What Are Chakras?

by Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie

Chakra System, Image copyright © Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie and P. Biswas. The chakras are a little more complex than can be illustrated in the simple, beautiful synopsis of this image.

Chakras are energy centers in your body that are aligned with a central channel known as the Kundalini system. Kundalini is a form of primal, divine, universal energy that exists in the base root chakra. Kundalini may be awakened through spontaneous unconscious opening, yoga, meditation, and energy work. Kundalini awakening is enlightenment and bliss. Kundalini moves upward through the energy channel, through each of the seven Chakras.

The word Chakra is Sanskrit for “wheel.” Each chakra is a spinning wheel of light that corresponds to its location in the body. The chakra system corresponds to the endocrine system:

Pineal — crown

Pituitary — third eye

Thyroid — throat chakra

Thymus — heart chakra

Pancreas/spleen — solar plexus

Ovaries/testes — sacral chakra

Adrenals — root chakra

Long before anyone knew about the purpose of these organs, there was an inherent understanding of the body in this specific energetic system. Because we are energy and matter (Spirit and Body) we exist in two parallel planes. Chakras are part of the etheric plane, the energy body, the psychological, emotional and “subtle” energy body. In essence, the chakras are the psychic centers for the physical body.

Cosmic Chakras, copyright © A. Gavrilas

There are contemporary theories of the Chakra system and older historical interpretations. Some systems show 5, 12 or 16 Chakras. It is my understanding that the original purpose of Chakras was to function as a device/patterning for nyāsa. Nyāsa is the ritual placing of mantras or letters on the body through touch and visualization, thereby making the body divine. Mantras bring about powerful mystical experiences for spiritual liberation. Furthermore, the mantras that are connected with these Chakras are actually related to the Five Elements. The system of five elements are found in Vedas (ancient spiritual Hindu text), especially Ayurveda, the pancha mahabhuta, or “five great elements”, of Hinduism are bhūmi (earth), ap or jala (water), tejas or agni (fire), marut, vayu or pavan (air or wind) and vyom or shunya (space or zero) or akash (aether or void).

No matter how we understand the Chakras, they could be viewed as magnificent wheels of light waiting to be opened and ignited for bliss and enlightenment. Both the more modern interpretation and psychic understanding of the associations with each Chakra are useful for improving our esoteric, emotional and physical lives.

Ultimately, our Chakra system is a beautiful part of our amazing spiritual existence and divine right as human beings.

Copyright Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie. Do not print for publication without permission.

Nature Gives Us Messages

by Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie

Crows are able to recognize individual human faces, make tools, bring gifts to humans who feed them, count, and sound out simple words of speech.

One recent morning I walked outside to my second floor deck overlooking a small patch of grass and a retention pond just past it. As I walked out to the deck high above the bird feeders, I saw a crow on one of the feeder poles. The crow sounded like she was saying hello to me, so I said hello out loud, feeling ridiculous as I called out. Would my human voice scare her away?

I believe that nature gives us signs and messages that offer precognition of events, validation, and explanations of our life situations. We need only to keep an eye out for them, and they will appear to us. It is long known that dreaming about animals are powerful symbols for interpretation, but meeting them in our waking life is a source of divination for us as well.

Over the last few months I have stood at the third floor bedroom window to watch the crows feeding at the small bird feeder below. They are too big, so they perch on the pole. Stretching out toward the feeder, they reach in with their beaks to get peanuts. I like to watch them sitting on the metal fence railing, as if they had come up to a neighborhood bar to hang out.

“… come to set the balance of the natural order to rights, they strut and flutter through the landscapes of desert and arctic, tropics and urban sprawl, over tilled farmland and the shifting soil of the human imagination.” — The Book of Symbols

I feel comforted by their presence and an affinity for the mischievous, smart bird. Watching them has been a source of healing. Observing and appreciating the crows has become a meaningful part of my daily life. I imagined having one as a wild pet, and was comforted by the idea of having it visit me. I thought… that would never happen. I daydreamed about it a little, I admit.

And so that morning, to my amazement, the crow replied to my hello with “caw caw,” as in “hell-o” with a two-syllable caw. I was stunned! So I did it again, and again the crow replied back to me. I called out, and she replied once more! Then to my astonishment she flew up to my deck and landed about four feet from my head onto the top of the privacy railing!

