Our on-going journey, as consciousness transitions from structure to energy to light as a basis for support, is full of delightful surprises. To work with this little gem, you will need a strong imagination, lots of patience, and a sense of play. We are going to use octahedrons as a master key to help liberate the light energy in the chakras. As this is a fractal, we can use them anywhere through the embodied fields, including joints, organs and cells.

The regular octahedron is one of the five platonic solids, a three dimensional shape where all of the faces are the same regular (all sides equal) polygon, and the same number of polygons meet at each corner. In the octahedron there are eight equilateral triangles, with four triangles meeting at each corner. This little 87 carat beauty to the right is a yellow diamond, which, unfortunately was stolen from the Harvard Minerological Museum and has probably been cut into smaller pieces. The cuprite crystals below are much smaller. Above is green fluorite.

The other Platonic solids include: the tetrahedron, 4 triangles, 3 at a corner: the cube or hexahedron with 6 squares, 3 to a corner; the dodecahedron with 12 pentagons and 3 meeting at the corners; and the icosahedron with 20 triangles and 5 meeting at the corners. Plato was fascinated with these shapes and associated each with one of the 4 classical elements: earth as the cube, water the iscosahedron, air the octahedron and fire with the tetrahedron. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the dodecahedron, so he suggested that the gods use it in aligning the heavens.

In a later post we will convert the octahedron with 6 corners to a stellated octahedron with 8 and have lots of fun playing with that. But for now we will return to the simple octahedron and explore how it can be used as a ‘key’ to unlock the chakras and other energy constellations in the body.

The octahedron has a square center with four corners and two end points. If we stand it up and spin it like a top, we can see it as analagous to the earth spinning on its axis, with the square as the equator and the points as the poles. To take the analogy further, this axis becomes the chakra line or central channel running through the human body, the the 7th chakra as the north pole and the 1st chakra as the south pole. (The universe is a giant fractal!)

Now imagine that our octahedron is like an imaginary allen wrench, which is sort of like a key, (with a square rather than hexagonal cross section) that we can insert into any of the chakras and rotate one way or the other. HOw do you find the chakras? Make a good guess, but as you will find, this pattern is well loved everywhere in the body. We’ll begin with the heart chakra, the center of cosmic balance, just behind the physical heart. Which way to insert the key? We have three choices.

Option 1: the tips align with the chakra line and turning creates rotation along the spinal axis. This looks like the earth turning as above. Because the center is a square, four quarter turns completes one rotation. Then reverse for four more turns. Explore back and forth and feel how the energy and structure responds.

In the beginning, because we tend to have a much stronger presence in the physical plane, the muscles will try to help. As best possible, let the structure, the muscles and bones, be receptive. They may move, but the feeling is like driftwood floating down a very slow moving stream. As you become more grounded in the energy plane, (the stream), allow the energy to be receptive and feel that the points of light at he corners of the octahedron are creating the motion.

Option 2: insert sideways with tips in direction of arms. Turning the key creates flexion and extension energies, or coiling and uncoiling. Choose a direction and complete the four quarter turns. Reverse. Explore the possibilities and responses. Minimize the physical plane help, but let it respond to the imagination.

Option 3: insert from front to back. Turning now creates lateral flexion and extension or side bending. Choose a direction to start, repeat the four quarter turns and their reversal. Explore the responses and openings.

If it helps, imagine that the octahedron is isoceles; that is, the tips extend out further from the center, to get a better ‘grip’ as you turn. To complete this chakra, now imagine all three directions are actualized simultaneously with the tips as points of light. As we started with the heart chakra you can try green, but white light will do as well.

Then explore all the chakras this way, visualizing and opening all 3 spatial directions. this is an open ended exploration. Let your intuition guide you. be patient and repeat, even briefly whenever you can remember. Feel free to bring the octahedrons to anywhere in the body you feel stuck. See what happens. Have fun exploring!