Chapter
8

Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana): Creating Passion

Everything you create, from a drawing or a poem to a strong emotion to an actual human being, is generated from energy that starts in your second chakra. As the seat of your passions, the Sacral chakra governs your creativity, sexuality, fertility, and your most intimate relationships. This is where you feel. Indian artist and author Harish Johari writes that the second chakra moves “like a butterfly,” and indeed, that feeling you get when you have “butterflies in your stomach” is your second chakra spinning with a particularly strong emotion.

When your Root chakra is strong, balanced, and open, your Sacral chakra has the best chance to regulate your passions like a thermostat. Imbalances in the chakras directly below or above your Sacral chakra can sometimes force the nearby chakra to overcompensate, resulting in too much emotion … or not enough. Always get grounded first, but once you have a firm foundation, you can do a lot with the powerful creative force of the Sacral chakra.

Sacral Chakra 101

The second chakra, the Sacral chakra, is also sometimes called the Passion, Sexuality, or Water chakra. The Sacral chakra is called Svadhisthana in the traditional Sanskrit. This word is variously translated. Literally, Svadhisthana means “dwelling place of the self,” but chakra expert Anodea Judith translates the word as “sweetness.” The second chakra is associated with the Water element because, in contrast to the first chakra’s solid, grounded earthiness, the second chakra is filled with flowing, moving, watery energy, representing your connection with your own emotions and impulses to create. The second chakra’s symbolic color is orange, and the traditional lotus symbol depicting this chakra has six petals. The sound associated with this chakra is the seed sound VANG (rhymes with “song”). Chanting this sound helps to activate the second chakra.

The Sacral chakra is located just below your belly button and radiates in and around your abdomen and your genitals, including the ovaries and uterus for women. In addition to being associated with the genitals and organs of procreation, this chakra is associated with several other physical structures in the body, including the sacral nerve plexus, lower abdomen, lower back, appendix, bladder, kidneys, and hip areas.

Your Sacral chakra has everything to do with some pretty interesting passionate parts of you, so let’s investigate.

Feeling It

Being able to feel emotions without becoming in thrall to those emotions is an important part of psychological health, and that balance happens in the Sacral chakra. In our culture, it’s easy to believe you are your feelings, but feelings, emotions, and passions are just one part of the being that is you. Recognizing that feelings are something you experience, not something you are, is the key to emotional balance and a healthy, open second chakra.

Of course, feelings and emotions are an important part of your whole self, but they are also seductive, and some people become addicted to the intensity that these strong emotions can bring. Emotions such as jealousy, admiration, sexual attraction, revulsion, inspiration, or the feeling you get when you experience something pleasurable or painful or beautiful or disturbing, come from the second chakra. Learn to recognize these emotions and sensory feelings for what they are, and you will be on your way to a better healing chakra balance.

Children who don’t get enough emotional attention from their parents often have second chakra issues; also, children who get too much emotional attention from parents who are defined by or obsessively interested in their children often have second chakra issues. Second chakra issues also are common in children who were sexually or emotionally abused. Severe pleasure restrictions or not enough control over pleasures can also influence children as their second chakras are developing. Consider how your family handled emotions and love to get an idea of your own second chakra issues. Was emotional expression suppressed or overexpressed in your home when you were growing up? If so, consider how you might be repeating these dysfunctional patterns in your adult life.

The One(s) You Love

The Sacral chakra’s passions extend most immediately to those we love the most. The fourth chakra (which we’ll talk more about in Chapter 10) is the Heart chakra, sometimes also called the Love chakra. However, our most intimate relationships start lower, at the second chakra. The feelings we get when we are physically, emotionally, and sexually attracted to someone happen here, and sometimes, they radiate through our entire bodies. Have you ever felt weak in the knees when you saw or even thought about the object of your desire? Your Sacral chakra made that happen.

Of course, the natural culmination of sexual desire is sometimes reproduction, and that is a second chakra function, too. Our fertility is rooted in the second chakra, and by association, our deepest feelings for the children we produce come from the second chakra. Your fourth chakra helps you love yourself and the other beings on the planet, but your feelings for those special few that are almost a part of your own body are second chakra territory.

