the consumption of nutrient-poor, highly refined products, but I recognize that the physical and spiritual properties of foods can be transformed through our thoughts and feelings about them.
CHAPTER 2
OUR DANCING CHAKRAS
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
—MAYA ANGELOU
WE ARE MORE THAN OUR PHYSICAL BODIES
The twenty-first century is a time like no other, because science and technology are at an all-time peak. As a society, we have become smitten with all the gadgets, electronics, and high-speed communication potential available, and if we are not conscious of technology's impact, we risk becoming slaves to its appeal.
Your daily events might resemble something similar to the following: waking up to the beeping of an alarm clock, exercising on an automated treadmill while watching the news on the latest flat-screen television, followed by driving to work in your hybrid vehicle while talking on the cell phone, and spending most of the day at work glued to the computer answering emails and plugging in appointments on your Palm Pilot. When it comes to health care, technology may expand its reach by having your medical care be determined by your unique genetic code. Imagine the scenario of going to your doctor with a CDROM that contains the contents of your DNA so that your body's code can be read and analyzed instead of talking with a practitioner who observes your symptoms. There is no doubt about it: we are enrobed by technology and tickled by the possibilities it may bring forth.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we are also becoming more open to the possibility that life provides us more than cold, sleek machines and numbers. Inherently, you may feel and even be reminded through your life experiences that we are more than our physical bodies, and that the human being machine is the best design available. Even though technology gives us the option to connect faster and better, there is truly no replacement for the in-flesh human interaction. The New Age movement, which roughly began in parallel with the proliferation of scientific developments, recognized these ideas and brought them forth as new concepts founded, in part, on ancient, traditional knowledge. If you have experienced Reiki, hands-on healing, prayer, flower essences, homeopathic remedies, herbs, acupuncture, cranial sacral therapy, to name a few, then you have already taken part in the search to heal yourself from a different entry point than modern medicine offers. Not everyone responds in the same way to the same modality, which is why it is so valuable to have a smorgasbord of options available. The current trend is to work with a “healing team” of individuals so that they can use many different approaches to heal.
The nature of science is to understand the body through slicing, dicing, and teasing apart the complexities and intricacies of the human body. Of course, this is valuable to a certain extent, as it allows you to dive down as deep as the gene level to see what you have been programmed with. On the other hand, philosophical, religious, and spiritual teachings promote the wholeness of the person (including the soul) rather than piecing apart our contents into their minutia. As a result, these two paradigms have unique positions that allow them to come together to unlock the mystery of our being. The richness of human healing may be the place where these two paths intersect.
The chakras are the basic foundation of our soul, connecting it to all layers of our being, including our physical body.
Although seemingly disconnected ways of thinking, the two streams of science and spirituality have revealed to us a common thread: that we are essentially compositions of cosmic, dynamic, responsive particles vibrating at a specific frequency. These particles of dancing matter form a web of connection with each other, sending signals and creating patterns, vortices, and cascading effects. One of the ways to tap into our soul selves involves a merging of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual by accessing our vibrational selves. Many authors and researchers have begun to explain what that means.
The idea that we are more than our physical body is not a new concept. Traditional spirituality and philosophy, as originated in India and other parts of Asia thousands of years ago, have supported the idea that we are more than our physical bodies. Underlying the physical body are other less visible layers, lacing us with the energetic framework for the body template. This layer of our being is fueled by the universal life force that runs through us like electricity, referred to by some as chi, prana, or Divine light, a concept threaded throughout all major spiritual traditions. Ancient traditions teach that the core of this energy is present in the spinal column, running from the top of the head to the bottom of the spine. From the medical perspective, we could say that this energetic superhighway is analogous to the central nervous system, residing in the spine with distinct clusters and branches that extend throughout the body's surface area.
CHAKRAS ARE ENERGY CENTERS
All life-forms, including human beings, have inherent energy vibrations culminating from the cell's electrical activity. Basic biology shows us that one of the main ways that a cell lets something in and out of the body is by changing its polarity, or its electrical current. There is a specific voltage inside and outside the cell that can be changed by a number of factors and can be measured by various devices. For example, we have the ability to change our electrical potential when we relax or we get stressed. Humans work within a range of energy vibration, and these ranges are determined by specific centers in the body. They are like the control centers on the system of electrical energy flowing within the body. These are the same “highways” or “channels” targeted by acupuncture, an ancient healing practice of inserting needles to remove blocks or stagnation. The energy centers in the body have been categorized in diverse ways, such as nerve clusters, according to modern medicine and physics. New Age systems of thought and healing often use the phrase “energy centers” to refer to these same junctions. Some historians contend that Ayurveda is the oldest medical tradition from which all other medical systems were derived. Ayurveda refers to the energy vibration centers of the human being as chakras, or spinning wheels.
We all have chakras. We may not be aware of them. However, if we are conscious of them, they are excellent gauges of how we are responding to our environment on a subtle level. Within the chakras is the universal flux of consciousness, including archetypal information, so the complexity of the chakras and of what they provide to us if we tap into them is truly remarkable.
Very simply, the chakras are the basic foundation of our soul, connecting it to all layers of our being, including our physical body. They serve as points of integration for our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual selves. Chakras have been recognized for thousands of years by ancient civilizations in Asia and South America. In particular, Indian yogic literature addresses these subtle energy centers. My experience with chakras is that they can be perceived as light and color and are often associated with images, either symbolic or literal in interpretation. Some individuals perceive chakras as wheels, spiraling in energy from the collective consciousness into the inner core of the physical body and vice versa. Traditional literature states that the chakra structure is a coneshaped vortex vertically aligned at specific points from the base of the spine to the top of the head, transforming and transmitting the incoming finer energy into the more dense physical energy of the body.
In addition to the wheel image, chakras have also been associated with the symbol of a flower, with each chakra higher up the body (the head being the highest) having a relatively greater number of petals than the previous. The increasing
