The Crystal Workshop: A Journey into the Healing Power of Crystals - Azalea Lee 2020

Crystals, Colors, and Chakras

BEFORE I BECAME A CRYSTAL HEALER, I always wondered how authors of crystal books knew how a crystal related to a particular chakra. Was it some special gift? It seemed as though these authors belonged to some elite metaphysical club whose crystal secrets were revealed only to the most psychically gifted. Perhaps I needed decades, even lifetimes, of metaphysical training before I could get even a glimpse of the understanding that these crystal savants had. But when I went to study under my crystal teacher, Katrina Raphaell, founder of the Crystal Academy of Advanced Healing Arts, I discovered that the relationship between crystals and chakras was easy enough for anyone, even someone with zero metaphysical training, to understand. But before you learn how simple it is, you must first have an understanding of what chakras are.

In the last chapter, I explained how the root chakra manages grounding energy for you. But you have additional chakras that manage other energies for you too. Derived from Sanskrit, meaning “wheels of light,” chakras are metaphysical portals located in your subtle body that extend outward in the front and back of your body. And just as a prism separates white light into different colors of the rainbow, chakras distribute your metaphysical energy into different categories. Like spinning tops, these chakras emanate revolving vortexes that separate, collect, and transmit metaphysical energy.

While you have thousands of chakras emanating from your subtle body, the most significant ones run along the length of your spine, from the base of your tailbone to the top of your head. The number of these major chakras, as well as their exact location and purpose, depends on the system. The Tibetan, Cherokee, Mayan, Incan, ancient Egyptian, and Zulu cultures, as well as the energetic systems of Kabbalah and Chinese chi, all have their own variation on the energy portal system (though there are similarities that are significant). Common to many of the different systems are individual chakras that manage your energetic relationship to your physical body and to your survival, emotions, love, communication, thinking, and connection to the divine. Of all the systems, the most familiar and widely accepted in modern Western culture is based on the Vedic system of seven major chakras. If you’ve gone into a yoga studio or metaphysical shop and seen a rainbow banner with a different symbol within each of the seven colors, this is the system that is being illustrated.

Each of your chakras rotates with energy, but the quality of motion they exhibit is dependent on their state. Your chakras can be in a state of overrotation (too much energy), underrotation (not enough energy), or balance (just right). Because individually your chakras can be in any one of these possible states, you can have a combination of balanced, overactivated, and underactivated chakras all at the same time. But these states are not static; they are always in flux, shifting from one state to another depending on how they respond to energy as it moves through them.

This means that whatever combination of states your chakras are in can be shifted by any new inflow of energy. Perhaps you are getting frustrated (energy that is being produced from within you), or someone is angry with you (energy that is coming from outside of you that you are likely pulling into yourself). The more balanced your individual chakras are, the more likely it is that you will be able to process this energy and bounce back to a balanced state. But any over- or underrotating chakras are likely to be pushed farther in their respective direction of unbalance. There will be some situations (like spilling food on a new shirt) that may trigger only small flare-ups of passing emotion and experience, while other situations (like a bad breakup) cause a more persistent effect on your chakras because of the amount and depth of energy needed to process and move through the experiences.

Balancing and strengthening your chakras will improve their resiliency. Even improving the resiliency of just one chakra can help all your chakras as a whole. This is because a single balanced chakra can act as a stabilizer, giving the other unbalanced chakras a point of reference to orient themselves to. And the more balanced a chakra is, the more even and consistent its spin is, making it far less prone to being knocked out of place by any other force of energy, whether it is generated from outside or inside of yourself.

The more balanced your chakras become, the more balanced the energies you will project into your aura—and the more balanced the energy is that you send out into the world. Though balancing your chakras may seem an insignificant deed compared to fixing the larger problems of the world, by doing so you will have actually made a significant contribution to the world’s healing. For not only will you have created more peace, love, and harmony for yourself, you will also project the neutral energies of peace, love, and harmony for the world to interact with; this is because the energy you express will lack the polarity that would incite others to be pulled out of balance when interacting with you.