What About the Sex?

The Sacral chakra is often called the Sexuality chakra for good reason. Sexual desire starts here, and so do all the feelings of pleasure that come from that. Even when you are not involved in a meaningful emotional relationship, the second chakra still generates feelings of sexual attraction and pleasure, and that can be a problem for some people who get so addicted to that pleasure they forget about the relationship part and just go for the sexual thrill or a casual hookup. Engaging too much in the hookup culture is one sign of second chakra overload.

On the other hand, blocked second chakras can cause a different kind of sexual problem—sexual arousal disorder. Sexual arousal disorder is the inability to become aroused, sustain arousal, or experience orgasm during sexual activity. This can happen to men or women and might have physical or psychological causes. In either case, this disorder is reflected in a blocked second chakra. Ideally, when the second chakra is open and healthy, sexual pleasure becomes one lovely part of a balanced set of passionate emotions.

Fertility

Your Sacral chakra reflects your fertility, and people with infertility problems typically have a blocked second chakra. Working to open the second chakra while in treatment for infertility can help support your efforts to conceive. (See the sections later in this chapter for exercises to open the second chakra.)

Betsy has a female client struggling with infertility, which is generally related to the second chakra where our reproductive organs are housed. As the oldest daughter of a dysfunctional shattered family, Betsy’s client felt the responsibility of constantly picking up the pieces. Despite having several siblings, she was the one who planned and hosted the family dinners, took care of her ailing mom and dad, lent money to extended family members, and offered to take in a family member who had recently become homeless. She was constantly giving away her second chakra energy to her family of origin, and they were happy to take it. Because of this, the woman had little energy left in her second chakra to nurture the development of a newborn life to start her own family. Until she could develop better boundaries with her siblings and parents and summon the courage to say “no” to her family of origin, Betsy explained that the woman’s beleaguered Sacral chakra would remain weakened, which could be making conception more difficult.

An open Sacral chakra aligned with an open Root chakra will allow for the sense of security and safety that encourages the conditions for fertility and conception to occur. Doing chakra partner work with your sex partner and chakra visualizations (see Chapters 18 and 19) can also help. You can try to facilitate conception by addressing your relationship with your sex partner as expressed through the union of your chakras. Working together to heal second chakra issues can spark the passion between you, and it can spark your shared passion to create a family. That family could be a result of conception, adoption, or the union of you and your life partner.

Your Creative Spark

The second chakra gets a lot of attention for being all about the sex, but another important part of your passionate self exists here, too—your creativity. Everything you create in your own mind comes out of the Sacral chakra. This is the chakra that generates your impulse to make art, discover poetry, write songs and record your own music, dance, design your own website or podcast, decorate your living room, or get crafty with a scrapbook on Pinterest.

Life gets busy, and finding time for creativity can sometimes feel frustratingly elusive. However, exercising your creative impulses is just as important as exercising your body and mind. You don’t have to draft the Great American Novel or produce a masterpiece of performance art to stay creatively charged. Something as simple as musing in a journal each night, creating doodles on a digital sketchbook, or using a design app to imagine a blueprint for your dream house will make you a more open, flexible, and well-rounded human being. The second chakra is the gateway to your creative power, as it is the genesis of creation.

A blocked second chakra can result in a creative block, a tsunami of indecision, self-doubt, and procrastination. But a healthy, open Sacral chakra often reflects an open, creative person who can become passionately absorbed in work, hobbies, or whatever other passions inspire the creative flow.

Grace

You can spot a person with a healthy second chakra by the way she moves. Graceful, flowing, sensual bodies almost certainly contain strong, open Sacral chakras. Consider how you move, and what that says about your second chakra. Clumsy, awkward, stiff, stilted movements are often a sign of a closed second chakra, while hyperflexible limbs and a lot of back-and-forth movement while walking might be a sign that your second chakra is too open. Are you graceful or clumsy? Do you float or stomp? Purposefully moving in a more graceful way with full-body awareness will, in turn, help to relax and open a closed second chakra.

