We’ve come to our last stop on our chakra journey! The crown chakra is the 7th, and highest of the body’s energy centers, sitting at the top of the chakra chain including the root, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, and third eye chakras. We have been playing with the chakra unwinding exercise over the past couple of months, and if you’ve been following along, I hope it has been enlightening and helpful for you! Known as the Sahasrara in Sanskrit, the crown chakra lies at the very top of your head, and represents the connection between us and the Universe beyond. This is where you experience feelings of transcendence, bliss, and liberation, some of the highest planes of experience that exist. Arguably the most complex chakra, the crown is not concerned with the trappings of earthly life, but calls you forth to feel the oneness of the Divine.

When this chakra is blocked, you may experience constant worry, depression, apathy, and be unable to find your purpose, but when the crown is open and balanced, you live each day in deep connection to the Universe, feel compassion for all, and stride confidently in your sacred calling.

The crown chakra embodies the following characteristics:

• Color: light violet

• Physical associations: muscular system, skin, brain, pineal gland, and skeletal system

• Emotional associations: ability to trust, sense of oneness, devotion, spiritual practice, faith, inspiration, values and ethics, courage, selflessness, ability to see larger picture

• Sense: “sixth sense” or higher mind

• Mantra: AUM or sacred silence

• Element: pure Spirit

Each of our chakras contains its own wisdom and message for us to hear. According to energy healer and teacher, Caroline Myss, our crown chakra reminds us to “live in the present moment.” This chakra calls us to develop a personal relationship with the Divine, let go of our past regrets and fears about the future, and live in sacred oneness with all that is.

In the Shamanic tradition of the Munay-Ki, there are archetypes that rule over each of our bodily chakras, and the one that is associated with the crown chakra is Pachakuti. This powerful figure is known as the “keeper of the possibilities and the organizing principle of the heavenly Upper World. Pachakuti embodies the concept of circular time, stepping outside of linear time to make time stand still and bring heavenly order.” The ancient translation of Pachakuti means “he who overturns space and time.”

Our highest chakra, the crown chakra, is vital to our ability to live a full and rich life, since it forms the bridge between our earthly selves and our star selves. There are many ways to nourish and care for your crown chakra, including meditation, prayer, acts of service, connecting with a spiritual community, crystals, essential oils, and of course energy work like Reiki. Doing the unwinding exercise is a great way to practice this kind of healing on yourself whenever and wherever you like!

“The infinite wisdom and abundance of the Divine flows easily through me. All is well.”

For those of you who made it this far in our chakra unwinding journey, here is what you had to say about your experience doing this technique with your 7th chakra!

“I found that moving my hand further away (above) my head made the sensation of unwinding much stronger. When I stopped to experience the sensation I found that my entire body was a swirling long spiral (corkscrew) of energy from the crown to the root. I felt open and expansive yet calm and peaceful. It was a nice completion to our experiment!”

“This was a powerful exercise!  I was meditating on an oracle card called "Release" from the chakra deck. The message in the card was to release negative self-talk. As I started to unwind my crown, I noticed that it was spinning in a very lop-sided way. I could see the image of a merry-go-round and one side was very crowded. When I looked closer, I could see that it was crowded with experiences from my family of origin; mother, father, grandparents, their parents and so on. It didn’t feel correct to just shoo them off. It seemed important that I honor their experiences and then gently release them. When my chakra was clear, I was able to spin back up.  My head felt very light and open.”

“As soon as I begun unwinding, I noticed that I had been holding my breath, and the motion re-started a healthy breathing cycle. I felt a little bit dizzy while unwinding, but I knew I had reached stillpoint when everything went quiet. I saw images of birds and my brain fell silent for a while. Then I noticed I was starting to get antsy and uncomfortable, so I waited and breathed for another moment, before winding back up. As I wound up my chakra, I saw the visualization of a bright, golden crown being created on my head, like by a 3D printer. When the crown was complete, I knew the chakra had been rewound successfully.”

It has been such a fun journey with you all over the past couple of months, as we have explored the chakras. I hope you will continue to use this incredible unwinding exercise on a regular basis!