The pillar of light — A chakra meditation

This meditation is based on an exercize in Christopher Penczak's City Magick and was written collaboratively by my friend Plex and me. I am by no means an expert in meditation, merely a person who has grown quite fond of this one over the years and simultaneously grown frustrated by the lack of a decent write-up. A spiritual belief in chakras is by no means required here and if you are the type to groan at such notions I would encourage you to treat them as simple visualisations of various clusters of concepts and mental processes, which allow you to grasp and manipulate diffuse, branching notions with the ease afforded by metaphor. One does not need to believe in literal butterflies in the literal stomach for such a description to be of use.

Find a comfortable position and straighten your spine. Feel the way your resting weight is held by the ground and stabilized by your posture. It should feel secure and effortless. Breathe deeply and quiet the noise of your mind. It might take a while, but count yourself down into a meditative state and become aware of yourself and your energy. Your bodily sensations and the background hum of your cognition.
Visualize a beam of light, like a rope or string, from the base of your spine, your root chakra, down to the center of Earth. This connects you to the world and your physical location within it. To your home or your city or whatever site has offered you a space to linger. You may want to take a moment to get a sense of place, especially if it isn't one you are well acquainted with. Feel the textures of it, its functions, the traces of its inhabitants and the history it carries with itself. Ask for a channel to the very heart of this Earth, and not to any intervening impurities. The energy of Earth is wild and clear and the thread which connects you might be a sturdy anchor or a gossamer thread, so long as it can facilitate this light to pass through it.
Visualize energy coming up from Earth through this cord and up to the root chakra at the base of your spine; the center of your primal survival drives like hunger, shelter, and physical security, often blocked by fear. This is the base of Maslov's hierarchy, governed by your limbic system. Notice the ways in which your fears are affecting you, and let them float away, trusting and affirming your whole being's pledge to assure your safety. Hold the hot ember which keeps your animal body alive and feel your root chakra open. Feel energy swirling around and flowing upwards as the fears that block these systems recede into the cleansing current that washes through you. Some people see it, others feel it. Simply know this is happening. If your inner senses are more developed, you may get more information. As you do this exercise, your introspective senses will grow.
The energy moves up to your sacral chakra in your belly, home of your motivation and reward systems, enmeshed with pleasurable activities like creativity, physical intimacy, satisfaction at things well done, and wholesome grounding pleasures. A radiant warmth often blocked by guilt. Feel these systems wake up in a vortex of energy that dissolves the tug towards unsatisfying sticky patterns and habits —towards unwanted addictions or myopic dopamine seeking. Feel the glow in your belly, the rightness of things that feel genuinely good. Know it is there.
The energy moves up to your solar plexus chakra, the core of your selfhood, the boundary between you and the world, seat of your willpower and the projection of your intention. Feel the energy built from all the other chakras' opening pressing up through any blockages, like shame, in this chakra, opening it up in a pulse of energy. Feel the blazing light in your solar plexus, right below your diaphragm. Feel the power of this chakra —of identity and drive.
The energy moves up to your heart chakra, source of your bonds with loved ones, kin, and tribe, often blocked by grief. Be with the connections you nurture now, the ones you can see blossoming in the future, and let yourself honour the ones that were lost. Feel your heart and chest open wide as deep connections and loving-kindness come clearly into your mind. Feel your heart open and know the pulsing energy in your chest as it reaches out to touch all that you hold dear.
The energy rises up to your throat, your organ of communication, truly pure when opening a clear path to truth. Remember that reality does not disappear when it is ignored and is not worsened by honest examination but remain compassionate towards the moments in which you have faltered and looked away from painful truths. Feel your chakra release the tension of maintaining lies and blinders, as you come into authenticity and openness in a swirl of energy. Feel the weight of words unspoken and truths unacknowledged fade away as they dissolve into the current. Breathe the world as it is, clear and without obstruction. Know the power of communication at your throat chakra.
The energy rises to your brow, or third eye chakra, seat of your self-reflectivity, metacognition, and inner senses. That which remains unseen and unfelt stays frozen in time, but when exposed to the light of awareness a moment of transformation can heal a wound that has lasted a lifetime. Feel these systems start to flow cleanly and let illusions, confusions, and false understandings dissolve as you return to direct contact with your experience. See your inner world grow crisp and tactile as you re-establish trust for what is evident. This chakra opens up in a pulse of energy and clarity. Feel the energy shine from your forehead, opening up your introspective abilities. Know they are opening up.
The energy reaches the top of your head, your crown chakra, the process of letting go and falling upwards into transformational and transcendent experience, integrating your whole being and all the other chakras into a more cohesive and coherent whole. Feel the way it naturally loosens and reforms the connections of your system —relieving strains and finding more harmonious resting states like the annealing of a metal. This chakra is blocked by attachments, tying you into uncomfortable and unstable configurations. Gently let them go. Release the predefined outcomes, rigid rules, and fossilized patterns that pin down your mind, and trust the unfolding. Hold the mental statue of yourself and let it crumble, knowing you will reform better without needing to cling onto anything. Feel the chakra open up as you dissolve into something new, as your consciousness reweaves itself. Feel the natural flow of the crown chakra towards harmony. Know you are opening up to what lies beyond your ego.
Let the energy rise out of your crown up into the air, like a beacon, connecting you to the Sky —to a space of pure, weightless potentiality. Ask to be tethered to the heart of the Sky, as you did for the Earth, and become a series of links in the chain connecting Earth and Sky as if extending your string upwards. Feel as the pressure which has washed through your chakras is released. Taste the admixture of all that the current has picked up along its path and let it go.
Feel the energy from the Sky descend like a lightning bolt, entering your crown, and quickly moving through your brow, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral, and root chakras, descending through the grounding cord and into the Earth. Let yourself be a conduit for this energy as it travels frictionlessly along the path you have cleared for it. All your chakras are cleansed, energized, and opened. Neither thoughts nor intentions will encounter resistance as they pass through you.
Be with your breath for a while and consider what would be nourishing to you in this moment. You may continue with a different exercise or you may count yourself up from the meditative state and do what is best. Once the experience is complete, feel for any remaining charge within you and let it return to the Earth and Sky. You are left refreshed and realigned. Fluid, whole and free.