Third Chakra

The third chakra, manipura, is located in your solar plexus, between your naval and heart. The color association is yellow and the elemental association is fire. The third chakra is where your second brain lives. Your second brain is known as your intuition. The wisest sage in the world is nothing without intuition to guide her in her choices on a daily basis. We are faced with choices and decisions hundreds of times each day. When we allow our intuition to make choices based on the need of the soul to experience love, rather than the need of the logical mind to order and control chaos, the quality of the choices we make are of the richest kind.

The third chakra houses your intuition, your self-esteem, and your sense of integrity. Your ability to endure suffering also lives here and as the Buddha said, we are all subject to a measure of suffering in this life.

Intuition, regardless of knowledge, is a divine presence in each and every one of our bodies. Kids have it. Animals have it. But somehow, through our processes of "education", intuition is slowly shut down, invalidated, disrespected...we are taught not to trust our instincts; we are taught to leave choices and decisions to adults who know better. Intuition is a God given gift that we are all born into. However, our western culture is not particularly interested in what it is to "know" that around the corner there's a snarling dog, western culture is more interested in selling us a gun to protect ourselves from the PROSPEST of a snarling dog. It's a tragedy of epic proportion in our culture and I'm telling you, if we let the kids make intuitive choices for this entire nation for just one day, we wouldn't recognize the beautiful world we woke into the next morning.

Issues of self-esteem and integrity are located in your third chakra. Why is that? Because without integrity, your self esteem is woefully left wanting. Integrity means "walking your talk", doing what you say you are going to do and then doing it. It's that simple, but we make excuses for ourselves every day and it chips away at our sense of who we are. How many times have you said, "I could feel it in my gut that this or that wasn't the right thing to do, but I didn't listen." START LISTENING! If you desire a closer connection to Divine Guidance, then find a way to pay attention and make choices based on what you are sensing from your third chakra.

Sight

A few years ago, I had just gotten new glasses, a next age version of bi-focals called progressive lenses. As a person who experiences the world through the symbolic language of the world created behind my eyes, it was a revelatory symbolic message when I dropped my glasses, unbeknownst to me, in a parking lot and drove away. I realized my mistake and was back in time to watch a woman in a black Jaguar running over my glasses. I flew out of my car, whisked them into my hand and VOILA`, they were not broken!! Run over by a Jaguar and my glasses didn't break.

In retrospect, I see this as turning point in the process of shifting my perspective into a progessive way of seeing the world, and my life began to be experienced from a symbolic level rather than one trapped by illusions of "reality". I'm forever asking, in a new situation, "what is the message'? For instance, yesterday, I had a brilliant inspiration for a concept store that would teach people how chakras and energy work to create health or disease in the human body. I had a huge flush of energy around it and my first question of course was, "where would the financing come from?" Do you know that within seven hours the person with finances and willingness to venture with me walked through the door of my studio and said, "it sounds great. I've got the money. Let's do it".

The symbolic message in this is that when you get divine inspiration, move forward with it. Don't question it, don't shut it down because you can't imagine where the money would come from, or the partner, or the right space to do it in, or the support of your community. When divine inspiration calls, MOVE WITH IT and hold on for the ride!! You will be amazed in what you can do when you get out of your own way and let the ethereal plane be your guide!

For this I am truly grateful!

Out of Body

"All the jewels in heaven, they don't look the same to me." Beck

For this I am grateful.

Happy Soul?

The exquisitely beautiful spirit known as Elizabeth Gay says this is one of her favorite questions: "Soul, are you happy? Listen for the answer, and then take action as need be."

Or don't take action. But notice what your soul is seeking and perhaps do some work at manifesting what it desires. Above everything else, the soul seeks only to experience love.

What it's Like

INTENSELY ALIVE IS WHAT IT IS.

For this I am grateful.

Kundalini, again

I wrote earlier about my experience of Kundalini awakening at a GOMEZ concert in D.C. What I've only just realized is that although the energy had awakened, it remained quiet and unmoving until my 47th birthday. I was awakened one night and went to use the bathroom. My next conscious moment found me on the white tile floor in a cold sweat, heart pounding with excruciating pain like a column of fire in my root chakra. Moaning, I considered the prospect of death. My beloved Christopher was in the other room, praying me through it.

The next morning when I woke up, I fully expected to see a different "person" in the mirror.

Kundalini animated in me that night. Kundalini started moving up and down my spine, clearing out energy in all my chakras. It was a death of sorts. A death of old tribal ways that no longer serve the common good and my purpose as a healer on the planet. It was certainly a rebirth into a realm where illusion is broken down a little more and much becomes infinitly possible because so much excess has been cleared away.

