The Tenth Chakra
* Here’s an excerpt from The Chakra Seasons, a series of articles shared with member of the Cosmic Goodness Party, where we explore the chakras through the corresponding cycle of the seasons. Want to read more? Click here to join us.
Non nobis solum nati sumus.
Not for ourselves alone are we born.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
Welcome to the Tenth Chakra, the foundation of Home for all earthly beings. Two legged, four legged, slithering, feathered or furred, Stone People, Standing People and countless more… all beings of the earth.
This chakra aligns beautifully with the month of October, as this is the time of Hallows Eve – not merely to celebrate the gorging of candy and carving of pumpkins, but traditionally a time to honor our ancestors, our beloved dead. As the shadows lengthen and the days dwindle, we turn inward preparing not only for the reflection of winter time, but also acknowledging those who will sustain us and keep us warm through the dark, cold nights.
And what sustains is not merely the warmth of bodies, but the depth of spirit that surrounds us.
Progression from the 9th Chakra
It is here, through the 10th chakra, the soul drops its anchor into the world, and sends its emissary – the physical body – forth to engage and evolve here on Earth. That journey, each and every lifetime, begins through the gateway of our ancestral heritage.
Here is where we ground in the reality of the physical world, all its inhabitants and their influence on us, not merely our own perception of it.
Here is where the soul gives life to the story it seeks to tell – through the blood heritage that it creates in order to support the life it needs.
Here is where the soul engages its story and watches it come to life in the physical world.
This is where, in the here and now, you begin to create a life that will contribute to the greater consciousness of all others. As noted by Cyndi Dale in her wonderful book New Chakra Healing, this chakra is found roughly 2-3 feet below our physical feet, and often is perceived as being a dark, deep green or rich brown in energetic hues.
A quote from our very first month of this journey, January, and the root chakra:
Muladhara, the root chakra, is associated with grounding in the very physical and individual sense (as opposed to your 10th chakra. We’ll get to that in October). But other than your individual experience, which you create based on your interaction with family, there is the greater connection to our human family as well.
So if the 1st chakra is grounding in the sense of the microcosm, the 10th is grounding in the sense of the macrocosm.
This also means that we will find our ancestral heritage issues here in the 10th chakra– what has been passed down through the history of the family. Not merely the physical – enough in and of itself, especially if you care to look into epigenetics – but also the karmic, energetic heritage as well. This may play out via other chakras, but the tenth is the gateway.
As the soul is planning out its journey in a new lifetime, it will select various aspects that it requires, to provide just the right support and challenges that it needs. This results in the culture, era, and even town that you are born into.
It also includes the alignment of the planets, which helps to seal the energetic manifestation into the physical, the moment you are born on Earth.
This is the foundation that then supports the experience in the first chakra – in the tenth, we have the collective relationship of reality and it’s influence, coupled with the heritage of our people – the WE aspect. As the energy rises up into the first or root chakra, we move into our experience of the world, and how we engage with it – the ME aspect.
What I see over and over are people who confuse these two chakras, or even worse, focus only on the root chakra (the first, or Muladhara), forgetting the key to life, to harmony with community, that is the tenth.
In this way, the Tenth is also symbolic of crossroads in our lifetime:
the choices we make, and where they lead us
Aspects in your daily life
When we have a strong and healthy 10th chakra, we feel a deep sense of connection and trust with the world – even if or when we may falter and stumble in our lives, we know we will be held. We know our sense of place in the world – no matter where we roam, we carry home within us. This is a hugely empowering chakra in this sense.
As opposed to when we do not (and the reasons why can be many) – and we focus all our energies , in order to survive the loneliness, on our 1st chakra. Grounding all awareness of ‘home’ through the individual root chakra, we forget where we came from, we are no longer bound to our ancestors or humankind, but only to what we can gain/acquire from it – not for altruistic reasons, but only for ourselves.
