3 Crystals that appear to be similar in power (to your senses). 

Find a comfortable place to sit, this is no short journey. Sit upright, back straight, and hold the single-terminated crystal to the chakra at your navel. Breathe deeply and evenly, and visualize a golden-yellow light. Sense the strength, the unwavering power of this light. Now concentrate on your own power as this golden light. Focus on that power. When you are ready, breathe deeply, and exhale that golden light into your crystal from your sacral chakra. You can do this several times if you need to, until you have it there.

Set the crystal with the golden-yellow glow down in front of you, and rest a moment. Pick up the other two crystals. Holding one in each hand, with your arms out at the sides, feel the two crystals balancing each other. They are your polar crystals - one female, one male. Take a moment to feel the differences between them. Let them manifest without conscious attention from your mind. Now concentrate on the crystal in your right hand. Feel energy tingling up through your hand and arm. Feel it flowing into your body and up the shoulder to the throat chakra. Allow yourself to feel - not think - FEEL the masculine energy of this crystal, let it imprint itself on your senses. Realize that the right hand is the "active" hand - the hand of giving. It is from the active/masculine/right hand that your energy flows to another when you will it to do so. Now visualize the most beautiful blue sky you have ever seen or can imagine. Surround yourself with the color, bring the crystal in your right hand to the throat chakra, and begin to breathe deeply. After a few moments, when you are ready, breathe in the blue color, and exhale it into the crystal in your right hand. Do this until you are finished. Set the Sky-Blue glowing Crystal on the floor at your right hand, and rest a moment.

You still have a crystal in your left hand. This is your feminine/ receptive hand, and the hand from which you receive or bring in energy. Feel the power of this crystal. It is different from that of the masculine crystal, but it is not necessary to "think" about the differences. FEEL the sensations, until they are firmly imprinted. Begin to visualize a lush, beautiful green color. The color of spring green, alfalfa fields, vibrant, glowing lawn. Surround yourself with this color, and feel your crystal begin to vibrate happily at the color. Place this crystal over your heart chakra, breathe deeply, and exhale the lush green color into the crystal. Continue until finished. Place the glowing Green Crystal on the floor on your left.

Rest a moment, and feel the balance point where you sit between the masculine and feminine, blue and green, active and passive crystals. Get a clear feeling of this "centeredness". Now, using both hands, pick up the glowing Golden Crystal in front of you. Hold it to the brow chakra (third eye). Feel the coolness, the slight tingle as you touch it to your forehead. Holding the crystal with both hands brings both halves of your being (male/active/blue and female/receptive/green) into balance. You have created a figure of power - yourself as the energy source, and balanced and blended with the crystals. Now make that energy move. For a few moments, feel the energy flowing freely from your feet to your crown chakra and back. As the energy flows UP the right side of your body, it is blue - as it leaves the crown chakra, it becomes green and flows back DOWN the left side of the body.

Circulate the energy like this for a few moments. Try to let the feelings and visual images imprint themselves on your mind and senses. At a later time, when you are stressed and out of balance, you can bring back the image, and know that your energy will go back into balance, and will be completely under your control. There are many uses for this kind of exercise. Among the best (IMHO) reasons are things you wish to get rid of - meaning something negative. When you have a negative energy source (anger, frustration, sources of irritation), you will use the golden-yellow crystal at your solar plexus. Tense up the solar plexus a bit, effectively closing it down so you don't gather these energies inside by accident. Do Not absorb the negative energies - simply see them as floating around you. Will them into the crystal - each exhale willing more of them into the crystal. You may even notice the crystal get dark and cloudy. When you have captured the negative energy in the crystal, you have several options.

My favorite is to go outside, take a deep breath, and "blow" the energy out of the crystal into the ground. Inside, you can do it the same, only you must visualize it going through the floor and into the ground. It may come out as a stream of dark liquid, or a cloud of heavy dark fog. Whichever, take care to "bury" it in the ground, not leave it lying around for someone else to pick up! Bring your crystal back inside, and drop it in a glass of salt water for a few hours to clear any residual negativity. You could also bury it in the earth, or hold it under running water. I've often thought a running stream on the property would be a boon to crystal workers!

