The Journey Continues... Join Us!

For all of you who have followed the journey through the chakras -- 12-26-10 through 11-11-11 -- stay with us.

The new blog site is:

year2-healingthechakras.blogspot.com

Come visit and join the site -- we are open and operational!

The Dawning 11-11-11

Sing Along Now!

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, 

Age of Aquariuuuus, 

Aquariuuuuus, 

Aquarius.  

Here it is!  What we’ve been singing about for forty years. 

I’m in a book club.  We usually read fiction but about twice a year we decide to include a non-fiction book.  Recently it was 109 East Palace, by Jennet Conant -- about Robert Oppenheimer and Los Alamos during the early forties -- the time all the brilliant scientists gathered on a remote hilltop in New Mexico to be first in the race to build an atom bomb and stop the Nazis and the Japanese.  Very good read.  Fascinating.  Especially if you live in Santa Fe -- the location of the book title address.

My copy of 109 was laying on the table in my studio.  And I placed a book I’m about to read next to it.  The book was Untie the Strong Woman, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  It’s about the images and the icons of the deep Feminine, and how Her Presence has entered the collective of various times and cultures.

So there they were these two disparate books lying next to each other.  I passed them by several times, aware of them, and not -- they were just books lying there -- Oppie, as Oppenheimer was called, blowing smoke from his pipe (how perfect is that!), and a beatific image of Mary, mother of God, rays of light streaming from her head, filling her aura.  It struck me.  I was looking at pictures of the two zodiacal ages we are straddling right now -- The currently ending Piscean Age and the incoming Age of Aquarius.

The Piscean Age, which we’ve been in for the last twenty-three hundred years (give or take), could be described as the age of the patriarchy, of power over others, might makes right, a time of secrets and lies (people in power got away with atrocious crimes, from mass murder to vast embezzling).   Authority was outside of oneself... it was military and wars and bombs, and on and on.  That time in Los Alamos is probably one of the most blatant descriptors of the age that is passing.  

In the Age of Aquarius it is a time of equinimity and equality (harmony and understanding).  In the Aquarian Age there are no secrets (think of some recent uprisings, Egypt for example where instantly information is broadcast to the world).  We’re only on the cusp of this twenty-three hundred year cycle -- we’re not at the glory predicted, but the picture of Dr. Estes book, and the title, rang loud for the ingredient that needs to happen (in my humble opinion).  Women must untie their strong woman.  And men, who all have an inner feminine component, the anima in Jungian terms, must confront and/or coax out their strong woman as well.  And it needs to be done by both, women and men.  As Yogi Bhajan said:  Each person must accept the responsibility to elevate and manage his or her own state of awareness, to deal with widespread and constant stress, to take actions and to make decisions on a vast, shifting array of problems.

The stage is set.  We’ve had the women’s movement -- we’ve achieved some equality and respect -- the feminine presence is growing.  But being like men is not the way -- we’ve tried that.  Finding (untying) the strong woman is what it will take to balance and perhaps save our world.  It will be the Feminine values of relationship, cooperation, and compassion, in the men and women who will sit down at the world tables.  That’s when we’ll live The Aquarian Age.

After all I’ve just said, which sounds like I think I have the definitive answer, I don’t mean that.  It’s just when I saw those two books together, that was the connecting piece in my imagination.  As a woman, I know I’m inviting out my strong woman -- and I have friends, women of all ages who are beginning to stand stronger in the deep Feminine that they know.  It’s the Feminine Face of God.  This is powerful.  But not power over, which makes it different from the last age.

The timing of these two books seemed a little uncanny so I decided to share my thoughts about them.

Anyway, this is my last blog on this site (I think).  I began it for the 320 day study of the chakra system and that’s now over, or we’re beginning anew on the spiral.  I will be teaching it again at Yoga Santa Fe, in Santa Fe, NM, beginning in January, at which point in time I’ll begin another blog.  It’s been an incredible journey, I hope you look for me again, and I hope you Untie the Strong Woman, call out your wild soul.

Let peace guide the planet and love steer the stars!

1000 Days 11-10-11

Today we end our 320 day journey through the chakras.  Thank you to all who have been along during this time.  It's been quite a trip -- much has happened since December 26, 2010, when we began.
On a longer scale of time, in 2009, though Yogi Bhajan had exited this world in 2004, he left a 1000 day meditation for us to prepare for the Aquarian Age.  A thousand days ago I was sitting on a beach with penguins, a picture of my home altar on my lap.  It was there on Valentine's Day, with my love very far away, that I began the special meditation:  Sat siri siri akal!  I wondered at the time if I was the only person in that lonely region of the world singing out Sat Siri.  Maybe that was the reason I was there -- to cover the continent of Antarctica.
In a slightly longer cycle, we are marking the end to the Age of Pisces as tomorrow we enter the next 2300 year cycle of the Age of Aquarius.
Be well.  Be happy.  Do good things.

