Reflection on the fifth chakra: Vishuddha

by jacquelynaharvey: 1/18/11

“News reporters rattle off deplorable facts with very little feeling. We hear about the destruction of the environment in terms of square miles of rainforest, inches of topsoil, numbers of disappearing species, but these statistics do not tell us what it is like to stand in a rainforest and hear the trees fall, or to watch the death of a life-form that will never exist again. We read about calamities in foreign countries in terms of so many dead, so many injured, and so many dollars worth of damage. We coldly take in data without having the time or the context in which to really feel its impact.”

These words stood out to me when I read them. They come from the Eastern Body, Western Mind book. And they’re so true. We can hear about death and destruction without even flinching – unless it is something that hurts or affects us. It seems that we’ve lost our empathy. Sure, we get upset when something happens that affects us. We got upset when we lost Americans in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But how many terrorist attacks occur against others throughout our world…every single day? Why do we not feel so strongly for them? Why is it that our compassion and our sympathies extend to certain people and not others? Shouldn’t we hurt or feel sympathy for anyone who is suffering? But we hear of terrible things occurring in our world every single day – yet we let the news pass in one ear and out the other.

Ajna – Opening the Third Eye

by Jacquelynaharvey: 2/24/11

“The sixth chakra is about seeing” is stated in our book: Eastern Body, Western Mind and it brought me to start thinking – what do we usually see about ourselves or our lives? I usually see how busy I am, how rushed, how I have so much to do and not enough time for everything – and this tends to cause me considerable anxiety. Conversely, I know that my boyfriend is usually the opposite. He sees how much time he has to get things done, how great things are, and how we should always be thankful for our lives and our blessings. And I notice that he hardly ever seems to have anxiety over anything. This is what I need to start ‘seeing’ more often in my life. I usually see things and label them as burdens. I want to be able to see how free and lucky I am. I am hoping that my awareness of this will cause a shift in my thinking strategies as usually the first step to overcoming anything is simply becoming aware of it.

Nov. 23 2010

From akasatya (re-posted)

First Chakra…Taking Root

Oh what a glorious compost pile.
Rainy night, rainy day,,,cleanses the earth and washes over me and I feel refreshed. God rinses away what is left from this weekend of purification.
The big chunks of dirt I’ve thrown into His glorious compost pile. The rain accelerates the cycle, quickening new life, new growth, rebirth from what has died and is decaying, Blossom into a new creation. The compost pile was necessary,  because from it I am going to flourish, taking root and blooming to reveal who I really am, who God created me to be.

The Third Chakra – Manipara

12/13/10 by Jackie

The third Chakra, Manipara deals with our personal power. Before reading about this chakra, I had never really been aware of my power. Now, I have come to realize that this is something which can play an important part in the quality of my life. In my opinion, in order to be aware of your personal power, you first need to believe that you have power. I never really thought that I had power over the incidents that occurred in my life. I had been under the assumption that I was living in the world and simply ‘going with the flow’ of it rather than creating my own outcomes within it. Now, I realize how foolish that was for me to think.

By becoming aware of, and utilizing our personal power, we are able to create our own path of life. I had personal power all along, and had even been utilizing it, I was just never aware of it. I had power over whether I wanted to take this yoga teacher training class. I had power over my education. I am utilizing my power in choosing to continue on to earn my doctoral degree. None of these things would have happened if I had not been utilizing my power. So I think that rather than believing that I am a victim of the circumstances around me, I must always remember that I have power in the way that I perceive my life and the actions I take within it. Even when unfortunate events do occur, I still have power over the way I will react to them and I think this is an important thing to know.

Muladhara- 1 Chakra

by Scribe

I love the idea of the 1st chakra, the importance of being rooted AND acknowlegding the roots from which you came. A solid foundation is essential to building anything of substance upon it. But so many of us have to glance back and process aspects of our childhood to begin to nurture healthy soil around our adult root system.