Just get a mesh bag, toss in the "dirty" stones, and let it hang in the stream for a day or two! In the absence of that, however, we just have to make do with indoor plumbing! Take a few minutes to relax, and reflect on what you've accomplished - which is quite a bit. After a short break, we're going on a journey. Take your three crystals used in the preparation exercise. Sitting down, place the golden-yellow crystal at your feet in front of you. Place a crystal on either side of you (green on the left, blue on the right). Now lay back on the floor or bed, and relax. Close your eyes, and breathe deeply using your diaphragm. Feel the energy from your crystals, and let it balance you.

You are calm, relaxed, and floating-just barely touching the surface where you are lying. Open your inner eye, and see around you a lovely Summer day. It is a joyous day, and all your senses are alive. You can hear the sound of a small brook nearby. You feel the touch of a light, warm breeze playing around you. The smells of earth and richness and growing things fills your heart with wonder and joy. Under your feet is a rich, grassy path that winds along beside the little brook. Looking toward the horizon, you see a mountain standing out of the earth.

It rises beautifully, majestically in this flatter landscape, but it is not impossibly high. Your eyes drink in the sight of the mountain, and you know that it is calling you. You can feel yourself vibrate with the need to be there. This is a sacred mountain, a place of power. And it is calling to you. Raising your arms, you hold them out as if to embrace the mountain. You take a deep breath, and feel the earth skimming just below your feet. You set down with a slight bump, and look up to see the mountain. You are standing at the base of the mountain, and it is YOUR mountain. Recognize that this is your life's journey, your chosen spiritual path. This is the place of power you can truly call your own. You are ready to begin this Journey to Enlightenment. But the path goes up the mountain, and you need to lighten your load in order to make your trip easier. Just where the path starts up the mountain, there is a beautiful tree. It is shady and cool, and yet very alive and sentient. Sit down under this tree, and take a moment to connect with it. Ask it for, and accept its strength.

Now take a moment, and look at your physical world, your physical life. What burdens, problems, cares, connections or other things do you need to leave behind before you begin this journey up the sacred mountain? Think about it for a moment, and make a decision. What is it that you need to leave behind? Take your shooter crystal from your pouch or pocket, and put into it what you need to leave behind. Then "shoot" it into the ground. Affirm to yourself that you are doing this so that you may continue to grow, to seek, to come to know your true self. Continue until you feel that you have lightened the physical load you carry enough to allow you to continue your journey.

When you are done, open your pouch or your pocket, and take out the small bag of tobacco or sweetgrass you have there. Put a pinch at the base of the tree, in thanks for the help you have received. Take a moment to remember those things that you are leaving there. Each thing that we decide we no longer need or want in our lives is the result of a lesson learned. There is no need to carry such excess weight, but at the same time, there IS need to remember what those lessons were. For a moment, honor and thank those things you have discarded for whatever lessons or service they have given you. Now it's time to move on. The trail begins at your tree, and winds up in a spiral up the mountain. You feel the pitch of the trail change and become slightly steeper. You are walking at a good pace, and feeling wonderful. The breeze on your face is light and warm, the sky is a radiant turquoise blue. You are lighter and happier than you have been in a long time. About a quarter of the way to the top, you begin to tire a little bit. There is a nice flat area where you can sit, on the flank of this sacred mountain, and recover your strength. With your hand, your staff or something else you choose, draw a circle in the dirt, and sit down inside it.

Reflect for a moment on how the spiral path to the top of the mountain could be rendered as a wheel - a medicine wheel. All things in nature go in cycles, and although the cycles are never ending, they are ever changing. No spring is exactly like the spring before. No cycle of seasons brings the exact same weather. Your development is like that circle/cycle/spiral. You are growing as well as changing through your cycles. You are spiraling upwards toward your true nature and enlightenment. Yet you hold on to things from the past when they are no longer needed or even good for you to have. Ask yourself what you need to let go of emotionally, in order to continue with your journey. Be receptive for a moment, and listen to your inner voice.

When you have made your decision, put the thing you wish to let go of emotionally into your crystal, and shoot it into the earth, as you did before. Take your tobacco or sweetgrass, and leave a pinch in the center of the circle. Use that time, and make that offering, to remember the worthy things about that which you have left behind. Leave the circle, and continue up the trail. It's getting steeper now, and you are feeling fine, but have to slow down a bit and struggle a bit to keep on moving upward. At a point which is half-way up the mountain, you come to a place where a large rock rears up from the ground, casting an inviting shadow, and providing a convenient back-rest.

