If illness begins in the body as blocked energy, then the optimal function of the chakras—and the optimal flow of energy through and between them—is critical to health. But how do you know whether your chakras are balanced? And if they are out of balance or blocked, how do you regain equilibrium and flow? That’s what this book is all about. In each of the chapters that follow, you will find specific tips and techniques for aligning each individual chakra. First, here are three steps for assessing, aligning, and activating the energy flow throughout the chakra system. Follow these steps anytime you feel sluggish, sad, or unable to sleep through the night; those are three common signs of chakra imbalance that can be easily corrected, and once corrected, can be easily maintained.
Please, never take this guidance, or anyone else’s, above your own. Trust your inner knowing and your senses. They will always lead you to the right path at the right time. Take and use what feels accurate here for you, and leave the rest.
Step 1: Assessing Energy Flow
When you feel sadder, more agitated, or more tired than usual, or when you feel increased pain or discomfort in your body, it is time to assess your personal energy flow (PEF). Your PEF governs how you feel every day, and is affected by both internal and external factors. By simply reading this book, you are becoming consciously aware of your PEF, which is a critical first step in the assessment process. Once you know what flow feels like, your body can record a memory of this state of being and can then regulate itself back to that state of flow, or balance, when energy waxes or wanes.
Remember that the human body is a magnificently intelligent system. You can trust your body to heal itself in every moment; in fact, your body wants nothing more than to reach a state of homeostasis, or perfect balance. Just like every organ in your body works to reach and maintain homeostasis, because balance is the comfort zone of the universe, so, too, do your energy centers work together intelligently to create harmonious balance within your system.
That’s right: Balance is your birthright.
You move away from balance consciously, by practicing extremes in your ways of eating, moving, and working with energies in your primary energy field. For instance, eating too much food, or not enough of it, can throw the physical system off balance, since food is energy. Moving too much, or not enough, can also impact the way energy flows in your body. And too much stress, sorrow, tension, chatter, and noise can pull you off course
energetically and separate you from your peace, from your center, and from your connection to Source. None of this happens overnight, though; these events unfold slowly, over decades of not paying close enough attention to staying balanced.
Embodiment Exercise: Chakra Assessment
Just as your physical body benefits from a regular checkup, your chakras also benefit from regular assessment. There are many different ways to evaluate the condition of the chakras, but this exercise is one easy way to quickly and effectively evaluate the current condition of your energy centers, as well as receive guidance and wisdom about where your attention is needed now.
Take a moment to call your energy into present time by speaking your name out loud, over and over, in a soft voice, or by imagining your name written into sand on a beautiful beach. Invite your guides to be present with you. Call in the guardians of space and time to anchor the four corners and four cardinal elements as you begin a scan of your sacred energy centers.
Begin in the East when you call upon guardian energies. You can do this by speaking the following words out loud or whispering them softly to yourself: “Guardian Keepers of the East, energies of air and flight, we welcome you. Please bring us a bright new beginning and new wisdom to help us integrate our work. Guardian Keepers of the South, energies of fire and power, we welcome you. Please bring us a strong and courageous spirit to empower our work. Guardian Keepers of the West, energies of water and flow, we welcome you. Please purify us and cleanse our hearts as we bring love to the world, and please open a container for prosperity to flow freely toward our work. Guardian Keepers of the North, energies of Earth and time, we welcome you. Please ground and protect us as we embody our work. We thank you for your presence. Amen, A’ho, So it is.” Then let this meditation guide you.
1/ First, notice every part of your body, giving thanks as you go. Thank the soles of your feet, and the Earth below you, for rooting you into the present moment and reminding you of your inherent safety and sovereignty. Thank your legs and hips, your lower back and pelvic floor, for guiding you and inspiring you, and for bringing the force of creation and life through you. Thank your ovaries or testes, your life-giving capacity and birthing potential, your sensual self. Thank your digestive system and kidneys; thank your adrenal system, your lungs, your breath of life. Thank your heart and your esophagus, your throat, tongue, and teeth. Thank your voice and your truth. Thank your face and your cheeks, your seeing eyes and your knowing eye. Thank your ears and the top of your head, your hair, and the soft spot of knowing that connects you to your Creator.
2/ Thank your body as a whole, just as it is. Allow all to be, just as it is, right here, right now, as it desires to be. There is nothing to change, nothing to fix. All is available for noticing, for scanning, for discerning.
3/ Then, speak these words aloud: “Energy centers, reveal your needs. Speak your truths to me. Show me where my attention is needed so that I may invoke the healing potential of my own intelligent system. I trust in my own ability to restore, recover, and repair anything that needs it, in perfect time and alignment with my whole health. Amen, A’ho, So it is.”
Notice what comes forward for you in this exercise, and pay attention to even the subtlest of signs. You might see something, sense something, smell something, feel something. All information is welcome. Then journal what you have noticed, and make a note of the date and time.