Incredible!

I said hello to her again, and she replied in kind. She was looking at me intensely, preened for a minute, and then hopped about a foot closer to me! My spouse was in the kitchen and witnessed it all through the opened door to the deck.

I was completely still in my body as I stood in awe. I said, “Hi” and she replied “Hi” back, a caw with one syllable! I talked to her in a gentle voice, telling her that she was beautiful and how glad I was to see her. She was watching me so closely as she dipped her head down, to the side, and then touched her beak to the wood.

She stayed for a minute more, repeatedly saying “Hi” to me with her one-syllable caw, more softly now, and then flew off. It was one of the highlights of my life, truly, it was! I spoke with a friend of mine, also a psychic medium, and he said that it was a message of more intuitive abilities coming my way. The crow is the ancient keeper of spiritual laws of prophecy.

Don’t be mad at me for eating butterflies sometimes.

The week before this amazing experience with the beautiful crow, I was hiking on a trail in a park nearby. I noticed a big yellow butterfly, still alive, being eaten by a squirrel. Was this possible? I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. I’d never seen such a thing. How terrible! I walked into the leaves close enough to shoo the squirrel away to save the butterfly, but it was too late. The butterfly was still alive, but barely. I left it and continued on my hike. I got out my iPhone and googled “squirrels eat butterflies,” and sure enough learned that they will eat injured butterflies. Not just nuts for squirrels anymore. Squirrel Nutkin is a meat eater! My perception of a squirrel has radically changed forever.

On my return, I saw a moth caught in a spider web. What next? What other nature deaths do I have to witness today? Waah! I took my hiking pole and tried to scoop the flailing moth out of the web. I know, let nature take its course… but wouldn’t you have done the same thing? After all, moths are innocent and spiders are not, correct? Of course not, but I couldn’t stop myself. So I tried to put the moth, still tangled in the web, onto a leaf on a branch overhead. —Real helpful— It didn’t appear to be coming off, so I reached up and took the moth’s wing, and as I held it I notice a big black spider is on it, eating it. My scream was heard for 100 miles.

What was this foretelling? The next day tragedy struck me in a personal situation, and I knew what the message was about.

On a previous hike at night, with my head lamp on, I saw a six-inch long crayfish coming up out of the water, crawling up onto a rock. Yes, it is true, crayfish are in creeks around here in NC. Who knew?! I looked up its symbolism, which pointed me to the Moon card in the tarot. It was definitely a message about a situation in my life and deeper subconscious influences affecting it. The crayfish needed to move out of the melancholy murky water, past the guarding dogs, past the moon, to the sun, to the light of clarity.

And then a few months later, during a day hike, I came across a beautiful juvenile grass snake. Was it time to shed this skin, shed a relationship? Was it time for transformation and healing? Yes.

Thank you, snake. Thank you, crow. Thank you, butterfly, crayfish, spider, moth, and squirrel!

Update: The crow (I named her Hello) comes back to visit me almost every day. She calls to me until I come outside and feed her by hand. 

 

Manifest Your Abundance Inside the Milky Way

by Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie

The Milky Way is around 13.4 billion years old. If we dreamed all of this, it’s a beautiful part of the dream. Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah. Photo © Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie. (Nikon D750, ISO 3200, 14mm, f2.8, 25s).

How is photographing the Milky Way similar to accessing your own insights about your life? 

Because I am fascinated by the Milky Way, I wanted to capture it in a photo. I researched and purchased a full-format digital camera, tripod, remote shutter release, wide angle lens, a tactical flashlight (for ‘light painting’ the foreground), a headlamp with a red LED light option, and a few other odds and ends. I got Adobe Lightroom because I needed a good photo editing software program. Also, I got a small, portable external hard-drive because RAW photo files take up a lot of memory. I learned photography in design school in my twenties, but I had not done this kind of photography before. I spent the next four months learning from online classes and lectures on how to use this camera (rather, this “camera computer,” because it is so technical now), how to use Lightroom, how to select a location, and how to take a shot at night.

Far in advance, I chose an official “dark sky location” destination in the desert of Utah and decided to travel there during the new moon phase (no moonlight) in order to have the sky at its absolute darkest. Once I was there, I chose my exact location for this photo shoot. I got my gear together, many bottles of water, snacks, and a jacket for warmth late in the night. My spouse and I hiked out to Delicate Arch starting at 6pm from the parking area. It was a miracle that the sky was clear, no clouds. And for the rest of my trip the following days, there was lots of cloud cover.

