙂

End your night by doing a finishing meditation, this can last much longer as your mind is most likely already cleared. Finish with some mantras for self-care, such as :

I am a goddess, I am abundant and attract abundance, I am loved and attract love, I radiate positive energy and attract positive energy. I am beautiful, I am enough. I am confident and passionate. I am grounded and full of energy. The Universe is in my favor.

You can also partake in some “OM’s” before ending your meditation, I like this as it slows down your mind on a whole other level.

You can end the night by reading a book or journaling, just try to refrain from the tv or your phone before you go to bed tonight. You may find yourself sleeping better and waking up more aligned within yourself. 🙂

Happy Full Moon Loves!

My full moon ritual recommendations :

Full Moon Body Oils: Among The Flowers and Spirit Element

Essential Oils: Aveda Shampure

Posted on October 6, 2019January 13, 2021 by Shawntelle Moncy — Leave a comment

Morning Ritual To Raise Your Vibration

Morning rituals are so important to get your day started off right. Setting your alignment with The Universe first thing in the morning, sets you on your path for the day and how are you going to react to the days challenges.

I am by no means a morning person, but I take this time extremely serious and have grown to love my morning ritual; it is a time for self-care before anything else can get your attention.

This is my ideal morning ritual, though sometimes I don’t have time for all of it, there is not one day where I do not do at least half of this ritual.

First things first…

Make sure your alarm is not outrageous! Sure, your alarm is meant to wake you up, but any loud(ish) noise in the morning will wake you up regardless. Set your alarm to something that is relaxing so you don’t start off your morning irritated by your own alarm! And wake up slowly, you don’t need to jump out of bed like it’s a mission, do some in-bed yoga poses, love on your significant other or your animals. Make your morning enjoyable. And PLEASE, try to avoid using your phone.

After waking up, open up some windows or step outside for a minute to be connected with nature for a bit! Sip plenty of water to get you hydrated, infused with cucumber or lemon can give you an extra boost! Listen to the sounds of nature for a bit and allow your mind some time to slowly wake. I find it super relaxing in the morning.

I normally light some incense while I do my morning ritual, I love breathing in relaxing and/or invigorating smells!

Following that, take some time for your skin care, I wash my face and use moisturizer on my face before starting my morning ritual, to allow my moisturizer time to absorb into my skin. I will put my favorites at the end of this blog.

While your skin is soaking in it’s morning nutrients, turn on some relaxing music (recommendations here) for a short morning yoga session to get your body moving.

I do very simple yoga in the morning, sometimes more advanced and lengthy if I have more time, but some simple cat, cows and warrior poses is just fine.

Right after yoga, I go from my last child’s pose to a seated position for meditation. I’ll keep the same music going and do some silent meditation to settle my mind, or depending on what I’m currently wanting to focus on, do a guided meditation.

At the end of my meditation with some gratefulness practices, mentioning what I am grateful for, everyone’s gratefulness practices should be different and ever changing, but here are my recent ones :

“I am grateful for this brand new day to breath and to be, I’m grateful for this coffee, for this water, for my job. I’m grateful I have a car, grateful I have support in my life. I am grateful for my health and grateful for the support of The Universe.”

It’s important to not overthink this practice, nor the following one, and to just make it relate able to you. No one is hearing this, it is simply for you and your mind. Don’t worry about making it sound perfect and poetic.

After this, go into some affirmations, these should be ever changing and customize-able to you, but something to align your energy for the day ahead. Here are some that I am currently using.

“My body is rested and my mind is clear, The Universe supports me today, I am full of energy and radiate positive energy. I am confident, I am persistent. I am having fun today, I am inspiring others, I am aligned with my goals today.”

Both of those practices work well to say out loud, write on paper or both. Whichever you prefer.

After this, practice some vibration work. Some simple, OM’s can work wonders to get you aligned with The Universe and wake up your body. If you have a singing bowl, this is also a fantastic morning energy/vibration practice.

Be sure to take your time for these practices and not rush through them like they are a chore, or they may lose their meaning.

Let me know how this morning ritual works for you, I have grown to love it. 🙂

Skin Care Recommendations :

Aveda Botanical Kinetics Face Moisturizer

Aveda Botanical Kinetics Gentle Exfoliant

Aveda Outer Peace Foaming Cleanser

Posted on February 14, 2018February 10, 2020 by Shawntelle Moncy — 4 Comments

Traveling Washington 101 North (Temperate Rainforests, Ruby Beach and Cape Flattery)

Though I’ve lived at the bottom of the Washington coast all my life, last weekend was the first time I drove all the way up 101 North. We’ve just about traveled all of the 101 highway now, and Washington’s coast is not much short of Oregon’s.

We took advantage of good winter weather and traveled from South Bend, WA, up 101 all the way to the most northwestern tip of the United States, Cape Flattery. Of course we stopped at some destinations along the way, and all of them were amazing, where the temperate rainforests of Washington meet with the coastal waves.

Our first stop was Quinault, a beautiful area full of nature trails from a quarter mile long, to full backpacking trips. The largest Sitka Spruce tree in the world lives in this lush forest, as well as many other large trees and some coastal redwoods. There are plenty of waterfalls, some you can hike to and some right off of the road.

We stayed in the Quinault lodge, though in the summer there are so many beautiful camping spots next to the Lake Quinault. This lodge is gorgeous and relaxing though, with access to trails and the lake right outside. It has a nice restaurant, pool, game room and an overall nice environment.

The next morning we woke up and started heading further north, our next stop being Kalaloch and Ruby Beach, some of the coastal gems of Washington.

Kalaloch Beach has a famous tree called the Tree of Life or Big Tree Cave. You can see the entire root system from the beach, it grows in the air and the ends connect to the ground, above the beach.

Ruby Beach has lots of giant coastal rocks, easily accessible from the sand. One has a natural arch, others have holes through them, it is quite the site. You can spot some star fish, sea urchins and other marine life as well.

This beach is called Ruby Beach because you can find ruby clusters within the rocks if you look hard enough!

After this pit stop, we headed up North towards Port Angeles, I recommend stopping at Lake Crescent along the way, as it is beautiful and has a hike to a waterfall that is lovely. We stayed in Port Angeles for the night and headed west to the northwestern tip of the U. S, Cape Flattery. This is about two hours from Port Angeles and well worth it.

Located on an Indian Reservation, it is a well-kept trail with handmade walking sticks for anyone in need. The trail is wooden and an absolute gorgeous two-mile hike, round-trip. There are several viewpoints along this trail, and every one is worth seeing. You can see coastal rock caves where the ocean meets, many coastal rocks and an island not too far from the edge of the cape with a lighthouse.

The northwestern tip is nothing short of magical, and every step to get there makes the adventure even more beautiful.