In this episode, I have podcast guest Eileen Lee, founder of Aura Aura, an aura photographer who has an artistic and commercial practice. Eileen explains what the aura colors mean, how to learn more about your aura, and even some technical aspects behind aura photography – like what camera to use! Eileen shares her findings as an energetic researcher and having taken hundreds over portraits over the many years of her aura photography practice and some key patterns she finds when photographing people’s auras.
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💫 INTRO:
Books mentioned by Anodea Judith:
Eastern Body, Western Mind: https://amzn.to/429Qygp
Wheels of Life: https://amzn.to/43mW6VV
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Listen to the GRACED Podcast
00:00 Introduction, Chakra resources mentioned
02:28 Interview begins
02:52 The process of capturing auras
04:38 Aura colors and their meaning
06:42 Eileen’s background
08:57 Aura photography camera
10:10 The ritual of aura photos on a consistent basis
10:48 Pet aura photos
12:23 Aura colors changing
18:21 Aura photos as a career path
19:49 Eileen’s big three
20:37 AD Try Descript!
22:51 Advice on starting your own aura studio
30:13 Open chakras vs closed chakras
33:33 What’s next for Eileen
Try Descript for free here: https://www.descript.com/?lmref=2qvEDg
Full Transcript
💖 Introduction
Hello, hello, and welcome to the GRACED podcast where we talk about how we can infuse everyday magic into your everyday life through rituals, wellness, tarot, astrology, and today aura photos.
Today’s guest is Eileen Lee, who is a conceptual artist and energetics researcher, and her medium, aura photography.
So if you’ve seen those photos on Instagram with the colorful of backgrounds, that’s most likely an aura photo, which is a live snap of what that person’s aura looked like in that moment. Having an aura photo taken can be very personal, very much like getting a tarot or astrology reading as it can feel so personal.
And as one of Eileen’s test subjects, I’ve definitely gotten the full experience. I do wanna mention a resource in this episode, which is a book that I found on my birthday this year in the streets of New York called Eastern Body, Western Mindby Anodea Judith. This book was on top of a trash bin, completely clean, and I thought it was a serendipitous gift from the universe to receive on my birthday.
Also, I own Wheels of Life, which I’ve encountered multiple times in my life and is by the same author, but especially has been impactful on one of my plant medicine retreats where healing my solar plexus came up very strongly. If you want to hear more about these experiences, leave a comment on Spotify or a podcast review on Apple Podcast and I’ll be sure to share my plant medicine experiences in future episodes.
I mentioned these resources to check out as they’re all about the chakras. And in this episode with Eileen, we do talk about our colors quite a lot, learning the foundations of what the chakras mean. And I believe these two books by Anodea Judith will be helpful and they’ve been helpful for me on my journey of learning the chakras and incorporating them into my life if you end up reading these books, let me know now onward into the episode.
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✨ Interview begins
Grace Duong: Hi Eileen. Thanks for being on the podcast!
Eileen Lee: Hi, Grace. It’s so good to see you.
Grace Duong: So good to see you too. So you are someone I know that has a very definitive way of working with auras in using Aura Photography in a way that not only depicts someone’s state, current state, but also I think what can happen moving forward. So can you tell us more about your process working with auras and what it looks like for you to read someone’s aura?
✨ The process of capturing auras
Eileen Lee: Yeah, so you know, as you’ve experienced, I always like to just sort of jump right into capturing somebody’s aura. You know, I’m not somebody who is going to try to precondition one to be in a certain state just because I have done experiments and everybody’s so different, right?
Where it’s not necessarily something like meditation is gonna completely change your aura. But I’ve noticed what it’ll do is maybe clarify the colors. And so, you know, after we take that portrait, I do walk everybody through really the anatomy of the aura, reading, you know, the different areas each section represents.
And then of course, going into the colors that appear for everybody. But you know, I think color, isn’t so straightforward. What I really try to focus on is the combination of colors that I’m seeing. So the patterns of colors.
Grace Duong: Yeah. So what different areas can be seen in our photo?
Eileen Lee: So there’s, you know, different ways of really looking at the entire image. You know, I like to think about it as since as humans we’re multi-dimensional beings, you know, our energy has a multi-dimensional facet to it as well. So one, you know, way of looking at it is looking at past, present, future. Another way to look at the different areas as you know, maybe the energy we’re cultivating, sort of what we’re dealing with in our own internal worlds versus what we’re kind of experiencing day to day, you know, just amongst everybody else and in life.
And then, of course another area in that context can be the energy or expressing or putting out into the world. So those two sort of aspects I feel like tend to be the two main sort of ways I like to go about, you know, I dissecting or interpreting what this image can represent for, you know, individuals.
✨ Aura colors and their meaning
Grace Duong: Can you walk us through the different aura colors there are that you see and even the different aura combinations that you tend to see and what that means?