Sacral Chakra Correspondences

Your Sacral chakra governs many aspects of your body as well as your mind and feelings. Check out the following chart for a summary of Sacral chakra correspondences, and then read on to find out more detail about the many ways in which your Sacral chakra reflects and influences the passions of your life.

Second Chakra	Correspondence
Sanskrit name	Svadhisthana (dwelling place of the passionate self, sweetness)
Element	Water
Color	Orange
Seed sound	VANG
Location	Just below the bellybutton, in the abdomen
Associated cultural phrases	“Listen to your gut.” “I’ve got butterflies in my stomach!” “I have a funny feeling ….”
Associated anatomy	Abdomen, sacral nerve plexus, genitals, reproductive organs, kidneys, and bladder
Associated psychological and life issues	Passion, emotions, sexuality, creativity, intimate relationships, and parenting issues
Physical issues related to second chakra blockage	Fertility problems, sexual arousal disorder, nervous stomach, stiffness, stilted movements, bladder infections, kidney stones, skipped or stopped menstrual periods in women, and lower back pain
Psychological issues related to second chakra blockage	Creative blocks, fear of relationships/commitment issues, emotional coldness, inability to experience pleasure, shallow relationships, and communication problems with children
Physical issues related to second chakra overload	Emotional eating, sexual addiction, substance abuse, frequent urination, heavy menstrual flow and/or PMS in women, and hyperflexibility
Psychological issues related to second chakra overload	Bipolar disorder, panic attacks, excessive emotionality, mood swings, hypersensitivity, addiction to pleasure, emotional dependency, ruled by feelings, and over-association (enmeshment) with children
Second chakra therapy	Drinking more fluids Swimming Treatment for addictions Balancing pleasure activities (increasing or decreasing) Counseling for emotional, relationship, and/or sexual problems Moving and flowing exercises that increase grace, including ballet, Tai Chi, and flowing vinyasas, such as yoga’s Sun Salutation or other flow styles of asanas

Awakening the Sacral Chakra

If your Kundalini energy is activated in your first chakra, then you can encourage it to rise up into your second chakra. When you awaken your passionate second chakra, you are likely to experience more vivid and intense emotions, a higher level of creativity, and more intimate relationships. Your potential increases when this chakra is healthy. Awakening the Sacral chakra is easy and pleasurable.

Anything that gets your body moving in a graceful, flowing way or that puts you in direct contact with someone you love, can activate this chakra. Or you can combine the two: try dancing slowly in rhythm with your partner as you both look directly into each other’s eyes. This exercise is intense for some people, but it should launch you right into second chakra arousal. Try it in a hot tub and … well, we can’t be responsible for what might happen next!

To get more passionate Sacral chakra energy into your environment, highlight the color orange. Wear orange, paint your bedroom orange, or put orange flowers around the house. Just seeing the color can help to awaken this chakra. Also include more Water element influences in your home. Remember lava lamps? Those flowing water lights are not only groovy, they can encourage a more fluid mood. Fill up crystal bowls with water and float flower buds in them, or add a desktop fountain or aquarium to your home. Drink mineral water with orange slices for a refreshing stimulus.

You can also try this exercise for awakening your passions with the Sacral chakra:

1. Sit on the floor with your legs crossed and your seat firmly planted on the floor. Feel your pelvic bones and imagine roots anchoring those bones to the Earth.
2. Take several long, slow, deep breaths, then draw your attention to the area just below your belly button. Imagine your second chakra as a bright fiery orange circle spinning slowly.
3. Imagine your chakra radiating an orange circle of watery light that encompasses your entire abdomen. Feel the warm light pulsing in waves like ripples in a pond that expand outward from your spine, flowing to the front of your body and all the way to the back of your body, as well as out to each side. Feel the warmth in your hips and genitals.
4. Take a deep breath in and in a low, resonating tone, say the word: VANG, holding the “A” sound (pronounced “ah”; the word rhymes with “song”). Imagine the orange light filling your entire body with slow, steady waves of warm water.
5. Continue to breathe and let the warm waves of emotion and pleasure continue to radiate from your second chakra as long as you like, allowing yourself to bask in the warm pleasure of the second chakra.

