Direction – Perceiving & Guiding Your Innate Life Force

Little ol’ me can tap into the energy of the entire Universe! 

In fact, I can’t separate myself from it. What I think of as my Self is basically a portal through which the Infinite expresses itself. Me-flavored life, if you will.

I enjoy astonishing myself by thinking about this energy that courses through my being, fueling all my movements, body processes, and thoughts. How I—and you—have direct access to the very life force of the Universe. It’s what unites us with all other humans—no matter their ethnic origins, beliefs, degree of wealth, or voice part—and with every living creature that has ever existed. 

This essentially infinite and ubiquitous energy gets expressed in myriad ways: in the turning of flowers to face the sun, in the development of caterpillars into butterflies, in the healing of a child’s scraped knee, in the digestion of your last meal, which is going on right now as you read this.

Today’s Practice Prompt guides you in tuning in to one particular aspect of the infinite Universal life force as it expresses itself through the portal of YOU. It’s what I think of as flowingness, a kind of subtle ebb and flow in my physical body. It’s similar to the expansion and contraction of breathing, but is its own unique pattern, separate from the breath. 

To become aware of this subtle cyclic pulsing, we’re going to use one of my favorite tools of learning: exaggeration. By temporarily amplifying the pattern, we can more easily tune into it. Then we can continue to perceive it as we allow it to subside back into its normal amplitude. (There’s a bit of “fake it till you make it” in this approach, so don’t worry if at first the pattern you notice seems to be made-up.)

In fact, I may have made up this whole phenomenon, but won’t you play along with me in exploring its possibilities? 

Like the rainbow structure in the moving image above, your body is (may be) engaged in an unceasing cycle of Expansion-Contraction. This cycle results in a continual movement pattern of your physical body, usually on such a subtle level as to be imperceptible. Your spine lengthens, then contracts. In sync with this, your limbs and your head release away from your center, then pull in towards it. You may notice a simultaneous tendency of many structures of your body to spread out, then gather back in. Maybe each of our cells does this individually. As above, so below.

If you’re not yet aware of this pulsing pattern, pretend you are. Let it increase in amplitude until you can feel and see your body moving. Let yourself luxuriate in a bath of all-over movement. Gradually, allow your movements to attenuate: let them get smaller and smaller until they are once again just barely perceptible. Until you aren't sure whether you are moving or just thinking you are moving. You had been taking over the supervision of your life-force pattern. Now allow Nature to be responsible for it once again. What is Nature’s tempo in you in this moment?

Right now, my natural tempo seems to be a few seconds in, a few seconds out. If I ask the rhythm to slow down, it has a calming effect. I can get a lovely intoxicated feeling playing around with this! If instead I “pump” my ebb and flow in-out-in-out with a tempo of around 1 beat per second, it infuses me with energy and helps to unblock stuck places in my body. I can imagine that I’m pumping energy and joy into each cell of my body. What do you notice as you experiment with changing the tempo of your energetic pulse with your intention?

Now that you are aware of a perhaps new aspect of your being, pay attention to it as you sing a note. As your note vibrates with sound energy, you are vibrating with Universal life force energy. Mind-blowing! Eventually, you may wish to sing a little scale or even a phrase of music. What’s it like as you allow your vibrational pulsing to infuse the music with your innate life force?

As you go back into your day, pause from time to time to become aware of the Universe expressing itself through your inherent cyclic motion. Contemplate how the same energy that drives this motion in you is driving motion in me too, and in everyone who reads my blog. 

And in my dogs, and in your best friend, and in every political leader you can think of, whether or not you’re on the same page philosophically. 

We are all One. In...Out...In...Out...In....