#197 Heather Eck: Exploring Energy Healing Through Art
Johnny Burke: .Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke, and today’s guest is Heather Eck. She is an artist and a conduit of the unseen and the supernatural. She taps into the healing energy of color, drawing inspiration from the chakra system and the divine mysteries of the universe. In this episode, we’ll talk about synesthesia, spirit portraits and bridging the gap between the visible world and the realms beyond. Heather, welcome to the program.
Heather Eck: Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me on.
So, bridging the gap between the visible world and the realms beyond, which is exactly what we do here on Closer to Venus. So, first of all, how did you find yourself on this path?
Heather Eck: a couple of years ago working at a, a very creative company doing human resources and found myself feeling the sort of tired that like no amount of time off or vacation was going to fix for me. And working with a spiritual teacher sort of went back to, what were you curious about when you were a kid? What were you good in? And Art was the thing. And when we talked about art and color, everything sort of came flooding back to me. It was like a light bulb went off and I started painting pretty much that same day, and then noticed that people coming into my office, I started to see color billowing out around their heads and start to have different kinds of conversations with them that weren’t really HR related. They were more spiritually focused, and then kind of discovered that I had this ability to see and sense color around them. And that those colors were associated with the chakras and that in seeing them, I could also deliver messages to them about where they might be feeling stuck or depleted or needed some additional support in their lives. And I do that through the medium of painting,
Johnny Burke: So being able to see, energy as color, that is a psychic ability, isn’t it?
Heather Eck: I believe it is. Yeah. Yeah, it’s sort of like seeing auras around people, but I sort of see it more, through my third eye. intuitively it’s like it drops in, you know, like a couple of colors for somebody that show me where they might be feeling stuck or in pain in their mind, body or spirit.
Johnny Burke: So you say you get messages for them as well?
Heather Eck: Mm-Hmm.
Johnny Burke: Now that’s going more towards like the medium type thing where they get messages from those beings or even sometimes animals. those the animal kingdom beyond the veil, is that in your wheelhouse or not really?
Heather Eck: I would say, I don’t consider myself a medium, but I do feel like I’m a channel in some ways for messages that come through for people through paintings, and I sort of see it in form, in shape, in symbol and in color for people. So when I do a painting for them, I’ll sort of see a symbol come through and go, okay, I know that symbol’s about this. And so I’ll say to them, does this make sense to you? And so we kind of start a dialogue about what may be going on for them in their spirit.
Johnny Burke: Now, seeing colors, how would you describe that in terms of the clairs, like clairaudient and claircognizant and so on?
Heather Eck: Yeah. You know, that’s really interesting. I don’t really know. I know. I’m strongly clairsentient. I know I’m claircognizant, but I also have something called synesthesia, which is, the way that my mind processes information in that if I see smell or taste something in my mind, I see it as a color or a form or movement, almost like a choreography, of what the sense is in my mind through color and shape. So, that’s kind of an interesting way of processing information that not a lot of people experience.
Johnny Burke: No, definitely not. I think this might be the first time I’m actually hearing about it. So how can you sense where people store their trauma and pain? , is it through the chakra system? Or is it something else?
Heather Eck: That’s how I see it. So for example, I had somebody, ask what color I saw around them recently and I saw. blue for them, which to me, I associate with the throat depending on the shade of blue. So I said to her, I feel like there’s something in your throat that is either blocking what you’re trying to communicate or you’re having trouble sort of arriving at the truth of a situation. But there was something there and she had just had throat surgery like a week or two before. So I always think that the physical ailments in our bodies are associated with a spiritual ailment too. It’s like your spirit is unhappy about something and that manifests as a physical ailment.
So for example, if you have back pain, it could be associated with the root chakra, which might be you feel unsupported or you feel like a lack of financial stability or you feel like you haven’t found the people, that you feel the most comfortable with your family, your tribe or your community.
And so, that’s sort of how I take in the color and then sort of interpret it back out as it’s a physical, spiritual, emotional, sort of, dwelling place for them.
Johnny Burke: And you also, discovered something about the chakra system that actually finds its way into your artwork, is that the same thing where certain colors, correspond to certain emotions?