Next to death, it was the ultimate healing. For this I am truly grateful.

Connie

Ordination of the Rev. Connie Hanna

On October 21, 2005 I was ordained as a minister of the Universal Life Church in California. Hooray!

"As a minister, I am authorized by the church to perform the rites and
ceremonies of the church (except circumcision), including weddings,
funerals, baptisms and blessings, subject to the laws of my country,
state, or locality.

I am entitled to all privileges and courtesies normally offered to
members of the clergy.

My commitment is to always do the right thing. It is my responsibility
to peacefully and sincerely determine the right course of action, and to
avoid infringing on the rights of others. I alone am responsible for
my actions as a minister."

My specific mission in becoming ordained is to draft myself as an agent for healing
the broken hearted through the energy of loving kindness in the name of the God
of Love and Forgiveness.

Please let me know if you are in need of my services.

For this I am truly grateful.

Be well, do good work,
Rev. Connie Hanna

My Guy Al

Albert Einstein
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

Language of Energy Spoken Here

Tears

Because the second chakra is aligned with the energy of water, eveything that flows in and from our bodies, originates here. In healing work, the second chakra processes blood, sweat and tears and all the manifestations of sorrow and desire they stem from.

Image the tree of life, carrying water and nourishment up from the roots, hydrating, nourishing, the entire system of "tree" with it's life giving powers. And what the tree doesn't need immediately, it stores in it's trunk, above it's root system that pulls the energy up.

The same is true with your second chakra. Like the compact disc, it can hold a lot of information and energy, but if any of that information is tainted, or "sick" it can have a profound impact on your health. What I want to say to you is that if you have unresolved pain or hurt or trauma in this area of your body, find the courage to deal with it, forgive and let it go. It's really essential to being fully conscious. Be not concerned with the legnth of the journey, just get on the path. You are loved.

Water

The second chakra is aligned with the element of water. I asked a practioner of healing touch today what the source of the sound of water was. He said, "is that a buddhist meaning of life question?. I said, 'Yes, I suppose it is.".

The information I was seeking however, was the physical place of the water element I was hearing, lapping, lapping. I was seeking a fountain. I did not find one, only the sound of water, lapping a shore.

Note to self

If you don't think you are enlightened, at least try to act like you
are.

Second Chakra: Svadisthana

In my mind, Anna Nueva Villanova defined the second chakra with this poem:

Settle for:
Settle for nothing
Settle for nothing less
Settle for nothing less than
the object of your desire.