THE CHAKRAS AND CRYSTALS

Because chakras work within a specific focus of energy, they also have a specific range of frequency. This causes them to resonate with anything that has the same frequency of vibration. Thus chakras can have parallel affinities to astrological signs, symbols, numbers, planets, musical notes, foods, and more. In the previous chapter, I went into detail about why hematite’s energy most strongly parallels the qualities of the root chakra. While hematite is the crystal most resonant with the root chakra’s purpose, a great many other crystals also resonate with root chakra energy. How to determine this, or what other crystals go with what chakra, is quite simple—all you need to learn is the relationship between chakras and color.

As I mentioned above, the chakra colors of the Vedic system mirror the bands of color found on a rainbow. Beginning with the root chakra and the color red, the colors progress through the rainbow with each chakra until you reach the crown chakra and the color violet. While the seven-chakra Vedic system is ideally suited for a broad range of energetic healing applications like Reiki and color therapy, because crystals have been created in the density of the physical plane, they have a range and distribution of coloring that is more dense than the pure color energies represented in the Vedic system. Thus the following eight-chakra system, as taught to me by Katrina Raphaell, has proven to be both a simple and powerful system to work with in conjunction with crystals, for it most strongly reflects how crystalline energy has been distributed on the physical plane and, in my experience as a crystal healer, works exceedingly well for the range and distribution of colors that crystals come in. All you need do to apply it is to match the color of the stone with the color of the chakra!

As you’ll see in the chart on the next page, each of the eight major chakras correspond to a specific color, which can then be matched to the color of the stone or crystal you are working with. While the crystal will have its metaphysical properties influenced by its chemical makeup and crystalline lattice, the crystal’s color will determine which chakra it most resonates with. Even if you were colorblind and could not see the crystal’s actual color, the crystal would still affect the chakra with which it resonates, because the wavelength at which the color vibrates would not change.

Though there are rare exceptions of stones that will resonate more strongly with chakras other than the chakra color they match, it’s not something to concern yourself with. Although crystals do have affinities to certain chakras, this does not mean that a crystal’s energy will be limited to just one chakra. In fact, there are many instances where using a crystal for a different chakra is quite beneficial. Because your unique energies interact with a crystal in an individual way, you may benefit from what is considered a “nontraditional” pairing of crystal to chakra. Remember: Crystals are very much like food. Pairings like avocado ice cream or tomato cake may be unusual for many, but as long as these foods taste good to you, that’s all that counts. Likewise, as long as you get helpful results from a crystal’s energy, that is all that matters. And experimenting with a crystal on different chakras deepens your intuitive connection with the crystal itself, allowing you to develop a better, more well-rounded understanding of how the crystal is personally able to help you.

You will also encounter stones that are a mixture of the main chakra colors. For instance, prehnite is often chartreuse, a mixture of yellow and green. Because the green color resonates with the solar plexus and the yellow with the navel chakra, this crystal can be used on either chakra, or in between the two chakras. Orange stones, like an orange-colored calcite or spessartine garnet, resonate with both the yellow navel chakra and the red creative chakra, or in between.

Labradorite is an example of a stone that changes color depending on what direction you look at it from. This effect is the result of an optical phenomenon called chatoyancy that causes the concentration of reflected light to change as the mineral is turned.

Some crystals clearly exhibit bands of different colors within the same stone. For instance, the crystal ametrine is a hybrid of amethyst and citrine quartz and contains distinct purple and golden yellow zones of color. In this case, the crystal resonates both with the purple of the third eye chakra and the yellow of the navel chakra and can be used with either. Watermelon tourmaline, like its namesake, has distinct sections of pink and green that resonate with the heart and solar plexus chakras. These are examples of dual-purpose stones, which have relationships with more than one chakra and serve a special purpose linking up the energies between them. They also help reveal the relationships between the different chakras and how they are able to work together to bring healing to each respective area.

Sometimes you will encounter a stone like labradorite that generally reads as deep blue while also having flashes of red, yellow, and green, depending on the way the stone is refracting the light. Though you see all the other colors, the dark blue is the most predominant, making the stone most resonant with the third eye chakra.

