Energy, Part 1

The theme for today is ENERGY.

Where did your thoughts
or your attention / awareness
go when hearing that?

We're all natural semi-experts
at the skills and methods of Energy.
Some time it will be helpful to compare notes,
tips and techniques,
but today I think we might start by
reviewing some perspectives and ways of knowing.

Such a general idea - energy -
is not a device for thinking abstractly
but an invitation to be articulate;
to connect with specifics
within a wider awareness.

This "energy" isn't the electromagnetism of physics,
it's the more organized and complex circulation
of life, in its cells and layers,
sheaths and channels
within you and the live systems enclosing us.

Some familiar ideas about Energy
are that it's a process of things changing
a set of practices, that one could cultivate
by aligning ones behavior with natural rhythms and cycles;
a bio-physical flow of metabolism and nourishment..

Less familiar, perhaps:
energy as an overall Quality.
Qualities are that which emerge from the whole of something.

A machine - say a BMW sports car or jet engine
has power because of the quality and precision of its engineering.
A human - say, an elite athlete
likewise has worked to develop
in ways that involve quality, precision, and subtlety.

Living energy is a characteristic of the whole
a qualitative achievement
for all living organisms
that have naturally evolved to levels of effectiveness
that no human engineering can match.
So many marvels that we take for granted;
miracles
if only we knew it.

Energy moves through us in cycles
and each moment of the cycle has its own character.

One such point, an important one
is the point of Return
where energy starts to rise again
after being most relaxed or dissolved:
like the freshness of waking in the morning
or coming out of a deep mediation.

Another perspective - one less often given attention
but much more intimate
is the felt sense of energy
as a bodily experience.
Energy is cosmic Play
the in-the-moment pulsation of Life
moving through you, AS you.

Its potency is
that it blends both sensing / receiving
and acting / moving
into a single act.

Can you feel it, feel into it,
sense how awareness can open and deepen it?
This felt sense leads to an experience
of "presence"
and the ability to notice its contrary
which we might call "absence",
tension, or even "chaos".

Chaos as an experience
has a lot in common with Beauty:
it's not in the Eye, or in the World
but in their way of coming to meet.

Where is your energy
when you are not "present" with it?
It isn't missing, it's gone on vacation
and you stayed "home":
It's happening  outside awareness
and would probably enjoy your company.

It may be "invested" in important things
you're not looking at right now
We'd like to have a kind view of these,
though from the view of ego
they look like not-me:
emotional patterns,
attachments, aversions, indifferences,
conflicts, confusions,
wandering parts of the soul, "ghosts",
fascinating or irritating people,
patterns of how we organize our living spaces.
There may be stuck places, leaks, hot-spots, and so on.

Our imagination offers the useful service
of articulating these
with however much poetry is needed
to lend them sensibility.

Can one call them back "home",
offer them amnesty and a warm reception?

Awareness, intention, courage
help, but aren't enough:  
acceptance and compassion support
these to go through a transformation
From It to Me to I to Big Mind.

How does this happen?
It starts with how one approaches and "holds" it.

This brings up a key question:
What holds YOU?
In the sense of, what catches you if you let go ..
what would you fall into?

This is part of the story of Energy
wherever you focus, there it is!
How does it play out in your Life?