So it begins…

We reach for the sun and call upon the yellow ray. The ray of life, the ray of creation, the ray of consciousness, the spark of fire. We call upon the flame to burn within us and temper our passions into strength. With strength we fight the dark, pulsing and straining, to realise it is a part of ourselves, part of our strength, part of our fear. We laugh, and put down the fight, merging, becoming whole, becoming stronger. Anodea Judith

Will you take a moment and come for a mental meander with me? Follow me down a verdant garden path, under draped yellow flower lights, past a Buddha garden into another world…

I created this space. With my own hands. A sanctuary, a place of love and light, where the very walls and floors are imbued with my vision. Hand-polishing the floorboards and painting the walls, whilst practicing the Chakradance script, I have embedded the essence of Chakradance in the walls and floors of my studio.

Yes, my body aches, and hurts. My flesh is covered in so many cuts and bruises and blisters, a reality that any novice renovator would empathise with. I am physically stretched to my limits. Financially stretched to my limits.

And yet, I have never felt so happy and grateful to be alive. Hell, I have never felt so alive. Is this what to feels like to manifest your intentions? And it isn’t what I thought. Intentions do not manifest through meditation and divine blessing alone, but through hard labour, dedication and self-sacrifice. Is this what it means to set your heart on a goal and doggedly follow it through, clearing hurdles, diving through obstacles, embracing the unknown? Ah!

Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed. Paulo Coelho

Last night, at the end of a of my first Chakradance class, I was feeling such a wave of gratitude, first to the powers that be, yes, but also, to myself. I was able to acknowledge how hard I have worked to make this dream a reality. And that’s new for me.

I am usually a ‘never enough’ kind of girl, especially when it comes to my owns achievements, I have a rather critical eye. Something about this endeavour, setting up my Chakradance studio, has bypassed that to a degree. I felt happy, I felt satisfied, I felt grateful. I told myself “You did it, girl!”

I never imagined a year ago when I bought the Chakradance DVD that it would lead me to this point. And yet everything has prepared me for this. Years of meditation, a fascination with the chakras, and healing, and inner journeying, has culminated here.

Part of me keeps expecting a crash. I mean it was only twelve months ago my adrenal system crashed, and I was unable to crawl my way out of bed for a few months.

I can’t help but think perhaps I am pushing myself too hard, and yet, there’s no evidence to suggest that. And in fact, despite my renovation-related injuries and a reasonable tiredness, I feel great. I make sure I finish each day with a salt bath and meditation, and despite some understandable muscle soreness, my body is holding up amazingly well.

Survival is not enough – we must learn to thrive. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Perhaps its time to acknowledge the power source within – my solar plexus chakra.

Known as Manipura in Sanskrit – which means lustrous gem – the third chakra revolves around themes of personal power, physical power, self-expression, and will. It’s the fire that fuels our metabolism, and if it’s activated it increases our vitality, drive, and sense of purpose.

Manipura is about your individuality, about allowing yourself to be yourself, and accepting others as they are. It’s about taking responsibility for you and your life, not blaming or making yourself a victim. This requires belief in yourself and good boundaries with others. In some ways, this chakra is our ‘inner teenager’ – inviting us to address issues of identity and unbridled passion.

Located in the area of the diaphragm and stomach, this chakra relates to concepts of self-definition, personal power, and positive emotional expression. This is your core, your centre.

This chakra represents our “get up and go,” our action, our will, our vitality, and our sense of personal power. Its name, Manipura, means “lustrous gem.” We can think of it as a glowing yellow Sun, radiating through the centre of our body. Anodea Judith

Balancing this chakra brings the ability to create healthy boundaries, balanced personal power, will power, and positive self-value. It governs the digestive system, the lower back, and the nervous system.

The energy of manipura is expressed as the element of fire. Traditional aboriginal cultures have strong relationships to fire using it in shamanic rituals and land-care, as well as for warmth and food preparation.

Jung believed in the connection between the psyche and the chakras, now it seems this connection is expanding to physiological connections between the chakras and the physical organs of the body. Jung equated the energy moving up through the chakras, known as the ‘kundalini rising’ as analogous to the awakening of the soul experienced in all cultures, described by Jung as the emergence, and ultimately the assimilation of the unconscious self. He saw the chakra system as a framework for the developmental phases of higher consciousness.

The manipura represents the stage where we are born again, into the fire of passion and awareness of a self beyond a relationship to others: family, tribe and community. It is entering the fire that allows us to emerge and connect with the spirit world, the world of the gods, and the cosmos, the collective unconscious, in Jung’s words it is “what will follow when you have made your acquaintance with the unconscious.”

