When Energy Moves
Cuando la energía se mueve
A reflection on how allowing energy to move and flow brings intensity, and how that intensity manifests differently depending on context, relationship, and depth of commitment.
When Energy Moves
A reflection on how allowing energy to move and flow brings intensity, and how that intensity manifests differently depending on context, relationship, and depth of commitment.
Energy moves. Or, to put it differently (since these are all metaphors): as we allow energies to move us, they flow, and as they flow, they become felt. They become present. What you are calling "intense" is, I imagine, some form of energetic experience. And that is precisely where we often push away.
The many faces of intensity
That energetic might, in one moment, be about speaking up in a group. In another, it might be about sitting still. Perhaps the intensity is to sit still under a tree, like the Buddha under the bodhi tree. That was intense. Christ in the desert: that was intense. Those are stories, metaphors, but sitting still could truly be the most intense thing you could do. And then, another moment, the intensity could be about starting a business, writing music, or creating a sculpture. That can be extraordinarily intense because the energy moving is very deep creative energy. Or perhaps the intensity of a given moment is around initiating some form of relationship.
Context shapes the energetic depth
That is the mystery of life. The energetic quality of speaking up in a group where there is a deep commitment to openness, honesty, and vulnerability is very different from other contexts. If this were a group taking a marketing course, you could speak up within a framework where what you share is less exposed. You might still be nervous, but it would not carry the deeper energetic charge of a group where the space is truly open and vulnerable, where the commitment, the invitation, is toward honesty, depth, and authenticity. That kind of setting brings up a whole other level of energetics and intensity. These groups carry energies that are more mysterious, more alive and moving, compared to other contexts, even when we are meeting over a screen.
Locality is not absolute
I remember living in India for a while. I used to have video calls with my teacher, who was in Argentina. Hours before a call, I would start to feel this really deep, powerful energy. When I got on the call and mentioned it, he would say, "That confirms my sense, because I was feeling it too." He spoke of a deep energetic that has to do with relationship, and it really demonstrates that distance and locality, as physics tells us, are not absolute. They are not absolutely real. At one level this is super strange, but it is also very natural. It feels that way.