The nose, connected to our body’s extensive network of neurotransmitters, is a powerful sense. When smelling something, our mind and body react practically instantaneously. Maybe you smell a berry pie baking in the oven – Mmmm. Or you catch a whiff of something rancid and sharp – your face scrunches up in disgust.
Nestled between the heart and the throat sits an often unrecognized energy center which brings the consciousness and signatures of these two area's chakras together in a beautiful, harmonious, powerful way. Known by many as the “High Heart” or “Chakra 4.5” this chakra is all about living your personal truth and doing so with passion and conviction.
With awareness in the heart center, I invite my client to breathe into the chest and allow prana to fill the body and activate her Anahata chakra as we clear the emotions of a “heartwall” we have located during our session. This conscious breath sends healing energy throughout the body, reminding her to sing the “song of the self” as she lets go of years, life-times even, of unprocessed emotions which have seemingly “protected” her heart from pain.
Prana is everywhere, in everything. The “life force” exists even in those things we deem “un-living” or “without life.” Yogic thought—Hatha yoga, to be specific—is grounded in nature. Without nature, we cannot exist here in this life, and we cannot exist here in this life without prana. Prana exists in all of nature.
I am an incredibly sensitive person and when I started using crystals, my whole life was thrown into a loop. I wasn’t able to sleep, my dreams were crazy, I felt…weird — then I realized that I was using the wrong crystals.
Prana is, quite simply, life. It is the life force, nourishing body, mind and soul both literally and figuratively. Prana flows within the body by way of breath (the element of air), but also enters the body by the other four elements: earth, water, fire and the ether. The ether, or space, is the element of the soul. It is the element we aim to embody during meditation, as we move inward to find space. Prana is essential to accessing this endless space, and so we prepare for the process of locating space by practicing pranayama.
Sitting in the center of the navel, between the belly button and the sternum, sits the third vital center, known as Manipura Chakra. Translated as “City of Jewels,” this energy vortex feeds the digestive system, stomach and pancreas/spleen. It is responsible for the consciousness of motivation, empowerment and creativity.
Have you ever heard the term “find your center”? Have you ever wondered what exactly it meant to find ‘balance’ in your life? The answer can be found deep within, at the core of your innermost self. There, you will discover your energy sources and how they affect every part of your life.
Much of society (and the world at large) has been struggling through first and second chakra issues for what seems like all of time. These are the “most difficult” passages for the kundalini shakti to work through in the consciousness of “lower” man, as these chakras deal with basic, primal, sexual and ancestral issues. The previous article in this series discussed the first chakra and what both an asleep and an awakened root chakra look like/act like.