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?

The Final Frontier 8-29-11

                 




                   CONSCIOUSNESS
        the crack of light in a void of darkness
  the mystery we embrace in the Seventh Chakra


It is the tremendous experience of becoming conscious, which nature has laid upon mankind, and which unites the most diverse cultures in a common task.              C.G. Jung


Whistle Breath opens the Crown Chakra.  Purse your lips and make a whistle sound as you inhale -- exhale through the nose.  Continue at least three minutes.

Opening to the Mystery of Heaven 8-24-11

Consciousness is the mystery that we embrace in the Crown Chakra -- the thousand petaled lotus.  The Seventh Chakra is about merging with divine consciousness and realizing our true nature.  The name is Sahasrara (thousandfold).
The element is Thought.
The purpose is Understanding.  The issues we'll be looking at during the next forty days are:
Consciousness, Awareness, The Witness, Transcendence, Immanence, Belief Systems, Higher Power, Divinity, Union, and Vision, Meaning, Unity.
The color is Violet.
The demon is Attachment.

In this seventh power center, an easy way to confront our own fear of death and to go beyond that fear to experience the undying existence of our own soul is to practice the technique of held and expelled breath:
Sit in a comfortable position with your hands held palms up in front of you, as though someone were going to pour blessings into your open hands.
Inhale deeply, and hold the breath with your eyes one-tenth open.
Slowly exhale all the air from your lungs.
Once the air is gone, mentally chant "Sat Nam" four times.
Inhale again, slowly exhale, and holding the breath our, chant the mantra five times.  Gradually work your way up to reciting slowly the mantra eight times on each exhale.
Continue for at least three minutes.

Even Oprah! 8-22-11

Even Oprah is talking about Sixth Chakra!  Her latest magazine has a big article on "Intuition" and one's "sixth sense."  It's a worthwhile read!

For us, today is the last day of Sixth Chakra, the world of colors and symbols, dreams and fantasy, archetypes and images.  The possibilities expand through imagination, which stimulates creativity.  Our new vista gives us increased understanding, as we not only perceive the patterns around us, but also perceive our own place and purpose in them.

Tomorrow we move into the Seventh Chakra, and open to the Mystery of Heaven.  Visit the site tomorrow for our forty day meditation and more information on unfolding the thousand-petaled lotus.

More on Pattern Recognition 8-14-11

There was a man years ago whom I was just getting to know -- on the telephone -- we hadn’t met yet, but had been encouraged by a mutual acquaintance to have a go at it.  He was single.  I was single.  Why not?  

One day, the unnamed man sent me on a sort of treasure hunt, a game, he said, to get to know him better.  He told me to follow the instructions he would give me, and at the end of it, I would know something important about him.  

Here were the instructions:  Get in your car, drive to Whole Foods (or some such place), find the tea section, then find the selection of Celestial Seasoning Tea, look for the one called, Tension Tamer, then take the box off the shelf and look at the picture.  

Wow, this was great.  Wasn’t this guy playful and fun!  

Off I went, happily on my hunt, to find the tea that would tell me things. 

Here is a description of the picture on the tea box:  In the foreground is a princess sitting on what looks like a pile of rocks -- she seems serene, content in her sitting/waiting posture (one might call it meditative).  In the back ground, very teeny, you can see a knight in shining armor leaving a beautiful castle glowing in the clouds behind him.  Near him, at his point along the way, is a scaly dragon, breathing fire.  The knight has his sword drawn in preparation for battle with the beast -- which in turn allows the knight to rescue and free the princess.   

How could I have not recognized a pattern that has played over and over in my life!  I knew this story.  I’d lived it, far too many times.  Falling for what I believe is the hero, the man in the arena!  

I held that picture out in front of me like it was the place at the end of the rainbow.  But it wasn’t.   

In time, I've learned that the princess needs to get up off that rock on her own, and quit waiting to be rescued.  She needs to incorporate the qualities of the knight -- honor, courage, valor, risk -- in herself.  Turns out, there was more to learn about myself than about him -- and he wasn't playful or fun either.  

