5 Answers To Your Aura Questions with Christina Lonsdale
Visual artist, photographer, and aura expert Christina Lonsdale joined us for a refresh for all things aura colors and what the power of your aura means. She expands upon details from her book, Radiant Human: Discover the Connection Between Color, Identity, and Energy, which explores looking at yourself in a mirror and your shifting energetic identities through the concept of her Radiant Human portrait photography lab. Through her knowledge of experiences, here are Christina’s answers to your burning questions!
5 Answers To Your Aura Questions With Christina Lonsdale
1. What is an aura?Everybody has their own aura, which is essentially the energy that naturally radiates past our skin’s surface. That energy is what makes us alive, and the idea of understanding our auras can help us become more in tune with our individualistic tendencies as humans. In general, they are often closely tied to our bodies' chakras and what they represent.
2. How does photographing energy work?Christina compares constantly carrying this invisible energy around to the idea of gravity — they’re not based on a belief system, but science, and even if you can’t see it, it’s happening around us all the time. She says aura photography is a good way to introduce the topic to curious skeptics so they can begin to learn what goes on. The hand built modified land camera Christina specifically uses was invented in the 1970s, inspiring her to follow the same path of its origin to discover something new that people can’t normally see or feel. The camera uses two hand sensors to identify energy wavelengths radiating past our skin, then by using an algorithm, it matches the wavelength of your energy to the wavelength of a color. Your own specific color at that moment in time will come out as a second exposure over a photograph of you, acting as an interactive filter. Within three categories of the photo, the color is distributed based on key energetic points within your palm, known as meridian points. There’s the lower left, lower right, and everything above your head. Christina maintains a controlled environment using the dome equipment, which allows a safe space for subjects to be where they’re not energetically sensitive to their surroundings. Everything on the inside is black and it’s very quiet, leaving little interaction with the photographer. The camera uses a reflective screen, which gives a mirror-like quality as subjects can look at themselves when being photographed.
3. How do you understand the meaning of energetic auras?Though traditionally, the lower parts in the photo represent past and future while above your head is the present, Christina didn’t resonate with this while taking tons of self-portraits, other people’s photographs, and before and afters. She came to her own conclusion that each photo documents a person’s present state in different contexts: the lower left is your internal, what your feeling self is; the lower right is your external state or persona; and above your head is your present mental state. Additionally, some people photograph with dots above their heads while others don’t, which some see as a sign of spiritual, angelic guidance. The way Christina wanted to be viewed in a spiritual context was not reflecting in the results she saw, so her own personal aura experience opened her eyes to the fact that if she believed she was a certain way, her actions had to follow suit. This is an example of how an aura photograph can change your perspective as you look into a different type of mirror and see a filter you can’t choose. The book explores one of her favorite takeaways from the project: our sense of reality and self, plus the ability to have these honest, liberating conversations about yourself with strangers — and it’s often the case that people are more truthful with people they don’t know, even more than they are with themself.
4. Can aura colors shift?The entire energetic experience is about exploring, learning, and opening yourself up to more. When people are photographed with a single color, they’re presently in that one unique experience. However, energy changes constantly, so you could have a totally different color if you were photographed the next day. Your energetic makeup depends on how you respond to both your internal and external environments, as you could be open to a lot of different energies. That’s particularly why Christina finds photography so exciting because she can capture the specific moment in time to then be reflected on and shared later. Overlapping colors can also present next-level challenges in our understanding of what each one symbolizes. For instance, Christina generally photographs with a purple-green-blue combination and often finds times where she’s being challenged with stepping into a new role, suddenly taking on different energies and presenting different colors. So while auras shift, there is some degree of commonality in a person’s set of colors. This is what Christina calls an energetic identity.
5. What are some distinct color meanings? Christina has traveled across North America photographing as many people as possible — culminating in about 45,000 photos at the time of this recording — and has found great coincidences with how people relate and identify with the colors the camera produces for them. Red generally comes up when people are going through a type of change, whether it be exciting like a pregnancy or devastating like a breakup. It’s a transformation that people need to see a physical result in order to feel validation or energetic payment — they are forced to change that tangible aspect in life. Oranges are very creative, but in Christina’s eyes, she associates it less with artists, more with parents and their ability to be proactive and creative with their environment. This color often comes up in people who wear many hats, working with a lot of different people and environments. Yellow is literally sunshine, spontaneity, and fun, but also comes with procrastination. They especially respond well to challenges when mixed with oranges, as if they are waiting for the final moment to do something because it’s so exciting. Green is full of strong, dedicated love that is goal oriented. People who show a lot of green usually have checkpoints to aim for something, otherwise they’ll be lost, bored, and frustrated. Blue comes with sensitivity that can overwhelm, having a lot to do with trust and emotions. It’s all about feeling your environment, which is more important for yourself than others, and they tend to struggle with conflict since they feel energy so deeply. They absorb everything, so a good tool to have is boundaries to energetically protect themselves and say no. Purple is all about inspirational ideas, concepts, and sharing your vision, and it’s linked to your mind’s third eye. Then there’s white, which Christina has found that there are colorations saturated with white, as she has never photographed just a pure white aura. White is every color at once, so it means someone is experiencing an energetic boom. Instead of the tendency to see white as being pure and enlightenment, subjects described the opposite, feeling stressed. That energetic overwhelm will show up in whatever color attribute that white associates with. It’s important to note that there are no hierarchies of color as each one is a mixed bag.
You can go more in depth about colors, specifics, and consistencies by reading the book! To hear about Christina’s explanation of Maria’s aura colors, listen to the full podcast!
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