Aura of Place 10-26-11

I think places must have auras too -- an electromagnetic field that is just theirs alone.  Most places field -- it seems -- would get diluted -- melded with that of the inhabitants.
Not true in Antarctica.  The place is so big and empty of anything other than itself, that you really feel IT.
I had the absolute pleasure of going to Antarctica a couple of years ago (I say pleasure but there were also moments of extreme terror, crossing the Drake Passage in forty foot seas, being stuck on a rock, literally, at the bottom of the world waiting for a rescue ship).  The trip was a generous gift from my son, Eric -- and I have never felt the impact of place so beautifully and so fiercely, as in Antarctica.  (some big empty deserts would come a distant second)


Seventh Chakra.  Eighth Chakra.  We're in a high and lonely realm.
The way to experience the upper chakras is to meditate.
Antarctica was like living in a meditative state:  vast, unearthly, filled with the Presence of God.

Sit comfortably.  Hands in a gyan mudra, thumbs and fore-fingers touching.  Chant:  Guru Guru Wahe Guru Guru Ram Das Guru, continuously, at a fast pace, for as long as you want.
CONNECT WITH THE DIVINE

RADIANCE 10-13-11

This is a photograph by Walter Chappell -- the leaf of a plant -- the photograph capturing its energy field.  Amazing, isn't it?  Radiant.
And Radiance is the talent of the Eighth Chakra.  We all are Radiant!  We vibrate and glow -- and we can enhance that by doing Kundalini Yoga.

In 1984, I was doing photography in Boston, studying, and in love, with the mystical images of Minor White, the photographer who, during his lifetime, had taught at MIT.  My apartment at the time, on Beacon Street in the Back Bay, looked right out across the Charles River at the main building of MIT -- which has nothing to do with anything other than it was a lovely view.
Also happenstance, I came across an article in a photography magazine entitled:  Walter Chappell, The Poet of Light.  He had been a student of Minor White, and his work too, captured my imagination.

The article said he lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico -- he was alive, unlike Minor.  So, I called him -- woke him up as it turned out -- oops, sorry.
But I was forgiven, and ultimately, after sending him some of my own work, was invited to apprentice with him.  An invitation that changed my life.

Life now seems to have come full circle -- convolutedly perhaps -- but me showing one of his photographs in this blog of mine about Radiance.

Chakra Eight 10-2-11

   The Auric Body  --   Radiance

People lie.  Auras never lie."
                             Yogi Bhajan


We are lit up like a Christmas tree!  If we could see (some do see) the energy waves, the colors, that come from us, we would be amazed!  Undulating waves of vibrations and colors -- and for each of us, it's different, like fingerprints.  Wouldn't it be great to "read" one's own aura?
Well we can read our own auras by tuning into the previous seven chakras -- where are we in alignment, where are we not?  The colors will show the truth, the level of vibrational field will show the truth.  And we can add to it positively by doing Kundalini yoga, by meditating, why even by thinking kind thoughts -- and it's not just ourselves that we're concerned with, but the vibrational field of our whole, our known and unknown universe, our God -- for we are All One. Let's Shine, let's Glow, with energy and life force, with Radiance!


Here is our forty day meditation for the Eighth Chakra:  the meditation for spiritual awakening.
Sit comfortably.  Eyes are one-tenth open.
Raise your arms up over the head, interlacing the fingers six inches above the top of the head, palms face-down.  Elbows are bent slightly, forming an arc around your head.
Deeply inhale and hold the breath.
Exhale fully and hold the breath out.  Be sure to sue long, deep, complete breaths.
Continue eleven minutes, working up to thirty-one minutes.

The Other Side of The Red Door 9-28-11

Back in February, nearing the end of our work in First Chakra, I discovered a Red Door, which had been covered over by a drape, in my husband's shop (check out the blog posting of 2-3-11).  It struck me especially at the time because the color of the First Chakra is Red.  I wasn't sure how or why, but the discovery of this door seemed symbolic -- what threshold was I crossing?  What meaning might this have in my life?
And now, nearing the end of the Seventh Chakra, The Crown -- and after our journey through seven of the wheels of life, I'm seeing the significance of this Red Door.  It was The Opening into my own studio.  I'm now on the other side of the door -- and my archives of the past thirty years!  Writing, photographs, paintings, collected memorabelia, family treasures -- all my stuff in a beautiful, big, spacious, high-ceilinged, south-facing, studio!!!  I am so grateful.

I apologize for not writing the whole month of September and for most of Crown Chakra, but I've been so busy moving into my new space I never seemed to find the time.  I am sorry.  Seventh is a wonderful Chakra!  I guess what I have to say about it is:  meditate meditate meditate!  That's the space of the Crown.

I wonder what doors you've opened in your lives since we began this journey?  And even though we're coming to the close of Seventh Chakra, we are going to continue and do the Eighth Human Talent -- Radiance, the Auric Body -- so stay tuned.

And the question for me, I ask myself, is:  What's next?