The fourth chakra is green, verdant, and located at the chest, the sternum. It controls love and empathy, charity and catharsis, fraternity and belonging, jealousy and contempt. Its energy can be controlled by the stones Jade, Rose Quartz, and Malachite. After the being accepts that, even with all its faults and benefits, it is a complete and whole entity, it looks out into the rest of the world and sees Every Other Being. Every Other Being, like the first being, has gone through the exact same struggle: Primal creation to passion to contentment, and must be respected as much as the first being respects itself, no matter how much Every Other Being might differ from first being in appearance, personality, or disposition.
A parable was created this year to help in explaining the Fourth Chakra process:
1. One Fires, They All Fire: The Fourth Chakra operates like cardiac muscle. Unlike smooth muscle, which is basically just tubular sphincters used to transport fluid and whatever down a corridor, and although very similar to striated muscle, which contains protein striations which attach to each other and push and pull against each other to manipulate bones and extrabodily matter, the striations in cardiac muscle go in-between muscle cells so that the striations of one cell connect to every other cell in the heart. When electrical impulses transfer from the SA node to the AV node, the spark hits one cardiac muscle cell and sets off a chain reaction to the others like a ping-pong ball in a mousetrap factory. This synchronized display of strength generates the energy needed for the heart to pump blood throughout the entire body through miles of vascular tubing. In other words, when your Fourth Chakra is open, the love you feel for the world goes out to everyone in the world. You cannot hold back because of one person or group of people. It doesn't work that way. Even the most despicable, odious person who maligned you the the worst way possible deserves your time and attention and love. You love one, you love all. Or you love none.
I'm supposed to be writing about Tchotchke, the girl who permeates most of the second half of this journey. I'm supposed to be writing about the many trips we had this year, road trips and flights, Arizona and St. Louis, and oh so many to her alma mater in Milwaukee. Supposed to be waxing nostalgic about our Tuesday Date Nights in the Glen, appetizers and a Six Pack, sneaking candy into the movies for the double features at the Wilmette Theater, cooking "Zucch-anoes" for me, and dinner at Culver's every chance we could. Supposed to be writing about her battle with endometriosis, going to support groups together, my reaction after her decisive laparotomy, and her, bandaged and recovering, sitting front row at one of my shows. Writing about the epic arguments, the phone calls three, four, five, six times a day, the constant fact-checking behind every decision I made, her intense reactionary temper and fabled Irish drinking skills. About family gatherings, her golden impression upon my huge family, her small, intimate holiday affairs, her genuine interest into the world of the Deaf, and what to do when the vegetarian has to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. And too much more to give her complete justice on paper.
But I'm not ready to do that right now.
This year was my most successful as a professional actor. Six auditions, four gigs, two of them paid, and one allowed me to travel. First was an improv show through Second City. I hesitate to mention it was through the Training Center, as most people stop caring after they hear that. At audition we had one scene where we reacted to a run-over cat, and dear me, someone had to play the cat, right? Damn skippy! Second, a horror movie shot out of Milwaukee. One of the few gigs I knew I had nailed right from the audition. The commute was purgatory, shooting schedule worse than hell, but I had my first feature film under my belt less than two years out of school, and I was proud. There was that fruity little insect parade for some small theater downtown, but that's not really worth regurgitating, at least not in great detail. Third was a script my then-roommate wrote and self-produced. I don't get many leading roles and was damn happy to oblige, yet I yearned for something edgier than a story straight out of DC's Elseworlds universe. Held a summer internship with a monologue festival where I got to work with Frank Caliendo's girlfriend, hold the keys for the old ComedySportz theater, and had my bike stolen. Fourth and finally was a three-month, nine-state, ten-thousand mile excursion through the Midwest playing Huckleberry Finn for grade schools everywhere. My childhood dream of doing vaudeville was finally coming true, slowly and painfully, one dank rural elementary school basement after another.
This is the year I started on-line journaling. I hate the word "blog"; prefer to call it my "website", as if the term alone gave it more credentials. Created one for Uncle Freddy as well. Wrote, recorded, edited, and produced three episodes of the radio show this year alone, including one completely on tour from hotel rooms, just because I could. Used the open forum of the website to start burying the hatchet with the girl I divorced three years earlier, and she responded in kind. All of this stuff, the original writings and audio clips, still exist online and are easy enough to find. My dayplanner writings get very ornate and condensed. I record all 175 shows on the road, with individual snippets about each. My Sunday pilgrimages in Humboldt Park, although sweet and picturesque, with a brisk walk through the PR barrio, pale in comparison to everywhere else I've trekked. I pick up a string of jadelike beads in Sedona and construct my own 4th chakra mala along with the developing patchwork stalwart, but being on the road and low on funds gets me experimenting with different materials, wire and hemp twine, for Year Five.
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Now playing: The Killers - All These Things That I've Done
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