Waves of pulsating energies are the lifeblood of the cosmos, and even though you appear to be solid in form, you are actually made from vibrating energies that ripple in and out of your body as dancing waves of light. The composition of your being is much grander than you may realize. Doorways known as chakras serve as non-physical openings, or gateways, into your field of identity through which subtle energy forces— etheric energy, or qi, or cosmic radiation—enter and exit both physical and non-physical versions of the body. There are seven major centers associated with the physical body and five that exist beyond the physical form, extending your identity and connection to the web of existence into the depths of the cosmos.

The seven chakras in the physical body correspond to the glands of the endocrine system, which direct a grand internal pharmacopeia of enzymes, hormones, and intricate chemical intelligence that, along with the nervous system, assists in managing the body’s numerous functions. Each chakra serves as an intelligence center for processing cosmic energy into the world of physical matter and can be pictured as a spinning kaleidoscope of color, light, symbols, and sound.

Life lessons are played out in relationship to a specific area of focus and development affiliated with each energy center. The atmosphere is alive with vital force energies, and if your chakras are open, energy will flow in and out of your body, assisting you in maintaining mental clarity, emotional balance, physical health, and spiritual renewal. Your beliefs, attitudes, and interpretations of life determine just how open or closed these doorways are. Fear contracts the centers, while breath, beauty, love, and laughter expand them.

Opening your chakras involves giving your internal home a thorough spring cleaning. Running energy through the body will bring up the hidden issues that control your life, and even though encountering these deep internal beliefs can be challenging, it is also very liberating to release what is holding you back. There is no better time than now to accomplish this task. To fully deal with the truth of these times, opening your chakras and allowing cosmic energies, filled with information and knowledge, to flow through your body like a fresh cool stream of crystal clear water, bubbling with the vitality of life, will ultimately refresh your spirit and empower your life.

The first chakra is located at the base of the spine, which is home to a fiery serpent-like energy known as kundalini. This is the seat of your power, where the core issues of identity and survival are the primary lessons to be explored. People can spend an entire lifetime struggling with the lessons that are based on the teachings affiliated with this root center. Substantial bank accounts and important positions in society may come in handy, but it is the type of person you are, the quality of your relationships with your family and friends, and the virtues you embody that define your identity. When you trust and love yourself, energy can enter the first chakra to bolster your own self-worth and transmute the primal fear of being able to survive in the physical body. Mastering the energy of each chakra involves being grounded in the personal responsibilities of your life. Recognizing the corresponding lessons of each of the chakras frees the way for cosmic energies to link up all of the centers connecting you with the web of existence.

Chakra number two is the gateway for sexuality and creativity, and in this center as well, people can spend most of their lives struggling to learn the lessons of these potent energies. Everyone encounters the raw power of sexual energy, yet very few understand the deep psychic and spiritual exchanges that occur when you engage in sexual intimacy. Sexual expression brings forth the lessons and experiences of passion and pleasure; it is also the connection to your ancestors and the center for building a family. Your second chakra serves as the opening through which the frequencies of your identity and those of your partner merge to become creatively interwoven. Essentially, through sexual intimacy, you take on the other person’s energetic field, and if deceit is involved, or no love is present, the hangover from sex can be psychically, emotionally, mentally, and physically debilitating. Yet, with love and respect, you can soar with blissful emotions into the mysteries of the cosmos. Everyone faces the challenge of learning how to honor sexual energy.

If you are in a state of continuous fear with issues concerning your survival and your sexuality, then you will be stuck cycling in the lessons of the lower two chakras. Because the second chakra exudes the power of life, it is where discarnate entities most often attach themselves to the physical body. These non-physical energies will then feed off of the energy that you are afraid to own, which, in turn, will never be fully free to rise up the spine and connect the lower chakras to all of the other centers. In order to fully open your second chakra, you must honor your ability to bring life into the world and accept responsibility for your sexual activities. Your sexual identity empowers you in physical reality to build bridges of love and spiritual awareness between physical and non-physical reality.

The third chakra, or solar plexus, serves as the center of feeling, intuition, and willpower, acting as a brain in your belly. Tuning in to the activities and ruminations of this center is of vital importance for making decisions, because your body carries a bank of inner knowledge concerning your life, events of this world, and beyond. You must learn to pay attention to your body and acknowledge the feelings that are registered in your gut. By recognizing the purpose and function of your third chakra, you can quickly understand the subtle nuances of most any situation as you honor your feelings as a valuable resource for discerning reality.

The heart center, or fourth chakra, is located at the midpoint in the physical body and balances all the chakras above and below it with lessons concerning emotional intelligence. In this center, you can shut life down or completely blossom with compassion, for this is the place where you can know another being as a version of yourself. Compassion is a very sophisticated emotional achievement that opens your body to connect with the cosmos on a profound spiritual level. Sometimes opening the heart can be a frightening experience, for you can feel out of control when your heart is wide open and you are inundated with empathetic information. This center for great knowing can provide both daunting and exhilarating experiences. Love rules the heart, and rightly so. The real test that life on Earth offers is the opportunity to pass all you encounter through your heart chakra, acknowledging the wondrous variety of life without judgments. So often, the heart center is blocked off because of a cultivated fear that has conditioned you to be wary of this potent psychic connection. When the heart is closed down, it is easier to create harm or attempt to deceive others, because this connection to all life is disabled. An appreciation for the beauty of life is especially important for opening the heart center.

