30 Apr Ajna Chakra The Centre of Your Intuition
Known throughout the Earth’s civilizations and cultures by various names; mind’s eye, eye of the soul, eye of divinity, eye of intuition, and so on, all relating to the same ideal of one-ness, of spiritual perception.
Physically, (and as agreed by modern western medicine ? ) this centre resides behind the space between the eyebrows, behind the forehead and includes the pineal and pituitary glands. The pituitary gland is known as the master gland as it controls the production of the majority of hormones to be distributed through the body. The pineal gland (named for its pine cone shape) regulates the control of melatonin in a direct response to light and dark. Thus it controls our perception of time and our internal rhythmic clocks, both daily and seasonally regulating our sleep patterns.
Obviously these connections have been known to yogis, sages, shamans and mystics for millennia, but my western upbringing forces me to feel I need to validate by saying it’s agreed by guys in white coats too.
The Two Petaled Lotus
The Yantra (or symbol) of this chakra is a two petaled lotus, each petal representing a major energy channel that meets and merges here. The Ida and Pingala, the Masculine and the Feminine, Light and Dark, all come back into union in this centre along with the sushumna, the energy highway that flows directly through all chakras. This union of opposites, the major energetic streams, is what allows us to perceive reality from the point of “one-ness” or the bigger picture, to achieve spiritual perception and a higher-mind awareness.
That is why this portal is associated with intuition and inner wisdom. Meditation practices which focus our attention on this space behind the eyes help us to see without vision. With practice the voice of the outer guru or spirits, or angels can be heard more clearly by developing an open Ajna chakra. In contrast, any imbalance in this region can manifest as headaches and neurosis and psychosis.
This star-seed portal is considered the meeting place of body and soul. In western medical terms this can be understood by the mechanics of thoughts and feelings triggering the production or cessation of many different hormones in the pituitary gland. The mind manifesting as chemicals if you like. This is the flow between the physical organ of the brain and the non-physical aspects of the mind such as the psyche, where the physical and spiritual worlds meet and affect each other.
Letting Your Ego Influence Your Facial Expression
As this is a blog for body-oriented people I would like to talk a little about how we can create imbalance in this chakra by our bodymind expression. Our past experience has influenced our ego’s way of keeping us safe by armouring our muscles and bones, embedding past experience into our physicality.
This chakra resides in our face so any of our ego’s attempts to control our facial expressions will affect the health of this chakra.
Our face is what we present to the world, in the growing dependance on digital interaction, sometimes our face is the only part we do show. We show our emotions on our face, but it is also how many of us conceal them too. If a person spends a long time manipulating their facial expression to express something other than one’s true feelings, it is logical that a discrepancy will arise between inner and outer truth. This holding of certain expressions can become habitual tensions and create a difficulty for the body’s necessary free flow of energy to maintain a fully healthy bodymind system.
Show Your True Face
Let me give you a few modern examples of false facial expressions. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Just kidding. Actually, I’m not. There is a whole generation of people who control exactly what face they show to their friends and family and anyone else who looks at their posts. Each selfie carefully taken and re-taken until the desired expression is achieved. That’s a lot of face holding, a lot of opportunity to embed tension and disrupt the flow of divine energy.
I think it must be healthier to allow your muscles to freely express your emotions for as long as needed, to flow across your face like ripples in water, finding their peaceful conclusions when the momentum of the feelings have passed.
I encourage you, in your next dance to drop in to your face and really allow it to join the dance. Let it express, don’t stress about how it looks because it really isn’t true that if the wind changes you will be stuck like it. There is more truth in the notion that if you constantly hold back your expression, you will be stuck without any. And that does not sound very wholesome to me.
Once a year School of Ecstatic Movement holds a 7 week workshop series. During which, we travel through all the body’s energetic centres from our root to our crown. We call this series Dance of the Creatrix it is a chance to rediscover your true power as co-creator of this new world. A world ruled by the vibration of love.
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