DREAMS 8-4-11

We receive messages directly from our unconscious every night -- messages that can help us to understand our life -- guidance not filtered through the ego.  These messages come in the form of dreams.  Some people don't think that they dream, but we all do every night, on a pretty regular schedule throughout the night, beginning with the shortest dreams from deep within the unconscious, to the longer dreams occurring just before waking.  Learning to interpret our dreams, learning our own symbolic language, is a gift and task of the Sixth Chakra.

The whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once scene, actor, prompter, stage, manager, author, audience, and critic.         C.G. Jung

Mandalas 7-27-11

Mandalas are symbols that reflect wholeness.  Usually geometric, the design emanates from the center and is brightly colored.  Mandalas are used in meditation as focusing tools -- yogis sometimes practice yantra yoga, the yoga of meditating upon a symbol or mandala as a way of focusing the mind into clarity.  Jung interpreted the appearance of mandalas in dreams as resolutions of opposites and symbols of wholeness.

With the birth of the symbol, the regression of the libido into the unconscious ceases.  Regression changes into progression, blockage gives way to flowing, and the pull of the primordial abyss is broken.         C.G. Jung






There are many sites on the internet where you can print blanks of mandalas to color yourself.  Try this as a sixth chakra exercise in focusing.

Pattern Recognition 7-20-11

Pattern Recognition reminds me of the old joke about the person who is walking down the street and falls into a deep hole.  They eventually get out, only to do the same thing over again -- and over again -- until finally it dawns on them to walk around the hole in the street.  They've recognized a pattern!
Or it's like playing a game of connecting the dots -- even before the dots are all connected, a pattern emerges.  It is the task of the Sixth Chakra to assemble information into meaningful patterns.
Once the pattern becomes clear, we don't have to follow it to the end.  We can intuit what it will become and guide our actions accordingly.
Each time we recognize a pattern, we move toward wholeness.  As inner sight develops, illusion are shattered, dreams are integrated, clarity begins, and consciousness extends yet another step beyond what was available through the lower five chakras.

So focus on your third eye -- your inner vision -- our sight gives us guidance.

Sixth Chakra INTUITION 7-14-11

Sixth Chakra.  The element of Light.  Ajna -- to perceive or command.  The issues are:  Image; Intuition; Imagination; Visualization;Insight; Dreams; Vision.

The color is Indigo.  The location is the forehead or third eye.  The demon is Illusion.

If we are living by outer direction instead of inner feelings, then we are not living our true self.  If consciousness gets wrapped around an image, we need to confront the discrepancy between image and reality and learn to see at a deeper level.

In traveling through the issues of the Sixth Chakra we will learn to open our third eye -- our intuition -- and our sight will give us guidance.

Here is the forty day meditation for the Sixth Chakra:

Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful Meditation:

Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position, spine straight.

Raise your right arm up at a sixty degree angle in front of the body, the palm facing down.

Put your left wrist on your left knee, palm facing up, hands in Gyan mudra.

Keep the eyes focused at the third eye point, as you recite the following mantra out loud:

I am the Light of my Soul.

I am Bountiful, I am Beautiful.

I am Bliss.  I am, I AM.

Say it with conviction, determination, and truth.  Speak it to the world, to God and to yourself.

Continue for three to eleven minutes.

With the mantra “I am, I AM,” the ego identity merges into the Universal Identity.  This meditation builds self-esteem, self-respect, and self-honoring.

The Power of Sound 7-12-11

Today is the second to the last day in Fifth Chakra.  Check out this link to witness the power of sound vibration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_YOG3jMlV4

See you all on Thursday for the first day of the Sixth Chakra when we begin to develop our inner vision.

Listening 6-29-11

Deep listening is an essential part of communication.  First of all, taking the time to be quiet and listen to the self -- to still the chatter of the mind and open to silence.  This is the time the upper and lower chakras can enter into resonance with each other, connecting mind and body.

