Crown chakra: here and now and purple

(Reruns: Here is the last of eight in my chakra series. Maybe this post will resonate with you today.)

We've worked our way up to the top, the Crown Chakra. This is the place of transcendence, of realization, both materially and spiritually, of Unity.

Need catching up? Visit any of the previous entries:
Chakras: the rainbow within
First Chakra: The Root
Second Chakra: The Sacral
Third Chakra: The Solar Plexus
Fourth Chakra: The Heart
Fifth Chakra: The Throat

Sixth Chakra: The Third Eye

Do any of these apply to you?

• I just can't see that there's a larger pattern than what I see.
• I want answers, but I am afraid of them.
• I want to know the will of the Divine and live by it, but I am afraid it might require me to make changes.

Unity erases the illusion of distinction. The masculine and the feminine are one. The physical and the spiritual are one. All opposites are conjoined. There is no difference between you and not-you.

This is the symbol of the tao -- two opposites joined as one, each with their antithesis embedded in its deepest part. And because all is one, space ceases to exist. And without space there is no time. We came from Unity and we are working our way through the illusion of duality back to Unity via awareness and consciousness.

The Crown Chakra is your connection to Source. It is where we fully merge our physical and spiritual selves and see through the illusions of time and space, seeing ourselves as the timeless beings we truly are. This moment-to-moment realization enables us to live and love in the only time that really exists -- the present moment.

Here are some indications that you've got an imbalance in your Crown Chakra.

Emotional, mental and physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Crisis of faith -- a Dark Night of the Soul

Chronic exhaustion that is not linked to a physical cause

Sensitivities to light and sound and your environment

The color is violet. I have always been drawn to purple. Royal, gorgeous, purple (hence the color palette of this blog).
The seed sound is silent. The Crown Chakra has no sound.
The verb is "to know."
The associated endocrine gland is the pineal.
The Crown Chakra has to do with being. Pure being.

Christian Sacrament: Extreme Unction. To receive the grace to finish your business in the present moment.
Healing thought: Live in the present moment.

I'm having a hard time writing this entry. I have worked a lot on my six other chakras and have experienced balance at times in each. But the Crown Chakra remains a mystery to me. And I don't often occupy the present moment -- I am more likely to be found in either the future or the past.

In our energy work classes, Ethel would lead us through guided meditations to open our Crown Chakras wider and wider. Most of the time, people have a thread-sized channel between this chakra and the Divine. With such small bandwidth, it's not surprising that I would be short on inspiration and physical energy!

While meditating, I envisioned opening up my Crown Chakra to the size of my thumb, then the diameter of a toilet paper tube. I once even got it as big as a compact disc during an exercise where we classmates helped each other experience, energetically, our own physical deaths (we were actually lying on massage tables unharmed. The idea was, once you've faced your own death, you can live more fully without fear, in the present moment).

Ethel said something about the importance of loving your body just the way it is, of living "in" your body. She says that when you're dwelling on hurts and injustices, you are living in your emotional body -- in a past that can't be changed. And when you are planning for events and contingencies yet to come, you are living in your mental body -- in a future which exists only in theory. It is only when you occupy your physical body, along with the awareness of occupying your body, that you are in the present. This is why focusing on the breath can be so helpful in bringing your consciousness into your body and into the moment. That's where all the answers are.

Seven years ago, I sat with my Grandpa for awhile after he died. I had never been with a newly dead body before, and my grandpa seemed not-so-different than he had moments before. A prime difference, I concluded, between a live body and a dead one is breath and flow (duh). The breath -- reSPIRation -- is the process by which we continually join our physical and SPIRitual selves. Breathing -- the act we do 10 (or so) times a minute, every minute of the day -- is an exercise of our Crown Chakra. Why not do it mindfully once in awhile?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

Third-eye chakra: seeing with the mind of G*d

(Reruns: Here is the seventh of eight in my chakra series. See if this post speaks to you today. My intuition says it will.)

If you already have a well-tuned sixth chakra, you might as well close this window because you already know what I'm going to say. That's a little joke. Ha ha.

Need catching up? Visit any of the previous entries:

Chakras: the rainbow within
First Chakra: The Root
Second Chakra: The Sacral
Third Chakra: The Solar Plexus
Fourth Chakra: The Heart
Fifth Chakra: The Throat

I love this painting, don't you? The color is so rich. There's an ethereal quality of floating over the earth (the material) and of also being immaterial. The head lifted from the physical body to the heavens signifies, to me, the meeting of our mental body with the Divine mind. I am taken in by the imagery.