Heather Eck: Yes, actually very close. I’ll do something for someone called a spirit portrait, which is where I will sit with somebody’s energy and then channel or meditate on what it is that’s coming through for them and create a painting for them that offers them healing and messages and support for whatever area it is that they’re dwelling in.
So it’s an interesting kind of intimate conversation with somebody that’s both, a beautiful representation of their spirit, but also provides them with some insight and perspective on what might be happening for them or what might be keeping them feeling stuck there.
Johnny Burke: And can they then view the portrait and have some kind of intuitive knowing or some kind of intuitive transmission where they automatically know how to feel better, even if it’s on like an unconscious level.
Heather Eck: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they put the painting in a place where they can see it almost on a regular basis, where it can almost minister to them in a way and offer them support just in the ability to look at the color and let that color sort of offer them some balance.
I have one client who is a writer, and her portrait was all about being able to tell her story in a clear and compelling way. I think the strong message for her was, piece the story together, tie the story together. And so she keeps it in her office so that when she’s writing she can, you know, let that color and that painting sort of minister to her desire to communicate her story in a clear and compelling way.
Johnny Burke: I like that. So you mentioned messages before, right? Where do you suppose those messages are coming from? I.
Heather Eck: I think that, when I sit down to do a painting, I pray and meditate, and I ask God to allow me to be a clear channel through which, you know, these messages come through because I want them to come through the cleanest and clearest that they can possibly come through. And I want to leave people with a feeling that is uplifting and inspiring, and I want them to feel held by me in the time that we have together.
So I believe that the messages are channeled through God speaking to me, through my spirit guides, through whomever is there with me working at the time and try to keep my studio space clear and try to keep myself, a clear conduit for whatever those messages are that are coming through.
Johnny Burke: So at some times those messages that do come through, do you identify a single entity that’s sending them or not necessarily? No.
Heather Eck: no, not necessarily. I haven’t done that really. I just really pray, to God and my spirit guides to kind of be, be the ones that are offering the messages, but I haven’t asked. I should probably ask. I’m sure there are lots of people.
Johnny Burke: . I would think so. Now I am not an intuitive, but if I can speak for other non-experiencers, that’s one of the first things we would ask. We’ve had, several speakers come on to the show and talk about specific entities. Sometimes it’s Mary Magdalene for some reason that’s coming up a lot these days. Could be Archangel Michael, and many other ascended masters as well, which I think is really, really interesting. So,
Heather Eck: Yeah, for sure.
Johnny Burke: yeah. Okay. So you’ve explained what a spirit portrait is. Right. But you’ve also mentioned the last time we talked that you did experience receiving messages from the deceased, which, if you’re able to do that,the classic definition of a medium is just that, but you do not describe yourself as a medium. Do you do that for a reason?
Heather Eck: I don’t connect with the deceased on the regular. So, when I do a spirit portrait for somebody, they are, like a physical representation of their spirit in painting form. And so, I have had portrait requests for people who have passed away. And so when I do their portrait. I will ask them to come through and allow, you know, their energy to be channeled into this painting that can offer healing for the person it’s going to.
I think that there’s probably some part of me that has a little bit of fear around connecting to people who’ve passed
on. I don’t blame you. yeah. there’s no question about that.
Johnny Burke: We’ve heard quite a few people talk on that subject, at length. I even had, a gentleman, Rob Gutro if you ever get a chance, he’s got two episodes on here now, actually one the second one’s coming out soon. He started out, as a paranormal investigator in which he could use his mediumship skills. And now he just only does mediumship for pets, because of his experiences with some of the spirits. And at one point he said,” I’m done after that. No more people, pets only.” and I thought, well, I don’t blame you. I feel that way now.
Heather Eck: I know, right? Like I think, you know, as a really sensitive kid, right, I was always very sensitive to energy and I can feel when there are shifts, I can feel when something’s in the room I think that’s an ability that has always been there with me. And I think there’s always been just a little bit of, of fear around that. Not with my own family members who’ve passed on. I feel like those, I welcome, and love when I get those little visits. but the, but anybody else, I’m kind of like, Nope, you know, closed, don’t want to do that.