Continue to record any thoughts, feelings, or emotions that arise in the next forty-eight hours. If you feel called to work with sound, crystals or gemstones, essential oils, herbs, light, massage, Reiki, or other healing methods or modalities, heed the call. (If you are a practiced healer, do this in your usual way.) In this way, you can use your intuition to pursue what your physical and etheric bodies need at this time.
You will learn about the gemstone, essential oil, and herbal correspondences for each chakra in this book. When working with herbs, you can choose to use them in either their raw herbal or distilled essential oil form. Both are powerful. Choose the form you work with based on what is available locally to you where you live and what resonates most deeply. For example, with dried herbs, you can make incenses and sacred bundles to burn. With essential oils, you can create perfumes and body products. We list herbs aligned to each chakra.
The more time you spend observing your chakras and energy centers, coming into more profound awareness of the signs and messages around you, the more you will become familiar with changes in the subtle systems and be able to respond to them before they manifest in physical challenges or symptoms. This, ultimately, is what it means to be a healer. You might also consider the possibility that your intuition is always guiding you to attune yourself to the health and vitality of your chakras. Although your chakras operate synchronistically and without need for your direct intervention, your intuition can and will often guide you to direct your attention to a particular chakra when its energies are needed or activated in your energy field.
Step 2: Aligning Energy Flow
Once you have assessed your current state of energy flow, noticing pain or resistance in particular areas, you can work on a specific chakra (or multiple chakras) to bring each center into balance before aligning the entire system for optimal flow. Aligning your system can be done using visualization, crystal therapy, essential oils via anointing rituals, or all three methods. Taking an integrated approach is best when healing and aligning chakras, so if you have access to gemstones and essential oils, by all means integrate them into your practice. Each tool offers a frequency, or vibration, and employs a different energy stream to bring its healing to the chakra, or energy center.
Over time, you can isolate your work with these tools to determine what works best for you and when, where, and how. This is when your intuition will begin to play a very significant role in your spiritual development and overall healing. In the process of healing yourself and achieving balance and wellness, you will learn what your soul gifts are (if you have not downloaded this wisdom already!) and in so doing, you will become the healer you were born to be in this lifetime.
Embodiment Exercise: Weaving the Thread of Healing
In so many ways, healing is alignment; healing requires all systems to hang in a sacred balance. In this exercise, you will experience alignment via the most beautiful connection among your chakras, gently tethering them to the Earth below and the realms above with a golden thread of light and magic.
Before you begin, take a moment to call your energy into present time by speaking your name out loud, over and over, in a soft voice, or by imagining your name written into sand on a beautiful beach. Then, move into this meditation:
1/ To align the chakras, begin by visualizing a golden thread of light threaded through a beautiful golden needle of intention. What intention will you imprint upon your golden needle as you use it to weave the golden thread of light through your energy centers? You can choose healing
happiness, love, prosperity, balance, joy, peace, or whatever resonates with you.
2/ Once you have centered your focus on your intention for your needle, see the golden thread passing through the eye, and then wrap the golden thread of light around your Earth Star Chakra, which pulsates just beneath your feet, as an anchor between you and the Earth. Pull the thread up and gently wrap it around your Root Chakra, calling in your intention for grounding and protection. Then, pull the golden thread up and around your Sacral Chakra, calling in your intention for creativity and procreativity, sensuality, sexuality, and passion. Imagine a well of passion and desire pulsing within you, all of your desires and longings made manifest in a state of sacred intimacy and pleasure.
3/ From there, gently wrap the golden thread around the Sacral Chakra before threading it up toward your Solar Plexus Chakra as you set an intention for personal power and possibility. Imagine the deepest sense of self-esteem and self-worth enveloping you as you pull the thread up toward your Heart Chakra, winding it around your heart in alignment with your intention for love and divine union.
4/ As you weave the thread higher toward your Throat Chakra, you locate your center of Truth and anchor of Integrity, the bridge between who you are and how you present in the world. Wrapping the golden thread around your
throat chakra now, imagine easy access to your full and unencumbered truth, yielding to the voice of your Highest Self and the voices of your guides as they seek to bring your closer to who you truly are.
5/ Now, as you wind the golden thread toward the upper chakras—first around your Third Eye Chakra, to access intuition and inner knowing, and then around your Crown Chakra, to deepen your connection to God/Source/Creator—you encounter a well of peace and a frequency of total alignment. Suddenly, all seems to be unfolding with grace, speaking to you of a wisdom that surpasses any human understanding. This frequency frees you to surrender your need to know, fix, or change anything about the present moment.
6/ In that place of peace, joy, and acceptance, you begin to gather the golden thread and wind it around the final chakra, the Soul Star Chakra, located approximately 12 inches (30 cm) above the top of the head. Once you have connected the thread to this uppermost point, the work of integrating all chakra energies is complete. You return to a state of balanced bliss without having to try or focus; you simply exist in a place of allowance and surrender, where healing begins and consciousness expands, connecting you to all that has ever been or ever will be. It is all here, and welcome, now in this moment and always. Amen, A’ho, So it is.
