Following Warren Buffet’s lead, today I dumped my few remaining stocks related to fossil fuels and began a search for ‘alternative energy’ companies to invest in. The ‘energy sector’, as it is called in the world of investment always fascinated me because it is volatile and fraught with political entanglements. But the emerging alternative energy market is fascinating for different reasons, because the energy produced by these companies is renewable and has no carbon emissions, compared to conventional energy sources. It includes wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass energy. The sector has limped along with limited success, but finally it seems here to stay and interest in it has increased.
After messing with my stock portfolio, I went to my first Zumba class at the UCSF Fitness Center. The teacher was like a human 9-volt battery in neon print tights. She exploded with energy as she danced around the room, jumping up on the stage in a single leap to demonstrate the moves, never taking a water break and smiling and laughing the whole hour. I was exhausted just looking at her and marveled at how the human body can exert so much energy all on its own.
Another kind of energy and the most fascinating in my opinion, is the energy that exists everywhere in the world. It is in everything, is unseen and not marketable. It has no political implications and you don’t necessarily sweat from it. It is what makes you look up just as the bald eagle lands on a tree. It is what causes you to look across a crowded room at someone who has been staring at you – willing you to look back. It is what makes certain places in the world feel safe and comforting and other places feel empty or threatening. It is the power source for practitioners in the alternative healing modalities and a conduit to life force itself.
I asked several of my trusted A team members (the team of professionals I go to on a regular basis for body/energy/spirit work) to explain how they use energy in their own lines of work. Amy Mitchell, my acupuncturist in Berkeley www.mitchellfamilyacupuncture.com says, “Yi Nian means intention or setting an intention. My yi nian as I palpate the body and the meridians, is for the Qi of the body to come to the needle; to be available and accessible. I feel the Qi as a heavy sensation or a gentle grasping in my hand or a tingling, moving sensation or a distending feeling. Often my patient and I feel the Qi arrive simultaneously.”
Dr. Eric Rubin, www.northpointchiro.com, my massage and Reiki teacher says, “Subtle Energies are accessed by expanding the bandwidth of one’s perceptual apparatus beyond the range of ordinary experience and consensual reality. This is done primarily by INTENDING to do it and allowing oneself to relax, open and simply FEEL more of what there is to feel in any experience. It helps to suspend any doubting thoughts that it cannot be done or that it does not exist. The process of learning to sense the subtle energy body can be assisted by using some kind of meditative process to “stop” the mind’s endless naming of the things it perceives long enough to start to SEE, SENSE and FEEL a more subtle dimension of our BEING ness that occurs in the millisecond gap between perception and categorization of what is perceived.” In response to the question about what energy feels like to him he replied, “It feels “subtle” at first. You have to become inwardly quiet and outwardly still enough to sense the subtle “flow” or blockage to flow that is present within and around living systems. At first, it is like walking indoors to a shaded room after being outside in direct sun for a while…it takes a little while for your eyes to adjust and become more sensitive to the less bright and less obvious experience. People who have lost their sight learn to read Braille with their fingers with little time and practice and soon their fingers adapt and blossom with an exquisite sensitivity that they did not know they were capable of. With patience and practice, anyone can learn to feel/perceive subtle energy, but it does seem like some people take to easier than others. My experience has been that students tend to be stronger in one or two different categories of perceptual intelligence: visual, kinesthetic, symbolic or auditory. In my Reiki courses, many of the exercises we do are designed to develop just these types of intelligences so that the “subtle body” can be perceived, assessed, and restored to a more harmonic balance.”
Deborah Schwing, www.deborahschwing.com, spiritual medium and shamanic healer responds, “I refer to energy I am accessing as “spirit power”. In my work on behalf of others, I obtain access to spirit power by setting a clear intention. For example, when I begin a healing session, I intend from my heart and mind, saying silently, ”I call in the helping and healing spirits aligned with the highest divine light and love.” I know when the spirit power is present because my body and mind feel both deeply relaxed and fully awake. My sense perceptions are clear and heightened. I am able to hear, see, know, feel and intuit the subtle realms of existence, as well as communicate with beings in the spirit world.”
And lastly, although Kobe Bryant is not on my A team, this quote by him is suitable for this discussion as it shows how high level professional athletes view energy as a source of power. “I can feel the energy in the building – the sounds of the cameras flashing – the smell of the popcorn – the sounds of people walking around preparing for the game. You can feel an intensity in the air. There is an energy that you can tap into – it is like a frequency that you can tap into. Once you feel it then everything becomes you and you become everything.”
Reiki is the conduit that connects me to source and fuels my work. Sometimes I see it as a golden cord that comes down and through the top of my head and out of my hands and into the body of the person who is lying on my massage table. Like Amy, there are times when my client feels the reiki energy at the same time and in the same place in the body as I do. Reiki energy feels like warmth to me and has an ebb and flow like ocean waves, which other people report feeling as well. Healing occurs when you tap into this universal force field and are able to rest in a place where there is awareness of it. For me, it feels like that moment in between wakefulness and sleep, where there is a slight falling sensation – that is the sacred place where the innate wisdom of the body takes over and healing light can spread to the places that need it.