But the painting that I did for the gentleman who passed away was actually really nice because I felt his energy next to me while I was doing his painting. And what’s funny about that is that usually two or three colors will come through for someone, but for his, it was like he wanted every single color on this canvas, and I felt him next to me going, pick that one. Pick that one. And when I explained this to his spouse, who the painting was for, she said,” that’s him. He was flamboyant, he was colorful, he wanted more.” And so it was just sort of like confirmation of the fact that he had to have been standing right next to me saying, do this one now, do that one, do this one, now do that one. Because it, it was unlike, any painting that I had done before.
Johnny Burke: I can imagine. can only imagine. So in that experience, when you felt like this gentleman was literally standing right next to you. Do you connect with their emotions? Can you tell whether they’re happy or not, or if they’re in limbo or anything like that?
Heather Eck: I do feel like I connect to people’s emotions, and I think in this case he was at peace. It felt like to me, but there are times where if I do a portrait for someone who’s living, I can absolutely tap into their emotion and feel whether or not they’re in grief or feel whether or not they’re in pain to the point where there are times where I’ve sat across from somebody and just instantly felt tears- you know, prick my eyes where I thought, oh, this person’s really struggling. And so trying to find, ways to offer them some love and support in that painting, but also in the conversation that we have about it too.
Johnny Burke: you’re like a different type of counselor. You just use, different tools in your toolbox, right? You can sense these things right away, and in some cases you might get to the bottom of it, as it were a little bit quicker than a doctor or a counselor would do with traditional methods. Do you agree?
Heather Eck: I think that there are definitely, times where it feels like you can offer someone a different perspective than they would get from someone else. So definitely not the kind of person who’s going to offer you medical advice if you’re feeling badly, go to the doctor. If you’re feeling depression, go talk to somebody. But I think that people look for someone that they can connect to. Who can listen and offer them a sounding board or just even to hold space for them to process something that they hadn’t been willing to look at before. And I think that sometimes that’s the sort of thing that comes up in our portraits are maybe places where you sort of knew or know something’s going on but haven’t had the courage yet to sort of look at it and say, alright, I’m willing to see what this is. And now that we’ve talked about it, it’s out in the air and I can go and, and do what I need to do with it to feel better.
Johnny Burke: Right, so they can discover a problem or the root of a problem, which they might not have even known about, had they not come to see you. Okay.
Heather Eck: Right.
Johnny Burke: It’s great stuff. Now, that was the one, experience you told me about, the flamboyant gentleman that wanted all the colors trying to imagine what his suit would look like. what, other, extraordinary experiences have you had, working on these spirit portraits?
Heather Eck: You know, it’s so interesting. There was one gentleman who I did a live portrait for, so usually I’ll get somebody’s picture in their name and I’ll meditate with them. But in this case, we were over a Zoom and I was doing his portrait in real time . So every part of the portrait I feel is communicating something from beginning to end. And so his started out with red ink on the paper that started to look like a heart, but it wasn’t a cartoon heart, it was like an anatomical heart. And I almost didn’t say something to him about it. And I sort of went, Hmm, that’s interesting. and then I kept going. Then I said, “you know, let me go back to this first symbol that showed up for you, which was an anatomical heart.”
And he said that he had actually just had some kind of heart test that you can have done that assesses whether or not your arteries are blocked or not, and he had just had this test like a week prior and his arteries were clear and he had been working so hard to, build the strength of his heart that that was just an interesting thing that showed up in his portrait. and there were other symbols that sort of came up around that too. But it was definitely the physical body and then the heart space that were coming through for his portrait. That was kind of an interesting, bit of awareness for him. So it felt like confirmation for him and also affirmation for me that, I was tapping into the place where he was really dwelling. He was really spending time there.
Johnny Burke: Okay. All right. In reference to the gap between the visible world and the realms beyond, or like many of us like to call the unseen world, what are some of the most important things you’ve learned about that so far in your journey?
