Mindful Moves Hand Chakra Sequence
Today in our sequence of gestures and songs we bring awareness to our chakras, our energy centers. When we are conscious of the chakras' presence we recognize our passage through time, our bodies' physical and psychological growth and make room for healing. We are making room for ourselves to feel whole in the present moment.
To feel present, take a breath and drop into your body by following the air in as it fills you and then passes back through. Connect with any part of your body that touches the floor. Feel the surfaces touching each other.
Let the music talk to you and talk through you. Each song is an envelope of time to visit the chakra that lives in the area we are connecting it to. During our dance, If it helps you center on the chakra, bring your hands to that place and let the body decide what to do next. Don’t let judgmental thoughts intrude. You are here for your greater purpose.
During and after our dance you may not be sure you got the message, but later you may find yourself revisiting the ideas or feelings you felt while dancing. Here is a quote by Peter Levine from his book called, Waking The Tiger. “The past doesn’t matter when we learn how to be present. Every moment becomes new and creative. We have only to heal our present symptoms and proceed. A healing moment ripples forward and back, out and about.”
Why are chakras important to this process?
It’s a long held belief that “cleansing” the chakras is powerful medicine. Over time I have been amazed how the values within each chakra actually resonate as true for wholeness as a human. I began the journey of Mindful Moves to Music in 2022 wanting to connect with others and express more of ourselves in community. Around that time I remembered a book Elise Davis gave to me, called 'Eastern Body Western Mind, Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self by Anodea Judith. She shares that the origins of Chakras came from India between 1500 and 500 BC. Anodea Judith notes the chakra system was passed down through oral tradition by Indo-European people also called Aryan people in the early 20th century. The elements of each chakra: earth, water, fire, air, sound, light and space, to me, can be expressed through movement.
Why is music important to this process?....Personally, music is a playground for my mind and spirit where I feel my body and creativity meet to express connection. Anodea Judith, in her book, Eastern Body and Western Mind says “Music deliciously combines upper and lower chakra experiences. It bathes the body in rhythm and resonance, while entertaining the mind with its complexity of meter, melody, instrumentation, and message. Music unites the soul of the body with the mind and spirit.”
Rick Rubin’s Book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, says this about music. “To say that we listen with the ears or the mind might be a misconception. We listen with the whole body, our whole self. The vibrations filling the space around us, the act of sound waves hitting the body, the spatial perceptions they indicate, the internal physical reactions they stimulate, this is all part of listening.”
Why is yoga important to this process? “....it increases awareness and distributes energy into places that have been shut off from consciousness,” Anodea Judith, Eastern Body Western Mind. Personally, yoga has been “the string to my kite” as songwriter Bob Frankie coined. I find that grounded body work is a way that my mind centers its creative energy/ideas and begins to develop how they can be shared with others. I use poses to center focus at the chakra. My process, which is developing in real time, grows out of yoga which I practice with South Sound Yoga and Wellness Group in my mom’s community. I take a free zoom class with her which is open to the public. https://www.ssywg.org/zoom-online-classes-1 While doing yoga with them sometimes a chakra lights up during a pose and when that happens I take a note and draw a picture and bring it to Mindful Moves to share with you!
Why is dancing important to this process?.... When we dance we literally embody ourselves in a way we don’t in practical tasks. Dancing offers an abstract connection and physical connection. Like our hands which change expressions by changing positions we can more concretely be with our ability to embody our healing centers. As we move with the music we invite each chakra to be present in the here and now.
Begin Today's Sequence
Land Acknowledgement: We are dancing on Tlingit Aani’. This area is named Se’et ka’ Kwa’an, land of the swift moving water. It is the ancestral land of The Tlingit people.
Each chakra has an energy center in the body. I learned recently, the hands also have the same centers, only smaller. I want to bring your attention to your hands which we use everyday. We will focus on the minor energy centers located there and in our sequence use them as supports for touching base in each of our bodily chakras.
Our hands are also our next most expressive body part next to the face but we have 2! Embodiment is our whole self being expressed by our body. My hope is to realize that the mind can be changed in a gesture and that the body is a gesture of the mind. To explore this simple and complex concept lets put our hands on our knees.
By changing the position of the hands, the expression changes. Flat on my knees, fists on my knees, thumbs up on my knees, palms up on my knees, fingers weaved together in the middle, hands clasped together in the middle, prayer hands pointed ahead, prayer hands pointed up, hands open at the heart, hands open at the knees, palms towards the floor, palms on the knees. What kinds of impressions do you have? What kind of feelings do you have? By beginning to explore the subtle but powerful opportunity we have to change our experience in our hands we give clarity to our embodied experience.
This is an energizing hand exercise Anodea Judith shares in her book, Chakra Yoga. Pages 32 and 33.
Extend both hands out in front of you with elbows straight, one hand up and one hand down.