The hike was arduous, took me straight up the red rocks, in the blazing 105 degree heat, while carrying heavy camera gear and tripod. I hoped my knees would hold out. I am afraid of heights, and so there were times when I needed to hug the canyon’s red-hued walls. There was not much shade along the way, except a few scrubby juniper bushes here and there, and at a few points I felt nauseated from heat exhaustion. My clothing was soaked with sweat when I reached the peak about 1 ½ hours later. I was glad that the desert air is so dry, and I hoped that in an hour or two that my clothing would be dry.

I set up my camera and waited four hours to start taking photos. The red rock where I sat sent healing energy right up through my root chakra.

It is amazing to me that due to light pollution at night, where most of us live, that we cannot see the stars. How separate I feel from that human privilege of seeing the stars around me every single night of my life. Behind me in the West the sun set a glorious reddish orange, while to the East the sky slowly filled with millions of stars. And above the hole through the massive arch I could see Mars sparkle. Then I saw the huge sash of the Milky Way start its ascent across the expanse of sky!

In night photography, it is necessary to open the shutter on the camera for a while in order to let in enough light for correct exposure. With a 14 mm lens at F2.8, and an ISO of 3200, I set the exposure for 25 seconds. This seems very short, but in reality it is a long time to have the shutter open when you are standing next to your tripod. This is why a wireless remote shutter release is helpful, so you aren’t actually touching the camera, causing it to shake, blurring the exposure. A lot can happen in those 25 seconds. Many planes flew across the sky during those seconds, leaving light trails in the photos (not desirable for this scene). People and other photographers moved around in the foreground with their headlamps, too.

Like the night sky, full of millions of stars, hidden in the light pollution or in the daylight, we don’t know that the information that we need in our intuition is there for us. We need to access it. I believe that blocks that we have to receiving gifts in our lives, manifesting our dreams, come from information that we may be holding in our subconscious. It is waiting to be revealed. We can do this by allowing our “shutter,” our insight, to remain open just a little longer.

One of the things I’ve noticed, when I have worked on my own blocks related to abundance in my life, is that when I uncover these blocks, I am surprised by what I discover. It is arresting and astounding to see just how many points of light are right there in front of me, and inside all of us, that we can’t quite see so easily.

Over the years, I have done a tremendous amount of soul work in order to understand the experiences in my life. It was a delight to find a particular tool to reach even deeper into myself that wasn’t so laborious. In fact, it brought me joy and peace while I was in the middle of the process! This method is the one I have created, and the one that I use with my clients called the Abundance Manifest Journey. The journey I took within myself opened the camera shutter to my insight and let the light in. I never suspected that this particular message or belief, held deep down inside, was important for me to know and integrate, rewrite, and recreate. I was able to rewrite the story for myself on this peaceful journey, while I was in a state of deep relaxation and slight hypnosis.

Weeks later, I reflected upon the journey. I thought, of course, that the information was there all along. I had not been able to see it. I allowed this awareness to bubble up through the pool of my intuition and insight. I allowed it to rise up, like the Milky Way in the night sky, from my subconscious. Finally I was able to deal with this information through awareness and guidance in a simple way. Now I find that the block to my abundance, for the particular situation I was dealing with, simply isn’t there anymore. It was integrated into my story and I moved forward. That journey was easier than hiking up to Delicate Arch, and well worth the trip.

Insight, and the Milky Way, are glorious things!

I believe that the best healing we can do for ourselves is to use our own intuition and insight, although as a psychic medium I am happy to be able to bring this information through for my clients. Still, I believe that your own intuition will always be your closest source of guidance.

Articles and photo copyright of Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie and not to be reprinted without permission.

Who are the Lanterns in your Life?

by Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie

Life Under the Milky Way

No my friend, darkness is not everywhere,

for here and there I find faces illuminated from within;

paper lanterns among the dark trees. — Carole Borges

I believe that there are not only lanterns inside each of us, our own holy nature which we discover through prayer and meditation, but that there are those we meet who bring light into our lives. Many of my clients have brought light to me, and I am thankful for the variety of people that walk into my office and my life.

