root chakra December 30, 2008
Posted by oliverenergywork in Uncategorized.Tags: chakras, raw, root chakra
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Over the next week or so, I’ll be doing a series of posts discussing each of the 7 chakras. Each will give a little background info on each of the chakras, and some “field notes” from me — stuff I’ve learned about the chakras from working with them. These posts are the “raw material” for what will eventually be an educational resource for me to use when teaching classes, and/or for people to read and learn more on their own.
Please jump in with any questions you might have!
The Root Chakra is about groundedness and getting our basic survival needs met. Issues relating to stability, the home environment, one’s childhood, and digestion/eating may manifest here. Physical issues most commonly include digestive issues (such as constipation or diarrhea) or eating disorders (although these will frequently show up in higher chakras, especially if they have manifested for a long time – I find a lot of overeating issues end up in the Solar Plexus.) It corresponds with the color red – I find that mine appears anywhere from bright firetruck red to a rich burgundy when healthy, and more like a goopy blood clot or a brownish color when I’m having issues there. Sometimes I’ll get flashes of a red ball oozing and expanding out of control when my Root Chakra is not doing well. I associate the smell of wet wood or fresh dirt with the healthy Root Chakra, and often the smell of an unpleasant bodily excretion such as vomit or feces will show up when I encounter a significant Root Chakra imbalance. More frequently, though, the smell I’ll get when an issue at this chakra needs attention is the smell of blood, which goes with the “goopy blood clot” image generally.
It’s really neat to read what you see/sense associate with a healthy/unhealthy chakra. It’s kind of funny, because just last night I was thinking, “I’ll have to ask Oliver if he’ll post on the chakras, I’d like to know more about them.” And lo, this post.
In particular, though, I’d like it if you could expand more on the chakra itself, what it means, and what kind of energy it embodies. I’d also really like to see either separately or as part of each post (since you said you plan to write on all of them) some of your thoughts on how the chakras relate to one another and how the flow of energy moves between them and about how the flow itself can be affected. You know, the relationship between the chakras.
Anyway, awesome, and GO YOU for posting! This is really neat!!
Ooh. I’ve been trying to learn something useful on the Chakras for a while now. I didn’t know that the root could be associated with eating disorders. What do you have planned post-chakra discussion, I wonder?
OK, so what would make an eating disorder issue appear in the Root vs. the Solar Plexus?
There are a lot of really excellent books out there which give really good background information on the chakras. A couple that I really like are:
The Sevenfold Journey by Anodea Judith and Selene Vega
Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith
The Book of Chakras by Ambika Wauters
What kind of information would be useful to you, more specifically?
I know that for me, I found it most helpful to learn a little basic information about each chakra from reading books, a LOT of information directly from teachers and other healers, and then that the bulk of what I know about them has come from actually working on my own and on other people’s. Everyone’s learning needs are different — I know when I first started reading Tarot, for instance, it was very important for me to NOT read anything about the cards in books and really work intuitively. I still go back and forth with this because I’ve gotten a lot of really good insights from learning “objective” information about the cards, and I also sometimes have a greater challenge relying on my intuition now that I “know” more about the cards. However, this hasn’t been as much of an issue with bodywork. Other people have different needs for being able to work comfortably with different energies — I don’t think any one way is “better” than others.
My intention is eventually to create a more cohesive resource which will include information tying all the chakras together and explaining more about the system as a whole.
John: That’s a very good question! I can’t say that I know for sure. Solar Plexus issues tend to have more to do with self-esteem, while Root issues tend to be more about survival and getting our basic needs met. So, although an eating disorder is on one level about an imbalance in how one’s basic need to nourish oneself through eating is met — and the Root chakra is more directly connected to the digestive system itself than the Solar Plexus tends to be — eating disorders and low self-esteem are extremely related. So it could be that the imbalance starts in the Root and moves upward, or it could be that the imbalance starts in the Solar Plexus as a self-esteem issue and then manifests throughout the body, finding itself in the root when it materializes as an eating disorder.
The kind of work I do tends to be more about “how can we fix the problem?” and less about “what caused the problem in the first place?”, so to me it is more useful to know simply that I’m likely to find this energy in a particular location and what to do with it when I find it there, than it is for me to know what caused it to choose that location…if that makes sense.
Yay you posted!
What does it mean if you don’t notice any colours or smells associated with your chakras, vs if you do?
Nancy: It means everyone perceives stuff differently!
Do you have a way that you perceive your chakras? Do you perceive other people’s but not your own?
Sometimes I get messages about the chakras in different ways, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get yours in vibrations or by feeling rhythms, since you’re musically inclined. I sometimes do, too. But you may have something completely different…and you may have different perceptions come up for you at different times in your life. So just because you haven’t noticed colors or smells yet, doesn’t mean you never will.
Coolness! I don’t know anything about this stuff, but I enjoy your enthusiastic postings.