A little space for love.

A personal account by Rick Preton

ChakraKey grew out of a question I could not let go: What is love, and how can it guide us through the difficult choices we face?

The question that started my search

In 2002, I was living in Vintà, California, and working for a graphics company in nearby Cardiff. After seeing disturbing protest images in my neighborhood, I found myself wrestling with a difficult moral question. On a walk the next day, I brought it up with my friend Jim.

Jim encouraged me to consider the circumstances and what a loving response would mean. His answer stayed with me. If love could help us navigate this difficult, perhaps it could guide us through many other parts of life. But what, exactly, was love?

I spent the next five years reading and searching. At times, I became frustrated enough to wonder whether I would ever find an answer that made sense to me. My search led me to the chakra system. The association between the heart and love resonated with something I could recognize in my own experience.

A different way of seeing the Menorah

Jim was also interested in the seven-branched Menorah. At study, I had two images on my desk: a seated figure with seven chakras and a Menorah. I turned the Menorah sideways and placed it beside the figure.

The central stem lined up with the heart. The branches appeared to connect the centers above and below it in three pairs: Root and Crown, Sacral and Brow, Solar Plexus and Throat. Each relationship passed through the heart.

That was an important moment for me. I had found a visual connection I wanted to understand. I did not immediately set out to write a book. I continued studying love and the Menorah.

A third symbol entered the picture

In 2006, I came across a photograph of a crop formation that had appeared in England the previous year. It was the Windmill Hill formation near Avebury, rounded on 23 May 2005. To my eye, its pattern echoed the seven-center chakra figure.

Recompense reference - windmill hill photographs: credit and permission: aerial image regions of the sun circle illustrations by her permission.

Now I had three images to consider together: the chakra figure, the sideways Menorah, and the crop circle pattern. The connections I saw suggested a way to illustrate our spiritual life. I believed there was enough here to make a book.

Working in graphics helped me turn these ideas into a visual guide. Chris O Sullivan at MCN Online produced the illustrations, and I self-published ChakraKey in 2009. Color became a way to organize the images, with the rainbow and prism offering a visual language for the relationships I was exploring.

Exploring sound with Jan Spiller

My questions also led me to sound. Jan Spiller and I traveled to New York to work with musician Hugh Fox. Using a chart that associated sound with color, we explored different tones and the sensations they brought to our attention.

We began with 432 Hz, which we associated with the Root chakra. Jan described feeling a response in her body. I began exploring what I could feel with my hands as well. We continued through other tones and developed the associations used in ChakraKey today.

These were personal, experiential explorations. The sensations we noticed helped shape the practice I share; they were not measurements establishing the natural frequency of a chakras. I invite people to explore gently and notice their own experience, without needing to feel what someone else reports.

Why I share ChakraKey

I see ChakraKey as an illustrated guide for exploring our inner life. The symbols help me consider how different parts of our experience relate to one another and how the heart can inform our choices.

My hope is that this work helps you recognize your own capacity for love and creative expression. Bring a real question from your life. Consider it with curiosity, listen to what matters to you, and choose a practical next step that expresses greater kindness.

The question that began this journey still guides us: How can we bring more love into the way we live?

Namaste,
Rick

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What each symbol adds

The chakra figure: supplies the starting map. The rainbow and prism: supply a visual language of color. The Menorah: illustrates Rick’s three pairings through the heart.

Yin and yang: invites consideration of complementary qualities. ChakraSynergy: shows Rick’s visual synthesis. The Compass: turns the relationships into reflection on a real situation and a practical next step.

Book illustrations: Chris O Sullivan at MCN Online. ChakraKey was self-published in 2009.

The symbol associations are Rick’s interpretation. Formation date reference: Windmill Hill photographic archive ↗. The full historical references and publication credits are in the accompanying developer package.