Energy Channeling and Healing

An eclipse, a new moon, and the start of the Lunar New Year collide with the bold energy of the red fire horse—and we use that cosmic spark to talk about real, practical change. We sit down with Merrill Black, a licensed clinical social worker, Reiki Master, hypnotherapist, and Life Force Yoga practitioner, to explore how energy work helps us move from anxiety and stagnation into clarity and momentum.

Merrill Black, LCSW shares how she bridges clinical tools like CBT with Reiki and light body healing, describing why some shifts happen without touch and why the “quantum field” makes distance irrelevant. We get specific about the differences between Reiki and light body work, what clients actually feel, and how intention and attention shape the results. If you’ve ever wondered whether you can ground indoors, we’ve got you covered: from potted plants and wood floors to water rituals and simple earthing bands, we map out accessible ways to steady your nervous system.

We also talk timing and symbolism—how eclipses reveal the hidden, why a “one year” invites new beginnings, and how the elements in your chart can guide the practices that fit you best. Meryl opens a window into her channeling circles and group meditations, where messages from guides and card pulls offer direction and comfort during uncertain times. Then we get hands-on with Life Force Yoga: targeted breath, mudras, sound, and visualization that meet your mood first—calming anxiety more effectively than generic deep breathing and lifting low energy with care.

Underneath the techniques is a simple, urgent truth: love is the most powerful energy we can choose. From limiting doom-scrolling to sending heart-centered light to the world, from a kind word to a held door, every act shifts the field. Ready to ground, reset, and move with purpose? Press play, subscribe for more energy-savvy conversations, and leave a review to share the practice you’ll try this week.“You can attend virtually. 

Email me via my website: MerrillBlackLCSW.life or CelestialRadianceCenter.com. Office: 914-422-1511.”

Contact Joan Kaylor, MSEd, LPC at Joan@joankaylor.com

Transcript

Welcome & Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello everyone, welcome to Energy Episode. Thank you for joining me. I'm Joan Taylor, and I'm so excited to have you with us today. Oh, you are going to love this podcast so much. I can't tell you. You know, I always get excited about introducing my guests, but you are in for a treat. So whether you're watching or listening, thank you so much for that. My dear, dear friend. Mary Black is joining us today. Let me read this bio. It is so cool because she is my Reiki Master teacher. Okay, so we're gonna go down to her bio so I can read this to you. All these initials. First of all, she's a licensed clinical social worker, Reiki Master, hypnotherapist, and she'll explain to us what R Y T oh Life Force. That's it, that's a yoga teacher, registered yoga teacher. Registered yoga teacher, and then life force yoga something? Practition. Or life force. Okay. Two. Anyway, Meryl is an intuitive empath healer. Oh, amen to that. Who began her journey in 1997 as a psychotherapist, offering cognitive behavior therapy to clients. She believes in treating the whole person, mind, body, and soul. This integrative approach blends cognitive behavior, spiritual counseling, and healing modalities. Merrill's goal is to help others feel more empowered, fulfilled, and joyful in their daily life. Merrill recalls as a young child being sensitive to energy and just having wisdom beyond her years. Absolutely. Her intuitive knowing and abilities expanded over the last couple of decades as she developed deeper into alternative healing modalities. Delve deeper. As an empath, Meryl often feels things in her body and channels messages to her clients during their healing sessions. In addition, she channels messages from ascended masters, angels, and more in her guided meditation circles. Meryl has a passion for arts of all kinds, and music has been a part of her life since a young age. She was drawn to crystals since her early twenties when she first had her when she had her first healing with a crystal energy healer. Meryl loves to create a mood using essences and crystals surrounding her work and home environment. Meryl is also a Reiki master, light-body practitioner, and hypnotherapist. Her love of yoga led her to become a yoga teacher and a restorative yoga teacher and a certified life force yoga practitioner. Meryl offers individual and group sessions in life force yoga, providing support and reflection to shift one's mood. She has provided numerous workshops and training all over the United States and through a variety of organizations and venues to help others manage their moods, train them in Yusui Reiki.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yusui Reiki.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

