This week we’ll take a break from the book peddling and teasers for my debut fantasy/paranormal romance, Rekindled Prophecy, and the remaining books in the series.

Instead, I’ve recently (over the past year so I am by no means an expert) learned about chakras and how keeping them cleansed and balanced is important to my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. It’s just as important as clearing your physical space (see the blog post in archives about smudging), probably even more so because you take yourself with you wherever you go, but your physical space may change.

First, what the holy heck are chakras anyway?

In Indian teachings chakras are each of the centers of spiritual power in the human body. Most only consider the seven main chakras (crown of the head, third eye, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral, and root). But there are many more minor chakras. To keep things simple here, we’ll stick to the main seven.

Per the dictionary, the word “chakra” comes from Sanskrit word “cakra” meaning wheel or circle and refer to the energy centers of your body. According to http://www.healthline.com, chakras are “…spinning disks of energy that should stay open and aligned, as they correspond to bundles of nerves, major organs, and areas of our energetic body that affect our emotional and physical well-being.” Chakras, sometimes pictured as flower-shaped energy vortexes, are the key to aligning our glands and organs with our life energy (common names: chi, praana, qi).

If a chakras (or multiple chakras) are out of balance or blocked, it can affect our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health in adverse ways. For optimal health, we need all of these seven chakras cleaned, balanced, and working together.

Let’s introduce each of the seven main chakras:

• Root Chakra, or Muladhara – the “I am” or base chakra connected to energy, vitality, stability, comfort, safety, and to the most basic human need — survival. The color associated with the root chakra is red. It is the chakra responsible for our “fight or flight” response. The sense of smell is controlled by the root chakra. The point on the body where you’d find the root chakra is the base of your spine. This chakra is also connected to the proper functioning of the gonad glands. The red gemstones associated with the root chakra are red jasper (for kinesthetic movement), bloodstone (fuels your physical energy, courage, and self-esteem), and garnet (to draw out negative energy from the body), just to name a few.

• Sacral chakra, or Svadhishthana or Swadhisthana – The sacral chakra deals with joy, passion, reproductive functions, sexuality, compassion, and creativity. As such, the sacral chakra impacts our lymphatic system, reproductive organs and glands, the pelvis, as well as the bladder and large intestines. This chakra is associated with our sense of taste. Most consider the sacral chakra to be orange in color. One interesting tidbit I just found is that it also thought to be involved with the element of water within our bodies. You can find the sacral chakra about two inches below your belly button. The gemstones associated with this chakra are all orange or orange tinted — amber (to soak up excess or negative energies surrounding the sacral chakra), carnelian (for courage, increased physical energy, and vitality) orange citrine (a wonderful healing stone that also increases creativity and enhances decision-making), and topaz (for manifesting personal intentions), just to name a few.

• Solar Plexus chakra, or Manipura – The word, Manipura, translates to city of jewels. As such, this chakra is associated with one’s own personal power and success. The element of fire (when balanced) provides us with confidence and energy by aligning with our adrenal glands. This energy center is located above our belly buttons, but under our ribs and chest cavity. It governs our will power and self-esteem. It is most closed linked with our sense of sight. Yellow is the color of the solar plexus chakra, thus the gemstones most in tune to this energy center are tiger’s eye (for protection and grounding), pale yellow citrine (a powerful success stone), and yellow tourmaline (body detoxifying stone), to name a few.

• Heart chakra, or Anahata – Aptly named, this chakra can easily be attributed to everything that affects our relationships. Weak or unbalanced heart chakras can lead a person to fall into suspicion, distrust, envy and end up imploding their own relationships. Also relatively easy to decipher based on the name, this chakra is located slightly to the left of our physical heart beating in our chest. It connects with our lymphatic system and thymus and is associated with skin and air. While you may think the heart chakra should be red in color, it is green as it is governs our health and prosperity. Gemstones known to be connected to this chakra are: jade (to promote healing for heartaches) and green aventurine (a vitality activation stone, also used to calm over-stressed emotions).

•  Throat chakra, or Vishuddha or Vishuddhi) – This chakra governs our communications (speaking and listening). As such, this chakra is linked to our throat, ears, jaws, esophagus, and neck. A balanced throat chakra helps one to express themselves well. Some also link this chakra to artistic abilities, and assists in getting the most out of one’s meditations. An imbalanced throat chakra can lead to miscommunications, arguments, and a sense of not being heard. This energy center is blue. Related gemstones are: angelite (one of my personal favorites as it is the stone of self-awareness), turquoise (for opening channels of communication), and aquamarine (for courage).
• Third eye chakra, or Ajna – The Sanskrit translation for Ajna is the center of knowing, and is deemed our sense of thought and intuition. Also referred to as the Brow chakra, it resides between your eye brows, slightly above. It connects to our pineal gland. A balanced Ajna is reportedly linked to telepathic abilities. It is dark blue/purple in color (indigo).  An imbalanced chakra can lead to one falling more into fear, and having trouble making decisions. There are a number of physical ailments linked to an imbalanced Ajna, such as headaches, eye and ear problems, brain tumors, and thyroid problems. Gemstones to assist in balancing this chakra are amethyst (my personal favorite for better intuition and enhanced spirituality) and purple flourite (to promote intuition and clarity while ridding one of negativity).

• Crown chakra, or Sahasrara – This violet colored chakra is considered the highest chakra point ON the physical body as it is located exactly where the name implies – the crown of your head. There are other chakras above it, but we’ll save that for another day. This chakra governs our nervous system, brain, and pituitary gland. It gives us (when balanced) a sense of all over well-being (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual). It links us to our higher sense of purpose, bliss, and enlightenment. It is even thought to be responsible for a divine connection to the universe. Although this chakra’s primary color is violet, there are an array of different colored gemstones associated with it, including selenite (a pearly white, nearly clear stone removes stagnation and propels one forward, clears negative energies, and purifies your auric field), clear quartz (increases energy and spiritual awareness), and amethyst (to facilitate communication with one’s spiritual guides with meditation).

That’s a lot of info and I’ve barely scratched the surface. I’ll delve into more comprehensive evaluations of each chakra in future articles, along with methods to cleanse and balance these chakras individually and together since all together makes up our entire energetic being.

There’s an article I posted a while back (I’ll try to locate it) that talked about the root chakra. If I find it, I’ll repost it next month. If not, I’ll compose another article as I feel we should start with our most basic need – survival – and work our way up from there.

Thanks for joining me today.

Namaste.