Energy Anatomy: LEF/Chakras
We have been taught that we are made up of body, mind, and spirit. When you think about it, already two of the major aspects of who we are remain invisible to the eye — the mental and the spiritual, neither of which we can see, but we know they exist nonetheless. Maybe you know about acupuncture, with its energy meridians that run through the body; and maybe you have heard that the main energy centers deep in our bodies are called chakras (seven in the traditional view; nine in the Shamanic. Each chakra relates to specific parts or aspects of the physical, emotional and spiritual bodies).
Rather than the three layers of Body, Mind, and Spirit, the Luminous Energy Field from the Shamanic tradition is comprised of four layers of light that surround the body, much the same as Russian stacking dolls, one inside the other. The outer layer is the Physical, our body itself. Traveling inward is the layer of Mind, of thinking and emotion; inside that is the layer of Soul, composed of Archetypes; inside that, the layer of Spirit, which lies just outside the skin. This LEF, which feeds and informs our chakras, contains an archive of all of our personal and ancestral memories, and contains a template of how we live, how we age, how we heal, how we may die.
In the Medicine traditions, dis-ease can manifest at any, or all, levels. While imprints in the Physical layer can cause illness, imprints in the Mental layer cause us to attract certain people and situations into our lives; imprints in the Soul layer determine how we see our reality- our "story"; and imprints in the Spirit layer determine how we take our journey through this life. In working to clear this energy, it does not matter which layer it is in, nor whether it originates from you, yourself, or whether it was put there by another (being "stabbed in the back" is a real experience in your energy field).
Shamanic work is always performed in a "sacred space." Calling in the protection of the Four Directions of the Medicine Wheel, wherever we are, we create a safe space in which we do this work, much as a surgeon performs his work in a sterile environment. We leave the mundane world behind to enter into a quiet place that is dedicated to deep and lasting healing, to clear the energies that no longer serve, and draw in those that will.