It was just how to pronounce it, as well as awaken, raise as awaken, raise their energy, energetic consciousness. Boy, I'm messing this up. Meryl is a co-author with Dara Leslie Lee of the book 2022 Mystical Moon Journal, a guide to harnessing the energy of the moon through ritual, visualization, visualization, and intuition. She is the current founder and owner of Celestial Radiance Center in White Plains, New York. And she previously founded and owned her first healing center, the Temperance Healing Center from 2013 to 2023. I tell you, I have an energy expert here, just like the name says. Welcome, Meryl. I'm so glad you could make time for us today. It's so exciting to have you. It's so fun to be here. Thank you so much for asking. My pleasure. We're gonna talk about three really,

Lunar New Year & Eclipse Energies

SPEAKER_01 4:45

really cool things, people. So, Meryl, today is the first day of the lunar new year.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yes, what a big, what a big day because it's not only the Chinese New Year in the uh red fire horse, but it's also um, and it's no accident we're wearing red today. Um so it's also the new moon in Aquarius, but it's a solar eclipse. So eclipses always reveal something hidden to us. And Uranus is the planet, and there's other aspects too, but that one stuck out most to me, is really playing a part in this, and that's the planet to be unexpected, things unexpected to happen changes. You know, that culminating with the red fire horse, which is all about movement, okay, making things happen. It's also a one-year, which is new beginnings, you know, astrologically. So there's so much happening today. We just came out of the year of the snake, which was about transformation and shedding, and whew, that's a heavy, heavy um energy, and it was so much for so many of us. So it's going to feel, I feel like a breath of fresh air as we really move into this horse energy of freedom and letting go and and reaching aspirations and things that we want so much. So we're wearing red to call in the energy of abundance and prosperity and you know, even jewelry, red to tree for abundance, all of it is jade, all of it for good luck, it's really about calling in the forces to help assist us during this time and support it. You know, I even wrote, and I'm sorry we're a day on it, but the day before they talk about cleaning and and clearing out your your physical space so that you make room for the new. And today is really just about like resting and really about just absorbing it and being in the moment with it. And yeah, so it's really exciting to see what's gonna happen as this year progresses, and particularly these next couple of weeks as we move through this new moon energy. I will be holding my uh my channeling group on Friday night and the messages from the Masters and Beyond.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Meryl, may I interrupt for just a moment? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, anybody can join Meryl's meditation, and I am telling you, she is so intuitive and so connected that when she goes into her intuitive meditation, she literally downloads so much information, and then she pulls cards, especially for you, for the group, and especially for you. I

Meditation Circles & Channeling

SPEAKER_01 7:45

am telling you, it is so fascinating to be in Merrill's meditation group. I have learned so much. I have attended frequently.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Okay, I just thank you. So you can attend virtually. Um, you just have to email me or reach out, and um, that information is on my website, both two websites, Meryl Black LCSW.life um or celestial radius sensor.com. And it's it's a great group, and you some people come live, but some people come virtually, and it's all about the collective, and it's all about channeling those messages that come through from the masters, you know, and the angels and whatever else is supposed to come through. Sometimes it's people that pass, but not very often. And that's really what it's about. It's really about healing. That's my purpose. You know, I am a healer, you know. Yes, my career started as a psychotherapist, and I still do that work, of course, but I'm always integrating who I've become over these decades of treating people and really try to make it very individualized on what each person needs, and particularly when we do the energy work, the light body work. Um, I was trained in Reiki many, many years ago, 2002, I believe, is when I got my Reiki mastership. But and I've been training in Light Body for years now. It because the difference is Reiki's great. Uh, it you know, it aligns and works with the physical, emotional, and spiritual. The light body just takes it to a whole other level. It's exactly what we talk about light body. It's about the quantum field and it's about working in no space and time. So I was doing that organically, probably through my teacher, Kath, um, before I was ever really trained in it, so to speak. But again, I was also doing energy work before I was trained in it. You know, I was healing people before we even knew what Reiki was. So I often label things as Reiki because that's people know that it's like a common word now. Thank goodness it wasn't when I first started offering it in my practice in New York. But now people know and they call. But light body still people don't really get it, so I just do my work, and then people feel the results of the work. So, and you don't even have to touch the person, you know. A lot of times

From Psychotherapy To Energy Work

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I'm just sitting with the people in the room, and even when we're talking, I can shift things. So that's even what I do in meditation. I am shifting um in the light body field.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

It's all so exciting because of mind, body, and spirit, the whole person to be able to the holistic care to be able to offer that. And we've been friends for oh my gosh, many uh decades 30, 40 years, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

