What/Who is Energy/Chi?

One of my instructors in massage therapy school was Randy Cummins, a Shiatsu practitioner in Chicago. I so appreciated his thoughtful and "chill" approach to teaching us. Several months ago I read a past post on his blog about "My Relationship with Chi (Energy)" and thought it was so sublime--that I wanted to share it with you all:

      The moment I heard that voice, the eternal hum, resonating and reverberating throughout my physical and energetic bodies, in that instant, I knew it was love.

      Chi – primal and eternal, motivator of action, purveyor of dreams, elusive by nature, saturating by design.

      My energetic soul mate and I have walked hand in hand, informed by the sage council of Shoshin Shiatsu, sharing with us its preventative properties, its base wisdom of stretching the fascia, opening and lubricating the joints, balancing the effects of gravity and emotion.

      The work continues to open slowly to me, informing my connection to the breath. The breath, my most intimate of all teachers . . . constant companion in this life journey, showing me with all immediacy the importance of being in the moment. Giver and sustainer of life, an anchor to my wandering mind, keeper of my hara fire, eternal example of taking in all inspiration and letting go . . . giving all with every exhale.

      In the context of Shiatsu, the breath as viewed in another and self, two-edged vajra, dissolving illusion, moving one into witness.

      The breath of practitioner, again sustains and centers, enhances connection through palpation, floats the weight of the hand down on a cloud of intention, sinking through skin, penetrating muscle, entering bone energy, clearing a path to the house of the true self.

       To have the faith in self to pull back, wait till the mud settles and the water clears, so one can recognize the underlying cause of it all – the kyo (yin) behind the outward jitsu imbalance (yang). The woman behind the crime, to paraphrase from the Neijing.

       A continuous process of letting go of result, expectation, adulation . . .  learning to honor and respect the pause . . . the stillness at the beginning and end of all movement . . . till we are delivered to the door of beginner’s mind.  --Randy Cummins,  May 25, 2012   (Black Swan Productions)

Two things....

One, This is a beautiful description of how a practitioner not only approaches their work--but also their life. I have always been fascinated with the concept of integrity--i.e., what you see is what you get--no matter "where you slice it!" When something is integrated--it is fully itself--to its core. My own best work flows not from my training (although that helps) but from my PERSON. This is particularly true of any work that is interpersonal in nature.

Secondly, I appreciate the fact that this description of chi/energy is conceptualized as feminine. I think few men understand how healing it is to have something written that affirms the feminine in such a powerful way. 

As I have mentioned in another post (I think :) the Hebrew word in the Jewish sacred writings (Old Testament) for "Spirit/Wind/Breath" is "ruach" which is feminine. It is unfortunate that in the Christian sacred writings (New Testament) the Greek word for "spirit" is "pneuma" which is neuter. In the West, we have a pretty negative view of anything that is "neutered." Although I must admit, it is a rather fitting "fix" we have in our Christian traditions that have in most cases "neutered" the power of the Spirit of God. How we got from a "feminine spirit" to a "neutered it" is a theological concern.

Gendered language makes an impact....more than we know until we read something that catches us by surprise.....

Body Language

Oh boy. I could go several places with this one. (On a previous post I had fun looking at somatic idioms)...In this post I want to consider how we use language. Does it really matter? OH YES!!!! (I can hear my sister who has a PhD in linguistics practically standing up on her desk and shouting at the top of her lungs---"AMEN SISTER!!!!" (She has never really done that--but I bet she would on this one! :) Anyway, English is one of the few languages that does not assign gender to nouns. But this is not the case in other languages. 
    
According to researcher Lera Boroditsky, grammatical genders can shape how people think (a hypothesis called "linguistic relativity"). For example, when speakers of German and Spanish were asked to describe everyday objects in English, she found that they were more likely to use attributes conventionally associated with the genders of the objects in their native languages. German-speakers more often described "bridge" (in German, Brücke,  a feminine noun) with words like 'beautiful', 'elegant', 'fragile', 'peaceful', 'pretty', and 'slender', whereas Spanish-speakers more often described "bridge" (in Spanish, puente (masculine noun)  with terms like 'big', 'dangerous', 'long', 'strong', 'sturdy', and 'towering'. Art is impacted by linguistic relativity as well. In Boroditsy's research, in 85% of all cases, the grammatical gender of the concept in the artist's language impacts its portrayal. Therefore, in German art, "death" ( Tod (masculine) is generally portrayed as male, but in Russian, "death"  (Смерть (feminine) is generally portrayed as a female.(see the link: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender) for MUCH more detail :)

So, of course, my burning question is...how does our use of language impact our concepts of ourselves, and our concept of God? Most depictions of God in the Western World are male. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit (usually considered male in our minds, an "it" at worst). So, as I made a comment before (See Body Theology), the the Hebrew language (in which the OT of the Bible was written), the word for "spirit/Spirit" is "ruach"(feminine). In the Greek (in which the NT of the Bible was written) the word for "spirit/Spirit" is "pneuma"(neuter). Hmmm. Worth noting?

When people say, it's not a big deal, all you have to do is imagine that if the members of the Trinity were all 'female' and we used "She" instead of "He" it would make a HUGE impact on how we would all experience God. For example, if this was the case, how would MEN view themselves? They would experience what women have for centuries--what it is like to not have any "representation"...or a concrete example of what it means to be made in the image of God. Let me tell you...that effects your self-concept and sense of having value as a woman. God help us.

Somatic Idioms

It has become a recent habit of mine to notice the number of somatic idioms in our everyday language (I give a nod to my sister who has her PhD in Linguistics!) A somatic idiom is a verbal phrase used to describe an emotional experience that makes reference to a bodily sensation. For example, when we tell a friend that "I have butterflies in my stomach" we are using a somatic idiom to describe anxiety. The existence of somatic idioms are linguistic acknowledgement that our emotions are not simply cognitions, but that emotions are visceral experiences! For another example, have you ever heard someone say, "That person rubs me the wrong way!" Now, most likely, the two people have not had any actual physical contact involving massage--but in fact, there is something being said about the quality of the interaction--it causes a level of emotional  or energetic discomfort akin to being physically "rubbed the wrong way."

For a long time, emotions in psychology have been often processed and treated as if they are only cognitions--we just have to change our minds/thoughts about something. However, our language betrays us! Our bodies register and hold our emotions as much (if not more than) our words! If this is so, then there needs to be a somatic component to psychological growth and healing. Hence, why I have entered into the bodywork field. 

Some other somatic idioms:
"My heart is just broken over this situation."
"My stomach is doing flip-flops."
"My blood is about to boil!"
"You are such a hot-head!"
"I just have a gut feeling about this...."
"He's got cold feet about changing jobs."
"I can't stomach that!"
"I can feel it in my bones!".....etc.....