Eileen Lee: Oh my gosh, that’s a loaded question. I really tend to focus on the chakras, right? So starting at the base with the root, we get red. There’s orange, of course, yellow, green, blue, indigo and then violet with the crown, and then white of course, is everything altogether. Sort of off of that, I do see sometimes a color that I call tan, which I really just look at as more of a muddled sort of yellow. And then also the color magenta, which to me is really in between, an indigo blue, with the red. And so those really are the colors I tend to focus on. You know, I know that sometimes people will say, oh, this looks really lavender, or this looks really pink. And to me that’s really just a combination of color, sort of layering on top of one another. So yeah, those would be sort of the main colors, right?
Grace Duong: What about when you see spots?
Eileen Lee: Oh goodness. Okay. So I guess when I started back, like six years ago, I looked at them in a very specific way and now I kind of, you know, I’m open to different interpretations because not one single thing necessarily resonates with everybody, right? So some people like to look at these spots, which typically are white, sometimes they’re other colors as spirit guides, or you know, past loved ones that are no longer with us. But I’ve noticed for other people, including myself, when if we’re not really necessarily connecting into those energies, cuz I’ve noticed that’s when they show up sometimes to me, they actually represent more of what I consider thought bubbles or these sort of manifestation sort of energies that can sort of just be around us. And depending on what color it is, I kind of can tell really, you know, what it is that you’re focusing on trying to bring forth, right? And I, you know, in a sense where it’s not like we’re disconnected from spirit. To me that’s really us co-creating in a sense, sort of, you know, setting an intention and putting it out there, and it’s really all these sort of intentions that are sort of surrounding us. Is that weird?
✨ Eileen’s background
Grace Duong: Oh, no, I feel like there’s so much interpretation in the color wheel, and especially at what we’re emitting vibrationally and how that’s expressing through color, right? So I’d love to hear about your background and how you got into this.
Eileen Lee: Right. So my background, oh gosh, it’s a little bit all over the place. So, you know, sort of professionally, I guess my background is more in event production and marketing, branding and things of that nature. But you know, way before, I guess, becoming an adult, I was always interested in photography and specifically film photography, where I used to be the girl that would go to see bands and be in that photo pit for the first three songs, taking photos of everybody.
But you know, sort of further along, down, growing up when I lived in Los Angeles, is when, you know, this idea of auras and energy sort of just kept coming into play. But you know, really I would have to credit my partner Christopher, who when we first started dating within the first couple years, he would tell me things like, your aura’s green, or it looks sort of yellow right now.
And back then, I think in my, I was, what, like 19 or 20 and I didn’t really know what an aura was or is it something I’d heard of but didn’t really innately understand. And so that was I guess, my first foray into the idea of energy. But yeah, so you know, when we moved home to Detroit back in 2016, I’d known about these cameras for a while.
You know, a good, great friend of mine, Stephanie, who lives in New York, she’s been going to magic jewelry for ages now, right? And I think anybody who’s, you know, gotten their aura photograph knows that magic jewelry is sort of like this OG place that you go. Cuz we’ve had one of these cameras for a couple decades.
But anyway, so I always thought it was really fascinating seeing her post her images, and of course she would go almost every month. I think this was starting back in like 2015 and seeing, you know, the variations or when her energy was the same. Just trying to kind of figure out like, well, what does that mean for somebody?
So yeah, when we moved back home in 2016, it was this thing that just kept coming to me. I couldn’t get out of my head. It was almost like kind of annoying. And so I kind of just decided, okay, I guess I’m gonna take a leap and see if it’s possible to obtain one of these cameras. And I know my original camera was one of the last ones that the inventor Guy Coggins actually built from himself before selling his company a few years later.
So yeah, I mean, this was all meant to be sort of a hobby, something to do for fun, but it really took on a life of its own. I don’t know really what to say. It’s been kind of wild ride the last several years.
✨ Aura photography camera
Grace Duong: Can you tell us more about this camera for those that don’t know what type of camera you’re talking about?
Eileen Lee: Yeah, so I specifically use what’s known as the AuraCaM 6000. I do have an earlier version that’s known as the AuraCam 3000. I equate them to similar to, you know, different generations of the same technology. So if you were to have like an original iPhone right, versus the iPhone. What are we at now? Like 13 or something like that? So, you know, these cameras were invented by Guy Coggins, who, his background was in electrical engineering, but he was definitely interested in the metaphysical realm and specifically had a lot of friends who were psychics or you know, worked with energy. So he applied from what I know, his knowledge to creating this technology and yeah, so how it works essentially is the camera itself has these two hand sensors that you place your hands on, that actually reads your energy. And the hand sensors are made of silver. There’s little dots that are essentially reading the meridian points in your hands. And so the meridians, of course, you know, read, map out sort of energy from our entire body. And from that it sends what it’s reading in terms of frequency to the camera. And then through Guy Coggins is proprietary algorithm. It’s really translating each frequency to the corresponding color.
✨ The ritual of aura photos on a consistent basis
Grace Duong: Very cool. So how often do you take your own aura photos?