You may also encounter stones that do not have a color that can be easily matched with a chakra. These stones tend not to be bold in color and are far more drab in hue. Perhaps the crystal in question is somewhat red, or maybe a little orangey red—or maybe brown? You can’t quite decide. That’s okay. The best thing to do is to go with the first impression you have of the stone’s color. If red was your first response, try using it with your creative chakra. Otherwise, try using it with another chakra and test it out to see how the crystal works with you.

Going with your first response is a technique that is also helpful for stones that contain a multitude of colors, like many kinds of agates and jaspers. For instance, blue lace agate is a stone with bands of light blue and white, but when you look at it, the overall impression of color is of light blue. A stone like rainforest jasper has patches of yellow, orange, and whitish gray, but the dominant color that you see is green. So whenever you have a stone that has many various colors but one overarching dominant color, the dominant color would be the main color to choose to pair with a chakra. And another note: Even if someone else looks at the same stone and has a different opinion of the stone’s color, remember the stone is interacting with your energies. Thus the color you see is the color that is going to be most helpful to you.

You may even see the same kind (aka species) of stone expressed in different colors. This is because specific conditions in Mother Earth will change the color of the crystal while it is growing. For instance, calcite from one location may be white while in another part of the world it’s blue. You may even find different hues within the same mineral vein; this happens because there are ultraspecific conditions, different trace minerals as well as potentially a different microclimate, that affect the final shape and color of a stone. It is the final color that is expressed, the color that you see, that you refer to in order to determine which chakra the crystal best resonates with.

If you already have a collection of crystals, this is a good moment to observe the palette of colors you have. If you notice that your collection gravitates toward a specific color, it could mean that you have needed to work with the particular chakra that the color is associated with. But if you significantly lack any other colors of stones, it’s likely to mean that the chakra whose color you have been most attracted to is overactivated. Focusing on one particular chakra means you are giving it attention and energy at the expense of the others. This lopsided dispersal of attention is detrimental to your overall healing, because it means you have been ignoring the needs of your other chakras in favor of one chakra. The chakra will be overactivated and will pull energies from the other chakras in order to maintain its overactive state, putting the rest of your chakras in a state of imbalance.

Remember, all healing is about balance. This also applies to healing yourself through the crystals with a balance of colors. So as you continue to add crystals to your tool kit, be cognizant of having a balance of crystals that will be supportive with all your chakras.

Now you are no longer in mystery and have the information to determine which crystal goes with what chakra! See how simple it was to pair them?

Ametrine is a combination of natural amethyst and citrine found in the same crystal. Because it has both amethyst and citrine energies, it will simultaneously resonate with both the third eye and navel chakras.

Because fire agates predominantly exhibit the color red, they resonate most strongly with the creative chakra. But because they also display iridescence, each will also resonate with any chakras it shows colors for.

Each one of these crystals is a form of calcite—and each resonates with a different chakra based on their most dominant color.

Slices of naturally multicolored tourmalines

THE EIGHT-CHAKRA SYSTEM

In order to get the most out of crystalline healing energy, it’s important to have an understanding of the major chakras and the role each plays in your spiritual health. It is a subject worthy of more in-depth study than will be covered by this book; in the meantime, the following summaries will help orient you to the purposes of the different chakras so that you can understand how each influences you.

This eight-chakra system, taught to me by my crystal teacher, Katrina Raphaell, is a system that I have found works very synergistically with crystalline energy. As you continue with your studies, the relationship between chakras and crystals will become more significant, and this information will help you better understand your own healing process as well as the energetic potential within each crystal you encounter.

ROOT CHAKRA

Theme

Survival

Purpose

To show that you are fully supported by Mother Earth and have everything you need to thrive on her; to connect and ground higher divine energies through the physical body and then into Mother Earth.

When Balanced

Security and vitality with physical health and wealth. Nonjudgment of physicality and its primal, animal nature. Connected to Earth and its energies and patterns. Clear and balanced energetic boundaries.