I attended a Reiki conference in Maryland recently and met more than a few lanterns there as well. Sometimes I meet a person who may only be with me for a few minutes and never again, yet my life changes from this encounter. Have you ever met someone who changed your life for the better? Do you think that it is just by chance or destiny? Are you open to transformation if the invitation appears in your life?

We have all had the experience of negative transformative experiences. It can take a lifetime to see the positive in it. One day in fifth grade, my personal collective of planets must have been colliding in an unattractive way. The teacher called me to the board to solve a math problem. I do not enjoy math, so this was a dreadful proposition for me. I went up and stood in front of the board and froze. The teacher said “Why can’t you solve this?” She then walked out of the room, down the hall, to a second grade class and pulled out a young boy named Josh. She brought him up to the class, then to the board and said “Josh, solve this math problem.” He did. Then she turned to the class and said, “Even a second grader can solve this problem!”

This could be a moment to segment into a discussion of elementary teachers with pathological narcissism, but let’s stick to the real gem of this horrible experience. Though humiliating at the time, this experience watered the seed of empathy I have for other people in similar situations early in my life, so maybe I have to thank her for that.

I met Kathie from New York State, another Reiki practitioner who attended this Mid-Atlantic Reiki Conference with me. She knew about astrology and gave me a mini astrological reading. For many years, I have had intuitive readings (not astrology readings) from some truly gifted intuitives, and these people have helped my life path. As an intuitive, I have clair-abilities, am a physical and emotional empath, and have accurate precognitive dreams. We are all enrolled in Earth 101 class to learn, so even those with psychic ability have to cope with surprises and lessons.

The Red Pen.

The things that Kathie and I discussed were great motivators for me. I needed to move forward on the tasks I was sent here to do. Writing and communication are very significant parts of my natal chart. This area of my chart for deep soul work is lit up right now in the current date as well. Intuitively I sensed that when I sat down with her for this unplanned reading that she would have some important information for me. Thanks, Kathie, for lighting my path in this way!

During the conference I reflected about how Reiki practitioners and their clients often change each other for the better in their connection. How could it not? While all of the speakers at the Reiki conference were great, one panel of health care providers (who also became Reiki practitioners) spoke on integrating Reiki into the medical system in places like trauma wards or hospice. It is very difficult to get Reiki into these systems from every imaginable angle, but the rewards and the benefits to the patients are great. What better place to transform and be transformed through a loving connection? I admired these practitioners for braving the hurdles to bring Reiki into new places. The trend is growing, but at present these people are the exception. They described the transformation in their lives not only in deeply personal ways but also for the people who received the treatments. Reiki is about facilitating something from Source to our physical bodies and our spirit, no matter what name you put on it. Being a compassionate witness to others’ pain and recovery, without attachment to outcome, is one of the most powerful things we can do for someone. We can always hope for the best, but I believe that only Source knows what that is. One of the speakers, Mari Hall, remarked, “I am not a healer. I am a Reiki practitioner.”

Hello, I love you.

One conference presenter, Kathleen Lester, gave a presentation on her many years of Reiki with animals. Are not pets lanterns for all of us too? Some of the difficult and positive behaviors they have bring awareness to us on how we can better understand them and ourselves in the process. They help us learn how to love. Her experience and knowledge on this topic encouraged me to spend more time doing Reiki with my pets.

As I sat in at the Reiki conference my mind kept returning to the idea of how amazing it is to meet the very people we need to meet. As the saying goes “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.” I looked around and felt the wisdom, compassion, psychic abilities, and experience in that room. These people knew the same things I know to be true about Reiki or intuitive work, about how my clients and the random people I meet are lanterns, and we light the way for each other. It is about connection, healing, communication, being witness, facilitation, openness to mystery.

Susan Lieberman and Andrea Grace are lighting the legal area of Reiki with the work they are doing addressing state licensure issues through their organization Natural Healing Alliance. I enjoyed learning about the topics that concern me as a practitioner (legal, social, psychological, practical) and being with a community of like-minded people. Thank you!

Articles copyright of Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie and not to be reprinted without permission.

Image credit: Life Under the Milky Way by Robert Couse-Baker  / CC-BY-SA 2.0

Image credit: Lantern Festival by Ting W. Chang / CC-BY-SA 2.0

Images of pen and notebook and Hello: photos copyright Rebecca Mitchell-Guthrie

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