If you've ever found yourself staring at someone's unibrow (or your own), you're also looking in the area of the sixth chakra. Odd to think of a unibrow looking back at you.

Do any of these apply to you?

• I fill my time with busy-ness and prefer it to stillness.
• I have beliefs that no longer work for me and I'd like to let go of them, but I don't know how.
• I don't really rely on my intuition. If I even have any.
• I am afraid of change.

The Third Eye Chakra is the home of intuition, insight, wisdom, clairvoyance, truth, imagination, and the ability to visualize. Its Sanskrit word is ajna, meaning to perceive or to command. This energy wheel influences the brain and nervous system, the eyes, ears and nose, and the pineal and pituitary glands.

Here are some indications that you've got an imbalance in your Third Eye Chakra.

Emotional and mental:

Feelings of inadequacy

Closed to new ideas, and ideas by others

Difficulty with emotional intelligence

Inability to learn from experience (like Benjamin Franklin's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results).

Physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Brain tumor or stroke

Neurological imbalances

Blindness or deafness

Spinal difficulties

Learning disabilities

The color is indigo. Like a velvety dark sky after dusk and before the deepest dark of the night. (It's said that "indigo children" are born with wide open 6th chakras.)
The seed sound is "OM." You know, the sound New Agers take a lot of teasing about. Om is a good chanting phoneme for opening and activating your Third Eye Chakra.
The verb is "I see."
The associated endocrine gland is the pituitary.
The Third Eye Chakra has to do with releasing perceptions that aren't true and seeing what is True and timeless.

Christian Sacrament: Ordination. To receive the grace to make sacred your path of service. Buddhists call this "Right Livelihood."
Jewish Sefirot: Binah, and Hokhmah. The duality of the feminine and masculine energies of G*d. Binah is the energy of the Divine mother, symbolizing compassion. Hokhmah is the energy of wisdom (the Divine masculine), symbolizing the contact point between the Divine mind and personal thoughts.
Healing thought: Seek only Truth.

Clairvoyance. Clairaudience. Clairsentience. Seeing Truth. Hearing one's inner voice (which is, in fact, Divine). Knowing with certainty.

To what degree do you experience these?

I exercise clairsentience in small things. Like which route to take home. The timing to pitch an article idea to an editor. Where my car keys are.

And this inner knowing has also been there for me in the bigger things. There was the time I heeded the voice when it told me to accompany a friend to a comedy improv show. That night I was captivated by this blue-eyed, intelligently humored performer, whom I asked to meet and who now is called "Daddy" by my children. There was the time I trusted my voice, going against "common sense," when it said I'd be better off if I quit my job in academia. I did, and we're somehow not destitute. I followed this guidance in choosing our adoption agency, the necessary route to our two children. And often I can see what blocks my clients in their quest to adopt a child.

But much of the time I don't stop and listen. I don't always notice my inner vision, and I don't make room for that knowing.

Why? It takes time. It takes space, and it takes stillness. DOing is easy, but BEing, not so much. And it's during the BEing that the Divine mind can reach us.

So here are some ways to clear and activate your Third Eye Chakra.

• Meditate. Even 5 minutes is beneficial.
• Practice yoga. This helps you get into your body (and out of your head) for a time, and be present with your breathing.
• The more you follow your guidance, the more you'll get guidance. So begin following it in the small things (whether to go straight or turn right), then the bigger things (what to do about your career or your "quest," whatever that may be).
• Practice freewrite journaling.
• Walk a labyrinth.
• Just before going to sleep, focus on the internal space between your eyes. See what images appear, what thoughts come up.
  
• Ask G*d/the Divine/the Universe to give you guidance. Simply asking opens the channel.
• Whatever your problems are, depersonalize them. In other words, see them as opportunities for you to become whole rather than as punishment, karma, injustice, justice, or bad luck.
• With intention ("I intend to clear my third eye"), grab at the space in front of your forehead as if you were clearing a cobweb. Maybe, metaphorically, you are.

It's late now, and I'm off to get some shut-eye. Hopefully, a triple dose (another little joke. haha.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

Throat chakra: Where's your will? In your way.

(Reruns: During the summer months, I am interspersing new posts with entries from my Chakra series. Here is the sixth of eight. See if it speaks to you today.)

Any of these apply to you?

