Just breathe!

I realized after I published yesterday's (late!) post that the closing line was perfect to apply to today's comments. Another way to work on clearing and strengthening the chakra centers is to breathe into them.

I was first shown this exercise about 15 years ago by a friend who did chakra work as part of his therapy practice (he was the therapist, not the recipient). I loved it so much I've used it ever since as another--sometimes quicker--way to tap in and strengthen my energy connection to the chakras.

It's perhaps easiest to practice this with the natural seat of the breath (the heart chakra) or its close relative, the throat chakra. I say easier only because at first, there's a bit of visualization at play, and it's easier, I think, to visualize breath entering those areas than, say, the crown of your head or the base of your spine.

Close your eyes. No trance is required for this, by the way, but closing your eyes will help you focus, especially at first. With practice, it won't be necessary. For a few moments, simply breathe as you normally do. Gradually, though, bring your attention to your breath moving in your throat. Imagine that instead of breathing through your nose or mouth, you are breathing through the skin at the base of your throat, straight into your throat chakra. Visualize the blue of this chakra brightening when you breathe in. Perhaps it spins slightly faster, or with more stability. When you breathe out, perhaps it lightens, or stays bright, but becomes a clearer color. It's your chakra--don't take my description for anything other than a possibility! See what's really going on with you--that's the important part.

From the throat, it's probably easiest to breathe into the heart chakra in the same way, then continuing down until you reach the root. Then transfer your attention to the brow and crown chakras.

You may find yourself a bit disoriented after this, unless you're accustomed to doing breath work. If you are, give yourself a few moments to settle back into your body, then drink some water before you do anything else. And please, don't breathe and drive!

Have an amazing, blessed day, and don't forget to breathe!

Crowning moments

Wow! Today was largely an exercise in staying deeply connected. Workday: hectic, with one project replacing another before the first could be finished (I'm still in the middle of editing the same article I started the morning with!). Errands after work, a stop at the grocery story, a forgotten bill needing paid...and I got home, parked my car, walked to the mailbox, picked up the mail (including a replacement phone that I hoped to activate online tonight, but no, that will be another errand to run tomorrow), walked back to my apartment, walked to my car to get groceries from the trunk...uh, oh. Car was listing seriously to one side. Sure enough, I had a flat tire. Called the tire place (I'd just had work done on the car last week, so the phone number was handy.). They'd just closed, and I definitely needed a tow (they'd have stayed if I could have driven over).

So the point...sometimes, staying connected to purpose, to the divine, to the path requires conscious attention to the connection. Not just during meditation or energy work where we're focused on strengthening the connection, but in the middle of what-kind-of-crazy consciously stepping back, breathing, opening the crown chakra to balance the craziness with divine sanity.

This is the role of the crown chakra. No, not balancing the craziness, per se. But as a portal--it's kind of like the outlet in the wall. Plugged in, electricity flows. It connects us to the divine, to the bigger picture. The crown chakra is where Reiki practitioners draw in energy. It's not just being aware of connected, it IS the connection. Whewwwwwwwwww. Yeah. It's the deep breath you take in when you close your eyes and raise your face to the sun. It's finding the purpose, the seed of your sanity in the middle of other people's priorities. Enlightenment, transcendance.

The color associated with this chakra is purple. One way to strengthen a chakra in general is to bring more of the color associated with it into your life. I'm not sure that means you should be wearing all the colors of the rainbow at one time (a bit dizzying, perhaps?), or one for every day of the week (I've meditated that way, but I'm not sure about dressing that way...perhaps a bit too eccentric!), but perhaps adding more purple tones to your sacred space, maybe wearing more of it if you're going through an extra-stressful time.

For clearing, though, we'll still on visualization. Tomorrow (which post will be rather earlier in the day!) I'm going to give you a couple more clearing/strengthening exercises. Today / tonight: the visual. You'll cast your inner eye to the crown of your head for this one. You'll probably find the spinning chakra more visible just a half inch or so above your skull, rather than inside, simply because of your viewpoint. Purple, as I said, probably around the violet range. Purple is an interesting and beautiful color. If the color you see or sense is, say, eggplant, you're probably a bit blocked (this chakra generally doesn't get polluted in the way that others do, although I wouldn't rule anything out, especially given the things some people do...you just can't imagine their spiritual center to be anything but mucked up!...but probably 99.999% of the time, the energy flow is simply being choked off. If the color is light, it may be that you're very open, and if it's causing problems for you, the answer might simply be some grounding (isn't energy cool?).

For meditation/clearing purposes, amethyst is the classic choice to associate with the crown chakra. In geode form, it's a great tool for meditation for any purpose. Another stunningly beautiful choice is selenite. It's a form of crystalized gypsum, and kind of looks like a cross between those ribbon hard candies you used to see at Christmas time and blackboard chalk. Moonstone can also be used.