(Note: indeed, I wonder often how much our struggles in the Western world come from a growing history that does not honor our dead, compared to cultures around the world who have a strong sense of connection and exchange with their ancestral roots.)
Conversely, I may see issues in the 10th chakra with someone who had a wonderful family life – by all accounts, well supported and cared for, no great stressors. And yet, they are haunted by a sense of deep disconnect, either with their family or the life they are living overall.
It seems as if an outside influence of some kind overshadows the nurturing environment they’ve experienced.
This if often due to karmic patterns they may be carrying (what I call soul heritage), a wound to the 10th chakra from another lifetime that will not let them anchor and connect to the world at large.
When it comes directly from the family however – for instance, a long- held family habit of desertion or disease that is now embedded in the DNA, this is what I call blood heritage.
In either instance, it is often coming to a head when a client comes to me seeking resolution, after a lifetime of carrying around this baggage. And healing this ancestral wound can be a powerful experience, one that leaves them feeling suddenly liberated and deeply connected all at once.
Some people will become stuck upon the ground-level floor of their root chakra, which is the realm of ME, as I noted earlier, not able or willing to go deeper into the foundation of the tenth chakra and its WE energy – causing Narcissism and stagnated energy that feeds on itself – regardless of whether a person may be successful in the realms of money or needs, the hallmark of the root chakra, they will continue to experience isolation.
Which brings us to our Case Study for the tenth chakra – welcome to Pop Chakras, where drama reveals the truth.
This is a new approach to case studies I’m using, wherein I take well-known characters in classic or pop culture and use them to teach you a thing or two about your chakras.
Miranda’s Silken Threads
Movie still owned by 20th Century Fox movies, used under Fair Use
Meryl Streep’s manipulative and exclusive character in The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda, was pretty unforgettable.
In fact, she’s been reviewed and discussed countless times in modern pop culture (along with comparison to her real life counterpart, Anna Wintour).
Did you ever wonder what made her that way? (Miranda, that is… not Anna.)
I imagine she was an orphan, raised by a wealthy dowager aunt. She was never allowed to play and get her hands dirty, though she tried – she ran and climbed trees, but her Aunt Mathilda would pull her down, harshly criticizing her for ruining that good dress.
Miranda, desperately wanting to feel a connection to the one person left to care for her, tried to fit in. She allowed the expensive clothes and finery to console her, and squeeze what little love she could from the tight smile of approval her aunt finally gave.
This became Miranda’s only form of interaction – with the smooth silks of couture and the fragile, glossy threads that would bind her to a sense of purpose. Lonely, hollow – after all, a haute couture dress or matching alligator bag can’t talk back, but that became the very point.
Miranda is running all her energy in loops through her 1st chakra, seeking comfort in the only way she can find: ME-ism.
Imagine she had an intervention – a trip for the Fall edition of Runway that sent her into the depths of the South American jungle, where she found herself in the presence of a shaman. Her photographer desperately wanted some of those ‘gritty’ images to use for press, and cajoled Miranda into engaging.
Next thing they knew, Miranda was wandering down a narrow path through the thick trees and vines, into a small hut that the shaman would not allow anyone else into. (The shaman told her what she could see missing in her, a wound deep below that was like a cave beneath her feet, empty and cold. She told her of the family she came from, seeing visions of a long line of orphans who were lost, wandering. Miranda admitted out loud finally, that yes, not only was she orphaned as a child, but her own mother had also been an orphan.)
When Miranda emerged she was a changed woman – with tears streaming down her face, ruining her Dior mascara (for the first time since she waved goodbye to the trees she climbed as a child, she did not care).
Some deep, gaping wound within was carefully stitched together with the psychic threads of silken truth by the shaman that day. Miranda had found home deep within, and was no longer an orphan. That night, she dined on the floor with her new family, chanting and singing words she had never heard, but knew from her heart.