• People say I'm strong-willed.
• I have no self-control when it comes to ______ (insert any addiction you might be battling, which for me was sugar).
• I'm a bit controlling. OK, more than a bit.
• I have trouble expressing myself honestly.
• I need assurances of outcome before I'll make a change.

Welcome to the realm of the Throat Chakra, the seat of your will.

As you've probably guessed, the Throat Chakra is in your neck, located halfway between the notch in your collarbone on the front and your spinal bump on the back. The fifth chakra is a place of will, expression, and control.

Need catching up? Visit any of the previous entries in this series:

Chakras: the rainbow within
First Chakra: The Root
Second Chakra: The Sacral
Third Chakra: The Solar Plexus
Fourth Chakra: The Heart

Here are some indications that you've got an imbalance in your Throat Chakra.

Emotional and mental:

Addiction

Judgmental and critical

Difficulty making decisions

Frustration with or fear about expressing yourself

Stubbornness

Overwhelming need to know why

Physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Chronic sore throat

Laryngitis or pharyngitis

Raspy voice or little girl voice (think Betty Boop or Kristen Chenoweth)

TMJ

Thyroid problems

Mouth or gum sores

The color is blue. Like a clear sky on a winter day.
The seed sound is "HUM" This is mentioned for those who meditate. This would be an appropriate chanting phoneme, as sound is a primeval force.
The verb is "I speak."
The sense is sound.

The associated endocrine gland is the thyroid.

The Throat Chakra has to do with surrendering your own will to G*d or to the Divine.

Christian Sacrament: Confession. Taking responsibility for one's deeds and receiving the grace to cleanse yourself of negative acts of will.

Jewish Sefirot: Gevurah, and Hesed. The left and right arms of G*d. Gevurah represents power, judgment and punishment; Hesed symbolizes the love and mercy of G*d.

Healing thought: Surrender personal will to Divine will.

For anytime you're feeling that your life just isn't what you thought it would be, here's a powerful passage by Dr. Caroline Myss:

As we mature, we all try to build lives according to our own will. First we separate from our parents; we establish our independence, and we seek a career. Then, inevitably, some event or crisis occurs. Perhaps an occupation does not unfold according to plan; or a marriage does not work out; or an illness develops. We find ourselves in a situation that forces us to confront the limitations of our own inner resources that prevent us from successfully completing our plans...We ponder some questions: "What am I meant to do with my life? What was my purpose in being born?" These questions set the stage for aligning our will to the Divine plan -- the most profound choice we can make.

That one choice, made in faith and trust, allows Divine authority to enter out lives and reorder our struggles into successes and our wounds into strengths. While we may or may not consciously desire to surrender our personal will to Divine authority, we are sure to encounter numerous opportunities to do so. An incentive to make that choice lied in the life stories -- and life struggle -- of people who experienced nothing but pain and failure until they said to God, "You take over." Extraordinary acts of synchronicity then filled their lives, and new relationships their hearts. I have yet to meet the person who ever regretted saying to the Divine, "All yours."

As I research and compose this post, I can't quite get my throat clear -- a sign that I've got some releasing to do in my Throat Chakra. (In fact, with each post for this series, the spotlighted chakra in my own body has given me plenty of material to work with.) So here's a rundown of the things I can check:

• Am I holding back in speaking my truth?
• Am I expressing judgment or criticism of someone (or myself)?
• Have I told any lies? Obscured any truths?
• Am I living by Divine guidance or my own fear?
• Am I truly open to Divine guidance, or am I really trying to control G*d by saying "Guide me but stay within my comfort zone"?
• Am I over-controlling something or someone?
  
• Am I stuck on the question "Why?" for a situation?

"Thy Will Be Done." One of those phrases where simple ≠ easy.

================================================

This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's" online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

Heart chakra: divine power within you

Today brings the latest entry in the Chakra Rerun* series. If you need catching up, here are links to the previous four:

Chakras: the rainbow within
First Chakra: The Root
Second Chakra: The Sacral
Third Chakra: The Solar Plexus

This week's spotlight is on the fourth or Heart Chakra -- our emotional center. The awesome power to transform our lives and our world, through the energy of the heart, remains largely untapped for many of us. But it need not be.

Questions to ponder regarding today's chakra:

What emotional memories do you still need to heal?

What relationships need healing?

What fears do you have about being emotionally healthy?

Who do you need to forgive, and what prevents you from releasing the pain you associate with these individuals?