Just breathe!

The all-seeing eye

Chakra six – the brow, or third eye, chakra. The energy center of clairvoyance, of reception of divine communication. It's where we imagine—as I tell my creative visualization students, it's the movie screen behind your eyes. Open, the images flow. Blocked, we lose sight—literally—of our connection to the divine.


One thing you might be noticing about now is that although we usually talk about the chakras from the root up (an easy way to approach the clearing, too), the way the divine works is more like the top down: being a manifestation of the divine ourselves, we become an energetic channel for divine energy to flow downward from the Crown (and higher) chakra(s) into manifestation. The four lower body chakras are associated with the four physical elements: air (heart), fire (solar plexus), water (sacral) and earth (root) – in order of their physical density. The lower down we move, the more grounded we are. The higher we move, the less grounded and more clearly connected to divine guidance.

Anyone who's had a bad experience with traditional religious practices is probably going to find imbalance here, even if you've moved to a new understanding of spiritual practice because there's a good chance you're blocking any energy you associate with those experiences.

To clear this chakra, your visualization for the first time is going to move up (in your body), and instead of using your spine as a reference point, you're simply going to look at that place where you probably visualize or imagine most things—it's the same spot, in all likelihood, whether you're imaging the path you're on, and how that manifests, or imagining the scene in your favorite novel: the movie screen behind your eyes. Focus on that dark blue (indigo) ball of energy spinning in there. Sometimes this visual can be tricky, because we're used to putting all sorts of images there, but it can be done. To help you clarify, clear, and access the energy of this chakra, stones like iolite (my favorite: it's this gorgeous purply-blue with white streaks in it), lapis, sodalite, even moss agate (a lovely dark green-blue that looks like someone injected moss into clear quartz). Speaking of which, clear quartz works nicely here as well. Put a few around you, hold one in your hand(s) or even against your body. This chakra can present very cool experiences when you clear it, even as you're in the process. If you feel a little too open after, ground yourself and even eat or drink something to help center you in the physical.



Have an amazing and blessed day!

The voice of truth: the throat chakra

The throat chakra governs, as you might guess, communication. But more than that, the energy of this chakra is all about communicating truth. It's about building connection and community, about creativity, and it's key to accessing our psychic abilities (we usually think of the 3rd eye for this, but ....)


In a week or so, when we start looking at some of the other energy centers, we're going to take a long, hard look at the higher heart chakra, which rests between the heart and throat, bridging the two. In itself, though, the throat chakra could be considered a bridge between heart and brow. If the heart chakra connects us to others through love and compassion, the throat chakra connects us not only to others, but to a consciousness beyond the physical. Voice manifests ("in the beginning was the word") ideas; voice transfers ideas from spirit to physical reality when we communicate with others...we shape our reality through our throat. Blocked, says Alberto Villoldo in The Four Insights, this chakra can constrict our energy-focus to our family, our tribe. Open, we are able to connect to a greater "us." Communicate. Community.

It's not just talking, though, it's speaking truth. This is a chakra that is often shut down in women (especially in older generations and certain cultures), children, and others who are told they should be "seen and not heard." It's the chakra that's shut down when we're told physical reality is all we have, and we stop telling people about our non-physical experiences.

When we open the throat chakra, we allow the truth voice, and we share that truth with others. The chakra, by the way, also governs hearing. One way to shut down truth is to refuse to listen.

When you visualize this chakra, see it as a light to bright blue (the color of the lapis stone is perfect). When it spins, it glows brilliantly with the light of truth—your truth. If you've not done much clearing of this chakra, don't be surprised if your voice over the next few days feels rusty. But then again, maybe it will sound brighter and clearer than ever before. If you're using stones in your chakra meditations, a few good choices for this one are blue kyanite (my favorite—it's such a beautiful blue, especially if you find it tumbled and polished!), chrysocolla (which lends itself well to strength and balance in communication), lapis lazuli, sodalite (which also works well with the brow chakra, allowing truth to flow freely), and blue sapphires.


Have an amazing, blessed day!

I will: chakra three

The third, or solar plexus, chakra, is the seat of our power--or at least the seat of our recognition of power. Remember, with any energy in our lives, it's not so much about its absence or presence as it is about our connection. Energy simply flows, and if it isn't flowing, or isn't flowing in a way that works for us, it's usually because there's a blocked connection of some sort. Often the complications in our chakras are comparable to a dam holding back water. Power through the dam, and things start flowing freely (and stop backing up and flooding other areas!).