Aligning the Sacral Chakra

When waves hit the beach at a diagonal, the beach erodes. To make sure your Sacral chakra is properly aligned, you can try this exercise:

1. Immerse yourself in warm water, either in a bathtub, hot tub, or even a natural body of water like a lake or the ocean on a warm day, if you are lucky enough to have access.
2. Sitting or standing in water at least up to your waist, imagine your second chakra just below your belly button, and try to feel it spinning. Imagine a ray of orange light emanating down into your first chakra, where it combines with the red light and beams down into the ground. Then, imagine that same ray of orange light radiating upward, straight through the crown of your head, pulling all your other chakras in line with this central column of light.
3. Lift your arms straight up overhead, and imagine the orange light pulsing up and down, radiating to the center of the Earth and all the way to the sky. Your second chakra should now be aligned. How does it feel? Breathe through the chakras and dare to feel the creative power of the second chakra stirring passions within and around you.

Blocks in the Sacral Chakra

Although many people are in tune with their emotions, there are exceptions. If you grew up in an environment where emotional expression or pleasure seeking was discouraged, you might never have learned how to be emotionally open. Or if your upbringing was emotionally overwhelming—maybe one of your parents had emotional issues and subjected you to too much emotional energy—you might react by withdrawing your own emotions to protect yourself.

In turn, that can block your ability to have intimate relationships. It can also block your creativity. People who think they “just aren’t creative” are more likely to have blocked second chakras. Believe it or not, everybody is born with creative potential. It’s just that we don’t all get the chance to nurture this inborn quality.

Your second chakra can get blocked later in life, too. A particularly painful relationship or breakup can cause a temporary or long-term second chakra block, especially if you didn’t get support for your feelings or were discouraged from expressing your feelings over the course of a relationship. Sexual rejection or sexual exploitation can cause serious second chakra issues. Naturally sensitive people are also more likely to experience pain (both emotional and physical) associated with feelings, causing a chain reaction of imbalance that can influence future relationships, as well as the ability to experience physical pleasure.

Blocked Sacral Health Issues

Second chakra issues are largely centered around the sexual and reproductive organs. Infertility and sexual arousal disorder in both sexes and skipped menstrual periods in women can all be related to second chakra blocks. Also, a so-called “nervous stomach,” stiffness, stilted movements, bladder infections, kidney stones, and lower back pain can be related to second chakra blocks.

Blocked Sacral Chakra Psychological Issues

Emotional blockages are at the heart of a blocked second chakra. Creative blocks, such as writer’s block, are also common when this chakra’s energy is obstructed. You might have a fear of relationships, commitment issues, and resistance to change. People might see you as emotionally cold, or you might only be able to maintain shallow relationships with other people, without true intimacy. You might also feel like you are unable or unworthy of experiencing pleasure. As a parent, a sign of a second chakra blockage is sometimes an inability or unwillingness to communicate or bond with your children. However, this can also be a sign of second chakra overload, when your overemotional attachment to your children makes them withdraw, thus creating the communication problem.

Sometimes a painful emotional experience, such as the loss of a loved one, a breakup, or a big disappointment related to your creativity, can create a temporary second chakra blockage. This is the time to pay extra-special attention to your own emotional needs. There is nothing wrong with allowing yourself a little extra pampering and pleasure to help yourself heal and your second chakra to open again. Take long, warm mineral baths; have some sliced mango sweetened with honey; stay in and read a favorite book; or turn to your trusted art journal, letting your hand take over your mind’s eye as you sketch. If you give yourself permission to rest and grieve and you also give yourself permission to feel pleasure in your own way at your own pace, you can help your own second chakra to heal and open up again.

Healing a Blocked Sacral Chakra

To heal and strengthen a blocked Sacral chakra, Betsy encourages her clients to get in touch with their emotions. If it isn’t something you typically do, this can be a difficult task. Talking about your feelings with a close friend, confidant, or family member is a good way to release and express yourself. However, people with a blocked second chakra often don’t have close relationships because they might have excessively high boundaries and difficulty connecting with others. Working with a trained counselor, therapist, or psychologist might be key to learning the skills of expressing emotions and connecting with others in a healthy and enjoyable way.

