Let’s get wild

We need the tonic of wildness… At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. Henry David Thoreau

There’s a half-written blog post languishing in my drafts folder, intended for this week, but as often happens, some thing burns a hole in my soul and I just have to write about it instead.

The soul-burning issue this week is self-restraint.

Now I’m a fan of self-restraint to a degree. I accept that we learn to keep our hands out of the fire and to not blindly walk across the road in the face of a Mack truck. Not to mention the restraint of pen and tongue that is so vital to peace in relations between family, neighbours, and nations.

However, when self-restraint tips over into stifling our wild nature, well, I have a little something to say about that.

As I resume teaching Chakradance for the New Year, I have been fielding lots of queries from interested people. And there is a disturbing trend emerging. Now I want to make it clear that this post is not based on any one individual, but on what seems to be an overwhelming reaction to the idea of dancing without inhibitions.

The refrain I keep hearing is that you would love to do Chakradance but…

You think you can’t dance

You think you’ll look foolish

You’re feel insecure and self-conscious about your body

You are worried what will people think of you

After one gorgeous person after another laid these concerns on me, I began to feel really sad. I mean it’s possible that these are excuses, that they really don’t want to do Chakradance, and that’s fine. I’m not trying to evangelise here!

But you see, I know they’re not just excuses, because I have had them too.

For years, I was a party animal, I would get drunk or high and dance the night away. When I gave up all that, I felt like I had lost the ‘fun’ button. I didn’t know how to relax into my body, how to move freely. When I danced, I feel like I had wooden legs.

And the irony is that the only cure for these inhibitions and insecurities – for me – was to dance in spite of them. To dance harder in the face of them, to thumb my nose and stick my bum out and wiggle my hips at them.

You see, they are a barrier to my wildness, and once I opened the door to my wildness, she came and whooped those fears right away.

Wild child full of grace
Saviour of the human race. Natural child, terrible child
Not your mother’s or your father’s child
You’re our child, screamin’ wild. The Doors

The idea of me being a Chakrdance teacher seemed ludicrous to me. I mean, I’m the one always turning the wrong way in dance class, I stumble a lot. I don’t look like a dancer…

So many mental barriers.

Writing this blog has given me the freedom to follow my wildness. Because, you see, my heart wanted me to dance. And maybe I thought, I can encourage other people who would love to express themselves in some wild and creative way, but hold themselves back for fear they don’t fit the bill.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver

As I practice for the Chakradance Journeying classes, I dance to the themes of the Earth, trees, and animals. These are dances that focus on connecting with your wildness, your deepest primal nature. Dances that transport you into the ancient energy of your ancestors and the spirit of the land.

I connected with a wolf spirit in the power animal dance, and afterwards I was drawn to pick up an old, favourite book, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women who run with the Wolves.

I was given my copy of this transformative book 17 years ago by my first husband. He often lamented how uptight and restrained I was, he could see there was a wild woman in there just itching to get out, if I’d only just let her free.

Over the years I’ve re-read parts and the entirety of the book and it always has great wisdom for me.

I’ve also been drawn recently to books and stories of women who literally go into the wild, like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Robyn Davidson’s Tracks and Nomads.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.John Muir

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating a wholesale Thoreau-esque return to nature here.

In his book on the ecology of Celtic spirituality, The Salmon in the Spring, Jason Kirkey writes of the need for integration. We know our technological life is inherently lacking in spirit, and yet who of us wants to live without electricity and running water – only a small few.

The goal then is to integrate our technological advances with a renewed spiritual connection with the wilderness. Intrinsic to our soul is a deep need for this connection and only by honouring this can we bring the vision of a truly modern world – one that respects science, technology, nature and spirit – into being. Kirkey argues that evolution is the key, we cannot go backwards to a more primitive life, nor should we.

The mantle bestowed on humans in collective evolution is our ability for self-reflective awareness. This is not ‘our’ intelligence per se, but rather the evolutionary process has blessed us with this capacity to be a “particular expression of an intelligence and subjectivity” present in the cosmos from the beginning. In the scheme of things, of nature, humans got the job of self-reflection.

Our purpose now is to integrate this reflective consciousness into a mode of living that is in harmony with the evolutionary functions of all life – and not contrary to it.

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way. Cheryl Strayed

Sandra Ingerman says, from the shamanic perspective, we dream our world into being, and we can’t keep dreaming the old dream, we need a new one. I keep thinking of Robert A Johnson who writes in The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology, that the feminine psyche tends to solve problems by focusing on reducing the differences between opposing sides – mediating and peace-making – rather than in out and out battle.

In some ways this has lent itself to the feminine being always accommodating to her own detriment. But wildness is not synonymous with aggression. We can be wild and let our wildness shine and radiate its effects on those around us, without any force or aggression.

Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us. Robert Macfarlane

Think of the Mother bear archetype. I remember after years of trying to advocate for my son with autism, and being consistently made to feel that I didn’t know what was best, because I was a mother not an expert, my maternal ire rose up in me and I started being a mother bear. When something was against my maternal instinct, I stood my ground.