Eileen Lee: So, I try to have my partner photograph me every month, but I will say within the last maybe a couple years, it’s been, you know, at least every, maybe every other month. You know, during the pandemic I didn’t actually take my photo every month, which I guess could have been really interesting to see. But you know, once we were able to really kind of go out again, that’s when we started doing that. So, yeah, it’s been really interesting seeing the progression over time and I think by now I kind of have more of an intuitive sense of what my photograph is gonna look like even before you know it’s taken.
✨ Pet aura photos
Grace Duong: Yeah. And I know you’ve also been doing some experiments with pet aura photos, and I was wondering how that has been going.
Eileen Lee: So yeah, I haven’t done too many because it’s just a whole different setup. I use what’s known as this pet sensor. It’s actually separate from the hands since the hands technically don’t read pet energy.
I’ve noticed, you know, photos, if you’re putting your pet just on the hand sensors, they all turn out sort of in the upper chakras, right? Because it’s not actually kind of reading anything. But it’s been really interesting. Just like us, you know, our pets are unique to themselves, and there are all sorts of different colors.
I mean, I have noticed though, some, you know, I mean, as with humans, you know, our auras can change moment to moment, but not for everybody. For most of us, I notice it’s more of, you know, within a longer period of time. But for certain animals, what I found fascinating is when we start, really I’m interacting with them, holding them, cuddling them, if their aura isn’t naturally red, then it does become red over time because. With these pet sessions, we do take a series of images just cuz sometimes, you know, it can be hard for them to sit still.
Grace Duong: Yeah. Such cute, furry friends in the studio.
Eileen Lee: Do you have any pets? I can’t remember.
Grace Duong: Yeah, I have a small dog named Panther. She is a Chihuahua Min Pin and I believe she was in one of my aura photos when I was still living in L, but that photographer had a completely different setup and wasn’t using the same camera that you are using. But my dog’s photo was yellow and my aura was blue in that photo.
Eileen Lee: Okay, interesting.
✨ Aura colors changing
Grace Duong: But I find that whenever I take an aura photo, my colors always change and they’re always shifting. And I think some people have the belief that they just have one aura color, and that’s the one that they hold onto. And I’d love for you to speak about, you know, is that true for some people? Is it not true for some people? Does it change depending from person to person?
Eileen Lee: Alright. So that is what I find most fascinating, right? And that’s what I guess I’m, I’ve been researching all these years and using myself and close friends and clients that I see fairly regularly over time as sort of my test subjects. So, you know, I think for yourself, Grace, that you’re different all the time cuz you actively work with your energy and you know how to shift your energy. And so I’ve noticed for people who are shifting all the time, they’re either consciously or subconsciously, you know, somebody who is really living in different states of consciousness. You know, depending on what’s going on. Since, you know, I really like to really think about the chakras as different portals into different states of consciousness.
So it really just shows where our focus is at right. And there are some people who are very consistent throughout their lives, no matter what’s going on. They’re sort of maintaining that sort of very even keel sort of focus in one sort of lane in life. And the, you know, those individuals, their auras don’t tend to change and so there’s no good or bad, right?
It really is just about, especially if you are able to get photographed at different times in your life understanding what your personal energetic patterns are. And I always say, as long as you’re happy with what’s going on in your life, you identify with the colors and you know, hopefully with whoever’s interpreting it for you, then you’re on the right path. But if you know you’re connecting with that and then there’s some sort of disconnect with, you know, where you’re actually at and where you sort of mentally, think you’re at.
Grace Duong: And for someone like you who does actively take your aura photos regularly in terms of like every, every other month or every month or something like that, and you mentioned that you are now able to sort of predict what your photo looks like, and I’m wondering, you know, what emotions are you feeling beforehand and how that is expressing itself in the photo?
Eileen Lee: So it’s interesting you say the word emotion because I think that’s where, what I don’t identify is that our auras are purely emotion. Emotion can tie into it and be a driver for certain colors to come out, but it’s, our auras are not a mood ring. It’s not changing based on really how we feel. And so for me, I understand really where my focus is, you know, during certain times in my life. And from that, is when I understand sort of, you know, what colors might be coming out.
And kind of going back to the question you were asking, or actually more of a statement you said, where a lot of individuals have this idea that we’re one color and that color forever, right? So there is this concept that we do have one or two soul colors. That, you know, we’re sort of born into, and those to me are more of the, the themes of our life. There is this woman who has a podcast that some of my clients will bring up to me and they’re like, oh, I listened to Mr. McKayla and I hear that, you know, like, I think I’m like a red, but you know, I don’t identify with those traits. And so I think, you know, for some people finding out maybe what your soul colors are, that can really help you kind of figure out if you’re in alignment. And that’s when, you know, for me, I can sort of sense, what colors I am or not. So for example, once, you know, I was going through, I can’t remember just something was happening in life, but I felt really irritated that day and I was like, oh my gosh, I think I’m probably gonna be my shadow colors.