Moving in a graceful, flowing style is also great for unblocking the second chakra. Work with a movement therapist or take a private yoga session with a teacher skilled in the connection between mind and body to bring great healing to the Sacral chakra. Anything that gets your energies moving through and out of your body will help strengthen and validate your emotional and creative self, such as …

• Drinking lots of fluids, especially clean pure mineral water.
• Eating orange foods like sweet potatoes, citrus fruits, salmon, papaya, and melon.
• Purposefully doing pleasurable things.
• Swimming, especially in clean natural bodies of water. (But a local community pool is perfectly suitable if that is your most convenient, available choice.)
• Hugging someone who is emotionally open and who cares about you.
• Talking about your feelings with a good listener.
• Creating something: drawing, writing, playing music, building, coding, dancing, or cooking.
• Spending time with your children and focusing on them, rather than being distracted while you are with them.
• Looking at someone who loves you directly in the eyes.
• Having sex with a caring and committed partner who is sensitive and responsive to your feelings.
• Exercising gracefully, including dancing (such as ballet or contemporary) and flowing yoga (such as vinyasa style Sun Salutation).
• Movement-based therapy.
• Counseling for emotional, relationship, or sexual problems.
• Therapy for addictions.
• Reciting these mantras:

• I am a desirable person.
• My feelings are good.
• It is safe to feel things.
• I create newness in my life.
• I feel pleasure in my relationships.
• I move easily and gracefully through life.

Overload in the Sacral Chakra

Why are you so emotional? Sometimes, life demands an emotional response, but an overloaded second chakra can cause a host of problems, from mood swings and a general overly emotional reaction to things, all the way to full-blown addictions, codependency, or bipolar disorder.

Second chakra overload can happen when a naturally emotional person is encouraged to be that way early in life, by overly emotional or overly unemotional parents. Sometimes, second chakra overload is a temporary response to an emotional situation or simply a poor sense of how to regulate the eternal quest for pleasure. The result is emotion, emotion, emotion, and while overloaded second chakra people might be extra creative, they might also be so controlled by their feelings and passions that they completely lose their common sense.

An easy way to tune up your second chakra is to pay attention to how other people feel. Sometimes, what we see in others is a mirror for ourselves (psychologists call this projection), so tune in to people in your immediate environment. What do you notice about how others appear to feel? Especially notice the things that create an emotional response in you, whether it is sympathy or annoyance. Could that be a clue to how you are actually feeling?

Overloaded Sacral Chakra Health Issues

The most common physical signs of an overloaded second chakra are problems related to the sexual and reproductive organs. Heavy menstrual flow and severe PMS symptoms in women (especially mood swings, irritability, bloating, and abdominal cramps) are signs of flooded second chakras. In both sexes, so is a high frequency of sexual arousal, especially coupled with the inability to control sexual conduct. Addictive behavior can be a sign of a second chakra flood, whether the addiction is to sex, food, alcohol, or caffeine.

Although eating is a classic first chakra activity, overloaded second chakra people are prone to emotional eating and often become overweight because of this problem. Bulimia can be reflected in the second chakra, as people eat to dull strong emotions and then feel such strong guilt that they purge by vomiting or by abusing laxatives. Compulsive eating might be a first chakra problem, as people try to get heavier to get grounded. Compulsive eating might be a second chakra problem if the eating is being used for the purpose of squelching strong feelings, while eating too little or being clinically anorexic reflects the desire to control or sublimate emotions.

Other signs of an overloaded second chakra include severe menstrual pain caused by endometriosis in women and urinary problems in men. Hypermobility and/or a wobbly or swaying walk is common with an overloaded second chakra. People with hypermobile joints and uncontrolled body movements are more prone to joint injury and osteoarthritis. This is often reflected in an overly open second chakra.