This internal shift has made me a much better mother, as I now have a steady internal compass for my parenting. I am not always looking to others to tell me what I should do.

Wildness in parenting, in any aspect of life and relationships means using instinctual intelligence – trusting our gut. Doing what we know is right even though the ‘powers that be’ – both internal and external – may not approve.

We may have to step out of the dynamic of being good and polite and nice. Perhaps like me, you had these qualities drummed into you as a child, as virtues. Perhaps being polite has also left you defenceless and vulnerable in dangerous situations. Situations your instinct would have warned you from, if you had been brought up to be attentive to it. Situations where sometimes the only way out with your life was to give up a piece of your soul. And bit by bit these woundings deplete our wildness. But the wild spirit is regenerative. The soul wants to heal and it will, given the space to.

Though the gifts of the wildish nature come to us at birth, society’s attempt to “civilize” us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become over-domesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Chakradance is described as a dance practice for the soul. The intention is reconnect to our true essence or self – to tune into that deeper part of us and hear what it has to say.

In our forests
part divine
and makes her heart palpitate
wild and tame are one. What a delicious Sound! John Cage

These days there is an epidemic of challenging symptoms in our modern lives – depression, anxiety, addictions, compulsive behaviours – the list goes on. In traditional shamanic cultures, it is believed that these symptoms arise from loss of connection to the soul.

Oh, I’m burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free… and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Emily Brontë

Fortunately, the soul has a natural instinct to heal. It communicates with us through our bodies, our feelings, our relationships, our dreams, our art. And once we listen to our souls language, we find the path to wholeness, we align our inner and outer lives.

Chakradance workshops are a journey inwards. But they are by no means the only way to make this connection.

We can reconnect with our nature self, our primal self, our wild self, by reconnecting with mother earth, and the elements of water, air, sunshine, moonlight, starlight. This can be as simple as:

Walking on the earth with bare feet

Singing with all your heart

Dancing with abandon

Standing beneath the moon and the starry night sky

Sitting in silent solitude

We can model wildness for future generations as the way to integrate modern life with our inner instinctual selves. A balanced way of life for both the natural ecology and the internal ecology – toward an individuated and balanced psyche. For a balanced person will want to protect what it loves, the wilderness within and without.

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. Mahatma Gandhi

Root Chakra Affirmations from Chakra Anatomy 

I feel deeply rooted.

I am connected to my body.

I feel safe and secure.

Just like a tree or a star, I have a right to be here.

I stand for my values, for truth, and for justice.

I have what I need.

I am grounded, stable, and standing on my own two feet.

I nurture my body with healthy food, clean water, exercise, relaxation, and connection with nature.

I am open to possibilities.

I am grateful for all the challenges that helped me to grow and transform.

I trust in the goodness of life.

I make choice that are healthy and good for me.

I trust myself.

I love life.

Bless!

Images:

Anita Anti & Margarita Kareva

For more information on Chakradance

Courageous intention

I want to get the words “Courage” and “Bravery” tattooed across my back, so people could associate me with those things, as they read them while they chase me. Jarod Chintz

My friend who does reiki has me choose an oracle card at the end of a healing session – she and I have a big thing for oracle card decks – and I chose ‘Courageous Intention.’ I still get excited when things have the word intention in them. Since I’ve been writing this blog, anything to do with intentions feels like synchronicity and it has to get a mention.

I have talked a lot about intention in this blog already. So then, what of courage? It’s easy to think of physical strength, of bravery, or acts of valour. It’s easy to think of saving people from burning houses or dangerous waters, but what of us ordinary folks? Are we not courageous too? Those of us on the other end of the spectrum from the adrenaline junkies, whose hearts race when a door slams, or a harsh word is spoken, what does courage mean for us?

Courage is grace under pressure. Ernest Hemingway

One of my biggest fears all throughout my life was being discovered as a phoney. Apparently it’s a very common fear for people to have – wish someone had told me THAT sooner. Basically I judge myself via an internal filter of all my past experiences, doubts and insecurities, whilst others judge me by my external actions.

When I was younger, in my rebel-without-a-clue phase, I had great, lofty intentions, but shitty actions. Now my actions are, generally, pretty commendable, but because my thoughts and insecurities don’t match up, I feel like a fraud.

In fact, when people compliment me, my most common reaction is to think “if only they knew…”

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu

If they knew what? That my (clean) laundry pile nearly takes up a whole room? That I yell at my kid sometimes, that I slack off at work at times, that I’m really quite lazy, that no matter how good I do something, I always know I could have done BETTER?

As a kid when I’d show my folks something I’d done – cleaned my room, polished my shoes –  the family joke was to say “the army wouldn’t accept it, but I will.” Or my dad, when I got 98% on my English exam, quipped “Where’d you lose the two percent? There’s some room for improvement right there.” Now my brother grew up in the same house and his self-esteem is just fine, so I’m not blaming my parents. I’m just primed too take things way too personally and seriously.