An out-of-balance third chakra often is connected to an imbalance of power in our lives (I say "connected" with regards to chakra imbalances because it's not always clear which came first--the out-of-whack chakra [causing the energy imbalance in our outer life] or the out-of-whack life [causing the energy imbalance in the chakra]). It's often the case that chakra imbalances, especially severe ones, can be traced back to events happening in particular timeframes of our early lives--and if you look at childhood development timelines you can often see why. Third chakra imbalances often date back to the ages of 2 1/2 - 4 1/2 years: the time in which children develop personal power and a recognition that they are separate bodies from others. Think the terrible twos, here....

Back to the chakra. Loosely paraphrasing Anodea Judith from her work Wheels of Life: Feeling powerless is failing to consciously use our will. It's not that we're lacking in will, it's that we're applying it in directions that don't serve us. Yes, this can be a big hurdle. Yes, this can be overwhelmingly because of myriad issues that drive us into choosing to respond in accordance with someone else's will, rather than our own real purpose. Yes, yes, yes. Tons of reasons. But I think it's important to realize that our own purpose is there, just waiting for us to take a shot at tuning in. If you feel out of control, powerless, and weak, or simply (if such a thing is simple) stuck, you want to take a look at your third chakra.

This is a chakra to pay attention to with your daily energy clearing as well, especially if you spend much time around other people engaged in power struggles, because this is where those sit as well. This is the chakra associated with the physical element of fire, and as such it's the seat not only of power, but of transformation. It's where we focus when we're doing centering exercises, and if you've ever engaged in a battle of wills and lost, feeling like you've been kicked in the stomach, this is the place. You want this chakra clear and working for you so you can keep healing.

If you need, check back to the post on the root chakra from last week for details on the visualization process we're working with right now. To help boost the energy of the clearing of this chakra, I do suggest running through a grounding/centering exercise first, then visualizing the white light energy of your spirit-aura. When you trance, you'll be looking for a yellow glow just below your rib cage. As you go through the visualization of clearing and balancing this chakra, pay attention to any feelings of anger or fear that may come up. Let yourself breathe through them (literally--give it a try and you'll see what I mean), visualize the white-light energy dissipating them, just as you did when we started on the clearing of personal space. Be willing to let them be too much to deal with in one sitting--sometimes deep issues can be overwhelming. (Note: most of us know if we have serious issues. DO find a qualified counselor or medical professional to work with. Energy work, especially on your own, shouldn't be a substitute for professional help on physical, mental, and emotional issues.)

Continuing the list-o-gemstones: good gemstones to work with for the 3rd chakra include citrine, amber (not actually a stone; amber is a resin), topaz, and again, tiger's eye. My personal favorite is citrine for this work, but amber is also excellent for helping increase personal power.

If your 3rd chakra issues are related to over-powering, and you find yourself downsizing the chakra in your visualization, adding water to your environment, adding tonglen meditation, volunteering in settings that help you exercise compassion...all excellent ways to help bring that into balance. Also recognize if the over-powering is related to fear. Clearing and balancing this, along with the other two lower chakras, can help heal this life imbalance considerable.

The more I think about the chakras as I'm posting these, the more I'm conscious that we're just scratching the surface here. If you have any questions about a particular chakra, feel free to post them in the comments or email me privately at conscioussanity@gmail.com.


Have an amazing and blessed day!

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!

The root of it

Just in case you aren't familiar with the chakra system, here's a quick explanation: chakras delineate areas of, shall we say, more intense energy concentration. Everything is energy, connected by a flow of energy, and chakras are sort of like train stations, where energy of a particular type is concentrated and from where it primarily stems. We usually refer to chakras as though they are completely within our bodies, but a) there are chakras located completely outside our physical form, b) there are chakras not specifically residing in or around humans and c) just like that train station, the chakras have openings of sorts that allow energy to flow into and out of the world around us. Literally, this is where things can get messy.

There are a lot of chakras of importance, and we're going to start with the 7 most familiar ones, all located within the human body and primarily engaged for most of us in helping us deal with the day-to-day. The first, base, or root, chakra is roughly located at the base of the spine. It is concerned with matters of survival, and as such, the Incan shamans would equate it with the level of seeing with the serpent (I promise, one day soon we'll get into the four levels of seeing): it's really about "who am I in the world" -- the psychological component of this is "do I deserve to be in the world" -- food, shelter, clothing, physical safety, etc. Off balance, it can result in poverty or fear-driven greed, constant fear of physical harm, being a bully, and so forth. In a sense, it doesn't matter how it manifests in your life because your goal is to keep that energy clear and flowing under all circumstances and in all settings anyway.