The Heart Chakra is positioned just behind your heart. The fourth chakra is a place of balance, located halfway between three chakras that deal with the physical/earth (root, sacral, solar plexus) and the three chakras that deal with the spiritual/heaven (throat, third eye, crown).

The Heart Chakra is the home of unconditional love. It becomes imbalanced when we are unable to forgive, when we hold resentment.

Here are some indications that you've got an imbalance in your Heart Chakra.

Emotional and mental:

Resentment and bitterness

Grief and anger

Self-centeredness

Over protectiveness of self

Issues with hope and trust

Physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Heart problems

Asthma/allergies

Lung problems, like cancer or pneumonia

Upper back and shoulder problems

Breast cancer

The color is green. A luscious, verdant green embodying the love of Mother Nature.
The element is air. This chakra is airy and light, and has the energy of movement and transformation.

The seed sound is "YUM" This is mentioned for those who meditate. This would be an appropriate chanting phoneme, as sound is a primeval force.
The verb is "I love."

The sense is touch.

The associated endocrine gland is the thymus, located in the center of the chest.

The Heart Chakra has to do with your ability to give and receive love.

Christian Sacrament: Marriage. Honoring the need to love and care for yourself so that you can fully love another and enter into true partnership.

Jewish Sefirot: Tif'eret. The energy of compassion, harmony and beauty.

Healing thought: Love is Divine Power.

The Heart Chakra holds victim patterns
Caroline Myss, PhD, talks in her book, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, about "leading with your wounds." In a nutshell, it's about how our hurts actually benefit us in some way. So we hang onto these hurts fiercely, even as they destroy us.

Here's a personal example. I grew up with severe asthma. I learned pretty early on (albeit at a subconscious level) that this condition got me things and got me out of things. It got me Mom's attention, Teacher's attention, special handling. It got me out of vacuuming at home and out of doing the 600 yard dash in gym class. While it also brought me allergy tests and shots, asthma became part of my identity. After 2+ decades of being asthmatic, I did not know how to be otherwise.

At the end of a year in Japan during my late 20s, I returned to the States with pneumonia. Follow up care revealed places in my right lung that were damaged by an allergic reaction to mold. I was back in a dry climate, but the problems persisted. It was time to deal with this illness on a more conscious level.

Enter Ethel, a modern-day mystic. Ethel was leaving her job as program director at an adult learning network, and I was hired to replace her. As she spent weeks training me, I began to see another way of dealing with illness and old wounds.

There's more to the story, but for now I'll just say that I began to release my need to cling to "my" asthma. I became aware of times when lung problems worked FOR me. Like when I was dismissed from duties ("Your sisters will rake the leaves. We don't want you to wheeze.") or when I got attention ("Boyfriend, I need you! I can't breathe you must give me some TLC!"). I began to see that there were other, healthier ways that I could get my emotional needs met, if I were to simply be conscious of what I was really after.

(To head off any misunderstanding: I am NOT saying that I was faking symptoms to get attention. Asthma was a real medical condition, like many others. But I believe such real medical conditions can also be treated energetically and consciously.)

This didn't happen in an instant, it wasn't easy, and it's an ongoing process. It means releasing victim patterns I'd carried my entire life. It means parting with a segment of my identity. It means being honest with myself from moment to moment. It means giving up the perks that come with my wounds. It means change, and it takes time.


Tapping into the transforming energy of your Heart Chakra
Here's a powerful practice that uses the transformative energy of the heart. It is called tonglen, a Tibetan word meaning "taking and giving." Practiced mystics will do this on behalf of all humanity, but I see no problem with starting small. Use it to heal yourself.

Pema Chodron says, "Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness. We begin to feel love both for ourselves and others and also we being to take care of ourselves and others. It awakens our compassion and it also introduces us to a far larger view of reality."

1. Get yourself into a meditative state. This can be done while sitting, while lying down, while hiking in nature, while walking (have a labyrinth nearby?) , or while creating art or music or dance. Do what allows you to lose yourself.

2. First become aware of your breathing for a few moments. Follow your breath in and out of your lungs.

3. Tonglen breathing has three parts for each breath:

• For your inhales, imagine you are breathing in all the suffering there is from this condition (infertility, the loss of a child, or cancer, for example). Allow this suffering to open your heart further and awaken your compassion for all who deal with it. Ask G*d, Jesus, your spirit guides or whomever to bless all the suffering that you accept into your heart. This is the opposite of the avoidance of pain -- it requires the welcoming of it.
• At the top of the breath, pause for just a moment to allow your heart to shift and transform the yuckiness it holds. Hold the intention to do so.
  
