Original drawing by the author

These are aligned as if you were sitting in meditation. The red is your seat, the crescent your belly, the triangle your solar plexus, the Star of David, your heart, and the Circle, everything above your heart.

I’m using a marvellous coloring book called “The Shakti Coloring Book,” by Ekabhumi Charles Ellik.

In it, he describes these basic symbols, as used in Yantras, to describe the chakras.  It is very basic, perfect for beginning journeyers, and in the class where this came out, someone got triangles in a Middle World Journey that described relationships.

Additionally, I am a fan of the Medicine Wheel. I believe that it is a basic practice for creating safe space within which to work – but – here’s the conundrum.  The Medicine Wheel has different interpretations according to belief.  Some put the earth in the north, some put it in the west, according to individual belief.  I am sharing Practice, not belief.

The essence of the Medicine Wheel – the 4 elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, and the Above-Below-Within – is a vital and real part of every human.  We all have bones and muscle (Earth), breath (Air), nerves and digestion (Fire), and blood (Water).  We all look up to the Sky, and down to the Earth, and Within each of us is a spark of divinity, that miracle called Life.  The elements of the Medicine Wheel are universal and practical.

The application varies, according to culture and belief.

So – here was a way to explain the medicine wheel – Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Center (circle = within), a very basic Medicine Wheel.

Starting with the bottom – the red square, the 4. Guess what! It is the Medicine Wheel, the 4 directions (however you perceive them to be). Those 4 directions together represent Earth, stability, physical, your safe space, your grounding.

On your feet, it is the 4 corners of the balls of your feet and your heels.
When you sit, it is your sit bones and your feet that make the square.
In numerology, a square is a beginning, a foundation, a building block for everything else.

Balancing on that square is the bowl, the pelvic bowl, the orange crescent. This represents the area between your naval and your pubic bone. This is the seat of your emotions. Your enteric brain. Your intuition.  Water.

When emotions are too much, the bowl spills over, and affects your grounding (the square below). When they are undernourished, you don’t have enough energy to feed and fill the triangle.

The yellow triangle – Fire

Triangles are special in yantric symbolism. A triangle facing point down is a “manifesting triangle” This is the voice of G-d, coming down to manifest in the world. And G-d said, “Let there be light,” and it was so. It is our ability to manifest, as well as the divine’s ability to manifest, as well. The manifesting triangle is receptivity, and female in nature. (think about it as the pubic triangle, to remember)

A triangle facing point up – like the yellow triangle – is a “transforming” or transcending triangle. This is pulling the energy up through your body to make greater awareness and growth. It is a male energy (think about it as male erection).

So – the Star of David is the coming together of these two triangles. This is important, because when the manifesting energy is moving down, and the transforming energy is moving up – these two “superhighways” together, the central column of our being – is what spins the chakras, and gives us energy.  These come together in your heart.

Both manifesting and transforming are essential to growth and completeness as a human being.

Technically the symbol of the Heart in this model is the hexagon formed in the center of the star of David. But the star of David is essential to creating that hexagon. The element of the heart is air – because when you are glowing in your heart, you are invincible. Hurt – passes through you like a knife through air. (it is in the gut that we truly feel hurt). The heart is pure – it can be covered up, blocked, wrapped in barbed wire – but the heart itself is pure. There is no such thing as an evil heart – only a blocked one.

Above the Heart, lies the circle or sphere. This is wholeness, oneness, union with all humanity and with that which is Infinite, Divine.

In the Heart, and the Circle, there is no separation. There are two paths to G-d in your body – through the heart and through the crown. The heart, you need only be 51% pure, but in the crown, you must be much purer. The heart, the love, the lovingkindness, is the clearest path to touching the Infinite, Divine.

Our drum circle is held in a Yoga Studio, and chakras are an integral part of yoga practice.  I thought this was a gentle way to transition from yoga, into shamanism, using basic (but ancient) symbols as used in Yantra medicine.

Making this leap from “Medicine Wheel” to “Chakra Yantra” was inspired by reading Alberto Villoldo’s “Yoga, Power and Spirit:  Patanjali the Shaman.”