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow. Mary Anne Radmacher

Yesterday, I had a difficult conversation with someone I care very deeply about, someone I love. And they told me this constant self-pity about how I could have done better, not only does it damage me, it also denies the other person any chance to have their own feelings, because I make everything my fault.

When I heard this, I felt a familiar reaction. It’s a reaction I have to feeling I’ve done something bad, that I’m not good enough. I call it ‘retreating’, some may call it disassociation. It’s like I start to disappear.

Recently, on the night of the lunar eclipse, I was posting on Facebook that the original Greek word for ‘eclipse’ comes from the word for ‘abandonment’. Literally the ancients thought the moon has abandoned them. A friend told me of a Clarissa Pinkola Estes recording that covered this concept, so I downloaded it. Warming the Stone Child:
 Myths and Stories About Abandonment and the Unmothered Child by Clarissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D.

Estes describes the effect I described as ‘collapse’ – it’s the best description I’ve ever heard for what happens to me in these situations.

Collapsing is a syndrome where when someone is angry or being negative towards you, instead of staying strong and present as an adult, you go into a psychic regression, get hooked into old feelings, feeling worthless, unprotected, not knowing what to do next, wishing to be invisible, even wishing you would die to avoid the pain of rejection and separation that you feel, the abandonment that is triggered. Instead of acting sanely in relation to the present circumstances, you journey to a horrible place in the past and react from the feelings of that place.

I should point out that being an ‘unmothered’ child is not always about ‘bad’ mothering. It can be due to illness, either the child’s or the mother’s which results in physical or emotional separation or affects bonding at pivotal developmental stages in the child’s life. It can be due to traumatic childhood experiences. Whatever the cause, the effect is often a gaping need, an insatiable desire for love in adult life.

That psychic secret is – in order to grow the internal mother, you have to be willing to be decent and good to yourself. The more you are willing to accept self-love, self-respect, it doesn’t matter if your ears stick out or your hair stands up or if you’re too short or too wide, too tall or too fat, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It has to do with caring about all the things that you are, you can have favourites, you can have some lesser parts then others, but a caring for all the things you are. THAT is what develops the inner mother and you can actually feel her grow and see her grow, before your very eyes–to accept your own love and your own respect, and regard for yourself. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

So yesterday I made a pact with myself not to ‘collapse’. I breathed deep into my chest and focused on being fully present in the moment. I was proud of myself for that. And I thought of this idea of mothering. I mean who has been perfectly mothered? Sometimes our personalities just don’t lend themselves to being nurtured.

Is there even such a thing as perfect nurture? Jung argued that effect of our personal mother on us stems from the power of the mythological mother archetype, not just our own mother’s nature.

So how do we engage this mother archetype within us? What will bring out the ‘inner mother’ – that nurturing force – in our psyche?

What will is to have guidance, the guidance of intuition, the guidance of common sense, the guidance of consciousness. Consciously knowing what we’re made of, what we’re capable of, what our good points have been- what our bad points – and guiding ourselves through life with that knowledge. That is the deepest internal mothering that you can ever have. And if you are an unmothered child THAT is what was missing in your upbringing. But have heart. No matter what happened to you – that light still lives inside of you. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Mother archetype is embedded within all of us. In it’s most primal and nurturing form, it is Mother Earth, the sense of homecoming, of nurture, security, love and the root of life itself. She holds great power over our sense of security, for the mother can also be devouring and destructive – her storms may leave death and destruction in their wake. The Mother can provide sustenance or deny it.

Just as Corn Mothers smite the land by withholding crops (which results in death), so do some Mothers symbolically “smite” their children by withholding love, attention, and communication. The Mother who gives the “silent treatment” or isolates their children as punishment withholds their nurturing, life-giving love. Symbolically, this is much like the famines in the Corn Mother mythos. This withholding stunts the emotional growth of children and—if severe enough—damages them irrevocably. Janet Boyer

When we lose our grounding in life, and collapse into our ‘Victim’ archetype, we have lost contact with the self-sustaining power of the Mother archetype. Many people go through life believing they have to have someone, or something, take care of them and their needs in order to survive. At it’s extreme is the victim mentality.

For me it was chasing the feel good, as an addict, I sought the soothing warmth of escape. Alcohol, drugs, food, sex, anything to dull the raging storms. Feeling the world was unsafe, I cocooned myself in an all consuming chemical hug.

These issues – seeking security and stability – are very much at the core of the base chakra energy. Here we can connect with the mother archetype through connection with Mother earth itself.

Located at the base of the spine at the coccyx bone, the Root or Base Chakra is said to govern your energetic expression of self-preservation, personal survival, integrity, and your identification with the physical world, including your own body. It represents your sense of security and safety in the world. It influences your adrenals, kidneys, muscles, and arterial blood. It is the foundation of energy in the body. It manifests strongly in the motivation to ensure personal survival by way of food, rest, shelter, and sexual expression.