The fifth chakra, or the throat center, is of utmost importance because from here you use the creative power of speech to express your thoughts and emotions and bring them into reality. Through this center, you learn lessons about the power of words through speaking your truth and expressing your ideas. A loose and relaxed jaw is very important for keeping this chakra open so that communication flows with grace and ease. A clenched jaw indicates a hidden need to control the natural flow of expression. Breath is the key to this chakra. Directing your focus toward any of your chakras and breathing in a rhythmic manner, with the sound of the “wind in a cave” at the back of your throat, will open them to greater perceptual awareness. Lessons of the fifth chakra involve freeing yourself from doubts and inner worries concerning potential criticism and condemnation for speaking your mind. The manipulation of the truth is only possible when you are afraid of your own power.

The sixth chakra, known as the third eye, is located on the brow between the eyes. This center affects the very complex chemical processes of the pineal gland, and it serves as a tool for opening your awareness into simultaneous time. The third eye is an opening into nonphysical reality, a treasured gateway to the inner worlds as an unlimited source of knowledge. This center is connected to the experience of profoundly enhanced perceptions. Lessons here involve overcoming the fear of knowing what your enhanced senses perceive in order to fully tap in to the mysteries revealed through the development of inner sight.

The top of your head is known as the seventh, or crown chakra, and this dynamic center connects the physical nervous system with the cosmic mind. Your nervous system controls and coordinates all organs and structures of the body by serving as a radio receiver for internal and external signals; it actually extends outward from your brain into the ether in fine ribbons or golden threads as light-encoded filaments connecting you to other layers of reality. The lessons of this center are many faceted, and they essentially involve maintaining the fine balance of integrity required for journeys between physical and non-physical reality. Each energy center works in harmony with the others, and opening your mind and your heart to the consideration of greater possibilities inevitably makes more room for the vibrant cosmic energies to enter your body and enhance your life.

There are five additional centers of energy that are located outside of and well beyond your physical form. These cosmic chakras, like the seven in the body, are also pulsating vortices of kaleidoscopic color, light, symbols, and sound that you use to perceive who you are in relationship to all of existence. To navigate and explore the cosmic chakras, creative imagery is important.

The concepts of cities, states, and nations serve as imaginary identifiers to structure an Earth-based reality; maps are used to define reality, but they are not reality—you cannot spend the night in another part of the country just by pointing to a place on the map. Without maps and markings, you would be unable to differentiate between one boundary and another, and in this same fashion, creative imagery can be very useful for exploring a reality that seems to be beyond your reach. Flowers are generally appreciated and treasured on Earth for their sumptuous beauty; they excite you, they have powerful life-force energy, they open your chakras, and are often used as a symbol for expressing your deepest feelings and sentiments. Associating the cosmic, multidimensional chakras with specific flowers will give you an image that you can use to explore the numerous non-physical aspects of your identity. The eighth chakra is located twelve inches to three feet above the body and is linked with the lily. This trumpet-like portal is a transducer of energy for the other cosmic chakras, stepping downlight frequencies and funneling this knowledge into the many layers of the physical and nonphysical aspects of the body. Essentially it establishes the non-physical link for an identity that is larger than the boundaries of the physical form.

The ninth chakra offers your consciousness great mobility; its symbol is the moonflower because its function is to connect you with all that transpires between the atmosphere of Earth and the moon, including the powerful magnetic energies that connect the two spheres. This energy center provides a vista of Earth from space and expands your perceptions in relationship to your place in the cosmic scheme of life. Through this center you can explore the timelines of Earth where you have lived again and again, like bouncing on a trampoline, up and down, participating in and then observing the intricate wonders of life.

The tenth center, represented by the sunflower, is known as your solar chakra. It connects and extends your consciousness anywhere in your solar system, from the sun to beyond the planet Pluto. The sun is considered the governor ruler of your system because it sustains and fuels life by providing the necessary light frequencies, along which lifegiving energy and information are transmitted. The sunflower center is also very mobile and utilizing the sun as the focal point, it recognizes cosmic information as a source of your evolving knowledge. Throughout time people have aligned their consciousness with the sun to receive inspiration for new ideas and to access information. Sometimes they would even hide from the sun because they felt that the sun’s rays could read their minds; and if they sought to keep secrets and have no one know what they were doing, they chose to operate in the dark, as it were.

The eleventh center is your galactic chakra, and it is best represented by the red rose, which is the most popular flower for symbolizing and expressing love on Earth. Your consciousness can explore the galaxy by moving this energy center anywhere within the Milky Way, yet eventually, the heart center will call you home to the birthplace of all that has come through its portal of creation: the Galactic Center. Connecting to the intelligence of your galaxy will open your consciousness to understanding how clusters of light truly function.

The twelfth chakra connects you to realities beyond your own galaxy by stretching your identity far into the vast expanse of the universe, which is considered to be a singular field containing all that appears to exist. The universal chakra is best symbolized by the purple echinacea flower, whose cone is a mathematical marvel of spirals that epitomize the perfection of the golden-mean ratio as the obvious design of life. Time appears to move backwards in the universe because of your current perceptions and beliefs about light and time. Through the development of radio astronomy, photographs of the far-reaching cosmos depict events that transpired long, long ago, giving you a peek into a mystifying past. The twelfth chakra acts as an open door into this territory of the past, as well as providing an intriguing window for exploring simultaneous time.

The Pleiadians through Barbara Marciniak