And you've helped me evolve so much.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Uh well, you helped me too. It's been a mutual, beautiful exchange. So grateful for our friendship and our attention.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Light body sounds so excited. Meryl, does light body have to do with the biofield? Is that the light body?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Um, or I mean, I don't really know much at much about the biofield, so I can't really speak to that, maybe, but like it's it's it's that's the quantum field. So the biofield would be the quantum field. Um that's the language that we use, so I can't really say that, but it is the quantum field. Like, you know, we see the grid, we can work in the grid, which is because what people don't understand is like it starts out here before it becomes into our physical body. So this or anything that we feel in a body, it starts out in the field first. So if you can clear the field and you can work in the field, you can clear the physical. So that's really the concept of it, and that's why there's no time and space. You could heal the past, you can heal the present, you can heal the future. It's it's really um, it's such a broad spectrum of things, and it's not just the grid, there's like all these other little techniques that I learned in my training that we do, right? This there are sounds to the light body, which are in the same places as the chakras of the female seven chakras, but it's a different sound and it's a different vibration, and it's it's it's I want to say it's larger than like I've the chakras are part of it, is what I can say.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Right. That's so exciting because we'll talk later, but yeah, I do want to teach it.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

It's like there's processes of that. I've been asked. Oh, I have no doubt. I've been asked by my clients to teach that, just like I was asked to teach Reiki, because I didn't start out teaching Reiki. It was just so many people kept asking them, like, okay. But you know, but if the light body is something that I will do, but you know, I have to study a teacher's course and get the approval of my teacher and so forth before I move on to that. And it hasn't been the right time. There's been a lot going on the last three years. So, but I am so hopeful that this year is like the the turning point in the change and the progression of the work that I've been wanting to do since to this new space. So I am hopeful

Light Body vs Reiki Explained

SPEAKER_00 13:30

that that will happen.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

I'm hopeful too because you are such a treasure and so connected with the world. This is one of the reasons I wanted to invite you on this podcast. The world needs to know of your talents. Oh my gosh, and gifts, oh my gosh. So, hey world. Now, okay, like body and people have heard the word ready. I just think it's fascinating. And because I don't need to touch my clients as a licensed professional counselor up north, I can't offer that, but you're the Reiki master. So tell us the what Reiki is and the value of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

So, I mean, Reiki, like light body, works with energy, right? We're energetic beings first. We everyone associates us with being physical beings, which we are. We're in this physical body, this physical temple, right? But the soul is energetic. The soul is what leaves us when we when our body physically passes. So energy doesn't die, it just continues, and everything on this violent planet has energy to it. Every energetic thing, plants, the the the earth, the water, everything, flowers, so even furniture has energy because it carries the energy of the people that worked on it and created it, you know, owned it. So it's really about clearing whatever blockages we have, whether they're emotional or spiritual or physical, with Reiki, same with light body. Um, I could just say like light body is supercharged. That's what I want to say. It's supercharged healing, it happens faster. Um even though we do long distance healing in Reiki, and you can do it when you're just sitting with the person or just working above their field, light body is just like supercharged. That's really what I can say. And I've worked with in my teachings when I'm being taught um with groups of people where we're doing light body work on subjects, on the world, on people, and it's fast. Like people feel the shift fast. I mean, they feel fast with Reiki too, but to me, I can't really distinguish the two anymore because I don't do pure Reiki for years. It's like a blend of the two, um, uh, you know, the two modalities for me when I'm working with someone.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

And to be able to do all this to help someone, because those who have not reached this understanding yet of the importance of the energy, the human energy field and the energy of the earth. I always tell my clients, get yourself, I mean, up north it's difficult because it's been a brutal winter. So nobody can go outside and stand in the grass. But I've been telling everybody, get yourself an earthing mat or a copper tube, and just sit in there. I have my um wristband that I use. Yeah. Just and I can feel the tingling going through my body. It's so exciting to offer all this.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, I could say too that if you work with plants, you know, even if you work with the dirt in-house, you're earthing because it is getting in your hands, it's not your feet, but it is your hands. I mean, the hands have lots of receptors also. So there's lots of creative ways that you you can you can do that. Like I have hardwood floors at home, so I feel like I'm connecting that way when I'm barefoot because it's wood meeting my feet. Um, so it's earth. So you know, there's different ways and there's different clearings that any of us can do, and I'll say more than anything, intention overrides everything anyway. So if you intend that you're getting cleared or you're connecting to earth, you're connecting, you know. Even in yoga, where

