2nd chakra: it is “I feel” and the color orange and … it’s complicated!

Every single human being alive experiences consciousness in not only the first chakra — which is survival mode, experienced as long as one breathes, even in a coma — but also the second chakra.

The 2nd chakra is the seat of our emotional energies, where we experience the creative thrust of our Beingness.  In yogic scriptures this thrust of creative energy in the world is called spanda. The 2nd energy center is where we experience this thrust, the wanting to make things, our ability to feel things.

If you observe a very young child you’ll see them wanting to touch every single thing around them. Pick it up, feel it, squeeze it, roll it in their hands, maybe even bite it, smell it. They naturally want to feel and explore every single thing they can. Sometimes, of course, as parents and caretakers, we have to limit our child’s explorations. “Don’t touch the fire!” “Don’t go near that rattlesnake!” “Stop kicking your sister!”

As a parent, I was obliged to guide and direct my children. If I didn’t point out to them what was dangerous, and “off limits” — no touching, kicking, biting, bad words, etc — I would be negligent. I’ve written an entire book about this that will soon be available. Leave your email here and I’ll keep you posted!

we teach our children right from wrong

Every person, with the exception of those in comas or deemed “brain dead” are experiencing the 2nd chakra on pretty much a constant basis. And when a young child who has received proper guidance (love, compassion, nutrition) reaches adolescence … the energy in this chakra really starts to become activated even more than in childhood.

Like I said, the 2nd chakra is about feeling. This is the seat of our emotions. The 2nd chakra explains why our Feelings are connected to our Creativity. Young children want to make and play and do everything. They create games out of sticks, leaves, spoons, dust bunnies, anything! if they have nothing else. Kids can play with mud puddles, or … just the dirt. I remember myself, eating dirt when I was a kid. I thought it tasted yummy (??). I was also into eating tiny balls of paper (hmmm?). I also wanted to draw, paint, build, play, try and DO everything! I’d climb trees, recklessly so, and now have severe scoliosis (remedied with my yoga practice) as a result of a bad fall.

This need-to-know-and-feel-everything! is 2nd chakra energy, folks. We all have it. This is our human desire, our birthright: to create, to do, to feel, to explore. To dive into, and off of, climb to the top of every mountain we can. At least while we have the energy to. That’s why some of us exercise as much as we do, to maintain our energy levels just so we can keep up our explorations as long as we can.

this is yogini LordFlea today, at 70!

As an artist I’ve thought a lot about this chakra, the root of all creativity. After my basic training (learning materials, colors, forms, etc.), I learned to trust the impulses that arise from all I’ve been exposed to, and … when I make a work of art I don’t doubt for a second when my mind says, “use blue” instead of another color; or “put a beach here” instead of a horizon. When my 2nd chakra says, “Do this, creatively” — I do it! When you want to create, as an artist does, we go with our feelings. We have trained ourselves to trust our feelings. Those of us who are into “original thought concepts” as opposed to derivative art, allow this creative thrust full reign during the creative process. Likewise, when I see other artists’ works, one artist  will “excite” my feelings while another does nothing. This is 2nd chakra energy. I don’t intellectualize it. I just trust my feelings. Can you relate? Most people rely upon how they feel to “judge” art. Unless you study art history it’s hard to know much more about art other than, “I like it” or “It leaves me cold.”

Trust the feelings that arise. This is your 2nd chakra helping you with life’s many challenges and choices. As we grow in maturity, most of us learn to trust our feelings. But if you don’t, read LordFlea next week when we will explore our feelings further. Because when we raise up our spiritual energy to the 3rd chakra, the seat of our personal power, that’s when we embrace, or deny, our feelings and others’, too.

