Template Tools
The Sacral Chakra: How Do I Feel Near to You? by Mary Fraser, Ph.D. PDF Print E-mail
Mary Fraser / Native American Spirituality
Wednesday, 07 January 2009 00:00
Dr. Mary FraserIntimacy and the ability to draw near to another person define the major energies of the second chakra. Located in the pelvic region, the sacral chakra is physically governed by the lower entrances to the inner body, which, of course, also allow for output from the inner body. The emotional experiences are intimate like that, private and yet universal, what the Apostle Paul described in the Book of Corinthians as, the “honor given to what is lowest.” We deem the energy of intimacy within such a physical region because intimacy involves not just the content of love, light, grace and joy, but also crasser and more difficult emotions such as anger, abandonment, despair or rage. Mature intimacy begins with the ability to bond and moves toward the capacity to feel great swathes of emotion, identify those feelings and make appropriate, relational decisions in their expression.


From the first chakra the tools of trust and rootedness allow for the energies of the second chakra to flow naturally and freely. Trust is necessary for intimacy and is a basic form of attachment. From trust, a person learns to exchange feelings and ideas with another and within a small circle of people. Family emerges as a basic premise of larger culture. What sometimes is forgotten in contemporary American life is the close relationship between intimacy and culture: the breakdown of cultural norms often reflects problems occurring in smaller entities within the larger culture with attachment, loyalty, bonding, all of which are basic building blocks to strong vibrant communities. In such groups of people, collective anxiety is minimized by the intimate relations of the family, and by the physical relationships of sexuality of the bonded adults. However, a reciprocal relationship sometimes emerges in which anxiety produced by the intensity of a closed family system finds relief and respite as the wider social culture offers new ways of perceiving and behaving.


The Sacral Chakra is a primary spiritual force that unites body and mind. The energies that evoke sexual desire as well as the energies that create feelings of bonding and love tie us both to the body and to the emotional and spiritual field of care and concern. Most of this energy initially is decided by environmental nurture and the genetic material native to human beings to be relational and in community. When we are little, our parents teach us what it means to be close and whether it is safe and satisfying to depend on them as care providers. We take our first lessons in intimacy from our parental figures. That is widened into relationships with family members and again, in every enlarging circles, into community, country and the world. We learn to attach and bond from personal experience and then extrapolate that into larger systems that hold us. Similarly, we are endowed with genetic material that, governed by our hormones, encourages us to begin practicing for intimate life as teens, find a partner with whom to dance the steps of intimacy and nurture, birth children with, and care about as we age and proceed through the life cycle.


It is worth wondering whether problems with aggression, anger and despair also emerge initially in problems with attachment to others in ways that provide comfort, hope and a sense of being loved. As peoples of the world become more transient, and wars and violence increase on a global plane, a question emerges as to how children will receive a sense of security and bonding that allows for the healthy emergence of human relationship on deeply personal strains. How is love compromised by the rampant, unchecked trauma facing people in poverty, war, dislocation, long periods in refugee camps, and natural disasters that uproot families from each other and a sense of security?


Physical ailments that emerge in the Sacral Chakra include disorders of sexual desire and function, difficult menstrual cycles, problems in the reproductive organs, and more elusive yet problematic syndromes such as fibromyalgia and lupus.


The spiritual issues of intimacy are discussed in stories such as Abraham and Sara, where Sara finds her womb opened after the two agree to set out on God’s journey. There is the sense of being bound together as husband and wife as well as within the covenant of God. The pregnancy becomes a sign of the life of the covenant, the promise of intimate life within the community of faith. Also, the spiritual issues of the Sacral Chakra emerge again with Abraham and Isaac at the bush, when the father receives word from God not to sacrifice the son, that God preserves the bonding of parent and child. In most of the Hebrew Bible, the image of husband and wife suggests the relationship between Human and God, and in the New Testament, Jesus picks up on the image of parent – child. The themes of faithfulness and intimacy with the divine are suggested to be like those of husband and wife, and where there is betrayal, the infidelity is like that of husband and wife – searing, bitter, and physically painful. Or the relationship is as a parent and child where covenant emerges by the rights of birth, of existence itself.


One of the issues that is sometimes lifted up concerning intimacy and the New Testament is that Jesus is never described as having a wife. The Apostle Paul speaks openly about refraining from marriage unless absolutely necessary. We also know that other figures in the New Testament were married and some of the early disciples were couples such as Aquila and Priscilla. In the story of spirituality and the sacral energies with the New Testament, however, intimacy is described most fundamentally as closeness and connection to God. Jesus calls God, “Abba,” or most closely translated, “Daddy,” a term of intimacy and endearment. Jesus and those who follow Jesus are physically connected to the power and transforming energy of the Holy Spirit as described by the Transfiguration, the raising of Lazarus, the resurrection of Jesus, the power of Pentecost, and the extraordinary energy of healing bestowed upon the disciples after the Resurrection as they travelled about healing and preaching.


In the New Testament, intimacy and the body is taken to a new level, that of being connected with divinity itself. The deeper the intimacy, the greater the ability to heal and transform self and others. The more powerful the intimacy, the more extensive the ability to withstand persecution, create relationships of justice and mercy and live in a way that creates family not from genetic arrangements but from the capacity to love neighbor as self.


Energy from the Sacral Chakra continues in personal and physical ways the practices of trust and bonding that occurred in the root chakra. The issues in this charka now speak of personal connection between self and other, and how individuals begin to organize themselves into family and cultural groups. The spirituality of the Sacral Chakra concerns our deepest understandings of how to connect with other and God in personal and physical ways. To the extent we honor that, we honor the place of God within ourselves and the place of God in the center of others.
Comments (0)Add Comment
feedSubscribe to this comment's feed
Write comment

busy
Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 January 2009 11:16