Grounding, Earthing & Daily Practices

SPEAKER_00 18:00

in the light force yoga that I do, um, because I do restorative too, and I do a gentle yoga, I do um, but it's when you're doing mudras, right? Hand gestures or the boo mudra where you're connecting with the earth, you're connecting with the earth. So there's different ways you can do it. Obviously, the mat is like a nice, easy way where you plug it in, but you know, even those I've read that a lot of times they run out of juice, so you kind of punish them. Yeah, I don't know if that's always true, but okay. They may not work the same way. You probably will feel it. Like, I don't really feel a difference from this. So um, so yeah, I think I think that we can do different ways to to ground and to center. Um, and it's also what you're drawn to because me as a water sign, I am more drawn to water than than earth per se. Um, so for me, like baths or showers or water or cleanses that those resonate more for me than maybe someone that's an earth sign.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

And I'm a fire sign, so gosh.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, yeah. So you might resonate more with like fires or you know, rituals of that nature, or things outside with a fire pit, like things you know, that might connect more for you, or even earth, you know, even air. Um, because you know, air carries the fire, right? So yeah, yeah, you know, and that's not all who you are because there's other aspects of all of us in our charts, right? Like we're not usually just one aspect. Like I have all the aspects in my chart, you know. I mostly water, but I do have earth and air and fire in my chart. So it depends. It depends what your rising sign and what your what your um your moon is, you know, those are three major ones your sun sign, your rising sign, and your moon, but there are other aspects too that affect. So it's like everything's connected, that's really what it can say. Astrology is connected to energy work.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So that if somebody is feeling disconnected and down because of the stress throughout the plant, yes, what is the best suggestion you have for getting?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Are they feeling stressed out on the planet because the planet Mother Earth isn't happy, or are they feeling stressed out because of what's going on in the world?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Feeling stressed out because of what's going on in the world. We can start with that.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Um I would say you can do like a loving-kindness meditation, or you can send out love, the vibration of love, with a tuning fork in that vibration, or sound vibration, or even just visualizing it, or sending out pink light, green light, you know, heart energy, love energy to

Elements, Astrology & Alignment

SPEAKER_00 21:00

the world. Um, for me, I intentionally do not listen to the news because it's a good plan, because it's too much for me. When I hear about horrible events happening, I can't handle it emotionally and physically. So even when there's things I will find out because it's you know, social media quickly or someone says something, and so I will look quickly and then I shut it down because I can't. It's it's too hard. And then I will maybe say a prayer or just send love or energy out to that. You know, you can do light body to that too. As I said, we did that in my group um that I attended, where we would send out healing to the world. And I've done prayer groups even here, you know, especially during COVID. I used to run the prayer group where we just everyone kind of threw out what they wanted to work on that day and what their intention was. Was and so we did it.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

I remember when we were all going through COVID how important it was to connect with everybody when you had meditation on your Friday nights, and you said, We're gonna make it through this. I thought, well, coming from Merrill, that's it. Um, and I knew I would. No matter what was going on, we were gonna make it through this. And then when you said, Okay, I can see um that there are planes in the air, so it's starting the world is starting to open up. I mean, it was just so cool, and that it was all truth. It wasn't you were making anything up to make us feel better, it was all truth.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah, it was channeled messages. Um and listen, we did make it through it. It did change the landscape of things. You know, it really did. I think I see it in people, I see it in um even how people, you know, used to show up more in person for things, and they really kind of rely more on virtual. And virtual's great. I mean, we get to reach so many people, right? Like these podcasts and and other things that we offer. Um, but you cannot replace the human touch and contact.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

So for me, as soon as as soon as it lifted is I was the next ring of the essential workers, I was back. I was back in my office in I think it

Coping With World Stress Through Love

SPEAKER_00 23:30

was May of 2020. As soon as I could get back in my office, I did. And and you know, it just makes the difference for people.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I like in person too, for sure. What do you what else would you like the world to know, Meryl?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

I mean, I just think that we have to focus on love. You know, to me, that's the most powerful energy that there is. There's so much anger, and there is so much um hatred, and it's so sad to me that we still, after all these years of living on this planet, haven't learned yet. Haven't learned how to live in harmony and in peace, and it's all about power and greed and control, and it just makes me so sad.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah. That's but we can choose a different path for us.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