And so what I’ve been told from a client of mine who does see, you know, sort of all the layers of our auras is that. Our soul colors sort of behind the soul colors. And she sees ’em, interestingly enough, sort of towards the solar plexus area are what she knows as our shadow colors. And so I know my soul colors are, for example, personally it’s like the heart chakra green and throat chakra blue. But then my shadow colors are red and magenta. And so, funny enough, that day I did do a selfie. I don’t like to do it too often cuz I can only use really one hand sensor and then you know, have to take the picture. But I was red in magenta and so it was just kind of comical to me that day. I was like, oh, well it’s cuz you know, I’m kind of moving through life in a shadow way and it, of course I feel really irritated and not myself.
Grace Duong: So how do we define our soul colors or shadow colors?
Eileen Lee: So our soul colors, especially having mine confirmed by this client, Chelsea of mine. That to me it’s really, I think the theme of what we were born in life to do. And then this is a little bit off the wall, but I think it kind of ties into human design a little bit.
I can’t remember what specifically. I think it’s called the incarnation cross. So I think our incarnation cross, I’ve been, I have like a theory, I’m still kind of working on it, but I think understanding what our incarnation cross is can then really help us hone into what our soul colors might be. And then of course the shadow colors is sort of almost opposite of, you know, what those soul colors are, I haven’t really figured that quite out yet. But you know, I think the best thing, you know, if you do have somebody that you trust who says they’re able to see energy and see auras, then that could be, you know, an interesting person to be with and kind of see if that resonates with you or not.
Grace Duong: What’s your incarnation cross?
Eileen Lee: Oh gosh, I don’t have it memorized, but I think the gist of it is that I’m supposed to come up with ideas or bring certain topics into the masses to let them like discuss.
Grace Duong: You feel like you’re doing that?
Eileen Lee: I, I guess so in a way. I mean, I guess absolutely, right? But I think it’s just interesting how very general that is and that can sort of tie into maybe a lot of different avenues, right, throughout life.
Grace Duong: Yeah, for sure.
Eileen Lee: Do you know what your incarnation cross is?
Grace Duong: Mine is the incarnation cross of healing.
Eileen Lee: Oh, okay.
Grace Duong: Yeah. Which I think resonates.
Eileen Lee: Yeah, yeah, of course.
✨ Aura photos as a career path
Grace Duong: Yeah. So something that I feel like from you, from, you know, conversations that we’ve had offline is you’re very detail oriented when it comes to researching about auras, you know about your craft, and I’d love to hear about the avenues that you took when, you know, taking on aura photos as a career path.
Eileen Lee: Right. So what’s funny is that it, this wasn’t meant to be a career path, and I guess it just quickly turned into my full-time work. But yeah, I mean, At the beginning, you know, a friend of mine, my friend who lives in New York, Stephanie, we started this project together called 12 Month Aura, which is sort of segued into just her own personal practice now.
But, you know, we really wanted to document over sort of the course of a whole year, you know, different people, their different states, and have them actually fill out, you know, every month sort of this journal entry, if you will, of what was going on their lives. So then we can kind of figure out what things meant.
And I don’t know if this has to do with astrology and you’ll have to tell me I guess. But, you know, I’m detail oriented, but I’m also a little messy where I’m not very organized. So that never really turned into anything specifically like a project that we wanted sort of, you know, resulting in because, you know, people would fall off or they would forget to fill out the forms and, you know, some people stopped coming in cuz like life got busy. So we just realized, okay, maybe this doesn’t need to be as structured as we originally were hoping.
✨ Eileen’s big three
Grace Duong: Yeah. What’s your big three?
Eileen Lee: So my sun is in Capricorn, my Moon is in Gemini and my rising is in Leo.
Grace Duong: Does that resonate for you?
Eileen Lee: Now it does. I think, way back, gosh, when did I, I think finding out my moon made a lot of sense to me, and coincidentally it was through CoStar, which I think for maybe some of us, that was our first foray into knowing our big three and also, are there houses. But yeah it definitely resonates a lot and I think especially with the Gemini Moon, I feel like I am a little bit all over the place and it’s hard to sort of tie me down to one thing sometimes, and I have so many sort of avenues of kind of interests that it’s hard for me to follow through to the best of my ability in certain circumstances.
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Grace Duong: Yeah! Yeah, definitely. So I have a Gemini rising and I can relate to just having a lot of different interests. You know, I think that’s like the Gemini placement of just like the quote unquote being all over the place is just kind of like curiosity, just hopping from place to place to place, you know? Yeah
Eileen Lee: Totally. Healthy curiosity, I would say. Speaking to other friends who have Gemini placements, I think one thing, funny enough we kind of connect on is that we’re always buying books.
Even if we don’t get to read all of them all the way through, we’ll just keep buying more. It’s almost like collecting them through osmosis. We feel like we know everything that’s in them.
Grace Duong: It’s always been a dream of mine to have a library, and now I get sent books and decks all the time. So it’s just been accumulating over time and like it’s kind of cool to have a witchy library.
Eileen Lee: Right. I mean, technically you manifested that, right? So
✨ Advice on starting your own aura studio
Grace Duong: Ooh, I like that. Yeah. So who would you consider if anyone is interested in learning more about, you know, auras and maybe even setting up their own aura photography studio? Like where, what direction would you send them in?
