The Dance of the Universe

Movement -- the opposite of the first chakra's stillness.
In the concept of dualism, we find the attraction of the opposites.  With mutual attraction we have movement.
Sway, flow, feel, undulate, get down in the second chakra.  Attraction and interaction.  Polarities create motion.

In the element of water, we discover differences, pleasure, and growth.

Our right is to Feel.

Second Chakra The Prime Mover

The Second Chakra is the prime mover of energy in the chakra system.  The soul is carried on the currents of emotion and desire toward growth.  With a secure base, we can yield to this vital energy without losing our center.

We're in the realm of change, movement, flow, sensation, pleasure, emotion, need, desire, the shadow, guilt, duality, and sexuality.

We've moved from solid (earth) to liquid (water).  In this movement from first to second chakra we encounter Change.

The color is Orange -- no shrinking violet here!

2-14-79 2-14-13 One Rising

Thirty four years ago today I began writing a journal.  I started with the words, I am not happy.  It was Valentine's Day and I decided I needed to learn to love myself.  I bought myself a blank book and a tiny gold heart.  I filled the book, and many others since then.  I still wear the heart around my neck every day.

Today is a special Valentine's Day:  One Billion Rising.  Stop the Violence Against Women!
One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime, one billion women violated is an atrocity and one billion women dancing is a revolution!

Thirty four years ago I began learning to love myself.  Today I know it's about loving all women.
Today, in Santa Fe, I'll march and dance in support of the global violence against women.  We are all the same.  We are all one.  The violence stops now!

The following is Eve Ensler's newest monologue 'Rising', written in Kerala for the women of India who lead the way.

This could have been anywhere

And was

Mexico City

Manila

Mumbai

Manhattan

Nighttime men

waiting

like wolves

Drooling

for prey

behind

that single dimly painted door

paying nothing

a couple of dollars

or euros

rupees

or pesos

to have her

Enter her

Eat her

Devour her

and throw away her bones.

This could have been anywhere

And was

A Buddhist nun on a bus

Trying to stay dry for the night

A woman leader speaking out against

The repressive government

A young woman traveling with her boyfriend

One lost her voice

The other her following

The last one her life

This could have been anywhere and was

Pink wooden crosses

A stack of stones

Red wilting carnations

Empty chairs in a square

Ribbons flying in a sultry wind

I ask Anna Nighat Kamla Monique Tanisha Emily

Why Why

Porque Eran Mujeres

Parce qu'elles etaient des femmes

Because they were women

Because they were women

This could have been anywhere

And was

Where she got fired for being too beautiful

Fined for drinking after she was raped

A serious offer to marry her rapist

Got told it was legitimate but not forcible

This could have been anywhere

They do such a thing

When the girls go for fire wood

Step into the lonely man's car

Drink a little too much at the college party

Wake up with her uncle's fingers inside

Run from the screaming machete and guns

Be taken at sunrise

Get a bullet in the brain for learning the alphabet

Be stoned for falling in love

Be burned for seeing the future

I am done

Cataloguing these horrors

Data Porn

2 million women raped and tortured

1 out of 3 women

a woman raped every minute

every second

one out of 2

one out of 5

the same

one

one

one

I am done counting

And recounting

Its time to tell a new story

It needs to be our story

It needs to be outrageous and unexpected

It needs to lose control in the middle

It needs to be sexy and in our hips

And our feet

It needs to be angry and a little scary the way storms can be scary

It needs to not ask permission

Or get permits or set up offices

Or make salaries

It wont be recorded or bought or sold

Or counted

It needs to just happen

It is not a question of inventing

But remembering

Buried under the leaves of trauma and sorrow

Beneath the river of

semen and squalor

vaginas and labias

shredded and extracted

stolen

body mines

mined bodies

It is not about asking now

Or waiting

It is about rising

Raise you arm my sister my brother

Raise your one

Billion

Your one heart

Your one of us

I used to be afraid of love

It hurt too much

What never happened

What got ripped away

The rape

The wound

And love

I thought

was salt

But I was wrong

I was wrong

Step into the fire

Raise your arm

Raise your one

Billion

One

One

One

Rising.

Rising.

Rising.

ACCEPTANCE

On Thursday, January 31st, family and friends hiked the trail where Matt took flight one year ago.
It's still so hard to believe that he's gone forever.  I know it's just his physical self that's gone, but I miss him, so much.  I want his physical presence in the world.  I want him living out the life he was planning.  But no matter how unfair his passing seems, no matter how I rail at the gods, my fists striking empty space.  He's gone.  I have to ultimately ACCEPT the fact that he is gone, dead.

Acceptance is a process, and it's the talent of the First Chakra.  Before we can move further up the chakra system, the ground must be firm under our feet.  We can't find balance without it.  We must be firmly planted in the Truth.

My son, Matt, was a bright light.  I miss him terribly and he is gone from this world.  It doesn't mean I can't and don't still have a relationship with him, time with him, but the key to moving on is acceptance of this reality.  I love you Matt, and always will.

Fare Forward, Voyager!

MATT

RIP  1-31-12  1-31-13

Nourishment

The first chakra is also about food -- how we nourish ourselves.  The first food came from the mother, so we have to consider issues with the mother.  What is your relationship to your mother?  How do you feel when you hear the question?