Desire. The weight of. The weight of our desire.
Then laugh. Cry. But laugh more than you cry and when you hold the world in
the palm of your hand, love her.


~~~~

The second chakra is called the Svadisthana Chakra which translates loosely to "one's own seat or base" and is located in the area below the navel, and even though it is physically located on the spine, it encompasses the pelvis, hips, lower back, reproductive organs and genitals and lower intestines. The second chakra processes all feelings of desire and want inherent in the human experience, consequently, it's a very active area of the body. Particularly for the woman, whose womb is the symbolic vessel for incubating creation, the Svadisthana energy center is the seat of all need to create. One of the most basic truths in this chakra is that we MUST create or die. Whether it's a beautiful garden, a work of art, a turkey and avocado sandwich or a cup of tea, everything we do and every thought we think is an act of creation.

Given that the lessons of the root chakra are related to survival and influences of a group mind or "tribe of origin", the second chakra has everything to do with one-on-one relationships. Your self-esteem lives in your second chakra, your relationship with your spouse, partner and friends live here. Your sensual and sexual experiences of the world live here. Your fears or faith with money lives in your second chakra as well, and in our western culture, money issues can take up a huge amount of energy that must be processed by the second chakra. It goes without saying that the healthier and more vital you are in this area, the same will be reflected in your relationship to income and out flow of resources.

Letter to a budding creative artist:

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to hear you brought in $650 your first time out. It takes tremendous courage to do what you did, which was put your creative ass ( i.ei. root chakra) on the line and invite the acceptance or rejection of your work in a public venue. As I said in my most recent missive, measure your success by the joy you experienced in the creation of a work of art that reflects who you are to the people that encounter you and your product.

I'm very impressed by your acumen. I see you as a highly intuitive creative artist with a lot to say in very few words. This is the true beauty of the whole "patchwork" genre. Your market is to those who recognize that on a cosmic level, we are only a sum of our parts and experience. For me, that is symbolized in stringing beads together in an endless circle....no beginning...no end: for you that is manifested in the patching together, with great precision, the fabric of our lives, (oh christ, I'm sounding like a cotton commercial!! ;o}) into these gorgeous vessels of what we are capable of carrying in terms of JOY! and LOVE! (in a tote on your shoulder).

My prayer for you is that this journey will reveal to you that the qualities of JOY and LOVE are completely capable of transforming your world and those who are touched by it. You are a mirror to what you encounter; whatever it is you are creating is defined by those who are attracted to it. Look for the beauty there, it is infinite and what you give to it is unfathomable in this amazing world we live in.

You've been handed the magic wand of LOVING WHAT YOU DO. Use it.

BUY ART!

painting by Will Corr


Perhaps you can help me identify the person who said that when they had a little extra money they bought books, and if there was any left over they bought some bread. I'm thinking this was Simone deBeavoir, but I could be wrong. This most certainly seems a feminine sentiment, dont'cha think?

When I have a little extra money, or even when I don't, I buy art. I started my business in the world of flea markets and crafts shows in New York City. If a dozen people out of hundreds stopped and looked at my work, that felt good. If a few of them traded me money for my work, that felt great. Chris and I would always go out for a nice dinner after a show, regardless of the day's income. I am so grateful to those New Yorkers who first purchased my jewelry. I hope a lot of it is still walking the streets and drawing stares!

So now, I want to tell you to support artists every way that you can. This weekend, just down the street from my studio is the Stockley Gardens Fall Arts Festival. It's the show that supported me and put me on the arts map in Norfolk for over ten years. It is the very best in art that our lovely town has to offer and the proceeds from the event benefit Hope House Foundation, which is a non-profit that provides independent housing and guidance for the disabled. HOPE HOUSE IS PART OF WHAT MAKES NORFOLK AN AMAZING PLACE TO LIVE! Please get down there and spend some of your own hard or easily earned money supporting the work of an artist.

And if you don't have an art show to go to this weekend, then go on eBay and search for "outsider art". You will find a vast pool of very talented individuals who aren't part of the bona-fide "art world". Many are good folks who just like to create and express themselves with paint and wood, clay and collage and many are thrilled just to be moving their work along. Don't expect to spend a lot of money. One painting I got at a winning bid of $10 and I sent him $30 cuz it didn't feel right to "steal" it from him for $10! If you aren't an eBay member, then go on as a guest and send somebody a comment telling them you like their work. Make an artists day! We all just want to be loved and make a little money doing what we love!

Be well, do good work,
Connie

The prayer that turned me around

When I was pregnant with Jesse, I created a mantra:
"Jesse and I are going to have a smooth and easy birth".
I repeated this mantra to myself dozens of times a day and
as I was falling asleep each night. Jesse and I, indeed, had
a smooth and easy birth experience. Seems your
mind will believe and create anything you tell it to.

After he was born, I felt a void in my mind where my mantra had
previously been. I wrote this prayer to fill the space:

I, Connie, have complete and total faith in the universe
to provide me with all that I need for a full and happy life.
Thank you God for my life.
And to the source that dwells within me, I honor my higher self.
Guide me gently through night's dreaming until dawn's light comes streaming.
And through the day, please make me aware,
of all the wonderful things available to me here,
on Earth.
Amen.

Kundalini Image

Root Chakra and Kundalini

