Energy

In traditional magickal teachings and energy manipulation, the chakras are the energy centers of the body, and the seven of them run from the base of the spine to the crown of the skull. Each chakra has its own designated color:

Root - base of spine - red

Belly - abdomen - orange

Solar Plexus - beneath rib cage - yellow

Heart - center of chest - green

Throat - hollow of throat - blue

Third Eye - middle of forehead - purple

Crown - top of, or just over top of head - white

I am not fond of these designations. I was thinking about them as I was falling asleep last night, and I kept thinking, "But that's all wrong for me. My heart isn't green. It's red." (For some reason I keep wanting to type "red" as "read".)

Since these colors aren't working for me, I decided to create a body map of my own energy centers, tapping into my own sense of color/body energy correspondence. Here's what I discovered:

Hands - green: Hands are for making things, creating things, growing things. Green is good, creative, positive, healthy, healing energy.

Head - blue: Blue is my color of thinking. It's a cool color. It's a color that means being relaxed, of letting my thoughts flow. It's the color of the sky, so it corresponds to air, which is all about intellect.

Mouth - white: I think this is because I tend to not think before I speak. When I see something, I say something, and often the unvarnished truth comes out at inconvenient times. So white is for clarity, for purity, for a lack of obfuscation.

Third Eye - yellow: Yellow is another intellect color for me. It's the color of far-seeing, of true-seeing, of seeing things in the "light of day". It's a sunlight color, so it also means looking at the world with warmth and seeing the good in people, seeing how they can shine.

Heart - crimson: It's not just red. It's blood. It's passion. It's life.

Groin - blue surrounded by yellow: I'm still thinking about what these colors mean. Creative potential, joy, energy, happiness... that's as far as I've gotten.

Neck - orange: Orange is my pain color. My neck is where I hold my tension.

Spine - crystal clear: It's actually more like a column of liquid diamond, if such a thing could exist. All the colors sparkle and flash in here, running up and down.

Quads - green: This is where the most powerful muscles in my body are. This is the center of my balance. This is my stability, my grounding, my connection. I spend a lot of time sitting on the ground, so my thighs are my connection to the Earth.

Calves - blue: This is the blue of running water and rolling waves. This is where movement and motion, travel and adventure come from.

Shins - white: I don't know what this is about either.

Feet - red arches, surrounded in brown, with a black outline: I have a love/hate relationship with my feet. When I stand strong I am grounded, connected, channeling energy, but when I'm not, I'm just a mess.

Aura - dark violet with golden-yellow flecks: Yes, I can see my own aura. No, I'm not going to explain it to you. Any questions?

I'm still working with all this, and playing with energy and colors and imagery. Snakes seem to be becoming important. Something about slipping their skins and being born again new, and yet the same. That fascinates me. Snakes are Fire creatures, but they live within the Earth, and Fire and Earth are my two weakest elements.

And if any of this makes me sound crazy, just you try explaining your religion to a skeptic and see how it sounds in their ears. =)