Turning Lead into Gold – 2nd Chakra Healing

 

Down in the darkness deep know there’s a light don’t sleep – David Gray

 

There are days when I meet with those who are called the Formorians. These are the Irish mythological forces of darkness. These are the dark life forces that vanquished the Shining Ones, the Tuatha de Danaan, the Beautiful People who are driven underground in the Irish story of the Battle of Moytura.  These beautiful people are now known as the Irish fairies.  There are days when I find this Formorian force within myself and I have to find inner resources to be able to counter their influence. Recently, I felt very despondent. This is largely due to the fact of being required to do a woman’s work in a man’s body when my partner Bee fell in the garden and broke her ankle in two places.

 

I think the closer you come to the light the closer you come to the dark within yourself and particularly within the culture you live in. When one truly begins to open ones beautiful eyes to the task of awakening to the light there will be times, even many times, when one feels despondent – even possibly despairing. You begin to see the true extent of what it means to live in ignorance of ones true radiance.   This is why you need a practice or practices that ground you and keep you out of mental flights of fancy that can take you and make you, not one of the Shining Ones, but a prisoner of the Formorians – the Bag People – who are themselves filled with the baggage of the past. Those who, individually and collectively are intent on filling you full of baggage that becomes dispiriting.

My key grounding 1st chakra practice is to write.  It is a kind of journal therapy and a yoga of journaling.  I am sometimes invited from experience to write about feeling despondent, about feeling dispirited. I live in the world of duality (2nd chakra experience)  and thus I am not always up nor am I always down. I, too often, lose the centre. I learn to hold this centre by sitting in the fire of dispiritedness. In this fire I learn the practice of turning the lead of despond into the gold of spirit – the experience of being inspired or “in spirited.”   This is the work of 2nd chakra healing.  You sit in the dark prepared to witness the process.  This is true alchemy.  It is consciousness witnessing consciousness.  It is the practice of developing witness consciousness.  A key practice in learning  to live a wild and precious life.  It is a key part of the practice of meditation

 

I sometimes lead groups in the invitation to what is called 7 Ways to a Wonderful Life. Those who don’t lead groups don’t often see the way in which those who lead such groups experience doubt, angst, and crises of faith. Despite this, one leads because there is a gift to be given. This gift often arises from the light that has been found in the dark. The more open you become, the more challenging the work becomes as you become a servant of Love in action. This is why this journey of inspired Love in action is called the Hero’s journey.

 

I am sixty one years of age. Most of my friends and family are younger than myself. So I tend to walk this experience of doubt, despondency and fear on my own. I do this with the technique I am sharing with you now. It has taken me years of daily practice to be able to learn to centre myself in the space of time that it takes to write four pages of A4. Yet the satisfaction, the healing through writing practice, the liberation, is wondrous. At the end of writing these four pages of A4 I will laugh at the idea that I will take my talent at writing and stuff it away because it is not seen to be valued.

 

I value it. I not only value it. I love it. To stop writing from the Love I feel inside would be like cutting off my nose to spite my face except that I have had a tendency to do this anyway. I hold a pity party where I am the only one who is invited. A face without a nose isn’t pretty but we wound ourselves because we feel hurt and turn our anger or our rage inward. It is a kind of taking back control. Many wonderful saints and teachers have mapped the road of the spirit. They have all said that the spiritual warrior will travel the road of trials. The road of trials includes those emotional experiences that invite imprisonment in the Formorian energy of despair, doubt, fear and other dispiriting adventures. This is when you are called to remember the forces of beauty that are within you.

 

There are always available the four magical gifts of the beautiful people: the Cauldron of Plenty that always gives to those who would stand before it with an open heart. There is the Sword of Lugh, the god of Light that cuts through the chains that are invisible. This is the sword that cuts through any sense of despond. There is the voice of destiny that calls you by your name as one whose sovereign centre can never be lost. The pen, we are told, is mightier than the sword. This pen has, in the time it has taken to write these pages, slain the Formorian forces of despondency. I am ready, not so much to do battle now, as to keep remembering that I live in a world of duality that is bounded by Oneness.

 

When I forget that I am not only a part of the Source, but never apart from the Source, then I am at the mercy of the forces prevalent in the world of duality – indifference, apathy, self-interest, guilt, despondency and so many other forces that pull one down but do not ground. So I have done the practical stuff of grounding through the written word.

 

Now I lay down my pen, my personal sword of light and go and get ready to share what it is useful to do when the Formorians arrive, as they will. Take up a daily practice. Make it something fun. It needn’t be writing, but any practice you take up needs commitment. Initially with any practice you will be pulled away from it. This is because the forces of the Formorian mindset do not want you to have access to the power of the light that invites the radiance within you.

 

You will find will be that the greatest battle will be with you own sense of indifference, your own sense of dis-empowerment, your own sense of despondency. Simply do not indulge these but take them and become an alchemist. This is when you turn the lead of despond into the gold of inspiration.

One of the key ways of healing the 2nd chakra is through the unification of opposites. Each of us has unloved aspects within ourselves. The 2nd chakra is the invitation to enter the room of opposition and reclaim those unloved aspects. One of the ways we can invite such a process is to study the fairytales and myths of old. These are not just stories from children and stories of olden times. They are maps to different levels of consciousness. We can choose to either ignore the invitation to cross the threshold and live a rather dull and meaningless life. We can choose to look into the room of our unconscious and decide that what is in there is best left to stay locked away. This is the death of the authentic self and the death of any real intimate relationship. The third way is the way of the hero who crosses the threshold and discovers the gold that is in the shadow.

This is 2nd chakra work. It not only benefits the individual. It benefits the collective. It is the first stage of the seven stage journey into wholeness. At each stage there will be resistance. This is the nature of growth. Do no be surprised if you feel afraid of opening the door of the unconsious. It is best to take it slowly and practice a great deal of loving kindness toward oneself.

One of the best books I have read on Chakra Healing is Archetypal Chakras by Arnold Bittlinger. I especially love this book because it has a chapter on the Chakra symbolism in fairy tales. As a storyteller this is a chapter full of inspiration and revelation. It invites you to remember the power of storytelling to support you in your journey of healing into wholeness. It also has a wonderful invitation to understanding the Lord’s Prayer and its relationship to the way of the Chakra’s. This isn’t an invitation for you to become a Christian. However, I have 2nd chakra wounds around my Christian upbringing. I have a love/hate relationship with the Christian message. This is what I work on through some of the writings in this blog.

Another great book on Chakra Healing is Anatomy of Spirit – The Seven Stages of Power and Healing by Caroline Myss. This has a great story in it about meeting with an Ulsterman who had 2nd chakra healing issues and refused to address them. This is of particular interest for myself who grew up in Northern Ireland (a very 2nd chakra culture) during The Troubles. I will be writing much more about 2nd chakra healing and its relationship to storytelling. In further writing I will be taking you more deeply into certain fairytales and their relationship to the way of the chakra’s. This is my passion – a very 2nd chakra experience. It is a passion I love to share and in sharing I move this energy into the 3rd chakra and beyond. This is the real work of turning lead into gold.

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