When Overactive

Material desperation, greed, fear of nature, obsessive sexuality bereft of love or soul-fulfilling pleasure; preoccupation with illness, being physically harmed, death, and/or dying; ungrounded from being unbalanced by too much psychic or mental activity.

When Underactive

Apathy to survival, a life of extreme control or predictability, denial of one’s animal nature, poverty consciousness, physical laziness.

CREATIVE CHAKRA

Theme

Vitality

Purpose

To show that physical life is also physical pleasure; that this is healthy as long as it is in balance with the rest of your life. To practice sex in a higher, more sacred form. To express the playfulness within sensate experiences that are the precursors to creativity.

When Balanced

A healthy and pleasurable relationship with food, sex, smells, physical movement, rest, and other physically based sensations. Sensuality and sex as an expression of love and intimacy. Vitality and zest for physical life.

When Overactive

Lust, gluttony, hedonism, lack of moderation, the perceived need for drugs and alcohol in order to have “fun” in one’s life.

When Underactive

Sloth, indifference, or overly strict denial of sensuality.

NAVEL CHAKRA

Theme

Manifestation

Purpose

To bring the conceptual into physical manifestation. To assimilate and process experiences in order to fully understand all the factors that contribute to manifestation. To learn lessons about personal power.

When Balanced

Ability to transition the energy of ethereal thoughts and ideas into tangible physical reality. Being in charge of one’s life. Balanced use of willpower. The sense of empowerment.

When Overactive

Desperation or the brute use of force to achieve goals. Overconfidence. Goals manifested in a corrupted form.

When Underactive

Lethargy or apathy toward manifestation in one’s life. Inability to manifest. The perception that one lacks power.

SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA

Theme

Emotions

Purpose

To teach you the importance of feelings. To use them as an essential way of understanding yourself and your truth. To use emotions in a just, fair, and compassionate way toward yourself and others. To show how emotions and feelings are a direct connection to intuitive information.

When Balanced

Healthy expression of all emotions. The expression of feelings at the right moment in balanced ways. Being true to oneself emotionally.

When Overactive

Emotions used to inflict pain or control on others. Lack of awareness with one’s emotions. Impinging on others’ emotional spaces.

When Underactive

Denial, resistance, repression, and/or avoidance of feelings. Ennui.

HEART CHAKRA

Theme

Love

Purpose

To embody the highest and most powerful vibration in the Universe, love. To express and project this love and its subsets into the world. To serve as an energetic bridge translating information between the lower physical chakras (root chakra to solar plexus) and the upper spiritual chakras (heart to crown). To teach how love for the world is synonymous with love of self. Universe. To understand that love is what underlies all things.

When Balanced

Based and centered on love. Innate joyfulness. Peacefulness with others and the world. Self-love. Acceptance of self and others.

When Overactive

The need to rescue others. Placing others before one’s self. Excessive desire to please. Martyrdom.

When Underactive

Sadness, loneliness, emptiness, despondence. Feelings of shame.

THROAT CHAKRA

Theme

Communication

Purpose

To express your unique talents and your highest truth. To understand the importance of the energy behind words, and using them with intention. To say what you mean and mean what you say. The lesson of listening.

When Balanced

Unhindered expression of one’s self. Ability to openly and freely express one’s thoughts and feelings. The ability to listen clearly. Integrity of words and thus action.

When Overactive

Talking over people. Domineering in communication. Inability to listen to others. Garrulousness.

When Underactive

Extreme shyness or quietness. Avoidant communication especially with difficult subjects. Denying expression of one’s true self and talents.

THIRD EYE CHAKRA

Theme

Inner sight

Purpose

To develop and refine intuitive ability. To perceive the differences between psychic impression, imagination, projection, fantasy, and illusion. To develop perceptive clarity. To be able to direct the mind rather than be led by it.

When Balanced

Ability to discern between thoughts, emotions, and psychic impressions from mental thought. Psychic abilities grounded into reality.

