Guest post by Jyotish Patel
The first of the seven major chakras is the “root” chakra. Its physical location is at the base of the spine in the perineum. Our basic foundations and personal sense of security, instinct, survival and basic human potentiality reside here. It serves as a conduit for sexual energy and for the creation of new life.
Within this chakra lies the dormant creative energy of the coiled serpent, the jewel maid, the kundalini. In The mythic image, Joseph Campbell says: One may think of the kundalini on this level as compared to a dragon; for dragons, we are told have a propensity to hoard and guard things and their favourite things are jewels.
They are unable to make use of them, but just hang on and so the values of their treasury are unrealised, lost to themselves and the world. On this level, the serpent queen kundalini is held captive by her own dragon lethargy. She does not know, or can communicate to life that she controls, any joy; yet will not relax her hold and let go. Her key model is a stubborn here I am and here I stay, which can be seen simply as condensed, or gross consciousness. The challenge, lessons, healing and growth then is to evolve at this level the cold dragon grip of your own spiritual lethargy and release the jewel maid, your own Shakti (energy) for ascent through the energetic core to those higher spheres where she will become your spiritual teacher and guide to the bliss of pure consciousness.
Muladhara or root chakra is symbolised by a red lotus with four petals. It’s during the first seven years that we learn about where we fall in our relationships with siblings, parents, our community, and how we relate to them. A healthy root chakra connects you with vitality to your family of origin, your immediate society and to the global community. It is a place where our tribal instincts reside, where we preserve our lineage, where we derive our sense of identity with all of humanity and nature.
Therefore, thoughts and experiences filtered through the root chakra, that influence your perception may include beliefs inherited or learnt from family, unfinished business between you and your parents, limiting beliefs about personal survival and money, personal boundaries that you maintain, difficulty to bonding with others and often sick or suffering from illness. It is also responsible for the fight/flight/flee when survival is under threat, often bringing balance to the root chakra involves harmony through conflict.
The root chakra resonates with the primordial force of the earth serving as a receiver for the earth energies. It propels energy both up from the earth deep into the energetic core carrying life force and down the legs providing grounding, stability and strength. Prune reminds us, an important piece in this understanding of your energy anatomy is that the first chakra acts as the pilot light for stoking and firing up the energy through the whole of the chakra system. The chakra system holds the movement and fluidity of energy through the energetic core, so when the root chakra is congested and compromised one of the places that gets especially congested is the crown chakra.
The rising flame through the ignition of the pilot light in the root fires the person with a kind of excitement, they are both grounded and filled with a dynamic upward moving energy. This robust kinesthetic energy leads to a sexy, earthy quality that empowers, providing a drive for a huge YES to life.
As you learn about chakras, you’ll discover that balancing them is a practice you can develop, especially if you think of it as a process of not just living your life, but actually loving your life.
AFFIRMATION:
I love my body! I trust my body’s wisdom! It is safe for me to be here! I have a right to be here! The earth supports my needs!