• For your exhales, imagine the suffering energy being cleansed and transformed by your heart and sent from your lungs back to the world. Only now what was dark is now light, what was gunky is now clear. Envision this metamorphosis, as performed by your open and aware Heart Chakra. You willingly take in suffering, and joyfully send out compassion and healing. Keep up the three-part breathing, mindfully. Fill up your room, your home, your neighborhood with this magnificently pure, love energy.
  

4. Flow and tranform for 5, 10, 20 minutes. No hard rules -- just do it as long as you can stay focused on bringing in the "bad" and sending out the "good." Don't worry about doing this "right." Make the practice yours and play with your heart's own transforming power.

5. Pat yourself on the back for setting aside some time to be conscious and still.

Why Forgiveness is good for your heart
I'll close with this quote from my journaling calendar that attests to the self-interest in the act of forgiving:

"You must forgive those who hurt you, even if whatever they did to you is unforgivable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don't want to suffer and hurt yourself every time you remember what they did to you." ---Don Miguel Ruiz

* (Summer reruns: During the summer months, I am interspersing new posts with entries from my Chakra series. The preceding is the fourth of eight.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's" online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

S&T. Solar Plexus Chakra: the fire within

Today I'm combining Show & Tell with my Chakra series.

In case you're new here, this is the fourth in an eight-part series. Here are links to the previous three posts to get you up to speed:

The rainbow within
First Chakra: Root Chakra
Second Chakra: Sacral Chakra

This week's spotlight is on the third or Solar Plexus Chakra -- our ego base. It is the seat of our personal power, and the place where we carry unresolved fear, anger and guilt. It is also where we feel love for ourselves.

Questions to ponder regarding today's chakra:

Do you like yourself?

Are you honest?

Are you critical of yourself and others?

Do you tend to place blame as a way of protecting yourself?

Are you afraid of responsibility? Or do you take on responsibilities for others?

The Solar Plexus Chakra is positioned just below the bottom of the cartilage of your breast bone -- about a fist-width above your belly button .

Here are some indications that you've got an imbalance in your Solar Plexus Chakra.

Emotional and mental:

Problems with trust

Being on either the giving or receiving end of fear and intimidation

Low self-esteem, self-confidence or self-respect

Sensitivity to criticism

Lack of personal integrity -- a disconnect between your values and your deeds. Breaking your personal code of honor.

Continual need for approval by someone who is not you.

Physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Ulcers

Intestinal problems (large or small)

Pancreatitis or diabetes

Digestive issues (acute or chronic)

Anorexia or bulimia

Dysfunction of the liver, kidney, gall bladder or spleen

The Solar Plexus Chakra becomes active as you move from childhood to adulthood, as you become capable of standing on your own.

The color is yellow.
The element is fire. As in "fire in the belly."

The seed sound is "RUM" (This cracks me up -- what a great mantra for the belly. But the sound is actually pronounced more like "room."
The verb is "I can."

The sense is sight.

The associated endocrine gland is the pancreas.

The Solar Plexus Chakra has to do with your personal power and love of self.

Christian Sacrament: Confirmation. Becoming responsible for the quality of person you are. Coming of age, making and honoring your own commitments.

Jewish Sefirot: Hod and Nezah. Hod is the energy of the majesty of G*d and Nezah symbolizes the endurance of G*d. Together they are the source of prophecy -- your "gut instinct."

Healing thought: Honor Oneself.

A wise man once told me that being grown up (which is the life transition of this chakra) means seeing the world as it is, not how you think it should be.

I notice a huge energy drain any time I focus on what is missing from my life rather than on what I have. By accepting what is, by loving myself and my life, by accepting responsibility for what I, in fact, have created at a deep, soul level, I then live in integrity.

The clearer I can be in my Solar Plexus Chakra -- meaning I continually dissolve energy blocks that result from fear and dishonesty -- the clearer and louder my inner knowing is. I can tune in to my built-in guidance system that clues me in to people, situations, and decisions.

The muddier I am and the less mindfully I react to people and situations around me, the more difficult it is to "feel" the guidance in my gut. I am then living in the grip of fear, and that makes everything icky. For when I live in fear, I feel powerless. I must then pause to call back my power from all the people and situations I've left it with.

In the past I have violated this guidance by staying in a relationship that I knew wasn't good for me, preferring to stay and be taken care of than to leave and face my fear of standing alone. I once stayed years too long in a toxic job that adversely affected my health.