The Root Chakra is located at the base of the spine and is associated with the earth element. If we were ever sensient beings on four legs with tails, the site where the tail meets the body is where the root chakra is located. Imagine an invisible root extended into the earth from the base of your spine...this is the place that connects us to our earth home and all the survival issues inherent in our presence here. Your needs for food, shelter and clothing, warmth and community and nurturing are all located here. Any issues you have with those basic needs for survival are located in the root chakra.

For instance, the survivors of Hurricane Katrina are dealing with very extreme root chakra issues. The conflict and fear created by their experience of hunger, thirst, and depravation will be stored or "recorded" in the first chakra. It's possible that if those conflicts and fears aren't resolved, then disease may be created in the body. Knee, feet and leg problems and all many of illness relating to the elimination system might manifest themselves as symptoms of a blocked root chakra.

On the emotional level, the root chakra is where the power of fear and courage, anger and anxiety are located. For the Katrina victims, a natural outcome to the emotional crisis of being betrayed by a "tribe" or nation that failed them in their basic human rights for survival is going to have a profound affect on their collective and individuals root chakras. The black people of our nation will all experience that betrayal to some extent or other, or so it seems to me, and that betrayal is experienced physically by the first chakra.

A very cool and important aspect of the root chakra is the energy of Kundalini. Just as our earth home is considered a mother, so is our first chakra considered a female energy. Kundalini Shakti (sanskrit for "energy"), in Hindu mythology, is represented as a serpent goddess coiled three and a half times around the root chakra and contains the energizing potential of life itself, a living goddess who enlivens all things. Kundalini lies dormant and sleeping in many people. There is no mistaking the force of Kundalini when and if it wakes up in the human body. Kundalini animates and energizes all the chakras, undulating upward, piercing the chakras and releasing all kinds of powerful and stored energy. Therefore, the experience of Kundalini can be very intense, very uncomfortable and may look like full blown life crisis to some.

In my own experience, while attending a GOMEZ concert in Washington, D.C. Kundalini woke up in my own first chakra and took over my physical body in a way I simply don't have the words to describe. It was like being plugged into 220 volts after years of 20. My whole energy field shifted to such a great extent and suddently I could FEEL how energized and intensely connected to the entire univeral life force I was and in a way I'd never experienced before. I started to dance and move in a manner completely unfamiliar to me: ecstatically, blissfully, and unbelievably ALIVE! Kundalini ignited a tremendous passion and great love of life in me. When you are around people with awakened Kundalini you may experience them as animated, intense and very exciting. However, depending on where you are in your own journey, you might find them frightening or draining. Ultimately though, Kundalini is a force that accelerates healing and when the heart chakra is on board with the first, that healing can be experienced as miraculous.

And in the name of miraculous healing, I send you my blessings of love for your own healing.

You are loved,
Connie

Chakras and the rainbow

A chakra is a spinning disc of energy located on the human spine. If we were mere skeletons walking
about the earth, without our tissue and organs, what we'd see might look like seven holographic cd's or dvd's, each with a color assoicated with it, located in a vertical line from the base of our spine to the crown of the head. I think we'd be able to tell alot about a fellow being by the intensity of the color we saw radiating from each whirling chakra. Chakra's are like an auto-biographical audiobook recording and storing your soul's life experience.

Perhaps you've heard of an "aura". An aura is an invisible energy field that surrounds our body. To some, who can "see" auras, this energy field may appear as diffused white light. Imagine the "halo" that many artists have attempted to recreate on canvas when depicting a holy person or setting. That clear light is what we associate with divinity, isn't it? Well, imagine that we are the prism that the Divine One shines it's lovely light through: we become a rainbow that is recreated in the chakra system as whirling discs of color and light.

Stay tuned: Tomorrow: The root chakra is the color red.

California Home

The trip to California was such a
gift in so many ways. Most importantly, I was able to travel to the
past, plug into all the love that I left behind and bring it with me
into the present and future to use in my healing work. Like you, I
am a mere vessel of humanity and all that comes with it, but truth
says that love is the highest power we are blessed with on this
planet. It's the magic wand that each of us has the capacity to
activate. If you want to create change for the better on this plane,
love is the key and the more you use it, the more powerful and potent
the essence of your work will be.

As a youth, I created a great deal of damage when it came to heart
break. I was not a conscious or awake individual and bounced from
one person to the next, hoping for some connection that felt
authentic. I did not respect my self nor others. I couldn't see what
others saw in me, and I did not know how to forgive myself for the
choices I made that caused pain and suffering for others. So when I
left, I left with shame and embarrassment and very low self-esteem.
And so the journey from that departure back to the geography of the
pain; to the site of my own woundings and those inflicted on others,
was an epiphany of profound importance for me. I contacted Lisa and
Justin and Kim and Laura and Tom and Dave and Kort and Linda and each
of them reflected back to me the qualities that have always been
present in each of us: beauty and sorrow and optimism and tolerance
and humor and good wine and LOVE. And so I return to Virginia, energized by the love that I felt for
those people and the loving kindness they offered me. I am humbled by
the brightness of it all.

Time Travel

I am happy to report that I learned the art of time travel over the weekend. Last Tuesday my intuition told me to GO TO CALIFORNIA. I have learned well enough that when my intuition speaks, it's best to follow rather than resist it. So, Friday I got on a plane in Norfolk and then I was in California. With the help of Buddha's teaching, I was able to power down my energy and just BE in a state of forward western motion. I arrived intact, refreshed and revitalized. This is what the Buddha said:
"Thus shall you think of this fleeting world as a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, an echo, a rainbow and a dream." For me, the dream is real.