Anyone can give a blessing, whether it be speaking kind words over a person, delivering a spiritual blessing, or helping someone in need. Spiritually, blessings are a way for people to connect to the divine and spiritual worlds. There are many ways to give a blessing, but that connection, balancing and healing power are some of the most important traits in a good blessing. What does it mean to give a blessing? How and why is this powerful? How do you give a blessing and know it worked? I’m compiled a small selection of the sorts of blessings I like to give for your exploration of these questions.
Blessing of Words: Blessing someone with your words can be powerful if you put your intention into it and pour your focused power into what is said. Words change the energy around you. When someone hears your blessing, their mind focuses and helps confirm and empower that change too. This shared intention and will helps bring the structures you make with your words into the physical world. If you are someone with a solid spiritual practice who moves a lot of energy these will be more powerful. In example, I make a habit of walking down a street where there are a lot of beggars in my city and giving them what I have and blessing them in my God’s name. This is a material blessing coupled with a verbal blessing, but when I make eye contact and say “God bless you, and may it be first through me,” there is also often a strong emotional reaction from the person I’m addressing, often leading to healing simply as it opens a doorway for them to connect to the divine and another person. It’s not uncommon for a blessing of spirit to follow if that is what the person needs. If you’ve never done this, beggars provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate the love of the Divine and it is a good way to bless your community. Remember, it is not our place to judge, but to bless. There is also power in a verbal blessing when the person hears what you wish of them, think of them, or the attention you draw to an aspect of themselves or their world that they have neglected (see the Five Fold Kiss below).
Blessing of Spirit(s): A blessing of a/the spirit(s) requires contact with a spirit or the energy of a deity, ancestor or local spirit. This is different than an energetic blessing because it does not come from the energy of a human or their personal connection to the Universe. This can sometimes involve a person who has contracted with a spiritual being to share a body and allows the spirit to bless using their form, or it can be when a person is channeling words or sayings from an entity. This can also be when someone is aware of a spiritual presence and repeating a blessing from them so others who are less sensitive can be aware of the blessing. This may also be combined with other blessings (you notice all of these can be) if something from a spiritual entity, such as a symbol, is used along with a verbal or energetic blessing. This brings the energy of the being and their blessing, assuming the being has given you permission to use the symbol that way and you are revitalizing them afterwards (otherwise, this opens a way for a spirit to reap the energy of the person receiving, so be honest with yourself).
Energetic Blessing: Your presence can be an energetic blessing 24/7 if you practice enough. People will feel it and respond to it, and your life will become full of wonder because of the effects of what you’re doing. To give an energetic blessing, you need to be open to and aware of your specific connection to the divine. You are best doing this if you have had some basic training, the reason being that when you open a spiritual or energetic connection to another person any troubles they’re carrying can be transferred through you, and this can get stuck. Training protects you from having unhelpful side effects of the connection this blessing requires. An energetic blessing transfers Universal energy through the blesser to the person being blessed. I generally open the back of my head, my feet, and my hands, and increase the flow out my hands, then touch the person. You can also do this less directly all day long by keeping both ends open (the head and feet) and radiating the energy outward. With practice, you’ll become aware of the field of energy you’re creating and those who step into that space will feel and experience it. With practice, you can even start to see ‘miracles’ happen when people are in that space. I turn this on every morning when I ask myself “How can I BE a blessing today?” You can also adapt this for transmutation work to clear spaces, perform mass healings, move many dead to the other side and other useful things, but that’s for another post.
Templar Blessing: I am sworn not to share things from my order that are not public knowledge, but I included this to point out our use of oils in the blessings we do. With the most common blessing we use Frankincense, Myrrh, Juniper and (Black) Spruce (all common knowledge). These have different energetic properties that perform their own blessing on every layer of the human system. I encourage you to also look at other ways items which carry energy can help give a blessing, including stones, bits of wood, bone, pelt, oil, plant matter, and other natural materials. Man-made materials can also carry energy but they are energetically arranged in a way that works differently. That’s information for another article. For now realize that natural materials are best, and that the more you understand about the spirituality of different items the more you can use them for powerful blessings.
Five Fold Kiss: We use this in rituals at the interfaith sanctuary and I have seen it create profound change in people. It is based in Wicca and other earth-based traditions. Each group works with it differently, but overall there are specific blessings bestowed at five places on the body by the person giving the blessing. Generally this involves the person doing the blessing getting on their knees before the other, which draws attention to the sacredness of the person receiving the blessing. This blessing carries an energetic pull of its own, and because it calls attention to the sacredness of the person being blessed, it can be a powerful experience, especially for someone who thinks poorly of themselves or who has been abused. You should have this memorized so that you can focus entirely on the person you are blessing. For space in the article, I’ll suggest you look the steps for this blessing and the next blessing up online or in a library.
Kabbalistic Cross: The Kabbalistic Cross is a blessing you should first do on yourself for at least 33 days straight before attempting to do it on another. The reason is that this blessing connects the energetic centers in you at the head, feet, shoulders, heart and other places. It also puts you more in harmony with the universal order of creation. When done properly, it performs sound work that puts the universe itself in more clear order, and also acts as a prayer to reaffirm the power of Creator. Using this, you may start to experience energy more directly. This is simply a sign that your system is becoming stronger, more vibrant, and clearer. As you work with this, you can adapt it to others and to groups. When researching this blessing, look for one that uses more than five points (head, feet, shoulders and heart) as the more traditional forms use more of your system and in my experience are much stronger.
I hope this review has been helpful for you. We learn these blessings in more detail in my level one Unified Energy Therapy class, which I teach in tandem with Reiki 1. If you’re interested in having a class, please contact me as I offer them on request, or check out the website to see if there are upcoming classes here: http://rebekahgambleholisticpractitioner.com