The Seven Chakras by Phil Lewis – Liberty Puzzles – approx. 94/661 pieces

This is the third chakra, Manipura, the solar plexus chakra. There’s so much information out there regarding chakras, it was all just too much to comb through for these posts; so I settled with putting them into the correct order, giving their names, and what part of the body it relates to. It’s more about the puzzles themselves than the subject matter – at least it is for me.

This is my least favorite image of the seven; I’m not sure I could tell you why specifically – it’s the colors I think. I still appreciate the artwork though; Phil Lewis’ work makes for fantastic puzzles and his aesthetic really speaks to me. It’s a good thing I’m not completely in love with every single image of his, otherwise my wallet would have much less money in it!

I’m thoroughly impressed with whomever designed the pieces for these puzzles, they’re absolutely amazing. I’ve started and stopped writing several sentences trying to “verbalize” how what they did with this design is so ridiculously astounding, but none of them seem to capture what I’m trying to get across to you. I’ve given up. These puzzles are exquisite in every way. That’s the best I can do.

Three more yoga poses, the sun, tons of flowers, and a multipiece ram. Beautiful! I even know the names of two of these poses – the plank, and downward dog. My physical therapist used to make me do the plank in therapy; and even though I’ve never taken yoga I somehow know the name of downward dog. It’s just general knowledge in my brain from goodness knows where.

Are you all enjoying these posts? I certainly hope so!

This is the second chakra, Svadhishthana, the sacral chakra. It was also the last one I completed. The edges of this puzzle were quite difficult for me, even when there were only edges left. Thankfully hubby came in at the end when I was feeling stupid and like my brain didn’t work – and he finished up the edges for me. My hero! 💖

It may seem when you look at the all the completed puzzles together that they would be easy to sort, and some were. But this one and the elephant – the colors around the edges seemed very close to each other and I had many pieces in the wrong pile. So even though they are the first and second chakras, they were the sixth and seventh to be completed.

These aren’t wooden puzzles where the piece shapes are very evident in the finished image, therefore you cannot tell how much is going on within the pieces until you see the back…

Here we have three yoga poses, the symbol for this chakra, and lots of other baubles and doohickeys. It was a more complicated assembly than it seems if you only see the front of the puzzle. You can also see some symmetrical shapes that tell you there’s another image that you can make with the pieces. Before you scroll down can you find all the pieces to make two fish? 🐠🐠

The fish took me a few minutes, and I probably could have pulled out the flower around the chakra symbol too, but you can’t always see what shapes will form until you’re finished – and I still had to take a picture of all the puzzles together! So with each puzzle that was finished I had to carefully take out the pieces to show you the whimsies and then put them back in when I was done. It seemed like too much work to pull out that flower, so I didn’t. My apologies.

These puzzles seriously taxed my brain! I love that they weren’t too easy, but honestly this particular puzzle seemed to have me over a barrel at the end, thank goodness my husband came to the rescue. (I would have gotten there eventually, but it was so sweet that he wanted to help) 🤗

The Seven Chakras by Phil Lewis – Liberty Puzzles – approx. 94 pieces/661

There was a bit of research done by me about chakras for these posts. There was SO MUCH information! So, rather than go into detail about chakras, what I decided was to just give basic info about each in general. What I learned was that while the animal representations are not always the same – the order, shapes, colors and names of each are consistent. This is the first chakra, Muladhara, the root chakra. It’s amazingly detailed, and beautiful! 🐘

I did not assemble them in the correct order of the chakras, this one was completed closer to the end than the beginning. But they were put together with a puzzler’s eye; and without any knowledge that there was an actual order to them. Brighter colors went first, and this was closer to the end because the red in this puzzle was close to the orange in another and I didn’t have them sorted as well as I thought. You know, you sometimes save the more difficult parts until the end. I don’t always, but that’s how it went for this one – the puzzle always leads me – even though I think I’m the one making decisions. 😉

Each of these small puzzles of approximately 100 pieces was much more difficult to assemble than they look, and most of them took me an hour or so. And that’s not including pulling the pieces and putting together the multipiece whimsy characters! You wouldn’t think it would be that demanding once you see it from the back, but it was – for me anyway. At times my poor, menopausal old lady brain felt very tired and inadequate (and I consider myself pretty good at jigsaw puzzles too).

You can see the symmetry in some of the pieces, and one that looks like the trunk and tusks of an elephant. There’s a puzzle within a puzzle, and it took me a while to figure it out. The symbol for each chakra is shown in the middle of each puzzle, and each also has one or more shapes of people in various yoga poses, although the two shown here seem to just be standing. Have any of you taken yoga classes? Is this a yoga pose? If not, these figures may be showing where the root chakra is located – at the base of the spine.

You can see by the elephant whimsy that most aren’t pieces you would pick out when sorting the puzzle. Once I realized that each small puzzle also had a multipiece representation of the animal (or flower) shown in the image; I was actively looking for pieces that might make up that animal/image. It wasn’t always easy, but for the most part you can see symmetrical pieces that stand out, and those are the ones I was always on the lookout for. I was able to find and assemble 6 out of the 7 images, one of them was too difficult for me – but I will get there eventually!

That’s one of the reasons I decided each puzzle would need it’s own post. There’s too much to see to just give each one a passing glance in the whole of the set. Yesterday’s picture is gorgeous and all, but you really need to see the detail in each of them, because the parts are just as impressive as the whole.

I will give you a little teaser by telling you that this is the LEAST impressive set of whimsy pieces. By far. Most of them have so much going on, and so many interesting shapes and figures, they’re amazing!

The Seven Chakras by Phil Lewis – Liberty Puzzles – 661 pieces

This is the puzzle my husband gave me for my birthday this year, and it’s bleeping amazing! When assembly started on the first of the seven puzzles my thought was that there would be just one post showing all of them together. Nope. There’s so much going on with each small puzzle that I decided right away that each puzzle needed it’s own post.

There are multipiece whimsies in each puzzle that are near impossible to pick out unless you see the puzzle assembled, and even then I wasn’t able to find and figure them all out. So, my usual routine of picking out all the whimsies and taking one big picture before assembly just wasn’t gonna cut it this time. It may need to be assembled more than once. (Such a hardship! 😎)

Seven small puzzles mixed together in one box – that’s all the description said about this puzzle. There is much, much more to say! So buckle up buckaroos, there are seven more posts about this puzzle, with plenty of details and amazing shapes to see. This post was just to give you background info on this puzzle; each chakra/puzzle will be getting it’s own post to show you the image close up, the elaborate whimsies, and the view from the back.

Also, all pictures are taken with my phone and try as I may the images do NOT do justice to the colors, they are bright and deep and overall just stunning. Genuinely stunning.