Overloaded Sacral Chakra Psychological Issues

Overloaded second chakras can result in all kinds of destructive behaviors. This passion and pleasure center is easy to obsess about, and addiction to pleasure is a common problem. Sure, it might be fun to call yourself a hedonist, but if you can’t stop a pleasurable behavior or if you gear your entire life around seeking pleasure, you are out of balance. For men especially, the current wave of available online porn makes real-life sexual partnerships more difficult and skews expectations about what the sexual experience should be like. Hookup culture and the popularity of dating apps that encourage casual sexual encounters can turn a one-off release of sexual energy into a flood of indiscriminate and unbalanced Sacral chakra problems leading to a lack of spiritual fulfillment.

According to yoga philosophy, one of the primary reasons why people are hindered in their spiritual progress is through excessive attachment to pleasure. But even if spiritual progress isn’t your goal, too much short-term pleasure seeking can seriously hinder your progress toward long-term goals, and it will lead you on a very crooked path to spiritual enlightenment that is full of detours and backtracking. It can also lead to addiction, not to mention the destruction of relationships, the loss of jobs, and even the loss of health.

The other way in which addictive behaviors are linked to overloaded second chakras is that people sometimes engage in these behaviors to mask uncomfortably strong emotions. If you are flooded with feelings and you don’t know how to handle them, pleasurable behaviors can help dull the emotional pain. If you can’t stop eating, vaping, drinking alcohol, taking recreational drugs, or seeking sex, you probably have a serious overloaded second chakra problem. Issues of addiction typically require professional intervention. A medical doctor, mental health therapist, or counselor can help you get back into balance if you can’t stop doing something. There are too many good things in life to waste it all on an overloaded second chakra, so please get help if you can’t help yourself.

Overloaded second chakra people also tend to be emotionally clingy, smothering the people they love and often losing them in the process. Balancing your second chakra can help you get a handle on the way you relate to other people, helping you to back off, balance your emotions, and listen a little more closely to your inner logical voice.

You have emotions so you can deepen your relationships, appreciate the good in the world, learn about yourself, be appropriately repulsed by the bad, and exercise your creativity. But you should be able to manage your emotions. They shouldn’t manage you. Remember, you are not your feelings. You can set them aside and even discipline them when they get in your way. Remember, astrologically, the Sacral chakra is ruled by the planet Jupiter 8, the planet of abundance, of “more is more.” The Sacral chakra is also influenced by Neptune =, the planet of feelings and deep emotional understanding. Check the placement of these planets in your astrological birth chart for clues about how to manage excess second chakra energy in your life.

Healing an Overloaded Sacral Chakra

Healing an overloaded Sacral chakra means draining out some of that excessive passionate, emotional, creative energy, to make room for other kinds of energy, like grounding energy and spiritual energy. Creative, passionate energy is a good thing, of course—but it isn’t the only kind of energy you need, so balance is best. Try strategies such as …

• Crafting a routine and sticking to it every day, especially in terms of when you sleep, eat, and bathe.
• Setting limits for yourself, especially regarding those things you like to do a little too much. If this is too difficult, enlist an accountability partner, such as a friend, coworker, or therapist, who checks in with your progress.
• Aerobic dance, such as hip-hop dance, or the calm flow of a ballet barre workout, to burn off extra energy and help you feel pleasure in a healthy way.
• Strength training (lifting weights) to give support to a hyperflexible body.
• Trying hot yoga styles, such as Bikram and Barkan, which are great for flushing excess water and emotions out of your body. Bikram yoga and other “hot yoga” styles are practiced in a room typically heated to around 100 degrees with high humidity, which is similar to the climate in India where yoga originated. This type of yoga induces sweating to purge toxins from the body. The heat also increases flexibility.
• Spending quiet time alone to meditate on your own creative strengths and passionate Sacral chakra power so you can feel more independent and self-motivated.
• Grounding exercises for the first, or Root chakra, and strengthening exercises for the third, or Solar Plexus chakra. (See Chapters 7 and 9.) These will help align and support the healing of the second, or Sacral chakra.

Yoga Poses to Balance the Sacral Chakra

The best yoga poses for balancing both blocked and overloaded Sacral chakras are those poses that help encourage graceful, flowing movements along with flexibility and strength. The classic moving sequence of poses for warming the body and increasing flexibility is called Surya Namaskar. Surya Namaskar is the Sanskrit name for Sun Salutation, which is a sequence of twelve yoga poses (asanas) that is ideally practiced in the morning for warming up the body and honoring the rising sun.