What a welcome moment. This is a chance to step fully into a state of active allowing, which is not only optimal for healing and balancing your energy
centers, but is also the ideal energy container for manifestation. (Manifestation means many things to many people, but a spiritual definition of “manifestation” is the intentional transformation of thought into matter. In other words, manifestation is a wish come true.) The softer you can become and the more you can move out of your own way, the more easily you can see the things you desire unfold before you—almost effortlessly.
There is just one final step to the process of balancing energy flow in your body, and in many ways, it is the most important step of the three.
Step 3: Activating Energy Flow
Energy is present around you all of the time, but much of the energy surrounding you is dormant, awaiting activation. Certain energies cannot be activated at certain times; this depends on your personal state of spiritual development and which energies are considered valuable or important to your development by your spirit guides and higher self. All forces of nature are energy streams—think of love, healing, growth, balance. (Magic itself is an energy stream.) You will always be able to access the energies and sources of wisdom you need when you need them. If you find yourself unable to access or activate a particular energy stream, it simply means that you do not need it at this time.
Energy activation applies to all energies, even those in crystals and gemstones. Energy does not need your permission or activation to flow, but it does move more powerfully once activated. While energy activation is not the focus of this book, it is worthwhile to consider ways to improve energy flow via activation techniques so that you can experience an enhanced flow in your own body and facilitate a faster, deeper awakening of the energy centers in your body, which is critical for physical well-being.
Embodiment Exercise: Activating Energy Flow
To activate energy flow in your body, give permission to your spirit guides and higher self to access, open, and activate each chakra. This short meditation guides you to do just that.
1/ Begin by opening the central chakra chamber, or Sushumna, which is like a tube of light. Unscrew the bottom of the chamber beneath your feet, turning it to the right to open it, and then unscrew the top of the chamber above your head, again turning the top of the chamber to the right. Once you open the central chamber from the deepest roots below your feet to the highest clouds above you, you open the chakra system for assessment and alignment.
2/ Visualize your Earth Star and Root chakras opening, connecting you with and rooting you into the soil of Earth herself. Use the mantra “access, open, activate” as a touchstone phrase you repeat to yourself each time you visualize one of your chakras.
3/ Next, imagine your receiving chakras—Sacral, Solar Plexus, and Heart—opening to you, turning slowly and revealing their medicine of love and empowerment. Take a deep breath and repeat your mantra: “Access, open, activate.” Then, imagine your projecting chakras—Throat, Third Eye, Crown, and Soul Star—revealing themselves to you, offering their medicine of wisdom, communication, and connection to the outer cosmic realms.
4/ Take a final breath and repeat the mantra one final time: “Access, open, activate.” Once all chakras are accessed, opened, and activated, give thanks for this access and alignment. Then, close the Sushumna chamber, turning both top and bottom of the column to the left, sealing the chakras and returning your system to its waking, closed state.
You can choose to balance your chakras as often as you like. In my experience, this is not necessarily a daily or even a weekly practice: You should let your intuition guide you. If you notice that you feel less responsive, aligned, or energetic in your life, or that you lack the strength and tenacity you need to follow your dreams, your chakras may need attention and activation. Each time you engage in this process you will learn new ways to communicate with the energy flowing through your body, becoming increasingly aware and intuitively connected to your own needs in every moment.
As you continue on your path and deepen this practice, you may find that you don’t need to continually clear the chakras or energy centers as often. That’s because activating them consistently facilitates a self-clearing and self-managing process whereby the centers themselves, through their own intelligence and synergistic relationship with each other, can naturally restore their own balance without your explicit action or intervention. All systems in nature are guided by an inherently intuitive design and, as humans, we should avoid the presumption that the only way to “fix” or “improve” anything—including energy—is through our actions and intentions. In time, all energies needed for your physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being will become activated in your lifetimes. When you intervene, all you do is expedite what is already intended. Begin to trust that all forms of consciousness are expressing themselves fully and perfectly in this moment, including yourself.
Now that you have learned about the system of the chakras, including techniques for maintaining balance and flow among them, we’ll turn to a deeper exploration of each individual energy center. Each is a microcosm of wisdom and meaning that regulates and aligns to specific energies in your physical and subtle bodies. In this nine-chakra model, the central chakras are the Heart and the Throat (Anahata and Vishuddha). The lower chakras, Earth Star to Solar Plexus, align to the Divine Feminine and are considered receptive chakras, where life force energy is received, channeled, processed, and grounded. The central chakras, Heart and Throat, align to Cosmic Love and Truth frequencies, and represent the integration of masculine and feminine energies. The upper chakras, Third Eye to Soul Star, align to the Divine Masculine and are considered projective chakras, where life force energy is filtered, translated, and then transmitted. As you explore each chakra, allow it to make itself known to you. Learning about chakras should be an intellectual, energetic, and somatic experience. A world of healing and beauty awaits, and it is my hope that you will be blessed by this wisdom.
In the chapters to come, through rich imagery and evocative descriptions, each chakra will reveal its piece of the Great Mystery to you. To that end, this book starts, as all good stories (and lessons) do, at the beginning; in the ground beneath your feet. We’ll begin with the Earth Star, your homing device and your beacon of safety.