Monday, January 24, 2011

Second chakra: you, me, and everyone else

The second, or sacral, chakra is an interesting power seat. I was thinking of it especially yesterday while doing some work and having the TV on in the background to one of those shows about hoarding.

Now, you wouldn't think the sacral chakra would relate to hoarding--after all, it's the root chakra that connects us to our "stuff." But a lot of the people I see on these shows aren't suffering from lack of "stuff" (or, more accurately, they aren't suffering from a fear of a lack of stuff). I'm sure that plays in to a lot of people's experiences, but one thing I've noticed when I've run across these examples: many, many times the stuff is filling a hole in their emotional lives.

Emotional balance is connected to the clear functioning of most if not all of the chakras, true. But a particular role is played by both the heart chakra and the sacral. The sacral chakra connects to the root, and it's sitll sort of fixed in the physical world. Part of what it does is govern how we relate to others through physical expression--sex, especially. But on a larger level, it's about intimacy and whether we allow it, or put up walls--and one of the things that stood out for me with these hoarders was they collected stuff to avoid intimacy. Things couldn't leave them like people did. Although none of them ever said it, I suspect it provided a physical barrier to keep people from getting too close--they couldn't bring people into their homes, often they couldn't sleep in the same bed as their partner, they didn't eat meals as a family. I'd be willing to bet that a look at their second chakra, even more than their first, would show a dingy, misshapen mess of energy.

The second chakra is located in the lower belly. In our rainbow ladder, it's associated with the color orange. Unless your energy is pretty clear--and sometimes even if it is--working on second chakra issues can bring up some difficult stuff. Can't maintain a healthy long-term relationship? Odds are good that working on this chakra will bring those issues up. It'll bring up your addictions, whatever they are--at least in the sense that you'll find yourself confronting the "why" of them (addictions, in the end, are simply those things that we put and keep between ourselves and life--not just alcohol or drugs, but addiction to convenience, to food, to coffee, to bad relationships, etc). It's useful to start off this work with a prayer to your deity of choice, spirit guides, what-have-you that the clearing of these issues be gentle.

Many authors seem to equate the 2nd chakra to sexuality only. I disagree. I think that sexuality is one expression of a willingess for intimacy, and that intimacy is more in line with 2nd chakra energies. Intimacy, after all, requires strength and the willingness to be vulnerable. Note that this chakra is not about love per se--that's related to the heart chakra. It's really connected to our willingness to be emotionally open, to be vulnerable, to be intimate in a physical way. True intimacy cannot be achieved without love (so few things can), and so I think we find heart chakra imbalances almost any time we find imbalances in any of the chakras (more on that when we get to the heart chakra). Regardless, when we're talking about second chakra issues, we've almost invariably got to include the fact that we're still very physical with this chakra, so there's almost always a physical expression of an emotional or psychological issue. Weight issues, when related to intimacy or fear of it, are frequently related to the 2nd chakra, although things that start out here could also then turn into habits that might be impacting the 3rd chakra (yes, it can get a little complicated--aren't we amazing beings?).

For now, though, we'll focus on very simple clearing for the 2nd chakra. Remember, when we get through the first seven chakras, we'll circle back to some of these clearing techniques and I'll do a post on some other ways to clear them.

You can use the same visualization techniques for this chakra as you did for the root. Light trance, look down your spine, look for the orange, etc. You might also check in on your root chakra at the same time. A friend turned me on to using tangerine quartz as an aid to second chakra work--again, if you can, use four pieces, one to each side of you, as you do this meditation. You can also use tiger's eye, amber, or carnelian. Try placing your hand on your belly as you do the visualization and pay attention to any physical sensations, like warmth. To me, 2nd chakra issues involve both serpent and jaguar levels of seeing. (Which we'll touch in on in the next series of posts after the intro to chakras).

Have an amazing, blessed day!

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