With the relationship, I was finally pushed out by a major upheaval (which seemed awful at the time, but was actually an answer to my prayers).

And dealing with the job situation while I was learning about energy work, I was able to employ my personal power more and put into practice my favorite phrase: "leap and the net will appear." But it wasn't easy to take that leap. How would we possibly live on half our income, with a baby daughter and one more adoption ahead of us? Once I aligned my gut feeling and my actions, the Universe aligned to support my decision. I have combed over our finances in Quicken, and I can't tell you how it happened, but it did.

Dr. Caroline Myss talks about the true nature of our physical bodies. "From a spiritual perspective, any and all physical assets and limitations are illusory. Yet a person's acceptance of or resistance to them is critical to entering spiritual adulthood."

Then she reflects on the third chakra challenges of a person in a wheelchair (but the example can be made to any physically limiting condition, including infertility): "The fact that the physical world is an illusion does not mean that the wheelchair does not exist or that her physical problem is not real. Rather, it means that nothing in the physical world can contain or limit the power of the human spirit."

I have seen people in the blogosphere free their spirits, and I am in awe for their courage and grace. For example, a certain blogger (hint: she will be on the BlogHer panel with me) has committed to living her life the way it is rather than the way she thought it should be. She is unplugging from negative people and circumstances, invoking her own beautiful and majestic spirit, and is rebuilding her life with endurance (Nezah) and dignity (Hod). We get to watch as this act of integrity, joined with her writing creativity, propel her to becoming a strong and internally guided voice.

So, as I go forward in my day, my intentions are to honor myself and to listen to my inner knowing. To integrate my thoughts, words and deeds. To keep my personal power intact and to not give it away to anyone or anything outside me.

And maybe to have some RUM at the end of the day (virtual mojito, anyone?).

I invite you to do the same.

___________________________________

This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

____________________________________

Click here for more Show & Tell. What else will we learn and see today?

Sacral chakra: sex, money, power

The title sounds like a new-season TV series, no?

In reality, the Chakras are the seven "wheels of energy" (in ancient Sanskrit) that manifest health or dis-ease in our physical and energetic bodies.

Recently, I wrote about the Root Chakra, which lies at the base of the spine and holds the often unconscious messages of The Tribe. Up now is the second or Sacral Chakra -- our sexual center, our creative center.

Your Sacral Chakra is positioned just behind and below your belly button. Here are some indications that you've got things going on in your Sacral Chakra.

Emotional and mental issues associated with the Sacral Chakra:

Blame and guilt

Money and sex

Power and control

Creativity

Ethics and honor in relationships

Physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Chronic lower back pain

OB/Gyn problems

Sexual potency

Urinary problems

Infertility

Disease of the reproductive organs

The Sacral Chakra is where we deal with primary relationships. Addictions (powerlessness) are often based here.

The color is orange. This is the place between the groupmind of the Tribe (red, 1st chakra) and the seeds of Self (yellow, 3rd chakra).

The element is water. There is ebb and flow, an awesome power to both create and destroy.

The seed sound is "vum" .

The verb is "I feel."

The sense is taste, a very sensual way to experience the material world.

The associated endocrine glands are the gonads.

The sacral chakra has to do with partnership, creativity, power and control.

Christian Sacrament: Communion. The symbolic meaning is to receive grace (the "host") representing holy union with Christ and with the people closest to you.

Jewish Sefirot: Yesod, the procreative force of G-d, merging energy into physical form.

Healing thought: Honor one another.

We come into the world with an energetic need to connect, at a soul level, with others. People come into our lives reflect us to ourselves, and to help us find Truth. All is one and Honor one another are two such Truths. We'll see more Truths as we progress through the chakras.

Whereas the first chakra is rooted in oneness (the groupmind of the Tribe), the second chakra brings out duality and opposites, primarily the male/female.

In this seat of creativity is choice. Every time we make a choice, we are creating our reality. Ultimately, it's not really the choices we make that matter, but how we make them. For when we choose from fear, there is nothing but our own ego (which is an illusion) to support our choice. However, when we choose from love, we receive the full support of the Universe. To do so requires the proverbial leap of faith.

The Sacral Chakra is about control, and how we all eventually come to the conclusion that we can't really control the physical world. What we CAN control is our inner responses to the external world. Through our lives, we tend to look for the external "it" that will bring order to our chaos.