But what is passion, what are emotions? There is the source of fire, there is the fullness of energy.  A man who is not on fire is nothing: he is ridiculous, he is two-dimensional. … So when people become acquainted with the unconscious they often get into an extraordinary state – they flare up, they explode, old buried emotions come up, they begin to weep about things which happened forty years ago. Carl Jung

The Solar Plexus Chakra is particularly associated with the adrenal glands which regulate the immune system and metabolism, and the pancreas which regulates insulin production.

The adrenal glands are two glands that sit on top of your kidneys that are made up of the adrenal cortex – the outer part of the gland – and the adrenal medulla – the inner part of the gland. The adrenal cortex produces cortisol – which helps regulate metabolism and helps your body respond to stress – and aldosterone – which helps control blood pressure. The adrenal medulla produces adrenalin – which helps your body react to stress.

The pancreas is a large gland behind the stomach close to the duodenum. It digests your food and produces insulin, the main chemical for balancing the sugar level in the blood. All the body’s cells use glucose (sugar) as an energy source. The level of sugar in the blood is kept constant by insulin, which is made by special cells in the pancreas. If the cells are not working properly and insulin is lacking then diabetes develops.

We often associate adrenalin with the ‘fight or flight’ response, our instinctual survival response to a real or perceived threat.

The problem is, in our busy modern lives, we tend to live in a constant state of such arousal, aggravated by excessive caffeine intake, and so our adrenals either tire out, or never get a chance to do their other important jobs. The adrenal glands release hormones that are essential for to life, so we need to take care of them.

What is this life flowing in our bodes like fire? What is it? Life is like a hot iron. Ready to pour. Choose the mould and life will burn it. Mahabharata

Last year, in fact exactly about a year ago, I suffered from adrenal fatigue (amongst other things including severe anaemia and depression). It was health crisis most likely as a result of having thrived on stress for too long. After my divorce, well truthfully long before my divorce, my life was very stressful and I had never really settled into a calm and relaxed space.

Although I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone, it has been valuable for me to see the toll that long-term stress took on my health.

And even as I write this, I feel a touch of that bone-weariness again. I know I have been pushing myself, burning the candle at both ends. At work and then painting half the night, or at the hospital with my dad.

Good sleep habits are the best remedy for adrenal fatigue. I was prescribed 9pm bedtimes, which I stuck to religiously for 6 months or more, and it really helped. I have got undisciplined again, and it’s not highly conducive to dating or having a social life, but I need to find a happy medium.

The Solar Plexus Chakradance is the dance of the hero warrior. The music is tribal and dynamic, the guided imagery encourages us to reconnect with our inner masculine energy and power. There is something incredibly liberating about dancing like a Kiwi Haka – grunting and stamping my feet. It releases a part of me that seems to lie dormant much of the time.

Creating and holding a vision for our endeavours does not mean being attached to perfect outcomes, more it is a compass to hold and refer to when the sun clouds over and the seas get rocky. It is a vision of the direction we saw from the high vantage point on the coast before we set sail, and once we found ourselves out at sea, we can refer to that vision for guidance, inspiration, direction and courage.

Woodchopper Exercise by Anodea Judith

Stand with feet planted firmly on the ground, knees slightly bent, heels about two feet apart. Raise arms together over the head with hands joined. Arch back slightly. Making an “ah” sound as you descend, swing the whole upper portion of the body downward bringing your hands between your legs and through. The motion should be smooth and rapid, emitting as much force and power as is possible. Let the sound be full and loud. Repeat five to ten times in a session, and feel the energy break through into your upper body. This exercise is also an excellent anger release.

Affirmations from Chakra Anatomy:

I love and accept myself.
I stand up for myself.
I am strong and courageous.
I am worthy of love, kindness, and respect.
I choose the best for myself.
I express myself in a powerful way.
I am proud of my achievements.
I honor my self.
I choose healthy relationships.
I am authentic.
I direct my own life.
I appreciate my strengths.
I feel my own power.
I am free to choose in any situation.
I seek opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.
I am at peace with myself.

Bless!

 

Images:

Sun Dance

Last dance with the sun by goddessathenaiegirl

Dance in today’s sun

Sun dance by visualsoup

Dancing woman

Beautiful couple dance love sun

Sources:

Manipura – The Power Chakra by Anodea Judith

The adrenal glands

Jung illuminates the fires of the solar plexus chakra

A look at C.G. Jung’s English Seminar on the Kundalini Yoga by Kevin Aiello

Ignite your inner fire

There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life. Federico Fellini

Several nights ago I was awoken from a dream, quite literally, with a bang. In my dream, a large metal pot or cauldron blew its lid with a loud explosion. Previously, I would have thought nothing of this – its only a dream, after all. Now, after reading Jung and experiencing Chakradance, I am curious about the messages my subconscious communicates to me in my dreams.

