“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.

Next in the chakra series is the power center, the Third Chakra, the Solar Plexus, Manipura, City of Jewels.

The color is yellow like the Sun. How we shine as individuals within the collective.

The element is fire. Passion. Drive.

The energetic location is at the soft spot just below the rib cage along the midline of the body.

The body parts are the solar plexus and the digestive organs.

The First Chakra deals with the vast collective of a person’s family and past, the Second Chakra explores one-on-one relationships, and here at the Third Chakra we come into the singularity of the Self. This chakra is where the Ego, the sense of self, resides.

Issues associated with this chakra are power, individuation, the “Who-am-I” in the world, autonomy. While the role of the individual is the focal point here, this individuality is in relation to others. We cannot truly know who we are until we explore who we are not.

Transmutation, which is taking in one element and transforming it into another, is evidenced here physically in this chakra by taking in food, transforming it through the fire of the digestive system into energy the body can use and eliminating what is not needed.

Energetically, this charka is about how we take what the world gives us and how we radiate our inner light as individuals.