Called Muladhara in Sanskrit, which means root support, the base chakra is like the root system of a tree, the foundation of your entire chakra system. Without a strong base chakra, your entire chakra system can be compromised.

The root chakra reflects your inherited family and societal beliefs from your formative years. Think of it as your tribal chakra, connecting you with the collective wisdom and vibe of your tribe. If there was instability or trauma during your formative years, and you learnt to view the world as an unsafe place, then issues of survival, emotional dysfunction, fear of abandonment, fear of letting go, scarcity, poor boundaries, anxiousness, and restlessness, may affect you. You may feel as if you have no real home, that you cannot settle in and feel safe in the world. Or you may have a fear of any change to your sense of security.

The upper chakras in most people were waiting for the foundation below them to be strong enough to support their opening. The wounds to the lower chakras were common: physical and sexual abuse, oppressive power dynamics, betrayal of the heart. Anodea Judith

When our root chakra energy is in balance, the Mother – the nurturer – is balanced with the Victim – the one in need of nurturing. The root chakra concerns itself with our basic survival needs, food, shelter, warmth, care. It defines the grounds of our basic well being. It is the foundation of our being. It is our anchor.

It takes courage…to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives. Marianne Williamson

I think it’s all too easy to expect perfection as the reward to doing inner work. That’s not my experience. the more I look within, the more murk I find. The courage then, comes from continuing the work knowing this. From not avoiding those “sharp pains of self-discovery.” For some of us, for whatever reasons, life is incredibly thorny. It’s sharp points catch us as we move along, sometimes they are small nicks, other times we can become hopelessly entangled in thorns and need a lot of help to get free.

For me it’s time to stop judging my progress. I’m not a total phoney, nor am I perfectly authentic. If I were, where would be the courage? Courage lives in the face of fear. I fear being exposed and judged and found wanting, and yet I keep putting myself out there. Writing this blog, launching my Chakradance business, the more I expose myself, the greater the risk of rejection, but also the greater the chance of connection and intimacy.

Besides what choice do I have? I have already put myself out there, and now I just keep trudging ahead.

Everyone has talent. What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads. Erica Jong

Affirmations for the base chakra and mother archetype:

I am strong, safe, and secure in the world. All my needs are being met for my ultimate wellbeing. I am fully integrated in all aspects of my being. My body supports me. I love every part of my body. I am filled with energy and vitality. I am home.

Abandonment is a common pattern we all carry. Humans have a primal need to be safe and secure. Traditionally, abandonment by the mother or the tribe meant certain death. We are primed to protect ourselves through inclusion by the family and the tribe. When the tribe has failed to protect us in some way, the psychic damage continues to resonate in our lives, consciously or unconsciously. It may not be a big factor for some, but for others it feels like an overwhelming burden.

Going within, doing inner work, it is so easy to feel self-indulgent and self-absorbed. I mean, what good does this bring to the world? I’m not saying what I do is the apex of courage, nor is it the quintessential journey for everyone. But for whatever reason, for me, it has been, and continues to be, my journey. I intend to honour this inner journey and trust that in some way I don’t have to understand it will be of service to others. This is my courageous intention.

Bless!

 

Images of Found Objects Mandalas:

Matt W Moore Utah Mandala Mosaics

Persephone Sunset on Tumblr

Matt W Moore Utah Mandala Mosaics

Matt W Moore Utah Mandala Mosaics

Louise Gale Mandalas

Matt W Moore Utah Mandala Mosaics

 

Too much of a good thing

E-motions are energy in motion. If they are not expressed, the energy is repressed. As energy it has to go somewhere. Emotional energy moves us, as does all energy. John Bradshaw

Yeah well, MY emotions are certainly energetic this week. I should have known, that on the week of focusing on the sacral chakra, I’d be hormonal and emotional.

I was emotional even driving to work this morning. The dog threw up on the carpet right before I had to leave home, I forgot to (a) brush my hair (b) bring a hairbrush. I limped into 7-Eleven (my foot is hurting again), after dropping my beautiful new fluorite crystal on the road when I got out of the car – it smashed to smithereens.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. William Shakespeare

7-Eleven was out of hairbrushes. The girl just stood there looking vacantly at the empty drawer saying “they’re usually here.”

By this stage my emotions had reached boiling point. I limped back to the car and drove in tears, raging against all the deities I’d ever prayed to, that they were no friggin help at all. And despite realising that on the scale of world issues my hormonal morning probably rated pretty low, I was not happy with the level of service I was receiving.

Tears are a river that takes you somewhere… Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I stopped ranting and crying when I realised the cars around me were giving me a wide berth, “stay away from the crazy/road-rage lady.”

Now let me say, there was more behind my emotionality than I have mentioned here. I am still very affected by seeing my dad so unwell lately and my relationship is… I don’t even know what it is. We are either having a break up or a break through – I’ll keep you posted as news comes to hand.

The sacral chakra is all about feelings, emotions, inhibitions, connectness with others, sexuality, sensuality, femininity – all the warm, soft and gooey stuff of life.

Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty. Albert Einstein

The main function of this chakra is emotional flow. The sacral chakra is located at the lower belly. Its Sanskrit name is svadhisthana, meaning sweetness. It is associated with our connection to other people, creativity, energy, confidence, and sexual health.

A person may be disconnected and cold towards others if this chakra is under-active. Or if its overactive, they may seem needy, overly emotional, and co-dependent. Yes! I realise I have an overactive sacral, I see that too, thanks for pointing it out through.

I had thought that over-active chakras were a good thing, I mean you can’t have too much of a good thing, right?

We all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Mostly I try to keep my emotions under wraps. It’s better that way, they scare people. After years of learning to ‘act better than I feel’ and ‘fake it til I make it’ and other such stoic affirmations, I now – mostly – project the demeanour of a very calm, together person. People say it to me all the time “you’re so calm.” Yeah. Except when you are behind me in traffic on a bad hormone day.

Physically, the sacral chakra governs our sexual development, our reproductive and urinary systems, including the kidneys and bladder. The sacral chakra corresponds to the ovaries and testes, the endocrine glands which regulate sexual development, reproduction, and the hormones oestrogen and progesterone.

The sacral chakra is about feeling and sexuality. When the sacral chakra is open, your feelings flow freely, you can experience intimacy with others, your creativity flows, and you can express yourself without being over-emotional.

The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject’s dream of total union with the loved being… A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled. Roland Barthes

According the Curative Soul common psychological symptoms of an unbalanced sacral chakra are: eating disorders, addictions, low self-confidence, dependency issues, low libido, and unbalanced emotions.

Common physical symptoms of an unbalanced sacral chakra are: kidney problems and urinary tract infections, chronic lower back pain, sexual disorders, infertility, gynecological problems, dysfunctional menstrual cycles, and problems with the intestines, spleen, and gallbladder.

A healthy woman is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, strong life force, life-giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

According to Caroline Myss, “The challenge of the second chakra is to learn what motivates us to make the choices we do.” This centre governs our need to control other people. We are connected via our sacral energy to everyone and everything we want to control. In this way we both ‘invest’ our energy in the need to control others, and are affected by others who desire to control us.

All our sexual desires, memories, competition, shame, and envy are recorded in this chakra. Sexuality, power, money and creativity meld together in a melting pot of desires in this centre.

The sacral chakra energy holds the power of choice to create your own reality. The creative potentiality of the sacral chakra can be moved by trust and love or by fear and negativity. Our emotions can impact the choices we make and thus the consequences we have to deal with. Feelings of blame, shame, guilt, unattractiveness, insecurity, neediness, dependency sap our energy through this chakra.

Sacral chakra is where ideas come to be born, if our creativity is aborted the scars are recorded in this energy centre. Health issues of the reproductive organs can be as much linked to stifled creativity as to sexual memory.

Wherever thought goes, energy and life force follow. Caroline Myss writes that the second chakra gets unbalanced by stifled creative energy, money and sexual conflicts, power struggles, life energy directed into dead-end relationships or jobs, and control tactics that do not follow the spiritual rule to “Honour One Another.”

How do we disconnect our energy circuits from people or objects that sap energy? The first step is awareness. Check in often and notice where your thoughts are. Are they with you in the present, or have they drifted off to the past, the future, or with some person or object? Next, mentally cut the connection and literally call your spirit back. Calling one’s spirit back is not a one-time event; it’s a practice. Jule Klotter

The term ’empath’ seems to be a new age buzzword of the moment. It basically describes a state were folks, like me, are strongly affected by their own and other people’s emotional energy. Clarissa Pinkola Estes talks about this as a need to grow a thicker skin. Instead of walking around with our nerves jangling in the breeze, it’s important to be able to feel an appropriate and manageable level of emotions.

Caroline Myss explains that this chakra yearns for a connection with the sacred. It is a fundamental need of this chakra to have a daily nurturing rapport with the sacred.

Try this morning meditation by Caroline Myss to balance the sacral chakra.

Allow the truth ‘Honor One Another’ to penetrate your body.
Move your attention gradually up your spine to your lower back, hips and genital area.
Feel the fire and vibrant energy of this area.
Focus that energy toward the key areas of this chakra:
Relationships: Who am I going to be with today?
Work: What am I going to do today?
Money: How do I feel about it today?
Creativity: What am I going to create today?

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires. Lao Tzu

Deedre Diemer, in her book, The ABC of Chakra Therapy, writes that when are chakras are open and balanced, it means we have the ability to be more or less open as the situation warrants. In a room alone with our lover we may choose to be very open, not so much at work.

The chakradance of the sacral chakra is my favourite. Dancing with my hips and belly to middle-Eastern influences music, I feel this chakra flow. Using the imagery of a stream flowing through me, I can finally let go of the build up of emotion and be cleansed. I connect my the divine feminine. I become divine and glow with my sensual nature. I feel my creativity flow.