Eileen Lee: I would say, you know especially the idea of learning about auras and understanding what the colors mean. I think it’s all about really the fundamentals. So really just understanding and studying the chakras and actually understanding what they mean, right, outside of just the color and like, oh, this is the heart chakra, but. Yeah, I would say that’s sort of foundational at least for me, that was a big sort of driver.
Cause I would read all these other books about, you know, auras. But specifically when I was reading about chakras and how they function, that is when I, you know, I said, I would say the puzzle pieces started to really fit. Gosh, I guess with aura photography, it’s you can kind of take in two directions. So, you know, I have Aura Aura, which I started as just really this kind of like research fund supposed to be more of like an art project, and it kind of turned into a business by default, just because, you know, we have to pay taxes. But, you know, I don’t sort of look at Aura Aura as a business. I’ve actually created a new sort of offset of Aura Aura, that’s called Color of Our Energy, which I launched I think last year, if I remember. And that was really more so cuz when I expanded in 2019 to Seattle with my brother, there was this confusion all the time of like, oh, you live in Seattle and you live in Detroit and you’re kind of traveling everywhere. And I was like, no, I had explained that, you know, It’s sort of this offset and sort of this family sort of project now. But yeah, so Color of Our Energy is really more of the business side where we do events and use also a newer version of the AuraCam 6000, so it doesn’t take the original peel part film that I use, which has gotten quite expensive and also very hard to find, but uses instax. And so it’s just really two different processes and to me also sort of two different experiences. And so I would say, you know, a lot of people have interest, but it’s really looking into it of like, is this something you’re passionate about or is this just straight up a business, right? Which I feel like you probably could relate to and maybe with talking with other people that I think when things start off as just like a business and to sort of make money, it tends to be a little bit more difficult instead of sort of following what your natural sort of like passions or interests are in that, just kind of following those little breadcrumbs. Yeah,
Grace Duong: I feel like the tarot cards really revealed themselves to me over time and with my background in graphic design, it felt like the next natural step for me to create my own cards and a tarot reader had actually told me that I was gonna create my own cards because I was getting tarot readings all the time, and it took about a year for that to actually happen because of the other things that were going on in my life.
But I do agree that if you have a purpose attached to a passion when you’re building something, so a business that might naturally happen out of creating whatever you’re making because of the values that you have or the values that you’re creating for yourself. So a value that I’ve always had and continue to have is freedom. And I think that by building my own business, it does allow me to have freedom and in some ways less freedom.
But I would say I am putting my time and pouring my time into things that I care about, and I think that’s when a lot of people, you know, feel the urge to create something out of something that they feel passionate about, that they feel attached to, that has meaning for them. And I agree in that if you do have that shared, you know, reciprocal sense of purpose with whatever you’re creating, then it does make it easier when there are those hard moments, because not everything is easy in building a business. And I do feel like the challenges that come do test us so that we can continue to grow.
And I feel like I’m pretty transparent about like the challenges that I’ve been through, you know, because it’s not always easy, but because I care about it so much, that continues to push me to keep going.
Eileen Lee: Yeah, that totally makes sense. And yeah, it’s been crazy to see sort of your sort of journey this whole time cuz, I think I shared with you right, I found out about you through your Kickstarter and you know, backing the Mystic Mondays Deck. Cuz I think that’s when I was also either living LA or just moving back. But I had started also getting into tarot and just some of the cards, you know, I mean, of course the classic deck of course now resonates with me. But I think when you’re a beginner it can be a little bit intimidating just trying to understand the symbolism behind each card and yours was just so approachable and of course just so beautiful.
Grace Duong: Thank you! Yeah, I, I find that a lot of beginners actually tell me that Mystic Mondays Tarot is their first deck and that was definitely an intention of mine to wanna create a deck that felt like your best friend or felt approachable. And I do find that a lot of people, including myself, I was like really intimidated by tarot. So for many years, I was on the receiving end of tarot readings, and I actually feel like that did help teach me through seeing different people’s, reading styles. However, I wanted to learn the cards myself and I think making your own deck, you know, obviously does that. And when you make a deck, you also tend to go through the journey of the cards. So you know, there’s a Tower moment, there was a Star moment, there was a Magician moment. And I think that that’s kind of like the beauty of this shared human experience that we can have a deck like tarot cards to really describe things that we’re going through in life. And sometimes it’s out of order. Maybe sometimes you’re experiencing the World card and then all of a sudden you’re back to, you know, the Justice card or whatever, you know?
Eileen Lee: Right, right. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, Mystic Mondays the app is the only app I use every single day. You know, some days I forget and then I’m like, oh, shoot. Whoops. I guess I’ve had a lot going on, but you know, it’s been a ritual of mine for, oh gosh, the last handful of years to, pull a card, you know, every morning. And it’s funny seeing sometimes, you know, the same card keeps coming up over and over and so, you know, tying back, I guess, the color and auras. Sometimes I talk to people and explain like, yeah, like your aura’s not changing cuz you’re still dealing with the same themes essentially in life, right? And in order to shift our energy, it’s really a conscious choice. It means for some of us it’s a subconscious, but for most of us it has to be a conscious decision, especially if you’re set a certain color. Cuz you’re kind of essentially set in your ways.