Different teachers approach the sequence in different ways. Here is one flowing sequence we particularly like for balancing the second chakra. Once you know the sequence, work on flowing from one pose to the next with as much grace and smoothness as you can. Don’t worry about speed. Form is more important. Always move fully and completely through each pose in the sequence. When you’ve mastered the sequence, you can add speed to the flow of poses to increase your aerobic energy.

Sun Salutations are beneficial to healing all your chakras, but the flow of movement is particularly beneficial to healing the second chakra, or Sacral chakra. Sun Salutations enhance your sense of your body, mind, and spirit interconnectivity and improve concentration and balance. Doing Sun Salutations awakens Sun 3 yang energy and can help release Kundalini spiritual awakening (see Chapter 3) if your chakras are aligned and ready to channel that serpent power.

1. Stand in Tadasana (read about how to do that pose in Chapter 7), in bare feet with your feet hip-width apart. Experience stability. Bring your palms together in front of your heart, in prayer position. Take a deep breath to center and connect with something greater than yourself.
2. Inhale and bring your arms overhead, extending the spine long as you look up between your hands. Begin to shine your heart center up toward the ceiling as you bend back slightly.
3. Exhale and bend forward at the hips, bringing your hands down toward the floor on either side of your feet. If your hamstrings are tight and you can’t touch the floor, either bend your knees so your fingers reach the floor or put something under each hand that you can press into, such as two blocks, piles of books, or boxes.
4. Keeping your hands on the floor or other support, inhale and look up, stretching your spine forward as your chest lifts slightly, while keeping your feet and hands firmly planted. Exhale and return to a forward bend.
5. Inhale and step your right foot back into a lunge. Keep your back thigh lifted as you bend more deeply into your front leg. Your left knee should be centered over your left ankle. Lift your heart, open your chest, and look up.
6. Exhale and step your left foot back into Plank pose, as if you were on the top end of a push-up, fingertips extended, and elbows pointed toward your feet. Inhale, and as you exhale, slowly lower yourself down to the floor with control, keeping your arms close to your body. If you don’t have the arm strength yet to lower yourself down, bring your knees to the floor before lowering your chest and head to the floor.
7. Place your hands on the mat in line with your chest, inhale and take the shoulders back, head up, and chest up into a variation of Cobra pose (Bhujangasana; see Chapter 5). Curl into a baby backbend. With your tailbone tucked under, extend your spine forward with every inhale. With every exhale, keep your shoulders back and soften your heart center down between the shoulder blades.
8. Exhale, bringing your head and chest back down to the mat. Curl your toes under, and with your next inhale, lift your hips off the floor. Keeping your arms straight, stretch your hips away from your shoulders. Exhale, and relax your head and neck. This is called Downward Facing Dog pose (Adho Mukha Shvanasana).
9. Inhale and step your right foot forward into a lunge, keeping your back leg lifting high.
10. Exhale and step forward with your left foot, returning to a forward bend with your hands on the floor (or on another support) beside your feet.
11. Keeping your hands down, move your chest forward and look up as you inhale. Then exhale and bend forward again.
12. Keeping your feet firmly grounded, inhale as you sweep your arms up over your head, returning to a standing position. Bring your palms together in prayer position in line with your heart. Repeat the entire sequence as many times as you like to warm your body, and pay homage to the Sun 3.

Astrology for the Awakened Sacral Chakra

Now, we’re going to look more closely at the astrological correspondences for the second, or Sacral chakra. In Chapter 4, you learned:

• The planetary rulers of the Sacral chakra are Jupiter 8 and Neptune =.
• The signs for the Sacral chakra are Sagittarius { and Pisces W.

Planetary Ruler	Sign(s) Ruled
Jupiter 8	Sagittarius {, co-ruler of Pisces W
Neptune =	Pisces W

Knowing the energy of astrology’s planets and signs that correspond to the Sacral chakra helps you understand how to bring awakened second chakra passions to life. Yoga’s Sun Salutations use movement to stimulate second chakra energy in your body. Astrology gives that spinning life force energy a meaning and a purpose in your life. To go even further and explore chakra energy in your astrological birth chart, see Appendix A, where we’ll look at chakra influences in Michelle Obama’s chart. The effect of transiting planetary energy on astrological cycles can also change the chakra “flavor” of the time.