I've called this my "I'll be happy whens." I'll be happy when I get the degree; find the dream job; meet my soul mate; have a baby; complete my family; make a little more money." But when my happiness is pegged to something outside me, there is always another externality to take its place. In the meantime I am not happy now -- only looking toward happiness in the future.

Blocked energy in the second chakra can bring on impotence, infertility, endometriosis, depression. But when energy is free to flow through our Sacral Chakra, we are able to continually renew our lives. Flowing creating energy frees us from habits and ruts. It manifests when we create music, poetry, videos, blog/journal entries, artwork of any medium, and any other manner of expression.

Gossip, manipulation and meanness -- expressions that come from fear -- are also ways to use creative energy, but with a net drain from the Sacral Chakra.

Blogging is, for me, a creative activity. It has me looking at my world with more observant eyes, a more conscious mind. Many bloggers are opening their Sacral Chakras with the process of blogging.

Here is a short story about my own healing process. A long time ago, my main issue was my health -- primarily in my lungs. I experienced an allergy to a common mold that was affecting the quality and possibly the length of my life. At the time I was running an adult education network, and my job was to interview applicant teachers and help them develop their course descriptions.

One day two people came in to propose a class on a holistic way to manage allergies. As an aside, the man looked at a kitschy plaque on my desk that said, "I am allergic to morning." He suggested I put it away, that I not insert the word "allergy" into my mind multiple times a day. I think it, I am it, he explained. The Universe pays attention to my mind chatter.

So. A word of caution in the same vein to some IF bloggers (and I'm aware that no one has asked for my assvice): Be careful who you declare yourself to be. The Universe will support your creative declaration. You want to be Infertile4ever.blogspot.com? You got it. Call yourself cantgetpreggers.wordpress.com? Okey-dokey. If your entire persona is tied to being neveramom.com, the Universe will comply -- for who would you be if not this identity you've worked so hard on?

By blogging, you are creating. So do it consciously and with awareness of who you want to be.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(Summer re-runs: Catch up with what you may have missed the first time around. Or find something that resonates the second time around.

During the summer months, I am interspersing new posts with entries from my Chakra series. The preceding is the third of eight.)

Root chakra: red, tribal, survival

(Summer re-runs. Catch up with what you may have missed the first time around. Or find something that resonates the second time around.

During the coming weeks, I'll be interspersing new posts with entries from my Chakra series. Here is the second of eight.)
_________________________

Last time I introduced the concept of the chakras, the seven "wheels of energy" (in ancient Sanskrit) that manifest health or dis-ease in our physical and energetic bodies.

Today, it's all about the Root Chakra, which is located at the base of your spine, at your tailbone. Might you have any Root Chakra issues on occasion?

Emotional symptoms associated with imbalance:

Nervousness, insecurity

Inability to stand up for yourself

Fear for your safety

Strong, stifling need for stability or security

Physical symptoms associated with imbalance:

Chronic lower back pain

Varicose veins

Colon polyps or cancer

Kidney problems

Leg or foot pain

Depression

Immune disorders

The Root Chakra is where we hold tribal issues. To help explain what that means, let's go through some specifics.

The color is red. As in blood (blood ties, blood vengeance, blood brothers, bloodlines)
The element is Earth. As in where roots go.
The seed sound is "lum".
The verb is "I have."
The sense is smell, our most primitive of senses.
The endocrine glands most affected are the adrenals ("fight or flight")
The root chakra has to do with survival, grounding, security, and safety.
Christian Sacrament: Baptism. The symbolic meaning is to welcome you into the community -- the tribe -- of Christ.
Jewish Sefirot: Shikhinah, the mystical community of Israel. Its symbolic meaning is similar: to welcome you into the community of humanity and the spirit of Earth.
Healing thought: All is one.

And lest you think this is just an ancient thought with no relevance in the modern world, the same idea occurred to Abraham Maslow in 1943 when he put First Chakra issues on the first step of his hierarchy of needs.

We pick up our tribal thought patterns by osmosis -- they are practically in the air we breathe. These beliefs are questioned only as we begin to live more mindfully and consciously, choosing thoughts and beliefs that serve us and discarding the ones that don't.

And tribal messages DO serve us -- or at least they did at one time. We NEED to know certain things to live in the harsh world of scarcity, where strangers bring harm and our ways are best. Think Cro-Magnon man. Think tribes in the bible. Think Native Americans and Europeans. Think Palestinians and Jews, Tutsis and Hutus, Croats-Serbs-Bosnians, Sunnis and Shiites.