So 2nd chakra energy is about … feelings. Everyone alive has feelings. Unless you have some spectrum of autism. In that case, it’s the obligation of we other humans who are compassionate enough, to send you our love and helpfulness in any way we can.

many of us get “ambushed by our feelings” if we don’t learn to trust that feelings are … signals of consciousness … not intellectually figuring out things

One person wants to create a new way to explore space (Elon Musk) while another never even thinks about outer space. That person is happy to, say, never leave their little village in the Sahara, but enjoys creating a trap for an wild animal that will serve as dinner that night. Both are using their 2nd chakra energy. In very different ways, of course. One is using other faculties along with satisfying the urge to create. Elon is using other “awakened chakras” (the rising up of the energy of consciousness) because his creativity is geared for benefiting all of humankind; whereas the Sahara person is happy to make a meal for himself and his immediate family, and isn’t thinking about the rest of the world when he sets that trap. Both are equally using their 2nd chakra energies to full capacity, however.

When, as a young person, we start to realize we have more feeling about one thing than another, this is the awakening of our 2nd chakra energy. For me, I was absolutely gaga about God/Spirit when I was a kid. I couldn’t get enough of church rituals, prayers, feeling connected to the Mystery. I was raised by one parent who was religious and the other, an agnostic. So right from the start of my God-thing exploration I knew I had choices. I never felt confused; I felt excited! I saw the God-thing revealed in so many different ways of expression. I particularly felt close to the God-energy when I taught myself how to draw. I did this in secret because … it was my secret way to feel closer to God, by creating. That way I felt closer to the Creator Him/Her/Itself. I did this in secret when I was drawn to drawing nudes, which I found in my father’s hidden-away Playboy mags. To me the human nude has always been the ultimate in beauty, grace, and design.

to me, nudity has always been about being in my spirit body, not about sex stuff

I’d clandestinely draw from my Dad’s secret nude-y mags in a closet, not wanting my art-ignorant parents to see how thrilled I was, copying, drawing images of things that were real life objects: naked ladies, pretty birds, people on streets, the hills and mountains and sea, and especially Superman comics. I drew quadrants upon a chosen image, and made similar quadrants on another, bigger piece of paper, and copied each quadrant, one by one quadrant. That’s how I learned to draw realistically.

By the time I was in the lower grades I was getting into trouble at school because I couldn’t help myself. If I saw a picture I felt I had to draw, I would do that old trick of copying: tracing. You fill a paper with a lead pencil’s dense coverings, and then press hard with your sharpened pencil on a top-sheet that has the image you want to copy. Basic tracing. Feels good when you’re a kid who wants to draw. So my frustrated parents, who didn’t have extra cash, had to pay to replace several volumes of the encyclopedia Britannica when I was caught tracing from them at school.

an artist can inspire … anyone, anytime, anywhere

Anything that inspires us, is 2nd chakra stuff. If you hear music that moves you, this is your 2nd chakra getting stimulated. If you want to visit Transylvania to see the birthplace of Bram Stoker, the original Dracula — this is 2nd chakra energy. If you want to play the drums, and not the violin that you were urged to, your 2nd chakra energy is the reason why.

“Follow your bliss,” said Joe Campbell. Of course, we learn how to distinguish what isn’t good for us from what is. We don’t want to eat a bucket of gummy bears, but maybe we had to, once, in order to see how sick it would make us. And we don’t want to drink ten bottles of wine, but again, maybe we had to, once, to see why. And we don’t want to hook up with every single person we see … because … that’ll give us STDs and a rotten reputation. The list goes on and on about how we learn, or discover, how to use the signals we get from our 2nd chakra.

So now let’s explore the other, and just as important, part of working with 2nd chakra energy: our sexuality.

the marvel of Nature, Sex!

Just as naturally as human creativity is innately ours, the other aspect of this chakra’s most basic (coming right after the role of the 1st chakra’s survival consciousness) role is our sexuality. Our sexuality is part of human creativity, I’m sure you all agree. I pity the poor religious girls who are subjected to cliteroectomies in childhood, because they will never get to experience this God-given creative force, their own sexuality. I hope this heinous act will continue to be forbidden everywhere, and in time, this backward, primitive ritual, still practiced in some extreme Islamic sects, will be as long forgotten as women’s bound feet of ancient China are in our modern world.

