Energy

Aldon’s posts and the comments got me thinking... actually, remembering... about energy and power. Where is the power? What and where is the energy? These are fundamental questions because it’s all about energy. So I offer these (philosophical and psychological) thoughts to the conversation with the hope that we can ponder them together and see how they fit into Aldon’s more specific concerns about democracy and the structures of government.

Real power is generated within ourselves by what we do and feel and think and dream and dare. We are generators. We are the creators of our physical energies. We take in and transform the energy to our use. So why not the same with spiritual energy?

Energy is all around us, it is in us, it is with us, it IS us. What we do is how we access what we need, but all too often we do not do. We sit, we watch, we wait, we read, we contemplate, we ponder, we measure and propose and peruse and assume and adjust, but we do not do. We are often reluctant to take risks for fear we may lose and get nothing in return. We cut ourselves off from the very source of the energy we desire; and then we wonder why we are tired, why we feel there is not enough, why we feel irritable and confused and powerless. Cut yourself off from your power source and of course you will feel powerless. But how not to do that?

Imagine that the source of energy is a big bathtub. Imagine you are in a bathroom and looking at the tub. You turn on the water. You allow it to flow into the tub and you anticipate the experience of being in that soothing and nourishing water. But wait... how many of us have ever entered a tub full of water without testing it first. We put a finger in it, then perhaps we find it’s not warm or cold enough so we run some more water. Then maybe we put a toe in it. We measure our experience so carefully that by the time we get into it we have expended so much energy on making sure, on feeling secure about how it will all turn out, that it cannot feed us, it can only compensate for the energy we have expended. Like the scientists and historians who sit, clipboard or laptop in hand, taking notes on the water temperature and measuring size and diameter and level; or perhaps recording how someone else experienced their bath, we cannot be in the flow of life and energy as a spectator.

It is so easy... or seems safer... to sit back and watch others and try to make sure our experience will be ok and not leave us lost or powerless or confused. But another's experience cannot be our own. And more than that, the walls we build to test ourselves will grow in size and strength until there is a wall between us and the tub that we can no longer see over, or even scale.

So much these days is built on sand. So much is made of fluff and folly, of those who want security and sureness and cannot take chances because they need to hold onto their power. There are no political races any more, there are only polls and opinions, and surveys, and image-makers and spin doctors. Where are the true people in all that? Is it any wonder that (with the notable exception of Howard Dean) we don't get leaders who inspire and inform and fill us with the excitement of their vision?

It’s all up to us... it is all ours for the risk of asking, but we must take that risk. We must take the chance of stepping into that tub without testing it indefinitely. We must take the chance that some of that water may be displaced or splashed. We must take the chance that we might lose in order to gain.

We have the power. We do not always use it. It is nowhere else... and it is everywhere else.

If we have the courage to take that plunge into the abundance of our own energies, we will find ourselves immersed in the joy of life and all we need and desire will surround us, and we will be the ones who glow with health and fire and light the way for others--not the ones who sit at the side of the tub measuring or trying to determine the course of the stream of life while all that energizes us evaporates.

Posted by Elissa Bishop-Becker at April 23, 2004 9:50 AM | TrackBack