Building a firm foundation is the practice of root chakra healing. In a dream I recently had, I find myself chipping away at the foundation of a tower that carries high-powered electrical cables. I undermine this tower to the extent that it falls. In this dream I am afraid that the electrical energy will destroy me. This dream is about the requirement to build firm foundations so that the body can contain the power of the Divine.
I take the image of undermining the tower (which is representative of the body) and change it into a root chakra affirmation. I use this dream image of the tower and energy as a starting point to create an affirmation aligned visualization. Therefore, I create within my mind’s eye a tower that can carry a higher power and write and repeat an affirmation that becomes a powerful root chakra affirmation.
I am building a firm foundation to carry a higher power.
The above affirmation is the way an affirmative process of empowerment can be started. There are other ways to build a firm foundation to carry the higher power of the Divine, which is the power of the higher chakras. This involves some form of body awareness that might invite you to practice
- Hatha Yoga.
- Aunt Chia.
- Qigong.
Whichever practice you choose, that practice must be practiced daily with mindfulness. It is also suggested that you practice with an attitude of humility. The word ‘humility’ comes from the word ‘humus’. Humus is a type of soil that crumbles to the touch and smells sweet. It is the perfect medium for growing plants. Symbolically and metaphorically speaking, this attitude of humility is one that invites you to take root and grow. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says:
blessed are the meek
for they will inherit the land.
Matthew 5:5
You need the body that is your earthly form through which to express the higher power and finer energies of the higher chakras. The temptation is to avoid lower chakra work and live a kind of disembodied life where you become someone floating in the world. I have met spiritual teachers whom I refer to as ‘floaters’. They are not all there in a bodily sense. Due to the emotional pain experienced in their childhood, they go for the achievement of transcendence, which is the way they learned to survive the trauma they experienced.
In The Way of Chakra Healing I emphasize grounding. The image that I use that has been drawn to us in the practice of visualizing grounding is the beauty and power of the buckeye. This is a tree that I love more than any other. This is not a symbol that I use. It arose from paying attention to how the outside spoke to me in ways that allowed me to be in love. None of this was a rational choice. There was discipline involved in the sense that I was committed to being open to invitations from both the outside world and the inside.
You need to practice grounding every day. The easiest way to do this is to do a body scan for ten minutes first thing in the morning before you get up and last thing at night before you go to sleep. Make it your intention to use this practice to
let the soft animal of your body
love what you love
Mary Oliver – of the wild geese.
Make this simple practice a kind of prayer. This is a silent prayer of invitation intention and intention to allow the body to become a vehicle for a higher power. You are simply bathing the body in consciousness. You are paying attention to the body which is what it loves. You are practicing presence. Over time you will become more and more aware of being in the body instead of living in the cave of the skull. You will begin to come down to earth and your center will begin to move lower in your body instead of being centered in your head.
Because your center moves downward, you don’t lose balance as easily from the distraction of your daily life. Living in the body will then become a natural way of being in the world rather than the experience of a kind of floating transcendence where one lives as Mr. Duffy,
“Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”
? James Joyce, Dubliners
Root chakra healing work is critical. It seems less glamorous than the glorious invitations from the higher chakras that are beyond the personal and give one experiences that are truly beyond belief. However, the power of the universal lives within the root chakra. This is called the Kundalini force. The power of the Divine created the body to express the glory of the divine within the incarnation. The body is the earthly form through which Heaven expresses itself.
Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven
Matthew 6-10
This will of the Divine, which is the will to love, needs a body rooted in its material form and not a form that hates matter or always seeks to transcend matter. In this dimension of time and space you are a spirit that has chosen to take form. It is better if you commit to being well informed, that it is not so much about information but about the experience of bodily presence. The root chakra may not be the most glamorous of the chakras, but it is the fundamental chakra. You need a firm foundation to bring Heaven to earth to bless yourself and each and every one of us.