Grace Duong: By the way, I kid you not, I was walking the streets of New York on my birthday and I found this book on top of a trash bin. It’s clean, and I felt like it was a gift from the universe, but it’s by Anodea Judith, and it’s called Eastern Body, Western Mind. And it’s literally all about the chakras and how we can heal our chakras. And I think something about like the chakras that I find interesting is that there’s this concept of the chakras being open or closed. And so I’m wondering like when you’re interpreting aura photos, what do you see as an open chakra or a closed chakra?
✨ Open chakras vs closed chakras
Eileen Lee: Right. So I guess that is also sort of this concept where I don’t think our chakras are always completely closed. So how I like to think about it is, you know, I guess in this very logical way where you think about each chakra or each color as like on a bar graph. So the colors that are showing up in your portrait or your photograph are the chakras that are at like 70, 80%, and everything else is just yeah, sort of muted at like five, 10, whatever percent, right?
I know the digital versions of this technology where it’s really just like a laptop computer and there’s one hand sensor within those programs, it can actually show you, like that bar graph. So I think maybe that’s where, you know, that’s sort of triggering for me and I do have that technology also.
I just haven’t played around with it too much. But yeah, so you’re, you know, it’s not like, it’s not bad if you just have, you know, one or two colors, right? To me, that’s always showing. Just say you’re in this really hyper-focused, sort of state, and I’ve noticed that tends to be, you know, some of the main colors, I, what should I call the background colors because, you know, our auras are layered, right? So it’s always either your focus is very in like the red range, the sort of indigo range, or the green range, and you’ll have to look back at yours.
Grace Duong: So, well, there was a photo you took, I believe the last photo you took of me. There were two different switches you used. You like took two photos back to back, and then there was one photo that was just like a lot brighter. There was like a magenta over my throat.
Eileen Lee: Oh, okay. Ooh, this gets into sort of like weird territory. Okay. So this goes back to how there’s different models of these cameras and specifically the old school Aura Camera 6000 that I use with the the peel apart film, right? Not the instax that you’re seeing sort of more around these days. You know, magic jewelry I know is switched back to them, so my original camera, on the left hand sensor does have this switch where it either goes up or down. And a friend of mine who practices aura photography in Toronto, Evelyn of Rose Aura, she’s amazing by the way.
You know, she has tested with some of her friends that actually can see auras and sort of a friend of hers who works with energy and you know, they did some experiments to actually like shift the energy. And so what her friend was saying was that with a switch, one image shows where our soul is at versus the other one shows like where our soul’s at and also really like how we’re moving through the world. And so I’ve done, not too often cuz you know, I think it really has to be a specific client that understands these concepts, but where you take both photos and mine have sometimes been exactly the same. So that’s when, you know, you’re kind of like in alignment with where your soul’s at, but I’ve noticed it’s not like your soul colors are always coming through.
So that’s also where it gets a little bit strange trying to just talk to, you know, somebody who’s coming in for the first time about this. But yeah, I’ve definitely, if you’re minute with a couple people and sometimes you know, there’s a little bit more such like as yours, you know, there’s more going on, I think in that second one than the first one, right?
Grace Duong: Yeah. And it, it’s like my, one of my favorite aura photos.
Eileen Lee: Oh, yay. Thank you.
Grace Duong: Yeah, I love it.
Eileen Lee: Well, well that was just like such a fun night. It’s funny, I’ve actually had some women here in Detroit be like, are we gonna do something like that again? Like that was such an amazing experience.
Grace Duong: Yeah, that was a really cool workshop that we did. We did like a combo circle, like a moon circle and aura photo night.
Eileen Lee: Yeah, I think it was, yeah, it was very, very special. Especially after, I think for both of us, like a sort of chaotic season of life.
✨ What’s next for Eileen
Grace Duong: Yeah, definitely.
What is new for you? What is going on?
Eileen Lee: Oh, I don’t even know where to begin. So, you know, this year’s been a little bit, I’ve been saying lately, a practice in patience. Cause a lot was supposed to change for me at the beginning of the year, including moving my studio to a new location here in Detroit. And everything right now is just kind of like in the other kind of floating around where things are moving and they’re gonna happen. I just am not really in control of kind of when or exactly knowing the outcome.
So that’s kind of where I’m at right now is, yeah, I’m supposed to be moving my studio to this location. I’m just kind of closer to where I live. Also I’m looking to downsize to have it be a little bit more focused and really turn it into this, what I’m gonna call kind of an aura lab, where just other sort of equipment related to energy that I’ve been collecting over the years.
I’m gonna hopefully kind of put into practice in some sort of way and bring some more kind of art projects into fruition related to energy. I am also starting to write, I don’t know how much I wanna say cause I’m not sure, but I mean essentially I’m kind of writing a book. I’m just in this weird like, in between talking to people and I’ve kind of got out my own head and decided I just need to maybe take more ownership of everything going on this year.
