Coming Home Meditation Tuesday 9-10am EDT ~ Last Chakra Meditation: THE CROWN
How timely our journey through the chakras has been...we land now at the Coronation
Dear Friends,
So we made it through the seven core chakras—starting with the root chakra on January 9—and landed at the crown last week. Tomorrow, I will offer the second crown chakra experience and this will close the chakra series. I hope you’ll join.
It’s been a wonderful week to contemplate and work with the crown…given we had the CORONATION of a KING (yes, we are still in those times). I just kept looking at the actual crown and thinking…wow. All of those gemstones, the purple velvet, the ermine. Precious metals and sumptuous fabrics, the symbolism of the crosses, the towering receptor of gold…a headdress to signal nobility and of course, noblesse oblige…also authority and privilege…it’s a complicated hat to wear in these times.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
–Henry IV, Shakespeare
The crown—whatever the symbol means now—comes from an ancient tradition of leadership being closely aligned with the Divine Law and indeed, appointed by Divine Right. I was struck that it is still the Archbishop of Canterbury who does the honor, saying “God Save the King” at the moment of the crowning. Before leadership was completely corrupted by worldly power, leaders received their marching orders from the gods, or GOD. The earthly king and queen were tasked with receiving and enacting the cosmic plan, the divine blueprint, here on Earth.
I became very interested for a while in Queen Puabi (~ 2500 BC). In 1927 an archeological expedition found her tomb in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in Mesopotamia. I read the very dry, very boring, book written by Leonard Woolley, the chief excavator, and went to see the tomb contents when they came through NYC around 2012. The artifact from the tomb that was most staggering to me, was her elaborate headdress of finest gold metalwork. It seemed to me, that a crown like this was designed not just for effect, but for use. It seemed like it had a function and I began to meditate on what that function might be.
I imagined wearing that much gold around my head and I felt myself and my thoughts protected, purified, and attuned to subtle currents. Maybe I am imagining this, what do you think?
That crowns are often made of gold is literally so they can receive energetic transmission/communication from the Divine. By surrounding the crown chakra and the mind with the purest of metals, we invite divine guidance.
A few years later, a girlfriend was visiting Berlin and sent me a photo of a special object in the museum there. it is called the Berlin Gold Hat. It was made in the Late Bronze Age (1000 BC - 800 BC) and is thought to be a ceremonial hat of the priests of a sun cult popular in Europe at that time. The markings on the hat serve as a calendar. Again, I imagined wearing such a crown. Why is it so high? In order to penetrate higher and higher thought forms and then transmit those to the wearer. I was dying to put this thing on…
All of this is just to remind us that the crowning of the head of leadership in ways that bring that leader into closer contact with the spiritual hierarchy is an ancient tradition. Even the Buddha’s ushnisha is considered a sign of his open crown chakra and connection to the Universe/Heavenly Host. The crown chakra is said to be a connection to Shambala, the heavenly kingdom of Buddhas, which is said to lie just at the edge of earthly manifestation. It is “hidden” but right here, accessible to those with the mind to “see” it.
The crown is the place where spirit enters and leaves the body. It is our connection to the cosmos, our soul’s mission, the heavens, and divine beings who can and will intervene on our behalf if we are open and attuned. The crown chakra is an energetic center at the top of the head that governs our divine purpose. Alice Bailey writes in 1925:
At liberation this center displays a glorious radiance above the top of the head, a fiery display which makes all the other centers dim by comparison. From the heart of this thousand-petalled lotus issues a flame of fire having the basic hue of a person’s soul ray. This flame mounts upward and attracts downward a sheet of electric light, which is the downflow from the spirit on the highest plane (Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, 1925, p. 170)
The crown center controls the will and destiny of the soul in incarnation, directs all the other centers and links one to one’s higher self.
Last week, our exploration of this chakra was humbling. Or it was for me, anyway. I’ve spent so much time in this life’s journey overcorrecting on embodiment and grounding that I’ve neglected the higher centers, in a way. The benefit of knowing and opening the lower centers (especially for women) is enormous and cannot be understated, but I feel now it’s time to incorporate (literally—embody) the higher centers, too. I just finished a 5-day meditation retreat with my teacher, John Churchill, so I feel well-prepared to guide us into this space of cosmic thought and connection.
I just wish I had that queenly headdress to wear while I’m doing it…👸🏻
Coming Home meditation is open to anyone curious about exploring our subtle energy system. No pre-registration is required. Suggested exchange is $20, but if you are a paid subscriber it’s free. You can pay on Venmo @ElizabethSchuyler-Brown or PayPal schuyler@artofemergence.com. Thank you! 🙏🏻💎