In this series we’re looking at the chakras or energy centers of our energy body. Picture a pipe running along your spine from the bottom to the top. Along it lies a rainbow of energy centers.

The incoming energy from the Creator enters the pipe at the lowest chakra or energy center, the red ray. It proceeds upwards, if the pipe is not blocked, through orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet rays, exiting the body at the crown of the head and returning to the Creator from there.

The red-ray energy center lies at the base of the spine, resting in the groin. The red-ray center is the seat of thoughts, emotions, feelings and impulses having to do with survival and sexuality. When your joy is missing, the first place to look for its blockage in the energy body is the base chakra of red ray. That’s where we tend to get caught first and snagged away from our peaceful, natural state of good energy flow.

Our culture can promote feelings of depression, uselessness and suicidal impulse because of its tendency to view human beings as consumers without souls. Our corporations can also promote these deep-seated feelings because of undervaluing employees, overworking and underpaying them and not finding appreciation for them in terms of offering them the benefits of health coverage and pensions. The resulting stress level can be a huge challenge.

There is a strong tendency, as people get a bit older, and lose that first flush of rosy optimism, for us to develop the feeling that not only do we not matter in the grand scheme of things but that we cannot possibly matter. The feelings of helplessness are fostered by a culture that wishes its citizens to consume rather than think, feel, dream and become better human beings.

To balance these pervasive influences we need to call on our faculties of faith and hope. Our peace of mind - and the resulting free flow of energy through red ray in the energy pipe - depends upon our invoking the spirit of the living Creator, which is always with us to inform us as to how to make our life have meaning through our intentions of loving and serving the Creator in ourselves and others.

Sexuality is, at its start within us, the most base of our human natural instincts. It is also potentially its most noble glory. Strictly speaking of red ray, the sexual energy of the untutored, young male is random. His instinct is to impregnate as many females as possible and assure the continuation of the human race.

In a dynamic much discussed throughout the ages, the sexual energy of the female is not at all random. Speaking strictly of red ray, the female’s instinct is to pick the strongest “alpha male” for a mate so that her offspring will be taken care of. That is the arrangement in the great ape family of which our bodies are a part.

So if we do not allow the energy of our sexuality to rise above red ray, we have a problem, Houston! Men want to nail women while women want to put off being nailed until they are mated.

The potential for our sexuality is much more than this rather simple and predictable dynamic. When we form a sincere liking for another person who is also a sexual partner, the energy in the pipeline rises to the next stop along the way, the orange ray, which is located in the belly. When we take responsibility for that affection and formalize the relationship in marriage, the energy rises again, this time up into the solar plexus location of yellow ray.

The shock of being tied down by relationships and marriages is not easy for either men or women, although women tend to adjust to the stricture better than men. There is a continuing tendency to feel as though we are chained in the yard of marriage and can only run to the end of our line and bark. It makes us restless.

Once we do recover from that shock and experience how true companionship and support helps us flower and bloom as individuals, sexual energy can rise up the pipeline into green ray, which is the heart chakra. This is the beginning of the Big Bingo in sacred sexuality.

Green ray, the heart chakra, sees all things with unifying, unconditional love. To green ray, sexuality is sacred play, a ménage a trios your mate, yourself and the Creator a play in the fields of the Lord. To green ray, your mate is not a man or a woman. Your mate is Man or Woman and you are Woman or Man - whatever applies to you. You have left behind the particularity of the lower nature of humankind and have become able to share unconditional love back and forth between you as an offering to the one Creator.

It adds a tremendous kick to the hot and slippery friction of red ray, the genuine fondness of orange ray and the honor, respect and organization into family of yellow ray! It makes of sexuality that wonderful force that recapitulates the Creator making creation out of light and love.

I open my arms and embrace your spirit. May you find in your sexuality the power and the peace of sacred energy! And may you use it with love, honor and infinite respect.