After waking from this dream, I felt quite agitated and unable to go back to sleep. There was the strongest feeling that this dream was an important message from my subconscious and I intuitively felt it was somehow related to my solar plexus chakra. So after discussing this with my Chakradance teacher, I moved on to the next chakra. During the dance, I had a very powerful experience.

The dance of Manipura (the third chakra) begins with a flame, and as the music intensifies, the fire increases, and I danced like wildfire. I became one with the fire, I was fire, flickering and wild. It felt incredibly liberating and powerful, and then all of a sudden my perception shifted dramatically.

The experience transformed from being elemental fire, to being ON fire – being burned, encased in flames – and all the powerful emotions that came with it. Horror, fear, panic. Even knowing it was just in the dance, the emotional reaction was profound. Recovering in child’s pose, I found myself saying to myself, “that was then this is now, it is safe to be powerful now.”

As I incanted this affirmation, came a vision of a fiery caudron burning away the hurts of the past, all those experiences where I was persecuted, shamed, or abused for expressing my power.

Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know. Pema Chodron 

The image of the cauldron is interesting. In both Taoist and Celtic traditions, the three cauldrons are the energy centres which are equivalent to the seven chakras in the yoga tradition. The first cauldron is the cauldron of heat, or Coire Goiraith, and in the Taoist tradition, is known as “the golden stove” representing the refining and vitality of the life force into the Ching energy, which is basically a highly refined, super potent form of chi, or life force energy. Ching is creation energy, associated with the creation of life through sexual union.

Caroline Myss writes that all spiritual truths are present in some form in all the great spiritual belief systems of the world. She spent many years trying to find the correlation between the seven chakras, the seven Christian sacraments, and the Judaic Sephirot, or tree of life. This got me to thinking about my ancestry, which is Celtic – mostly Irish with a bit of Scot thrown in for good measure.

This Celtic wisdom is something which I have been intuitively drawn to through my chakra work and meditation. I became intrigued with finding an equivalent energy system to the chakras in the Celtic tradition. After experiencing an inner knowing during meditation, I research these “gut feelings”, and discover they are aligned with Celtic tradition. I absolutely love this practice in trusting my intuitive guidance. Jung would say I am tapping into the collective unconscious. At some level this wisdom in encoded into my Irish DNA, as much as the red glow in my hair!

Jung believed in the collective unconscious, a collection of memories and intuition from our shared human ancestral history. The collective unconscious appears to the conscious mind as archetypal symbols, which allow the wisdom of the unconscious to come through to the conscious mind.

Every individual stands between two worlds. The world of external perception and the world of perception of the unconscious. C. G. Jung

Previously, I wrote about the solar plexus chakra – or manipura – here, in a post from March, and its interesting to reread this post and observe how my experience of the chakra has deepened. The imagery of petals unfurling – that represents many of the chakras in the yogic tradition – like a flower blossoming into full bloom, is a fine analogy for the way this feels.

When I originally aligned the seven chakras with my seven intentions, I had no idea – no conscious Idea, that is – how beautifully serendipitous it all was. As I go deeper into the chakras, I am amazed by this intuitive ‘ding’. The third chakra is related to my third intention of purpose, which is the theme of manipura – who you are, self-belief, will, and the loving expression of personal power in order to shine your light into the world.

The goal in working with the chakras is to deepen your awareness of your self and your energetic/emotional self. Margaret Juliano

Known as Manipura in Sanskrit – which means lustrous gem – the third chakra revolves around themes of personal power, physical power, self-expression, and will. It its the fire that fuels our metabolism, and if it’s activated it increases our energy, drive, and sense of purpose.

The energy of manipura is expressed as the element of fire. Traditional aboriginal cultures have strong relationships to fire using it in shamanic rituals and landcare, as well as for warmth and food preparation. When entering or leaving country, Aboriginal Australians burn leaves to perform a cleansing ceremony. Aboriginal people made extensive use of low level burning of land to prevent bushfires from getting out of control.

Fire ceremonies, such as the Native American sweat lodges, have long been used in indigenous cultures for cleansing and spiritual awakening rituals. In nature, fire has a cleansing effect. Many native Australian trees have seed pods that are only activated by fire.

Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners. William Shakespeare

Manipura is about your individuality, about allowing yourself to be yourself, and accepting others as they are. It’s about taking responsibility for you and your life, not blaming or making yourself a victim. This requires belief in yourself and good boundaries with others.

Located in the area of the diaphragm and stomach, this chakra relates to concepts of self-definition, personal power, and positive emotional expression. Balancing this chakra brings the ability to create healthy boundaries, balanced personal power, will power, and positive self-value. It governs the digestive system, the lower back, and the nervous system.

