I have been fortunate enough to have found a "real deal" shaman in the form of Nicole Coombs, who unabashedly brands herself as "Blonde Enlightenment."

Although she specializes as a relationship coach ("The Saucy Love Psychic"), and slants her message toward women ("Dishin' on love like only a girlfriend will"), my reasons for seeking out her services were more along the lines of some deeper spiritual discovery. I do consider myself to be an "urban shaman," although my focus as a shaman has been more on divining the symbols and signals Life brings and interpreting them towards widening my consciousness--as opposed to making it a formal practice for others.

But, every once in a while, when the mud of life starts bogging things down, it's extremely useful to gain the help of someone else of like mind to give that extra push to navigate to drier, smoother ground. Nicole has been great for that, and her enthusiasm and diamond-clear perceptions make her a pleasure to work with.

For me, she has employed a type of cranio-sacral modality that is more energy-based than the physical manipulation most associated with it. She creates a wonderfully comfortable and clear space that allows for deep meditation and journeying. Every time, I've received very significant messages and have gotten my mind blown. A good thing, because it's just necessary to blow up the mind now and then to get it out of the way!

I highly recommend Nicole's services, whether it be for personal spiritual impasses or to improve a personal relationship, or even find one. Seek Nicole out at her website, blondeenlightenment.com.

Vibrant Living Tip: I highly recommend Nicole's Blonde Enlightenment Facebook Page.

Deep Insight Elixir -- Stimulates improvement in interpreting inner experiences and increase the efficiency of information reception, while helping to facilitate psychic awareness and intuitive development.

Since I was a teenager, I have been fascinated with divination. At first because it seemed so magical, and later in my development because it helped connect me to a larger universal awareness of mundane life.

Although I love astrology, my two other favorite modes of divination are the ancient Tarot and equally ancient I Ching. While the etymology of the word "tarot" can only be speculated on, some experts say it's of Arabian origin from the word for "deduction." This is a good word for the Tarot, because by reading the rich symbolism printed on the Tarot cards, you can immediately recognize what the cards are referring to in your present life, and will allow subconscious messages about your life to come out--oftentimes with great revelation. There are hundreds of types of Tarot decks, but the standard is the "Waite Deck" developed by Christian mystic and occultist Arthur Edward Waite in 1910.

With the I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes), the symbols are in the form of a hexagram, or six lines in a figure made up of solid or broken lines. The hexagrams are read from bottom to top grouping the lines in threes, so there are two parts to the hexagram. The most famous and most-used interpretive text book for the I Ching is by Richard Wilhelm (1950). To obtain or build the hexagrams the most common method is throwing three coins (pennies, usually) and noting which coins are "heads" and which are "tails" and assigning a numerical value to each. You then look up the hexagram you built for the messages, which invaribly are quite profound.

Divination is not about fortune-telling, which I feel is a misuse of these systems. Instead, these are systems to allow you to look into your own mind for meaning and greater connection to the world you have created.

Vibrant Living Tip: Order Beatrex Quntanna's Tarot: A Universal Language for an in depth and entertaining look at the 52 cards of the Tarot.

Cosmic Eye Elixir -- Improves memory, and stimulates the "third eye" psychic center of the brain. For the serious meditator, this remarkable combination of energies provides an illuminating but stable foundation to work from. For the adventurous, the Cosmic Eye Elixir can be helpful in stimulating "out of body" experiences.

I've been known to cry at movies before, but never from reading a book. Yet, Elizabeth Lesser's masterpiece, Broken Open consistently had me tearing up from the brutal honesty and poignant celebration of the human condition brilliantly offered on these pages.

My CPA gave me the book to help me deal with the loss of my life partner in January, and it was really the perfect book to read for dealing with my grief. My best friend passed over after 15-years in relationship, and her passing has been one of the most important things that has ever happened to me. I say "important" because going through the dying process with a loved one will most certainly "break open" your heart and open a whole new world of apprecation for life, other people, and your role in the world. This book is all about that, and I feel as blessed to have been given it as I feel for having had the gift of my partner's life.

The book also points up the essence of living a vibrant life--living vibrantly is living deeply, and the deepest way to live is to fully accept death. It sounds counter-intuitive, but by "dying" to all the machanizations we all use to avoid experiencing life, we can open up to a wonderfully abundant world where everything is a miracle: our breath, our body, our friends, the sun, the sky, the grass under our toes. It all is such a blessing, but we don't know about it until our hearts are broken open.

With frequent quotes from my favorite poet, Rumi, and Lesser's guru, Ram Dass, the book gently leads you on a narrative of Lesser's own life as a metaphor for your own. Whether or not you have lost a loved one, this is a great read--so if you haven't had this kind of loss, you will be able to appreciate it when it blesses your life.

"So much of what we do each day is a diversion from what our lives are really about. A traumatic event is like a knife slicing through our diversionary tactics and exposing the vein of truth--the truth of what we really want, of how we really feel, of the wrongs we have visited upon each other, of the love we crave from each other. In our habitual lives, we exercise the foolish luxuries of complaining, avoiding and blaming. We gossip about the annoying behaviors of friends or colleagues, shutting them out of our hearts, turning our backs on their complicated beauty in favor of their obvious flaws. It seems easier to do this than to move toward each other..." -- Elizabeth Lesser