That feeling inside

Shakira's got a sixth Chakra feeling inside...

Way back in 2010 we started a journey through the Chakra system and where it appears in pop culture. I seem to have gotten stuck after checking in with Helen Reddy's roaring fifth Chakra in February, which says quite a bit about my energetic blocks. Since next weekend some of my yoga students will be delving deeper into their own blocks at the Advanced Chakra workshop at True North Yoga, I thought it would be a good time to finish this series of posts.

We were last in the throat checking out the energy of communication. Now we find ourselves higher, in the carotid plexis, the area also known as the third eye. Here, between the eyebrows, Ajna, the sixth Chakra, shines it's deep indigo light of wisdom, intuition and imagination. It is the birthplace of ideas and the window to the spiritual realms.

Ajna is represented by the element of light and the color of the night sky. It gives us the right to see, with our physical eyes and the mind's eye. It is the sixth Chakra's energy that allows us to "know" something is happening when we are not physically present or gives us that "feeling" that we were meant to meet someone.

When you know who's calling before you look at the caller ID, that's Ajna at work.

Your local psychic is probably a bit overloaded with sixth Chakra energy, but too little leaves us without any insight, forced to analyze every last detail of our lives and to panic in the face of uncertainty. Headaches and vision problems signal a sixth Chakra imbalance. When Ajna is balanced our imaginations inspire us, we are intuitive and artistic and we have vivid dreams. We trust our own wisdom and are confident that our lives are unfolding as they should.

To keep the sixth Chakra light shining, get on your yoga mat and find a focal point. Let your gaze rest on your drishti and balance on one leg in Vrksasana (tree), Natarajasana (dancer) or Garudasana (eagle). Then roll your eyes just like a teenager. Those eye rolls are called Tratak and the muscles around the eyes need regular exercise to keep your vision clear.

Off our mats, we can create visual art, enjoy the visual stimulation of brightly colored holiday lights or fireworks, practice guided visualizations or try past life regression. Play with tarot cards or runes to exercise your insight. Color mandalas. Meditate.

And, like Shakira, look for those feelings inside, because your intuition might be telling you that your soul mate is across the room.

Still Playing with Paint

I can't get enough of acrylic paint. I'm like a kid with the cardboard box some new toy came in. I want to keep playing with the paint to see what else I can turn it into.

Lucky for me that the Inside Out e-course gives me lots of excuses to pull out the paint brushes.

Last week, while I was in the throws of collage-making, my desk got a bit messy. Alright, it was more than a bit messy. (The word "disaster" was thrown around.) I had cut out many, many pictures and words, but not all of them made it into the finished collages. Some just didn't fit into the theme, some took up too much room on the page and there were some that, when I looked at them again, I couldn't remember why I'd cut them out in the first place. These leftovers were in a disorderly pile on one side of my desk.

One particular image really appealed to me, but it was large and didn't seem to fit in anywhere. It was in the leftover pile, which was slowly getting spread around my desk as other things were stacked on top of it. I guess I was meant to do something with it, because that picture kept finding its way into my hand. It seemed that every time I looked for a different piece of paper I ended up holding this particular image. It stuck to everything I picked up.

Today we were supposed to paint intuitively. My intuition told me to use that magazine clipping. Then it wouldn't be free to jump into my hand anymore.

I glued it down to a page in my visual journal, then painted on it. I let it dry, then I painted more. And so on. And here's what I got:

Nobody's surprised that it has a yoga theme, right?

Oh, and after a week of coughing every time I tried anything except sitting-upright-on-the-couch-inhaling-Vicks-asana, I was finally able to get on my mat. Overjoyed at being there, I played. I put myself through obnoxious sequences (that I would never ask my students to do, in case any of them are reading this) and laughed when I fell over. I did handstands against the wall with poor alignment. I flipped my down dog into wild thing just because I can. It felt great to get my asana in gear again.

Related articles

• Playtime with Paint (truenorthyogini.blogspot.com)