When Overactive

Anxious and/or obsessive thinking. Worry. Inaccurate psychic impressions. Distorted spirituality. Strict reliance on intelligence.

When Underactive

Lack of imagination. Lack of connection to one’s psychic abilities.

CROWN CHAKRA

Theme

Oneness

Purpose

To realize one’s connection to divinity. To understand that one is connected to the greater whole of life and the Universe. To embody knowingness. To be a channel for divine energy to come through one’s self. To develop wisdom. To experience enlightenment and bliss.

When Balanced

Trusting. Tranquil. In a state of inner knowing.

When Overactive

Paranoia. Egoism.

When Underactive

Mistrust. Suspicion.

Examples of in-between colored stones. Clockwise from top: astrophyllite, calcite, coprolite, spinel in marble, and wavellite

Balancing Chakras

Your chakras are dynamic, always processing energy, and thus always in a state of flux. But each of your chakras has a “default setting” that you have established by habitually dealing with life’s situations in a particular way. This creates an energetic set point for each chakra, and from it, its “normal” range of expression. What some chakras consider “normal” may actually be unhealthily skewed, but as you continue to strengthen them, your set points for them will gradually move toward a healthier and more balanced state.

It’s important to remember that bringing chakras into greater balance is not a linear process, for each of your individual chakras is at a different stage of healing. Although the balancing of a single chakra can significantly contribute to the stability and balance of other chakras, it is not unusual for a newly balanced chakra to throw off other, formerly balanced chakras. When you straighten a pipe bent at many angles, one evened-out kink can cause the entire pipe to bend a different way. This sort of ripple effect also happens when a newly balanced chakra, whose energy now flows without impedance, influences how energy flows throughout the chakra system on the whole. The once-stable chakras now waver, revealing the compensatory energetic architecture that was created to keep energy moving through the system. Fortunately, because they are already familiar with the “tone” of a more balanced state, chakras will have an easier time finding their way back to balance.

It is also important to understand that “chakra balance” does not mean a static state of perfection but rather a state of being. Because you are constantly challenged by the interactions you have with yourself and the world, your chakras will always experience an ebb and flow of energy. And like a dancer who must shift their balance every time they change position, your chakras are also in an active state, keeping themselves in balance with any new energies they encounter. This means there will be situations that you will have an easier time staying in balance with, while other scenarios you will find to be more difficult. For example, your heart chakra may find it easy to freely give and receive love from animals but may find it much harder to do the same with people. Or perhaps you generally have a great deal of patience and kindness for humankind but have a certain relative who grates on your nerves in the worst possible way. So while on the whole your heart chakra may be in balance, there are still circumstances and situations that will challenge its ability to stay centered. Thus the state of being in balance with your chakras is an ongoing process.

However, each new experience you have will show you where you can become more skilled at maintaining balance, teaching you to become more perceptive to the nuances of energy within each of your chakras as you learn to recognize their individual tendencies. This results in each encounter becoming yet a deeper lesson in the understanding and practice of chakra balance. Like an acrobat who is able to balance on top of a unicycle while on a tightrope, you will develop more precision with your balance, as well as greater strength to regain it, so that situations you once found difficult you will no longer find challenging.

True citrine comes in a range of colors, from pale yellow to dark amber to a yellowish-tinged smoky gray-brown. As seen here, even citrine rods from the same locality come in different yellows; variations occur even within a crystal itself.

“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”

—William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116”

Sometime during this quartz’s growth, it became dusted with a layer of hematite. The quartz continued to grow on top of it, leaving an outline or “phantom” of hematite.

“Love is metaphysical gravity.”

—Buckminster Fuller

Crystal spheres. left side, top to bottom: black tourmaline with chrysocolla, blue lace agate, rose quartz. right side, top to bottom: ocean jasper, lepidolite, quartz, pinolith

“Who knows whether this tumult of triangles inscribed in stone, first brought about by nature and then by art, does not contain one of the secret cyphers of the universe?”

—Roger Caillois, The Writing of Stones

Natural triangle-shaped etchings on the surface of a quartz crystal

Quartz with a naturally sharp point