I’m just gonna write, and then, you know, when I find out the answers, like I’ll just have more written by that time.
Grace Duong: Yeah!
Eileen Lee: I dunno. If you ever find yourself in those states where you’re like in a holding pattern, you’re like, oh my God, what do I do?
Grace Duong: Yeah, totally. Well, you have so much knowledge to share that I feel like in written form, a book is just like a natural thing for you to do.
Eileen Lee: Right! So this has definitely been something that the universe keeps throwing at me. It, it sort of first popped up I think 20, late 2018 or 2019, but to me that was just still so early sort of in this practice in learning and so yeah, I couldn’t ignore the signs anymore after, you know, it came at me a couple times within this last year and so I’m like, okay, I guess I’m ready for that.
So, yeah, that’s gonna be a big part of things. And I don’t know, I’m just back touring. I’m starting to get into my busy season. I took last three months off or as a sabbatical cause I was anticipating I’m moving, but I also went over to Taiwan for a whole month, which was really beautiful. I’ve never gotten to spend that much time sort of overseas when it was first time, of course seeing family since the pandemic and also since I moved back home to Detroit.
Grace Duong: That’s amazing. So I do have a follow up question about auras. Do you think you can feel auras and like how much distance from somebody’s body can you feel an aura?
Eileen Lee: Oh gosh. I think that would go into maybe if somebody’s a little bit more clairsentient. Is that the feeling?
Grace Duong: I believe so.
Eileen Lee: I mean, I think you can, I think, you know, we’re all insensitive to a degree, but I think maybe somebody with more clairsentience could probably sort of, you know, feel the vibes, right?
But I think for all of us, you know, upon meeting somebody, we all automatically kind of get an idea of if you’re kind of on the same wavelength or not. And so I think that’s how us normal folks kind of feel auras. I think it’s hard to necessarily tell like, oh, are you feeling like a blue aura or like a red aura?
I think it’s more just sort of holistically if you’re kind of like on the same frequency. But I would say you can probably feel somebody’s aura. Gosh, like within the same room. I don’t think you could feel someone’s aura. Me and you right now. I’m not sure. I’m sure maybe somebody can, but you know, it’s not a gift that I was born with.
Grace Duong: Right.
Eileen Lee: Do you feel like you’ve felt, felt people’s auras or?
Grace Duong: Well, I definitely feel energy, you know, from somebody. So, you know, I don’t think, like immediately I would be like, oh, your root chakras close.
Eileen Lee: And of course, you know, I think, if you’ve gone through Reiki training right then, I think you’re actually like more attuned to feeling those energies.
So yeah, I mean, I think we feel auras all the time. I think we just don’t think about it as, like an aura, you just kind of saying like, oh, like that person’s like vibes are strange. Or, sort of, you know, I fell off when I was around that person, or I felt amazing, you know, around this person, right? So I think that goes back to, I mean, this will be a whole another subject, but sort of like the magnetism of like what your aura is, right, at any given time.
Grace Duong: Right. And for anyone that doesn’t know, I have gone through Reiki level three training, and now that you’re mentioning that, I do feel like as a young child, I was very sensitive to energy. I just didn’t know how to handle it. So if it felt overwhelming, I would just shut it off. So I feel like going through Reiki training and I’ve done like channeling classes, I’ve done like all sorts of things, breath work, all of that is just to like enhance one’s self and to add to one’s toolkit.
So I do feel like going through some sort of like energy training does prepare me to be, I don’t wanna say like better arms, but like, I would say better protected. So if you’re, you are feeling some sort of like energy from somebody and it’s not like a positive one, then you kind of like know how to deal with that versus just like shutting down, which I feel like as a child, like how I would deal with it was by reading a lot and drawing a lot and just like going into like my fantasy world and you know, really like, I guess cultivating my Pisces moon. So, yeah, I, you know, ours are so interesting because I feel like they’re very telling in our current state and just can give us another like way of understanding ourselves ultimately.
Eileen Lee: Absolutely. You know, I think something like getting your aura photographed is really just another piece of like, or I guess like a tool in your toolkit, right, of self-awareness.
And it definitely ties into sort of other modalities. So I think it’s not just you should do one thing or the other and you know, a lot of questions that I typically get or the most. Common question I get is, how often should I get my aura photograph? Like when is this going to change? And it’s just so different person to person.
I’m not prescriptive in the sense where I’m like, yeah, you should be coming in every year. You know, that’s really up to you and you’re the person that is going to be able to know yourself best and of course what you’re going through in your life, right? And it really is that bigger picture of what’s going on in your life, where you’re at, your mindset, you know, all those things. And of course, things like how we feel and our emotions are kind of almost the byproduct.
Grace Duong: Yeah. Can you tell us more about your art practice versus the business that you filled out?
Eileen Lee: Yeah. So, you know, Aura Aura to me, I just wanted to really keep it sacred as my art practice that I specifically use these older, original cameras with the film.