Last night I ran a bath. The sacral chakra resonates to the element of water, to the flow of water. I poured wild orange and geranium oil in, added some sea salt and let the emotional storm melt away. I asked that this excess energy flow down the drain with the water. Then I slept.

It seems to me, the name of this chakra ‘sweetness’ alludes to its proper balance. When we are sane and calm, when our emotions flow gently and appropriately, when we are neither bitter nor naive. When our desire for love and creative thirst is sensual and pleasurable, but not grasping and needy.

There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision – possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life – and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they’ve “had it” and “the last straw has broken the camel’s back” and they’re “pissed off and pooped out.” Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Affirmations by Natalie Southgate:

I relish the sweet exchange of intimacy and connectedness.

Pleasure is a good and valuable part of my life.

I give myself permission to fully enjoy my sexuality.

I allow abundance and prosperity into my life.

I allow my emotions to flow through me in a healthy way.

I am open to experiencing the present moment through my senses.

The universe is full of sweetness and beauty.

 

 

Bless!

 

Read more at:

http://www.myss.com/library/practice/morning.asp

www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/introduction.php

http://www.chakra-anatomy.com/sacral-chakra.html

http://theresekerr.com/the-sacral-chakra-the-key-to-your-emotional-well-being/

Images:

Title image

Jiali Ji Embrace

Embrace Your Heart

The Embrace Estefan Gargost

Embrace Andrea Barbieri

 

The Lover, The Rebel, The Priestess, The Child, and The Mother – the wisdom in archetypes

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. Rabindranath Tagore

Joy. What’s not to love about it? Odes have been written to it. Perfumes, dishwashing liquids, and magazines named after it.

Joy is my sixth intention, and although one possibly should not play favourites with such things – it is mine.

With joy anything is possible. Being mildly broke seems bearable. The assault on the environment and human rights still irks me, but I feel less pessimistic and more hopeful of solutions when I come from a place of joy. Joy makes mundane tasks pleasurable, singing whilst doing the dishes, chatting with the other mums whilst watching three hours of cricket.

The way to maintain one’s connection to the wild is to ask yourself what it is that you want. This is the sorting of the seed from the dirt. One of the most important discriminations we can make in this matter is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Joie de vivre. Pure, unadulterated delight in just being. That’s what calls to me from my soul.

Yet somehow, along this wild and wacky journey called life, I have been shamed out of feeling joy. I have been labelled as lightweight and fluffy, overly naive and annoying optimistic. Shallow even. What’s all this about then? I think it has to do with the misconception that joy is childish, when in fact it is childlike. And as we all have an aspect of self that resonates to the child archetype, I think its people’s unhappy child that wants to take a swipe at my joyful one.

Journeying into the psyche through Chakradance has been enlightening in myriad ways, none more so than the exploration of archetypes.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these. Tanith Lee

Now you may believe that you have little knowledge or archetypes or even less use for them. However, you may be surprised to realize that archetypes are being used all around you every day.

A classic example is advertising. Watch any ad for nappies or breakfast cereal and right there is a woman we all instantly recognise as a “mother”. Or the prosaic car ad, with a devastatingly sexy man or woman, “the lover”, and even a car so sleek it turns into an animal archetype of speed and grace such as a jaguar.

Even done a Myers Briggs personality test? Or one of those Facebook quizzes on which Game of Thrones character are you? Yep, all archetypes. In fact the art of storytelling is implicitly archetypal, based on the narrative path coined the Hero’s Journey, from Joseph Campbell’s seminal work on myth, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Have you ever seen a Disney movie without a witch, warlock, magician or some variation of these?

The bad guy in all movies usually is involved in some kind of alchemy, whether dark magic, or production and sale of illicit substances. Magic traditionally gets a bad rap from the uber-conservative and religiously pious Hollywood.

If you have yet to be called an incorrigable, defiant woman,
don’t worry, there is still time. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

So these are tangible and obvious manifestations of archetypal representation, but what of the archetypes Jung wrote of, what exactly ARE they?

You are a slave of what you need in your soul. Carl Jung

Carl Jung suggested that every society ever created shared its knowledge through storytelling.

Originally all societies were oral and pictorial storytellers, then many moved to written, and now electronic technologies, to tell their stories. That Facebook update or SMS you just sent, is a story. In these stories are characters, and throughout all cultures, thought the details may be different, the essence of the characters in these stories are the same.

Whether it was a Hollywood movie or an indigenous tribe, the same characters show up. According to Jung, this is how our minds store information about the human psyche and its relationship to the world. These archetypes allow our mind to access and process emotions, people, relationships, and stories into personal meaning, guidance, and wisdom.

Let’s hear what the man himself had to say on the subject…

Jung used archetypes as a theory to describe the human psyche. These universal, mythic characters reside within the collective unconscious of all people, regardless of race, culture, creed. These archetypes provide a symbolic representation of the evolution of experience human experience, and are deeply held, operating unconsciously, and intricately entwined with our emotions.