How Jupiter 8 Awakens the Sacral Chakra

Jupiter 8 is one of astrology’s social planets. Jupiter 8 is the natural ruler of Sagittarius { and the ninth house of education and philosophy, spiritual beliefs, law, and travel. Jupiter 8 is the natural co-ruler of Pisces W (its energy is weaker than the ruler’s) and the twelfth house of the subconscious, the unknown, spirituality, and past karma. As a social planet, Jupiter 8 governs how you engage (or not) with others in your community, in society, and in the world.

Jupiter 8 believes in the motto “go big or go home.” The planet of expansion and abundance, benevolence and generosity, Jupiter invests momentum in your passions. It gives you the confidence you need to know in your gut that you can do it. But too much Jupiter can lead to excess, while bloviated passions go nowhere. Jupiter allows a balanced Sacral chakra to grow larger and spin faster with the promise of your creative passions (grounded by the safety and security of the Root chakra). You are more confident in your core beliefs and your ability to manifest your dreams, whether of family, career, travel, art—whatever it is you know you must do.

How Neptune = Awakens the Sacral Chakra

Neptune = is one of astrology’s transpersonal planets. Neptune is the natural ruler of Pisces W and is the twelfth house of transformation and metamorphosis, the subconscious, spirituality, and past karma. As a transpersonal, or outer planet, Neptune = (with its longer orbit) governs astrological cycles influencing whole generations of people.

Neptune = is the planet of dreams and illusions, mysticism, hypochondria, and spiritual inspiration. Neptune = is the visionary. The Sacral chakra feels the influence of Jupiter 8 because it is the weaker co-ruler (with Neptune =) of Pisces W. This means the dreamy moonglow of Neptune = receives the support of Jupiter’s 8 expansive abundance in awakening Sacral chakra energy. Jupiter can provide the confidence that gets the Kundalini serpent to move the Sacral chakra with bold visions and creative passion.

How Sagittarius { Awakens the Sacral Chakra

Sagittarius { with its yang Fire element energy is ruled by the expansive creator Jupiter 8. Sagittarians, with their need to explore new horizons, suit Sacral chakra’s energy perfectly. Always shooting for the stars, Sagittarians are determined, endlessly curious, honest, and direct. The Sacral chakra welcomes the Sagittarian adventurer’s quest for evermore experience of the Universe. With Sagittarian’s influence, awakened Kundalini serpent power in the Sacral chakra is channeled from the Root chakra to spin with passionate purpose.

How Pisces W Awakens the Sacral Chakra

Pisces W is ruled by Neptune =, with Jupiter 8 as its co-ruler. As the weaker planetary ruler of Pisces W, Jupiter’s 8 influence lends a boldness that seeks fruition to Piscean dreamy visionaries. Jupiter helps keep Pisces’s transformative notions from fizzling out in the harsh light of the world. In awakening the Sacral chakra’s passions, the Piscean’s head full of stars is given direction and persistence by adventuresome Sagittarius and its Jupiter ruler.

Sacral Chakra Rising

The heavenly aim of Sagittarius {/Jupiter 8 provides the target to guide rising Kundalini energy from the grounded Root chakra to the passions of the Sacral chakra. That target risks missing the mark without the visionary imagination of Pisces W/Neptune = to make the target a truly worthy one. To give the Sacral chakra its proper balance, the energy of both zodiac signs must be present.

As you do healing work with your Sacral chakra, be aware of the risk for an imbalance and examine the ways in which your passions may grow too overwhelming or obsessive, or that you might seem to find yourself forever chasing new adventures and never find a true home for your most cherished goal. Once you’ve hit upon the right quest to liberate you, the Sacral chakra will activate. Filled with creative purpose and passionate direction, your Sacral chakra spins, as the Root chakra provides a safe, solid Earth base. The life force rises to meet your power in the third, or Solar Plexus chakra.