Eastern Body Western Mind

That is the title of a book that I have been reading on and off for the past year. This is how I read . . . on and off . . . over one hundred books on my shelf and only about three of them have been read from cover to cover.

The tag line for this book is 'Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self'. I have to admit to being very skeptical when I first picked it up. Apparently I am more apt to believe in being talked to by a plant than I am to believe in energy centers of the body. Sometimes the word 'chakra' still makes me cringe.

But this book is helping to shift some of that 'twitchy' sensation that occurs. When I bought it last year, I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading the section on the 1st chakra - the root chakra whose element was Earth. Not unlikely at all. Afterall, one needs to be very deeply grounded in order to move forward. And that was a process of two years of work before I ever picked up this book and read anything. So . . . three years of acupuncture, meditation, and qi gong to put myself in my body.

And now we arrive at the second chakra. Its' element . . . water. Synchronicity at its' finest. I will share a small excerpt from the introduction:

Diving in the Waters


As we enter the second chakra, we encounter the watery realm of emotions and sexuality. Where we have worked for grounding and stability in the first chakra, we now cultivate feelings and movement; where we have been concerned with survival and structure, we now focus on sexuality and pleasure. Our associated element has shifted from earth to water, from solid to liquid. In this transmutation we encounter change. Through consistency, consciousness finds meaning through change, it finds stimulation and expansion. 


If we think of the body as a vessel for the soul and spirit, then the element of earth in chakra one provides support and containment for the fluid essence of chakra two, much like a cup holds water . . . In the first chakra, we learned to ground, stabilize, and focus. Now, in the second chakra, our challenge is just the opposite - to let go - to flow and move, to feel, and to yield.

There's not much to say beyond this . . . at least in this moment . . . just an acknowledgement of what I'm moving into and where it will be guiding me. I have been remiss in a particular assignment of mine . . . that was given to me in order to help me on this path towards healing. Every time I sit down to work on it, I feel resistance in my body. So I will try and try again . . . slowly and surely.

In the meantime I am back in the ovulatory phase of my cycle . . . a detail that has me once again separating from the lower realms of my torso. Not only has it caused me much anxiety in the past 36 hours but it has also led me to a double dose of a chocolate cookie and a croissant . . . not the end of my world but certainly nothing that is very helpful either . . . if only in the sense of filling what seems to be an empty space there.