Archetypes are, at the same time, both images and emotions. One can speak of an archetype only when these two aspects are simultaneous… By being charged with emotion, the image gains numinosity (or psychic energy); it becomes dynamic, and consequences of some kind must flow from it. Carl Jung

Jung described 12 major archetypes, but there are many more. Caroline Myss describes over 70 in her book Sacred Contracts, and says that new archetypes emerge when technological development causes new aspects of evolution in the human psyche, characters such as “the geek” and “the networker.” There are ever developing subtleties in the field of archetypes.

Each archetypes has a unique set of meanings, motivations and personality traits. Listen to the way you describe people over the next day or so, “Oh she’s a real go-getter, she’s a total drama queen, he’s a phony” – all archetypal.

It is the function of consciousness… to translate into visible reality the world within us. Carl Jung

So why should you care about archetypes? Well, not only are advertisers using them to tap into your unconscious and create emotive reactions in you, learning about your dominant archetypes can be a profound insight into the way you operate in the world, your communication style, those areas where you get stuck, and an insight into your relationships with others. And well, it’s fun and absolutely fascinating to boot!

Archetypes are… that portion through which the psyche is attached to nature. Carl Jung

Archetypes can be very useful in examining our behavioral patterns. For example, I have always experienced fear and anxiety. This is based in my child archetype and a need for security and reassurance.

The fact is being an adult involves a degree of risk – along with responsibility comes decision-making, which invariably is a calculated risk based on what happens if I do, what happens if I don’t. The inability to make responsible decisions, or to blame others when things go wrong, is a manifestation of the child archetype.

Each archetype has a shadow and a functional side. So, to further elaborate on my example, I want to move from the silent, vulnerable aspect to the joyful, playful aspect of the child archetype. Yet, we must be careful not to fall into moral judgements of “good” and “bad” as ALL archetypes serve a valuable function, and perception of them is somewhat fluid and subjective.

Understanding as had the ancients that angels and demons were identical – interchangeable archetypes – all a matter of polarity: the guardian angel who conquered your enemy in battle was perceived by your enemy as a demon destroyer. Dan Brown

Caroline Myss writes that the apparently ‘negative’ or shadow archetype has power precisely because it remains in the dark; we tend to deny its presence in us because we consider it unacceptable. Only when we face and acknowledge the shadow’s presence can we neutralize its potential negative impact on us, and embrace its wisdom.

Archetypes are not passive entities floating around in the psyche like old family portraits hanging in a dusty corridor of your ancestral castle. They take an active role as guardians and inner allies, alerting you when you are in danger of falling into destructive or “shadow” behavior. The Saboteur, for instance, warns you when you are in a situation in which you tend to sabotage your own best interests. Once you learn to recognize such a pattern, instead of ignoring it or denying its presence, it becomes your friend and can help you avoid selling out. Caroline Myss

Take for example the characters in the Wizard of Oz, the whole journey to Oz resulted in the realisation that they had the powers (agency, heart, brains, and courage) they had sought, within them all along, only their shadow archetypes (The Child, The Prostitute, The Saboteur, The Victim) were dominating their persona.

Yet, it was these very shadow archetypes that propelled them to take the journey to see the great Oz in the first place.

So working with archetypal concepts can be a great way to work through psychological issues, and who doesn’t have some of those? Archetypes have a functional aspect and a shadow aspect. The shadow aspect may be operating in our lives but we are unaware of the dynamic. So to use the example of my child, for many years I was operating from a desire for childlike security and dependence without even knowing it, now I can resolve that by acknowledging the security and independence I provide for myself, and investigate more functional aspects of my child archetype, like play and wonder and JOY!

While archetypes may emanate through us for short periods of time, in what we call numinous experience, no woman can emanate an archetype continuously. Only the archetype itself can withstand such projections such as ever-able, all giving, eternally energetic. We may try to emulate these, but they are ideals, not achievable by humans, and not meant to be. Yet the trap requires that women exhaust themselves trying to achieve these unrealistic levels. To avoid the trap, one has to learn to say ‘Halt’ and ‘Stop the music,’ and of course mean it. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

As a side note, I realise I am rather crudely over-simplifying a highly sophisticated theory here, for my own need, as a novice in this field, and to not over-complicate the point for my readers. It does however feel akin to plodding through a Japanese pebble garden in combat boots, so my sincerest apologies to those with a deeper understanding of this theory than mine. And I do hope as my understanding deepens I can share this new awareness with y’all. Or please share yours with me.

Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation – in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Chakradance uses Jungian archetypes as a way to explore each chakra.“The Intuitive” is the light archetype of the third eye chakra, or Ajna, and “The Over-Intellectual” is the shadow. Intuition versus intellectualization – I visualise this as ‘head up’ or ‘head down thinking.’ Head up, gazing at the wonders of the universe, head down in hands, thinking of the worries of the world.

Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw stars. Dale Carnegie

Natalie Southgate from Chakradance writes that Ajna has a two-fold meaning when translated from Sanskrit – to perceive and to command.