You sit down with your back against the stone, feeling its smoothness, coolness. You can smell the warm rock where the sun is hitting it, and hear the sound of the wind in the grasses and stones on the mountain. Looking out from where you sit, you can see the valley below - the one you left just a short time ago - and the brook glistens like a shiny crystal ribbon amid the riot of greens. You have been taught all your life that intellect is supreme, yet just intellect without compassion or love can be as limiting as carrying your boulder up the mountain!

Ask yourself what you need to let go of intellectually in order to continue your journey up the mountain. You may be surprised that some things you thought of as your greatest strengths will now be revealed as being weakness...indeed, there is a strong and a weak side to everything!

Place any and all of the blocks you note on an intellectual level into your crystal, and dispose of them as you did before. You get up, feeling rested and much better, and again leave an offering of tobacco or sweetgrass at the base of the boulder. You walk on up the mountain, and the path is now narrow and very steep. You walk carefully, steadily, and you are happy. Just before the last rise of the mountain peak, there is a place where you can rest. You are sitting nearly on top of the world here - your feet can hang out where only air separates you from the valley floor. You have no feelings of fear - you know you are safe up here on the mountainside.

This is a time to ask yourself what you need to let go of spiritually, in order to continue your journey. Listen to the voices inside you, and any guidance that comes from outside. Put all of these things into the crystal, and dispose of them as before. When you are done, you have such a feeling of joy and ease! Put a pinch of your offering in the place where you have been sitting. Stretch and loosen up your muscles a moment, and continue your journey. The clouds that once seemed so high over your head are now within your reach. Your trail ends abruptly, and you look around. You made it! You are standing on top of your mountain - the highest point. The sky is still blue, but tiny stars twinkle overhead. The wind is brisk here - chilly almost, but it feels good to you. The valley below is far away and tiny - looking like a child's smallest toys. This is the journey of your life, and also of every day of your life. Every choice, every anchor, every connection you have has some connection to this mountain and your journey. Remember that.

Know that everything connects on this mountain path of your life's journey. Look around you now at the top of your mountain. There are flowers here - blue ones. The air is sparkling clear like nothing you can find in a city. The evergreen trees lend a fragrance to the air that is refreshing. See, smell, hear, and touch all these things. Be aware of this as a real place - one that you can continue to use whenever you need to. One you will ultimately conquer many times, as you have today. A sparkle on the ground catches your eye, and you look down. There is a crystal there - made of light and air and all the parts of your journey here. It is breathtakingly beautiful. You reach down and pick up the crystal. Hold it to your heart for a moment - then hold it up in the rays of sunlight.

As you do this, a rainbow of color spills from the crystal, bathing you in its light. Inside your heart, a prayer is forming - a prayer for balance and harmony, a prayer that you find and take your rightful place in the universe. Listen to your inner voice, trust your inner feelings. Believe that harmony and balance are not only possible, but available to you, if you will only remember this journey! Leave a pinch of tobacco or sweetgrass at the place where the crystal came from.

It is now time to begin your journey down the mountain. You travel lighter, faster, and happier than you have done in the past, carrying your crystal from the mountain top. As you pass each point where you left behind something, touch the crystal to your heart chakra, remember the lesson, and give thanks. As you reach the tree at the bottom of the mountain, you notice that the shadows have lengthened and the sun is moving toward setting. It's time to be going home again. Let the blue sky, the warm golden sun, and the green of the grassy plain soak into you for a few moments, like recharging a battery. Hear the brook by your feet, and feel the breeze as it whispers goodbye. Now realize you are back in your own world, your own place, in your own body. Open your eyes, and recognize your surroundings.

If needed, stamp your foot, or clap your hands to bring yourself fully back into the present. The special crystal that you received on your mountain journey is one which is used only on the other side. Anytime you journey or travel there, you have only to remember where you "keep it" - a medicine pouch or your pocket, or whatever - and it will be there. It is not necessary to have a counterpart for it on this side, although one may find you some day!