Heather Eck: You know, I think for me personally, every painting that I do for someone also offers healing for me- in a way. I think everything that we encounter in our day-to-Day is in some way supporting us through messages, through symbols, through color, through numbers. I think we’re constantly being communicated to. And so, I’m always aware I think I’m keenly observant of the places that I go and the people that I encounter and what they’re wearing, how they’re behaving. Different things that I think are sort of showing up to us. It’s like a classroom, like we’re all in a class together, we’re all learning together but we’re also being given like study guides in a way. And so
Johnny Burke: Guides. All right.
Heather Eck: I think the people that we interact with are part of our study group. And so, I think it’s just really amped up my desire to want to dig in and understand what everything means. Like I just have this insatiable curiosity about the world and why we’re here and what our purpose is, how we support each other, and how we’re meant to collaborate with each other.
And I think we all have gifts. All of us have these beautiful, intuitive gifts, I think we are meant to use in service of each other. And, when we figure out what it is, and then we find a way to offer it through reaching your hand out to somebody to say, I’m here for you. Or reaching your hand back to somebody to say, come on, come on up here. Let’s, let’s do this together. That there’s so much healing in that, and I think, that’s the thing that I’m aware of. Everybody has gifts I like to help people kind of figure out , what’s your gift? You know, what are you doing here? And how can you be a strong contributor to just making the world better overall?
Johnny Burke: And speaking of which; study guides, which I think is as good an analogy as, anything I can think of. When you say that, I think you’re talking about not just yourself, but the collective, which is like all of us, right? like you said, we’re here for a reason. A lot of us, maybe not all of us, but a lot of us are curious about what is the purpose? What are we doing here, how do we get here? And also I think, what we hear a lot about these days is ascension. You know, you mentioned something about service, which is kind of like a five D thing, right? Moving away from the kind of world we’re in now instead of let me get what I can get at any cost to how can I be of service?
Heather Eck: Yeah.
Johnny Burke: All right. Since you mentioned healing isn’t what you do really. Just another, method of energy healing, or not really? I.
Heather Eck: Yeah, I think of it that way for sure. I think it’s, like another modality of healing through color and I find that it’s therapeutic. and I think that art is healing for people too. So I think one of the things I’m trying to, create now are tools for people to use art as a means for healing when they understand how they themselves are receiving messages through color, or how they can use color as a means for healing.
So for example, if you’re feeling bad today, you can meditate with the color red to help support the physical body and to help you, find some healing and peace today. And so those are sort of the next steps of how to use this modality, I think, for healing too.
Johnny Burke: Speaking of modalities, what exactly would you call this?
Heather Eck: I think it is sort of a form of energy healing, energy healing through color, healing through art. I think, chakra healing, I think there’s so many different things I think that you can call it, that are all sort of connected. I’m working with somebody now who’s a reiki master and she and I kind of connect on the energy of, color through reiki and the chakras and, color and art and art and music. I mean, there’s so many different, I think, creative healing modalities that we can use. It’s hard to put a name on all of it. Energy healing.
Johnny Burke: Right? It’s a legitimate one because, there are lots of different variants of energy healing. For the person that is, the civilian, right?
Heather Eck: Yeah.
Johnny Burke: They most likely just lump everything into energy healing. But to the practitioners, there’s slightly different ways to do it.
But it is, , healing, especially through music. That’s a
good one. Great. Anything else that we should know, at least for today?
Heather Eck: I’d love to, to tell people, just pay attention to what colors you have in your home, in your office, in your closet. Those colors are communicating to you in some way. If you’re only wearing black. You’re in protection mode. You know, think about what are you trying to protect yourself from if you’re always wearing purple that’s the color of communication, of divinity, of connection. So, you can read and learn about how those colors are offering you something.
Johnny Burke: All right. I like this. Definitely not something we hear about every day, so hopefully we do hear more about that. In the meantime, how can our listeners find out more about you online?
Heather Eck: Yeah, you can find me at heatherrec.com, and you can find me on Instagram @heathereckartist
Johnny Burke: okay. Heather, thanks for joining us today. We will definitely put those notes in the transcript, in the show notes as well. You’ve been listening to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke for more info you can go to
closertovenus.com as well as MindBodySpirit.FM for all things spiritual. Thanks again for tuning in and we’ll see you next time.