Open and close your palms rapidly, moving many times from fully open to fully closed. Make sure you really stretch your fingers all the way open and then make a complete fist until your hands feel tired.
Separate your hands as wide as your shoulders and with relaxed palms very slowly barring your open palms towards each other
As your palms come within a few inches of each other you may experience a subtle field of energy between your hands, like a magnetic field
Moving Mindfully into Dance Sequence
1st Chakra: Sit on the floor in butterfly pose, place hands on either side of you on the floor. Put weight into your left hand and push to the right where your right hand takes the weight and breath. Put the weight into your right hand and push to the left where your left hand takes the weight and breath. Feel how your hands are helping your sit bones lean side to side as they walk deeper into the earth which is the element of this, our first chakra. We are rooting down. Knitting together the physical presence we will have from womb to 6 months.
-Dance to El Jardin by Baptiste Trotignon, Minino Garay
2nd chakra, sense it’s reactive nature to being acknowledged here, the water feels you as you feel it. Your emotional center, reactive, balancing, cleansing, and gratifying. Bring your hands flat and side by side above your navel, palms facing the floor. Take a breath in and feel your hands as if on top of warm water. Press down and your hands break the surface of the water and go into the warmth there by lowering your hands to below the bellybutton. Resurface at the belly button to breathe in at this surface and breathe out as you again submerge your hands into the water of this emotional center. We began developing our emotional identity at 6 months old to 2 years old just as our hands became true friends in reaching for pleasures and wants. .
-Dance to Don’t Know How to Say This to You by Sean Agnus Watson
3rd, Fire, Power Will, To Act, Self Definition, Ego Identity
~Bring your hands one on top of the other as if holding a butter churner and position them above the solar plexus and churn from this place of energy and engine. Feel the power of creation in this movement, the heat created in your abs and core which powers your will and the fire which represents this chakra. We developed our ego identity ages 18 months to 4 years old.
-Dance to Incognita by Johnny Delaware
4th, Air, Love/Relationships, To Love & Be Loved, Social Identity
~Hands at the heart in prayer pose, lift the hands up to the mouth as you breathe in and the elbows come closer together as well. Feel the chest inflate with air which is this chakra’s element and your back has more space to fill with air as our hands rise toward our mouths. We develop our social identity from 4-7 years old.
-Dance to Issa by Dobert Gnahore
5th, Sound, Communication, To Speak & Be Heard, Self Expression, Creative Identity
~Put your hands on the floor behind you. Lean into them. Lift from the breast bone and let the head gently lay back. Feel the breath accentuated through your throat in this energetic position, throat to the sky. We developed our creative identity ages 7 to 12 years old
-Dance to I Wish I knew How it Would Feel to Be Free by Nina Simone
6th, Light, Intuition/Imagination, Self Reflection, To See, Archetypal Identity
~Hands at the heart in prayer pose, lift your hands to your brow and bring the ring fingers to the center of your brow. Feel the temperature exchange from fingers to brow and brow to fingers. We develop our archetypal identity in adolescence. The light comes on, many lights and our intuition illuminates.
-Dance to Saint Thomas by Bibio
7th, Either, Awareness, To Know, Self Knowledge, Universal Identity
~ Come to child's pose, place the hands on the floor and peer between them, your hands part the surface of the heavens and you understand. Circle your body to the right and see your life from above as the hands support you. Switch to the left. We develop our universal identity throughout life. I hear the sound of a thousand ancestors who came before us celebrating our moment on earth, clapping their hands.
-Dance to Slow Sun by Aukai, Richard Houghten
Finally
we will reverse order our positions back to earth and honor the hands as they support you.
7th, Either, Awareness, To Know, Self Knowledge, Universal Identity
Heavenly view from child’s pose, peer between your hands.
6th, Light, Intuition/Imagination, Self Reflection, To See, Archetypal Identity
Hands in prayer pose at your heart, bring the ring fingers to the center of the brow. Repeat the movement from heart to brow and breath.
5th, Sound, Communication, To Speak & Be Heard, Self Expression, Creative Identity. Come to the floor and put hands behind you and lean back. Feel the air accentuated in your throat.
4th, Air, Love/Relationships, To Love & Be Loved, Social Identity. Bring the hands to the heart in prayer pose and up to the mouth feeling the back open for more breath.
3rd, Fire, Power Will, To Act, Self Definition, Ego Identity. Bring your hands one on top of the other at your solar plexus and churn them in a circle.
2nd, Water, Emotions/Sexuality, To Feel, Self Gratification, Emotional Identity. Bring your hands flat in front of your belly button and feel the water surface, press down into the water as you breath out.
1st, Earth, Survival, To Be Here, Self Preservation, Physical Identity. Bring your hands to the floor beside you and lean into one hand as you breath in, back to center as you breath out, lean into the other hand as you breath in and out to the center.
With the time at the end of our session feel free to stretch or write or share reflections.
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