Returning to New York, she was a new woman. The surface life she had carefully built, an empire of one, exquisitely coiffed and swathed in the very best money could buy suddenly felt like cardboard cutouts dancing all around her – lifeless, without any meaning. She decided it was time to make a difference, in ways that her aunt had never cared to.
She continued to run Runway but with an entirely new vision, including getting herself onto the board of the Dress for Success charity, becoming a huge advocate for women’s rights, and most especially, displaced or abused children. No child would ever feel like an orphan in her presence.
She moved to her country estate, where at-risk children were often brought in for weekend camps, and she made sure they always got to climb any tree they wanted.
Before her visit to the shaman, Miranda was not able to move the mission of her soul through the powerful manifesting powers of her 10th chakra through community and heritage – you’ll notice that she was ‘successful’ at manifesting anything she wanted before this healing occurred, but not the one thing she needed: a strong sense of deep purpose and meaning in her life, a sense of connection. She was lonely, bitter and cold, having created a walled-off fortress all alone in her root chakra, with no flow of energy to her 10th; her true purpose was diverted.
With her 10th chakra now healed from the wounds carried on behalf of her family (and I hasten to point out the gift this is, for a soul to choose to take on ancestral healing!), energy now coursed with power through her 10th infusing her entire system, all the manifesting powers she had developed in her root chakra could be put to astounding good use, creating a legacy for generations.
When you feel connected, when you feel generous and compassionate*, you are moving through the Tenth – no matter how introverted or extroverted you are. This can infuse life with a wonderful sense of True Purpose.
It’s not that purpose makes life easier, but that it gives life meaning.
When you’re disconnected from your 10th, as Miranda was, it’s all about you – your selfies, your likes, your shoes, your fav meme… you may think you’re interacting while you so busy declaring to the world LOOK I’M HERE, but this is not the same as when you’re connected with your 10th, which is when it’s all about how you ENGAGE the world beyond yourself – instead, it becomes: look at what we’re creating together, isn’t this amazing?
But if we are disconnected, it becomes very easy to allow the ego to hog the driver’s seat, and once ego straps on that seat belt, it’s hard to get them out.
The ego is the wild card, and can get stuck in a negative feedback loop (rather, a loop that is tangled up with its sense of self-importance). Our current “age of distraction” is a great example of how this is happening – our sense of purpose, instead of something that serves the greater good, is skewed, toward things that serve only our most basic ME needs. (Often, under the guise of the Good Samaritan, which is still a shadow form.)
Shadow Aspects – Be Mindful
Issues in the 10th can require a lot of shadow work. This chakra is where we wander in the forest and get lost in darkness. Or we can spend a lifetime running from the 10th chakra; however, we can never get away from it, because the 10th is foundational to our well being.
With clients, when I see issues in the 10th it usually hints at ‘hidden’ problems. My guides will use imagery like holes that people are dropping into to hide from life or family troubles, or from their purpose; or huge shovels they’re using to ‘dig a hole’ for themselves. Sometimes people even hide under the ‘skirts’ of their family!
The shadow of the 10th may present as a very controlling matriarch or patriarch. When someone is in this shadow, their entire purpose becomes about what they deem important, valid and real. Reality in that sense, must bow to them, often starting with their family or colleagues.
The bright side, in an idealistic sense, would be the philanthropist – think along the lines of Oprah, who has dedicated her life (and her wealth) to inspiring others to live their best life. Or Bill and Melinda Gates.
These are people who are well tapped into the 10th chakra, channeling their purpose through community. Mind, our purpose does not have to be defined by the 10th chakra, but as with all our chakras, it holds a vital position in serving our divine human experience.
This is not to say that we are all supposed to become philanthropists, but we each do have a unique reason and gift for being incarnated, no matter how small or large that ripple may be, it is ours and ours alone for this life. That is your purpose. Label it good or bad, worthwhile or no, but Spirit infused you with it.
It’s up to you to engage and share your heritage with all of us. And may we all be better for it.