Here are a couple of messages I've plucked from my awareness. Do you carry any of them?

Save for a rainy day

Family is everything

It's too bad we have to age

To be a teenager is to be rebellious

You can never be too rich or too thin

If you can't have children, what's the point of living?

I would die if he/she ever left me

Justice is the cornerstone of our society

Are these beliefs absolutely true, or just tribally true?

And do they serve me now? Actually, it would be quite freeing to release some of these thoughts. Maybe I already AM rich enough and thin enough. Maybe I could choose NOT to dread my children's teenage years. I'd like to think compassion is equally important as justice, and that all people have value, not just those who procreate. Since the only alternative to age is death, maybe I'll embrace age, wrinkles and spider veins and all.

I'm a grown-up now, and I can choose which beliefs to hold and honor. I'm thankful to my tribe for guiding me as I learn to survive on my own, but I no longer need it to control me.

Individuals can outgrow a belief, and so can an entire tribe. Dr Caroline Myss* has a dramatic example of the The Tribe outgrowing a belief. I'll arc the decades-long experience into just a few story boards:

In October, 1929, the American economy crashed and the Great Depression began.

Americans described themselves as being "crippled" economically. With the double whammy of a drought and bad farming practices, we also became agriculturally "crippled."

There was a polio epidemic in the 1930s and 1940s. Children absorbed the tribe's energy and were susceptible to the viral disease as well as the economic dis-ease.

We elected to the Presidency FDR, "a living symbol of both physical weakness and indomitable resilience."

A tribal event, WWII, brought pride and power back to the country. We were "on our feet" again . We had shifted from feeling powerless to feeling powerful. Soon after, Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine for polio.

We had a tribal shift in consciousness.

So. What tribal beliefs do you carry that no longer serve you? What would you like to shift in your life?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

* This post researched, in part, from Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss, PhD.

The paintings for this series were created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga. Check out GMY's online store, where you can also find chakra balancing jewelry by Mindy Arbuckle, owner of Green Mountain Yoga.

The rainbow within

I've studied energy work for many years, now. I use it as I help people in the adoption process , I use it with my kids when they get a boo-boo, and I try to find, as Carolyn Myss and Louise Hay suggest, the symbolic meaning when I hear of someone experiencing illness or dis-ease.

So I am periodically going to present another way of looking at wellness, at ego, at energy, at vibrations, at the intersection of physics and metaphysics, and consciousness. For starters, I open today a series on the chakras.

Energy centers

"Chakra" is an ancient sanskrit word meaning "wheel." There are seven primary chakras, or energy vortices, that correspond with seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes of the scale, seven sacraments , and even portions of the Kabbalah. Carolyn Myss set out in her research to find Truth, hypothesizing that one finds Truth (capital T) in all traditions because Truth emerges out of the essence of our human-ness, our Source that is embedded in each of us.

Now, some may roll their eyes when they hear "chakra" and assume I eat only granola and wear only birkenstocks and never shave my legs. But remember -- I love mojitos! I have gym shoes on at the moment and I epilated my legs yesterday. I'm mainstream. My husband jokes that my sisters and I are the only known New Age Republicans (although I can not now support either major party -- a topic for another post). And I aim to present chakras in a non-foo-foo manner that is embraceable by other "normal" people. So keep reading.

Each chakra, or energy center, influences various organs and parts of the body. The chakras lie along the body's vertical axis, from the base of the spine to just on top of the head. The seven major chakras are:

• 1st: the root chakra
• 2nd: the sacral chakra
• 3rd: the solar plexus chakra
• 4th: the heart chakra
• 5th: the throat chakra
• 6th: the third eye chakra
• 7th: the crown chakra

Dis-ease in the body first appears in the energetic body (which surrounds the physical body), and can be treated there before the body shows symptoms. Physical and emotional healing can be aided by promoting the flow of energy, focusing on the seven chakras. Energy blockages create areas of imbalance, with either too much or too little flow resulting, like boulders in a stream.

What blocks energy? Fear. I'll be writing much more about this in future posts in this series. Next I'll have a post that focuses on the Root Chakra.

For now, here's a Chakra Evaluation Test I found while researching this post. It's a simplified way for you to begin thinking about where your blockages might be, which thought patterns you hold that may be standing in your way.

(BTW, as I write, I have 4 open, 2 under-active and 1 over-active chakras -- how about you?)

This lovely painting, which I find striking, was created by Lisa Brown-Olsen. Her work is featured at Green Mountain Yoga.
.