And for me these sessions are always. More, a little bit in depth where we really do take the time to kind of go through, you know, what everything means. But I did, you know, because the film, it’s been out of production since 2016, you know, it has gotten more expensive. And even though I do have a healthy stock, I do have it in cold storage and I have to pay insurance on it, it’s just gotten very costly so it really maintain. But I wanted to make sure, you know, when I was buying film that I had it enough to last me for however long that this is going to be. So, you know, when I invested in this new camera, I really wanted to create something that was more accessible, number one, introductory wise, into auras, but also price-wise. You know, not everybody has, you know, $75 for an aura photo. So I wanted something definitely accessible. So it’s definitely two different experiences. I am not the facilitator of the sessions usually with Color of Our Energy, so my brother in Seattle actually has transitioned into Color of Our Energy so that he can really also take that in his own direction, right?
Where he actually is the one out of all of us that does more events, sort of corporate events. And you’ll probably have seen all over Instagram like you’ll see, or photography at like, conferences now, or festivals, which I think is really great. Right. It’s really spreading this sort of awareness to the masses, or at least trying to make people a little bit more self-aware, but, Aura Aura I’ve always wanted to keep it really more of a research practice and not something that’s just a novelty, right, it’s like a photo booth.
Grace Duong: Yeah. Yeah. And getting your aura photo is fun, right? It’s like a whole experience. Like
Eileen Lee: Yeah
Grace Duong: You go in this like tent, you’re putting your hands on these hand sensors. You’re transmitting energy from that to the camera. And then when you finally get your photo, because you do have to wait for the film to start to, what do you call that? Like appear
Eileen Lee: To develop. And so, yeah, that’s also a little bit different in the two experiences cuz with the film, it’s this reveal literally versus with the instax, you know, it kind of appears. And so I think it’s also kind of a little bit of two different experiences, right? With sometimes it always is fun I think, for people, but sometimes it’s also like a very personal thing, just like how a tarot reading you can get very emotional cuz some themes might be coming up that only you are dealing with and now somebody’s like telling you about it versus, you know, in those sort of party settings or even at like a wedding, you know, that sort of interaction is not gonna, it’s not really the right situation to facilitate that sort of interaction. And so that’s also really the separation of Aura aura versus Color of Our Energy.
Grace Duong: Yeah, it absolutely depends on the type of environment. And also I would say depending on the environment, attracts the certain type of people that are ready for that type of experience, if that makes sense.
So for example, if you’re in a party setting, not everyone there is going to want sort of like an intimate reading because it’s just not the right kind of environment versus like a one-to-one, there’s definitely more room for levels of intimacy that you just wouldn’t have at a party.
Eileen Lee: Absolutely.
Grace Duong: So you’re able to go deeper.
Eileen Lee: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was. Really the one thing that came up starting doing or photography that I wasn’t expecting right, was this idea of kind of holding space for people to process what was happening in their lives. And so, you know, while I do love facilitating this in sort of a party setting, cuz it is, you know, it is a fun experience, but I just wanted to make sure that I was really separating those two avenues and not having them all be just one thing.
And I, and I also was the idea of, you know, I’m a person. Like I do run a business, but I didn’t want to be the business. And so I think it’s been a little bit confusing for individuals, but you know, as long as I think I’m trying to work towards kind of creating the different experiences that eventually it’ll kind of separate.
Grace Duong: Yeah. Sometimes when we create something that we’re passionate about, we do become the business.
Eileen Lee: I know
Grace Duong: I can relate to that a lot and I think for me, and that’s like why this podcast is the GRACED Podcast and not the Mystic Mondays podcast is because I did want to step out from behind everything I’ve been creating because I am a person too.
Eileen Lee: Totally.
Grace Duong: Yeah.
Eileen Lee: I love the name. When I saw it, by the way, I was like, this is so perfect.
Grace Duong: Yay! Amazing. Well, where can people find you?
Eileen Lee: Yeah, so the easiest way to find me is on Instagram at weareauraaura or colorofourenergy, of course. And then, you know, on my website it’s auraaura.co. Yeah. I’ve been trying to limit my social media contact these days, trying to live a little bit more offline. So those are really the two different avenues. To get in touch.
Grace Duong: Sounds good! Well, thank you so much for your time, Eileen. This was such an insightful conversation, a colorful conversation even.
Eileen Lee: Thanks so much, Grace. It’s always so great to connect with you.
Grace Duong: Amazing!
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✨ENDTRO
Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode with Eileen Lee! I am so grateful for Eileen sharing her process with us about Aura Aura, both her artistic practice and commercial practice, on what it’s like being an Aura photographer. Not only that, but sharing her approach to what aura colors mean and how to interpret an aura photo, which very much reminds me of what it’s like getting a one-to-one tarot reading or astrology reading. I’m very lucky to have been a test subject for Eileen and experiencing her magic personally as a reminder.
If you didn’t get the Mystic Mondays email, we are doing a Gemini season promo of buy one get one 50% off on the entire Mystic Mondays website, excluding decks, with code Gemini. So make sure to head over to mysticmondays.com to check out all the goodies that are still available. This code works all Gemini season, but don’t wait because supplies are limited.
As always, sending you so much grace today and every day.
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