Besides listening to the Self, practice listening to all kinds of sounds from the outside -- listen to the birds, to distant noises, the trees rustling, to music, even to the rhythm of words.

Active listening is a communication skill that helps others know they are being heard.  One person speaks without interruption while the other listens.  The listener then repeats back to the speaker what they heard being said.  The speaker makes any corrections and the process repeats.  Then it's time for the second person to speak.  This technique can do wonders to help solve communication difficulties.

It may be nearly impossible to communicate if we were never given the chance as a child.  In an authoritarian or overbearing family, if a child isn't given the chance to voice their own feelings or thoughts, it is difficult to trust and open up -- or to feel that your words are worth speaking.  It's important to reflect back to childhood situations and explore the roots of fifth chakra deficiency or excess.

Find ways to stretch your limitations -- warm up the body with exercise, then practice opening the throat with any kind of sound that comes from the inside.  From there, practice toning vowel sounds, and then singing.
And remember to LISTEN to yourself:  what is it your truth and how do you speak it?

SING! 6-24-11

The phrenic nerve originates in the emotional center of the brain.  It runs through the throat and splits -- one piece of the nerve going past the heart -- the two pieces of the nerve rejoin in the diaphragm.  We breath day and night, filling the lungs, pushing against the diaphragm and stomach.  We do this automatically, but it's important to remember that the phrenic nerve originates in the emotional center of the brain.  When we have significant emotional events, we always have a physical feelings in the stomach -- butterflies, ulcers, vomiting -- it's the phrenic nerve reacting because we're feeling it from the emotional center.  We're told, take a deep breath -- this helps free the phrenic nerve from its spasm -- the breath stretches the nerve out and calms down the spasms.

I learned all this from a fabulous woman named Sue Parker, who teaches music and singing.  I went to her on a Fifth Chakra "field day" to help open up my throat.  In singing, she said, we're constantly filling the body with air, releasing the phrenic nerve and the emotional center of the brain.  Singing makes us feel better!  With the release of all the air we begin a "dumping" of all the emotional stuff that has been stored inside.  Singing releases the same endorphins as laughter.

When the throat chakra is blocked, we separate from the chorus of life.  There's a block in the discharge of energy.  The throat closes down, bottling up the emotions, annihilating our ideas before they can make it out of our mouth.  We hide behind silence.

Practice deep breathing through the mouth, filling the diaphragm.  Expel the breath in a sound, singing different vowels, or just sounds.  Singing is a full body experience, Sue said.  I left my lesson exhausted and sweating, feel-good endorphins running all through my body!

On Voice 6-17-11

I'm reading a novel by Ann Patchett called Bel Canto.  There's an opera singer in the story and the following paragraph is about another character listening to her sing.  I couldn't help but think of the Fifth Chakra and the piece I posted called The Scream Within.


It was different in ways he never could have imagined, as if the voice were something that could be seen.  Certainly it could be felt, even from where he stood in the very back of the room.  It trembled inside the folds of his cassock, brushed against the skin of his cheeks.  Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her.  How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice.  It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven.  It was a miracle and he wept for the gift of bearing witness.

Truths and Lies 6-15-11

I ran into trouble with my computer just as I was completing a big project -- my creative expression was erased -- my voice was silenced.  Now with a new computer, I'm back on line, and beginning the reconstruction of my project.
But I had to think about the whole idea of not being able to give voice -- how has that happened in the past?  It was familiar ground.

Events impact us with a vibration -- like a guitar string being struck.  If we don't or can't express our truth, the impact it's stored in the body as stress.  Energy comes in but not back out.  It's easier to block expression rather than its reception.  Having to protect the vulnerable core, choosing silence, hiding, are strategies developed because of fear or shame.  Better to be quiet, hold the breath, block expression.  Blocked energy over time can create health issues, such as high blood pressure, or problems with the thyroid gland.

Learning to trust, feeling safe and loved, are necessary steps in opening and healing the throat chakra.

Use toning exercises and mantra to practice sound and resonance.  And sing!