We can, you know, and there's and listen, there are us that work with that do this work that are the people that help to make the shifts to happen in this world, right? Yes, yes. There's always pivotal people. I mean, we may not have the fame as some of the others of like the modern Luther King Juniors of the world, you know, the Dalai Lamas, things of that nature, but every person that contributes to that energy helps it to grow.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yes, and every time we do a kind act for someone, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

We always talk about random acts of kindness, you know, that's unexpected for someone. You don't know how much that can impact someone's day.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yes, you know, even just a simple communication, you know, it doesn't have to be a physical act, it can be an emotional statement. Like, you know, if I say to my doorman at my building, get home safely, like that's meaningful to that person. So these are random little acts that don't cost anything to do, right? Holding a door open for someone or you know, seeing them struggle, helping them. Like these are things that we can do for others. Asking someone like, Are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Um so grateful for all of my clients that allow me to share time and space with them. Sure. Because I help them create plans for their life and help them go through their process, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

You know, we're part of their journey, you know, if they allow us to be and help them shift things in their life if they're willing to participate in it. It can't be all of us. We can do a lot, but you know, it's them. They're the one we can guide them every day to do what they need to do to shift.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

So, how does someone contact you? Uh I mean, I for their your YouTube channel for your meditations, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Yeah, um, I mean, my YouTube channel, you can't comment on there. I set it up that way. Um, but you can totally watch. I haven't posted in a while. I'm going to start doing that again, where I talk do talks more again. Um the best way is, like I said, probably through my website, you know, where you can just you see my contact information, whether it's my email, whether it's um the phone at my office. Those are the ways that you can reach me. And um, and the

Kindness, Community & Healing Journeys

SPEAKER_00 27:20

contact email on my website is different than the ones I give out to clients. I separate things now. But the hello at select the hello at Celestial Radiance Center is the email. And uh the phone number at the office is 914-422-1511. And that's it. You know, just you can Google me. If you Google me, I'll come up and you know, you can reach out. It's not like your name is complicated. No, it's not. It's stage name, right? I was always told that your name's great for like and for uh doing entertainment work, but um I think that you know, and even in like the Life Force Yoga, the reason I love that particular protocol, and that um that is currently owned by my friend Rose Cress. She's a brilliant, brilliant woman and a brilliant yoga teacher, and she just wrote a new book. I'm gonna promote that. I promised her I would talk about it, so that'll I'll post that on my Facebook page on Celestial Radiance Center. But um, I love taking her classes because I always learn something from her. But the beauty of that practice is it really combines so much, it's not just a yoga flow, it's visualization, it's sounds, it's mudras, it's asanas, which are postures, it's breath work, and it's so powerful because that's one thing that we always have access to is breath.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So you can shift so quickly with breath, and so a lot of times, even with my individual clients, I'll do a little breath work with them if they want it, just to shift them, and so it meets the mood. So if you're feeling anxious, there's certain breaths and visualizations that we do for that, even mudras. And if you're feeling even, there's there's there's um there's balancing breaths, and then if you really feel like you know you you are calm and you're too low and you need to come up, you meet them there. So you do like these really calming breaths, and then you work your way up. So it's a very different kind of concept and philosophy because people say, Oh, you're anxious, just do deep breaths. No, this we meet the person where they're at so that they can meet it energetically and feel it, and then they can calm down.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

So that

How To Connect With Meryl

SPEAKER_00 30:00

practice just resonated for me so much in the work that I do, and I love it, and it's fun, and clients enjoy it, you know. It's just again, it's a different, it's a different type of yoga practice.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

So fantastic. Meryl, I'm so so grateful to have you to be talking with you today so you could share all your gifts and talents with the world, and to know, believe me, people, she is one of my teachers, she's the teacher and mentor of mine because I wouldn't be able to do what I do without learning from Meryl as well. So she is truly a gift. Thank you so much, Meryl, for your time today. And everybody.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

And I just want to say to you, I think everyone's a gift. I think everyone is a gift in this world, everyone offers something beautiful and different, and um, and yep, that's it. Yep, yep. So thank you again so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Oh, my pleasure, my honor, my honor. When you said, Oh, um, your podcast, your new podcast is so interesting. I said, Well, then come on in and share yourself with the world.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

So you have, and we are so happy that you're expanding out into this because you do so much, also, and I think it's great that you're now including all different energy work. You better believe that one.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yes, yes, thank you so much. Thank you. Bye, Meryl. Thank you, Amaste.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Enjoy the new moon, Chinese New Year. Have fun. Yes, absolutely. Thank you.