One simple way to clear the energy of a chakra (we'll get into more complex ways after we cover all the physical body chakras) is through visualization. Imagine the chakras as a rainbow ladder: the root chakra is the first rung, and the associated color is red. To use visualization to clear this chakra, go into a light trance, and if you like, increase your connection by first visualizing your body filled with the white light of your spirit energy. Imagine you are looking directly down your spine (I find this rather easier to visualize than working from, say, a ground level view!). Right around your tailbone you should see a red ball of energy. Spend a few moments paying attention to it--its color, its size, its shape. Now imagine it perfectly round, clear red, and spinning smoothly. If it seems too large, like you have an over-focus one way or another on survival issues (this can include being too generous, too), feel free to shrink it. If it seems too small, like the Grinch's heart (or heart chakra, perhaps?), breathe into it, rather like a balloon. When it reaches "just right" in all ways, or a point you are comfortable with, hold that image for a few moments, then take a deep breath and open your eyes.

Over the next several days after doing this exercise, I do encourage you to pay particular attention to what is going on in your physical / survival reality. Remember our comfort zones are often ready to reach out and pull us back from our progress. If you are not familiar with chakra work, you'll want to repeat this frequently. If your chakras are reasonably in order, not so much. You can also augment the clearing and strengthening by setting root-chakra oriented gemstones around you -- an ideal number would be four, one to each side of you during your meditation. Some good ones are garnet, tourmalinated quartz, onyx, obsidian (especially snowflake obsidian), ruby (raw rubies are inexpensive and easy to find at metaphysical shops), or smoky quartz. Try with and without the stones and pay attention to their effects to find what works best for you. And, of course, you can always use clear quartz. If any of this makes you feel unsettled and ungrounded, go ahead and take a minute to do some grounding (see my earlier post on this for ideas).

You may want to keep a journal associated with your energy work so that weeks, months (or even just days) from now, you can look at how things are changing.

Meeting the center

One of the most powerful tools for living consciously is, of course, meditation. But there's another simple tool you can use to start, and use throughout, your day even when you a) don't have time to meditate, b) can't get your brain to shut up during your meditation, or c) whatever your reason is for not meditating.

The tool (practice) is called "grounding and centering," and it's just as handy for getting your toddler to calm down as it is for getting your inner toddler to calm down. The practice. common to several religious traditions, is used to sharpen focus and open yourself up to divine intervention/guidance.

The two parts can be done together or separately as you need, and only take a few minutes (less time with practice) to bring you back to yourself, regardless of the distraction.

Grounding: the practice of grounding involves feeling yourself connected to the earth (thus enhancing stability). A good way to start is to imagine yourself sitting on the ground leaning against a tree or large boulder. Feel how strong that is, how rooted. In your imagination, now, let yourself merge into the tree or boulder. Now you  are the one who is rooted. Just the imagining of this can relax your body.

Centering: centering can be used to focus when your mental energy is jumping all over the place, or when you're feeling attacked and you need to present a clear case (attacks of nerves count). This practice uses the traditional 7 chakras as a guidepost: you're looking for the solar plexus chakra, which can be imagined as a clear yellow light (it is, of course, located roughly at the solar plexus, or right about the center of your body). Of the many areas governed by this chakra's energy, the one that deals with will/focus/personal boundaries (depending on your situation) are what you're looking for. Mind you, it works just as well even if you think the chakra system is a bunch of hooey. Locate this center, imagine the yellow light. Now imagine the light spreading throughout your body. The brilliance loosens up all those irritating little energy blocks that are keeping you scattered. When your body is full of yellow light, start to pull it back in to your center. When it's back in place, in a nice, bright, yellow ball, take a few deep breaths.

Used in the morning, the dual practice is one way to get the day off to a clear-headed, focused start. During the day, when demands on your time start to pull your focus off your path, you can use one or the other or both to walk yourself back to where you need to be.

Opening up and taking in

Hat tip to Jennifer Todd of Just Breathe Orlando for making me see chakras from a different perspective. She's doing a series of classes on the chakras, and I've missed all of them except last night's on the brow chakra (aka the third eye). There's definitely something for me to explore there--a new way of looking at how our lower chakras (lower on the body, I mean--that is, root through solar plexus) open to place us in the world and in our reality. If you're in the Orlando area, check her out.

I'm also in the middle of a book called Advanced Chakra Healing (the author escapes me at the moment, and the book is in another room). It's part of why I went to Jennifer's class last night.

While I spend a fair amount of time talking to people about their passions, and what living their truth means to them, I sometimes forget to check in with myself--I often end up drifting into things that are good, are helpful, aren't 'me.' One of the paths that turns me on is energy work. I have a hard time seeing how I can use that as anything more than interesting fun (emphasis on 'I'), so it gets shoved to the back except for almost daily Reiki on myself and when requested by others. Journeying is another love. A lot of the journeying I do for healing (of self and others) includes energy work, which is probably not typical for shamanic practice, but seems to be just right for me. So now I'm consciously checking in with Jennifer's work, and the work laid out in this book, to ramp up how I combine the two practices--it feels right, so I think I'm onto something.

'nough about me, though--how about you? Do you see a glimmer of what you could really love to do a lot of?