The center of the 2nd chakra is located amid the area where the sexual organs are found in both males and females: between the pubic bone and the navel, inches deep within our outer physical structure. In ancient images, the 2nd chakra is always portrayed along the spine, but this is a generality. The actual center of the 2nd chakra is located around the sex organs (ovaries & prostate). This makes sense because  human creativity and sexuality are directly linked.

creativity & sexuality originate from the 2nd chakra

The 2nd chakra is activated when anyone, male or female, wants to “have sex” which is the same, energetically speaking, as “making new life.” This urge comes from the primordial necessity, or desire to carry on our species. Anyone who doesn’t understand this … is misunderstanding the 2nd chakra energy. And certainly, many of us experiment with this fun-to-arouse energy center. Because, after all, having sex is another way of experimenting, feeling, following the sensations of our body’s natural callings. But unless we associate the true meaning of sex with the act of having sex, or making love — that is, propagating the species — we’ve pretty much missed the whole point of what the sexual urge is all about.

Gene and Nat at their wedding

I feel homosexuality follows the natural order of Universal Energy because its tendency is to keep human population in check. Humans follow plants and animals in behavior, in that sexual ambiguity is found among all types of species on Earth.

this is one of LordFlea’s botanical studies, done early in my art career

We discover sex when we’re young, some younger than others. We all experiment. We explore. We feel aroused. Sex is among the strongest of human urges, or feelings, that’s for sure. So let’s go a bit further into the sexual energy part of the 2nd chakra energy, just as we explored the other, more creative forces that arise from the natural uplifting of human energy, our 2nd chakra energy.

Early adolescence is when both spiritual and sexual questions begin to gain importance in our lives. Remember? Do you recall asking yourself,  “I wonder who I am, where I came from, and what this is all about, this life here on Earth?” I certainly remember, vividly. Wondering, confused feelings about my true nature. What was the purpose of life? What is Being-ness? These questions arise around the same time as sexual energy arises — and both arise from the 2nd chakra. We are a biological species (with a spiritual energy system as well as a physical one) and we are supposed to not just live our lives, but to make sure our progeny carries on our species. So yes, propagation is a BIG deal. It comes right after survival, on the importance it takes in human existence.

If the spiritual energy that naturally arises at the very beginning of adolescence isn’t channeled into ways that a child can engage in, and understand, this energy will go dormant again (it’s called the kundalini, this spiritual energy, and I’ve talked about it a lot here on LordFlea). As a phenomenon, I’ve observed the rising of the kundalini within myself and many others. When the spiritual energy isn’t satisfactory (religion didn’t do it for me, I tried, but I still had too many unanswered questions) … this energy of wondering, pondering (called Self-inquiry) easily jumps into the sexual realm. And for some of us, it stays there, to the exclusion of developing a spiritual life. Until … way later.

This is why, my friend, so many so-called “leaders” of all ilk, religious, spiritual, political and secular, get the two energies confused. And why there are so many scandals surrounding both male and female leaders. It’s a fact that the sexual and the spiritual energies are inextricably intertwined. When a so-called leader gets carried away with their power over people who look up to them, it is all too common, and human, and sad, for them to abuse this energy. I myself have witnessed the abuse of this 2nd chakra energy with several highly respected yoga teachers and Christian leaders (these are my own experiences). I have also read about many religious and political leaders who were “outed” for their unorthodox sexual promiscuities. I’m sure you, the reader, understand this mixed-up tendency I’m referring to. It even happened to a very popular sitting-president of ours here in America nearly twenty years ago — right in the Oval Office.

I’ll be sharing a very strong experience concerning the healing of a badly damaged 2nd chakra person in my next post. Please leave me your comments here, I love hearing from you! I will soon be sending out guided meditations for people on my email list, so make sure I have yours.

With great love,and respect,

your pal teZa aka LordFlea