The chakras are the metaphysical shadow of the endocrine system. Margaret Juliano 

This chakra is adversely affected by physical abuse, or living in an environment of excessive control or fear. When out of balance, this energy of this chakra manifests in anxiety, a lack of mental clarity, lower back issues, and digestive problems.

Reading the list of issues from an unbalanced third chakra, I could be reading my prior medical history. Disassociation, anxiety, feeling powerless, a history of gut problems, and depression. Jung believed it is in the solar plexus that you hold old psychological wounds, trauma, and memories. Hence the feeling of being ‘sick to our stomach’ when witnessing or recalling a traumatic event.

Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness. Shakti Gawain

Jung believed in the connection between the psyche and the chakras, now it seems this connection is expanding to physiological connections between gut and brain and our emotional/mental health. The field of neurogastroenterology – which, as it sounds combines the fields of neurology – the brain – and gastroenterology – the gut – is a burgeoning area of research and medicine, which is uncovering fascinating links between the gut and the brain. To the extent that the gut is being dubbed “the second brain”.

Current research is identifying links between the gut and the regulation of processes that are involved in: the immune system, mental illness, autism, bone density, and the regulation of mood. The most obvious example of the gut-brain connection is the feeling of “butterflies” in your stomach when experiencing anxiety.

The Jungian archetypes that relate to this chakra are the warrior and his shadow, the servant. In healing this chakra it is important to addressing any control issues, whether you tend towards the dominant or the passive end of the spectrum.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ Jack Kerouac

Try this beautiful solar plexus chakra meditation. Just sit and listen to the sounds and breathe slowly and deeply,

It is apparent to me that this third energy centre has so much to teach me, about owning my personal power, and healing my gut and brain.

When deciding on my seven intentions, the initial word I used for my third intention was passion. Then I decided on the word purpose.

It strikes me now, that there is a space between those concepts, a place of perfect balance between passion and purpose, between that creative fire and the loving manifestation of that force in the world. Purpose, to me, can become drudgery and obligation, this chakra reminds me to always keep the home fires burning, to stoke them regularly, to allow them to flare up in magnificent displays of healthy passion and zest for life, to light my way in the darkness.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark….Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. Ayn Rand

The best way to stimulate the third chakra is to get your energy moving. Twisting poses and shouting also ignite this chakra, so twist and shout, baby.

This Lion pose is the perfect way to release your inner power. It releases your stomach, throat, and jaw, releasing any tensions and energy held there. It involves a powerful breathing technique that ignites the solar plexus chakra and releases emotions.

Lion’s Pose, Simhasana by Chakra Anatomy

Sit on your heals with your back straight.
Lean forward and put your hands on the floor in front of you, fingers pointing backwards.
Became aware of any sensations in your abdomen.
Take a full deep breath and allow your abdomen to fully expand.
Feel the sensations in your abdomen and connect with your breath.
Then, with a roar like a lion, throw your tongue out as you exhale the emotions and sensations in your abdomen.
Repeat this roar several times – breathing in your abdomen, connecting with your feelings, and exhaling the feelings with the power of a roar.
By releasing energy and long held emotions in your abdomen, you create space for a smooth energy flow through your third chakra.

Fire meditation

You may want to use a candle to assist in your visualisation.

Imagine you are sitting before a large, controlled fire. Look into the flames. Feel the flames as a reflection of your inner fire.

Visualise your solar plexus as a beautiful fiery sun. Feel its heat, its power. Allow any fears that emerge to be acknowledged and then burned in this ceremonial fire.

Ask this energy centre what is your purpose? What is your will? Spend a few minutes in quiet meditation and afterwards write or draw the wisdom you receive.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style. Maya Angelou

Solar Plexus Chakra Affirmations by Chakra Anatomy

I love and accept myself.
I stand up for myself.
I am strong and courageous.
I am worthy of love, kindness, and respect.
I choose the best for myself.
I express myself in a powerful way.
I am proud of my achievements.
I honor my self.
I choose healthy relationships.
I am authentic.
I direct my own life.
I appreciate my strengths.
I feel my own power.
I am free to choose in any situation.
I seek opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.
I am at peace with myself.

Bless.

 

For more on:

Manipura read this article by Anodea Judith

Chakradance here

And this article in Scientific American about the ‘second brain’ in the gut

Taoist alchemy practice ‘Circulation of the Light’ 

Jung and the yogic tradition here 

 

Title image:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nLMuzwNcOig/Ub4wmu-yKII/AAAAAAAAthQ/nionRoomO7s/s640/L1000826_HDR.jpg

Lion image:

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/n3quBUL5kTM/hqdefault.jpg

Fire image:

http://ak5.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4929029/preview/stock-footage-big-flames-in-wooden-campfire-fps-slow-motion.jpg