Picture it in your Mind's Eye.

Saying the words, “Third Eye Chakra” sounds so mystical. If you’re not already familiar with the chakras, you might be thinking it sounds like a bunch of woo woo! Well, it’s some pretty powerful woo woo. The Third Eye, or sixth chakra, is an important one.

Your Third Eye Chakra is located just between your eyes, in the middle of your forehead. What makes this chakra so important? The Third Eye is the seat of our intuition. An open and activated Third Eye helps us to see the world with clarity, wisdom, and spiritual connection. When our Third Eye is blocked, we may feel unclear and unable to focus. Having a blocked Third Eye is not necessarily detrimental to our health, but having an open one enhances our experience of life. If you are feeling hopeless and in despair, working on opening and activating your Third Eye could be wonderfully helpful. Opening this chakra can bring us insight and wisdom and help us to feel more connected to our place in this world.

To have insight, intuition, and spiritual wisdom is to have all of your “eyes” open.

The Third Eye Chakra has many connections to our pineal gland. If you looked at a diagram of the brain, the pineal gland is located fairly close to where the Third Eye is. The pineal gland is responsible for monitoring and controlling melatonin and helping with our sleep/wake cycles. It lets in or shuts out the light, just like our eyes do. The pineal has been referred to as the “Third Eye” because of this. Ancient cultures saw the correlation between this gland and the chakra that controls our intuition and spiritual connection. The Hindu god, Lord Shiva, is depicted as having an eye in the middle of his forehead that denotes spiritual connection. In Ancient Egyptian culture the Eye of Horus is a sign of prosperity and protection. The very structure of the Eye of Horus resembles that part of the brain where the pineal gland is located. The six parts of the symbol seem to be representing the six senses and the iris and pupil correspond to the thalamus and pineal gland. The Ancient Egyptians knew a lot about human anatomy, and their connection between the physical parts of the brain and the spiritual connection of the Third Eye is very interesting.

In respect to the Third Eye Chakra, the pineal gland is the “seed” of our intuition and spiritual connection. If we refer back to our image of the body as a tree, at this point in the chakras we are definitely up in the branches. We have leaves, flowers, fruit, and the seeds of these flowers and fruit. I find working with seed and nut oils to be very helpful for the Third Eye Chakra. Since this chakra is also so influential on spiritual connection, I also like using the resin oils.

Here are some of my favorite oils for working with the Third Chakra.

Rose hip Seed: Rose essential oil has one of the highest vibrational energies of any plant oil, and with rose hips being the seed of the rose plant, you can bet rose hip oil is pretty powerful! While oil from the seed of the rose is not exactly the same as oil made from the petals of the rose, there are some similarities in energy. Rose hip oil is about love, particularly divine love and connecting to divine grace, healing, and manifestation. Obviously a powerful oil to use for the Third Eye! Rose hip oil is also high in Vitamins C & E and antioxidants and is great for your skin. So massage a couple drops onto your forehead to activate your Third Eye and nourish your skin at the same time! Note: Rose hip oil does not have a scent! (I was totally expecting it to smell like roses the first time I sniffed it.)

Coriander: Coriander oil is steam distilled from the seed of the plant. It is similar in chemical composition to Lavender. If you’re looking for an oil with the same calming effects as

Did you know Coriander and Cilantro come from the same plant? Just different parts.

Lavender but wanting a different scent, reach for Coriander! Coriander has a green, spicy, woodsy scent and is a middle note in perfumery. Energetically, Coriander is about integrity, especially integrity with yourself. Coriander is great for opening the Third Eye because it helps us to let go of the need to do what is popular in order to do what is right for us.

What we think is the only way may be too limited of a view when we are looking at it from only one perspective. Coriander helps us to see multiple possibilities.

Frankincense: Frankincense is one of my all time favorite oils. It’s not a seed oil, but is hydro distilled from the resin of the Boswellia carterii tree. The resin is like the blood of the tree, and when applying resin oils to our “body tree”, I believe they can be added anywhere. (Our blood flows through all parts of our body, does it not?) I like using Frankincense for the Third Eye especially though, because Frankincense’s energy is about truth, particularly revealing false truths. The Third Eye chakra is about helping us to gain insight and enlightenment, so an oil that helps to reveal deceptions and falsehoods can be very helpful! Frankincense helps recall knowledge, understanding, and cleanses spiritual darkness. Just what we need to open and activate our Third Eye.

To use these oils, gently massage a drop or two over the front of your Third Eye area. Apply before meditation or yoga when your intention is to open and enhance the activation of your Third Eye Chakra.