The third eye chakra is said to be the centre of perception, that intuitive sixth sense of just knowing, without knowing how we know. It is also the centre of our dreams and memory recall, the chakra where we can tap into archetypal energies. Through active use of our imagination, we can gain command over our vision of the world.

Though her soul requires seeing, the culture around her requires sightlessness. Though her soul wishes to speak its truth, she is pressured to be silent. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

It is in Ajna that we tap into the ‘collective unconscious’ and the world of archetypes. During the Chakradance we work with an archetypal energy in order to allow that energy to enter the physical body and move through it. By embodying archetypal energies in the meditative dance space, we can gain insight into how these energies are manifesting in our lives.

So thin a veil divides
Us from such joy, past words,
Walking in daily life–the business of the hour, each detail seen to;
Yet carried, rapt away, on what sweet floods of other Being:
Swift streams of music flowing, light far back through all Creation shining,
Loved faces looking–
Ah! from the true, the mortal self
So thin a veil divides!

Edward Carpenter

Accessing the full power of the imagination is a gift inherent in all of us. The ‘command’ function of Ajna relates to the powers of visual imagination. This allows us to shift from left-brain rational cognition to right-brain creative thinking. This is the shift into our inner visionary. Yes, you DO have one!

The Ajna Chakradance, under the full moon by the sea, was euphoria, bliss, joy, energy, insight, connection. The place and surrounds were deserted. It was just me on the damp grass under the trees and the stars, with the sounds of the ocean crashing in the background.

At first I found being outside distracting, I was over-thinking it, trying to force a vision, also a little nervous about being so alone and isolated. Focusing on the music and movement, I tried to keep my eyes closed, but they kept getting drawn open to the natural beauty that surrounded me.

After a time, I felt an energy shift, the light became more intense as my dancing slowed, I intuitively reached my arms to the moon, I felt she was calling me. At that moment a tunnel of white light came directly from the moon into me, with the most vibrant and loving sensation, I felt completely safe and perfect. An intuitive voice came within the light saying “You are beautiful. You are now a Moon Goddess”

After that my energy levels spiked and I was dancing like a whirling dervish, I felt I was a faery with wings dancing and leaping around the garden. At one stage my ring flew off my finger and landed near a wand-shaped stick. I decided this was meant to be my wand and I used it to ceremonially cut cords with any negativity.

The lesson of this dance was in reacquainting me with my divinity. When I am over-reliant on my rational mind, I can become quite disheartened about life, this connection with the universal energies of the moon and stars reminds me I am connected to all that is, there is no need to worry, the universe is unfolding, and I am part of its divinity.

Tapping into the archetypal world of the collective unconscious, allows synchronicity to flow in my life. Synchronicity is often discounted as coincidence, and it is acausal in the same way, but it is meaningful. For example, I was sitting at a park bench on my lunch break last week, re-reading my last blog post and thinking about the post I wrote for my friend who died, called “For You, Blue” after a somewhat obscure Beatles song, and at that moment, a man walks past singing that song. Now there is no connection between me and this man, yet at that moment, we were physically co-present, and our conscious minds were simultaneously focused on a Beatles song called “For You, Blue.” That is synchronicity.

To put it bluntly, and I think the process is far more subtle and nuanced than this conveys, events of synchronicity are the collective unconscious’ way of communicating with us that this connection exists. Why? I don’t know. It feels, to me, like sensing a ripple in the sea of the collective unconscious. You know, like in Star Wars “I feel a disturbance in the force”. Or an exclamation mark, “Yes! You are having a meaningful moment in the collective unconscious” – gold star. Okay, I really don’t know…

Like the characters from the Wizard of Oz, our power is always within us. We may search in external powers, like the Great Wizard, only to find he is just a man. Yet he is wise enough to know we have been acting from our power unconsciously all along. Like Dorothy, all we need to do is set the intention and we can go home at any time, the shoes, the incantation are just the point of focus, they bring our truth to our conscious mind, the power is within.

I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories… water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Affirmations for third eye chakra from Purely Om:

I open myself to know my inner guidance and deepest wisdom.

I align my consciousness with the source of all life.

I believe I am unlimited in my capacity for joy, healing and happiness.

I open myself to new energy, new people, places and experiences.

I live in the light of my truth and I accept what I know.

I create clarity of mind and unlimited vision for myself.

I am wise, intuitive, and aligned with my highest good.

I open my imagination to see the best in people and things, and to see the best in myself.

I am the source of truth and love in my life.

As I tap into my inner wisdom, I know that all is well in my world.

Bless!

 

Sources:

http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html

http://www.stepchangemarketing.com/blog/posts/2013/jungian-archetypes-and-choosing-a-great-brand-name.aspx

http://www.myss.com/library/contracts/archetypes.asp

Women who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype Clarissa Pinkola Estés

 

Images:

Title: Edward Burne-Jones The Mirror of Venus 

Card playing archetypes

Archetypal faces

Wizard of OZ

Archetypal mask

Ajna woman

Moon Goddess