On moving energy.

Chi, qi, prana, mana, ka, spiritus, life force, life energy.

In almost every culture, there is a word for the etheric life energy that makes us up, that makes all life up. Energy that, when the body is healthy, circulates freely. Stagnant energy causes all manner of sickness and disease. I know that there are many systems that exist for moving energy around in the body-- yoga and reiki are probably the ones I know the most about, but I have never studied either formally. What I do know is that since I was young, I've been a synaesthete-- my particular version is color-oriented. I often interpret smells, sounds, and even physical sensations as colors. I have been known to say "that smells purple" or "that felt blue," because that's how my brain reads things-- my sensory input overlaps. This relates to energy work, I swear. Also? For the record? I'm not crazy. Just to be clear.

I have never been trained to do energy work. I remember the first time I read about reiki, though, and I had a moment of pause and thought, "hey-- I do something like that!" Because to me, I can visualize pain very clearly in my body as spots of black or dark brown energy. Healthy energy looks blue-- a bright cerulean blue. I remember being young and my mother asking me to work on her legs-- she has very bad veins, particularly below the knee. And I remember sitting down and closing my eyes and feeling where my fingers should go by trying to find the black spots in her legs. Often, I would be right, and she would be surprised that I'd move immediately to the spot where the pain had knotted. The way that I would draw it out is to visualize my fingers pricking a hole in the skin through which I could draw out the black energy. When I had pulled out all of the black, I would then push in an energy that looked like a blue and orange swirl. And when I was done, she would feel better. I've also used this on myself for times when I'm panicky or unsettled. Visualization really works for me.

In the past month, I have dealt with truly stellar levels of anxiety. Particularly, it's the worst in the morning-- I feel dizzy and nauseated, with flames of prickly fire running down my arms. It's gotten somewhat better and less intense as the weeks pass by, but at about 7:10 every morning, I wake up before the alarm feeling jittery and panicked. The pain has been the worst in my chest and diaphragm-- to me, it feels like I've been shot with a tiny, perfectly round musket ball, and it's lodged inside. The black energy there is the infection caused by the shot that is still inside. And so, I clean the wound. The bullet is not ready to come out yet, and it always slips out of my fingers before I can pull it clear. Each week, there is less and less to clean, but still the bullet stays in. I got a massage this weekend that helped the energy start to move more freely. During the massage, I visualized each part being moved as being reawakened-- and so I was, bit by bit, part by part. Since then, I've felt a great deal of tension unlocking in my shoulders and hips. My body is starting to come back to life, to be lithe and graceful again. And yet the bullet is not quite ready to dislodge. It will, in its own time.

And during the massage, I found myself thinking of the last time I had tried to move the energy in someone else. It was a Sunday morning, the last morning I lived at Skyler's house. He was still in bed, and I crawled back in after a shower and a good cry in the living room. I curled up behind him and wrapped my arms around him. I tried to feel the black spots in his body-- on his shoulders, arms, heart. Everything was black. The pain was enveloping him, like a shield. Nothing would move. Conscious or not, the shield was deliberate, and no act of softness or love would move it. It had to move on its own, and there was absolutely nothing I could do or say to change it. That was the last time I was to lie in that bed, holding him. I started to move my things that evening. Even now I can feel the sick pain of carrying armloads of clothes out the front door and having nothing, nothing said. Nothing made sense. Still, very little makes sense. But now I have my own energy to move, my own work to do. This is the very, very hard work of healing.

I dance to move the energy. I get acupuncture. I let my friends hold me as I cry it out. I put it into words in my counseling sessions. I journal through it. And in the mornings, when my arms are uncomfortably empty, I visualize through it, drawing out the black and replacing it with strong blue light.