Food is one of the great addictions of our time and place -- meaning our country, present time.  Fast food rules, but is empty of any real nourishment.  Eating unconsciously is a coping strategy, instead, we need to ask, what are we really hungry for?

Journal about food, and what you're really hungry for...

GROUNDING

Without grounding we are homeless

I began a commitment to walking a few months ago, and did very well with it until the snow and mud kept me away.  My walks had become a sweet part of my day and I really missed them.  So now, in the last couple of days, the snow is gone, the mud has mostly dried up, and I have begun again.  

In first chakra it's vital to be grounded, and having your feet on the earth is one really good way.  

Just as the groundedness of a tree routes the flow of sap from earth to leaves and from leaves to earth, so does our groundedness channel the flow of excitement from ourselves to the environment and from the environment to ourselves.

                                  Stanley Keleman

Be good to yourself -- take a walk!

Only by standing in our own ground can we determine our future.

Earth Chakra

I am fully grounded and connected to the earth.

I am fully grounded and connected to the earth.

I am fully grounded and connected to the earth.

The Womb

The first chakra relates to the formation of the physical body and takes place during prenatal development and infancy.  The growth of the body is main focus of the life force, and the infant's developmental tasks, learning how to operate the body and deal with the physical world occupy the bulk of consciousness throughout the time in the womb and throughout the first year.  There's little awareness of the outside world, and the baby lives in a fused symbiosis with the mother.
The physical and emotional state of the mother during the time the developing fetus is in her womb is vitally important for the child -- everything passes between them.

My daughter-in-law found this stone on the beach when she was pregnant with her, and my son's, daughter.

When the baby's needs are properly met, it anchors the spirit into the physical body and the child feels welcomed into the world.  Erik Erikson, in his eight stages of psychosocial development, defines the struggle of this age as one trust vs mistrust.  This stage builds the foundation of security and groundedness that enables self-preservation and forms the physical identity.

Stay with your commitment -- do The Five Tibetan exercises, meditate, do squats or body drops to ground yourself, take a walk, feel your feet on the earth.

We began!

So we began today -- nine strong!  Wahe Guru!

I wanted to share one of the exercises we did in class today called The Five Tibetan Rites:  Exercises for healing, Rejuvenation, and Longevity -- five simple exercises that can be done in mere minutes -- an exercise program used by Tibetan monks to live long, vibrant and healthy lives.  The exercises come from a book called The Ancient Secret of the Fountain of Youth by Peter Kelder.  You can easily look this information up on line.  I included them in class because The Five Rites speed up the spinning of the chakras, coordinate their spin so they are in complete harmony, distribute pure prana energy to the endocrine system, and in turn to all organs and processes in the body.
I am committing to adding these Five exercises to my own practice -- and I hope you will join me in this and weigh in on how you're doing.  C'mon Commit!  You know you wanna!


The little smiling Buddha in the photograph is one my friend, Chris, made for me.  He's wearing a shawl of my eight wrist bands after the completion of my first year of the eight chakras.  The bands are just embroidery thread tied around the wrist that serve as a reminder of the deep process and journey you are on.

We will be in Chakra 1, Muladhadra -- the ground of us -- for 45 days.
The building can't rise without the base.
Begin a practice, reach for something just outside your comfort zone.
Make an altar, use a red cloth or candle or flower.
Plant a seed, a bulb, an intention...

January 3, 2013 We Begin...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!          2013

Today marks the beginning of my third year of teaching a class on the Chakra System.  It's always exciting to begin a journey and today has that feeling for me.  For those new to this blog, you can check out the first year at:  wheelsoflife-maryfrank -- (just google it).

The second year was marked by a personal tragedy -- the loss of my son, Matt -- which halted my continuation of the blog, but what there is of it, is also available to read at : year 2- healing the chakras.

Now we're in the third year.  2013.  Wow.  We've been through the end of the world -- 2012 -- the end of the Mayan Calendar -- the end in some way for all of us.  And now we have a chance for a new beginning.  All it takes is saying Yes.  Stepping Up.  Taking Action!

Where this takes you is up to you.
What do you want?  What are you willing to commit to?

The drawing introducing this series is one I made in a workshop I attended back in 1999 -- way back in another century!  The workshop was called, MATURE WOMEN'S ANCIENT INITIATION RITES -- big title, and important time for me.  We explored the Dionysian mystery rites for women held in the city of Pompeii.  These rites were depicted on the walls of a villa buried in the 70 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  Through a series of images collected in a book entitled, Villa of Mysteries, by Linda Fierz-David, we, as a group, dared open to the dark, the dangerous, the fearful, exciting, unknown, mystery that is ourself.

One of the first things we did was to make a drawing on how we would welcome the God (the Dionysian spirit).  Throughout the twelve weeks of the class, we continued to embellish our "kista mystika" (an instinctual guidance within which leads downward to the light under the earth).  I drew the Chakras -- from instinct, not from outer knowledge.

It's fourteen years later and I'm still working with these amazing centers of energy. Now teaching this inner journey along with Kundalini Yoga -- a practice to bring us to ourselves --
our True Self -- our Sat Nam.

Those of you in Santa Fe, I hope to see you in class -- 9 AM today.  Others please follow along...