I also appreciate that Chakra 1 focuses on creating healthy boundaries and that accepting limitations in this regard can be the beginning of truly manifesting healthy desires. Only when we have the courage, strength, wisdom and wherewithal to focus can we manifest the lives we ache for.

It is a helpful and ongoing exercise for me to think about the places in my life where I feel deeply rooted and the places where I I know there is work to be done…

svadhisthana- 2 chakra

Reflection by Scribe

Exploring the second chakra has been very powerful for me. It is so important to make the distinction between feeling and thinking.  Becoming aware of when I deny my feelings is helping me find the courage to name them and begin to sit with them for longer periods of time. I am getting a better understanding of the significance of prana, how energy has to go SOMEWHERE.  I find it fascinating to think about what can happen when emotional energy gets stuck and how energy that is deficient in the lower chakras flows upward and can cause excess in the higher chakras. “Thinking to much” can actually be a negative thing if it means we are denying our emotional life true breath of space to flow freely. I am also so taken as I learn of how body  movement is so deeply connected to mental and emotional healing. it explains soooo much about why dance can be such a life-giving and soul-expansive activity for me.

O Lustrous Gem

what do I want? transformation.
trauma and abuse, shame deep and destructive. broken
will, submission. governed by fear. no more.
enmeshment no more.
TRANSFORMATION.
fire burns hotly, burns brightly. no more holding on
to that which is not mine. letting go of others’ shame, I find
my power, my will, my self, my precious monkey man,
O Lustrous Gem.

Muladhara The 1st Chakra

Muladhara is the first Chakra to develop in a human being.  It begins to develop in the womb and continues throughout the first year.  In order for it to develop properly the infants needs must be met.  It must be properly fed, clothed and bathed in a timely manner so that it may learn to trust that those needs will be met.
When those needs are met, the infant learns trust.  To trust the bond between mother and child.  To trust the world around them, to trust their bodies.
When the needs are not met the infant learns not to trust.  They mistrust the signals that their body is giving them.  They mistrust the bond that has formed with their caregivers. They learn to feel they do not have the right to be here in the world, to be safe, fed and warm.
These feelings and emotions can have severe consequences later in life when we are expected to trust others in situations where our physical or emotional safety is at risk.  We need to go back and rebirth, and re-parent ourselves before we can learn to trust others.

Svadhisthana, the Second Chakra

Svadhisthana is the Chakra dealing with our Emotional development and the connection between those emotions and our physical bodies.  We develop our Svadhisthana at a time when our bodies are just discovering the world separately from our mothers.
It is this discovery which leads us to need a greater range of expression.  That new language is our emotional repertoire.  We learn all of our languaging, verbal, physical and emotional from our family, our tribe.  When our family meets our needs and responds to us in a loving and appropriate way we learn our new language.  We learn that a smile or a giggle mean a happy good thing.  We learn that tears mean sadness or frustration.
When our family demonstrates inappropriate use of emotion we learn to fear it, or to use it incorrectly.  A child who is denied the right to express the emotions they are feeling will learn to disconnect those emotions from the physical feelings that cause them.  He will learn not to cry when he feels pain if he is told that boys don’t cry.  A child who watches his mother and father scream in anger might learn that as the only way to express familial connection.
Emotional patterns, whether we hide them, over express them, or express them inappropriately are difficult to change.  We must find the root of the issue through exploration of our second Chakra issues and then take the time to re-pattern ourselves.  Hug yourself, laugh with yourself, cry with yourself.  Give yourself permission to feel each and every emotion and to be alive in the moment.

One’s Own Abode – Swadhisthana

Reflecting back over the last couple of weeks I am not surprised to learn, firsthand, that the second chakra “…often offers us the opportunity to lessen our control issues and find a balance in our lives, teaching us to recognize that acceptance and rejection are not the only options in our relationships.” As I continue to move along my path I ponder this concept that so radically contradicts the way I have blindly approached many of my relationships. What are those other options? Perhaps to meet with love and compassion, perhaps to let go of the outcome, perhaps to remember, as Rumi says, “…there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”