Dem Bones- Part One
It’s hard to get good help...
Our Summer Retreat always seems to result in a significant expansion of energy and insight for participants and teachers. Our last one in July on aligning with Higher Principle via the 5th Chakra has been no exception. In case you missed it, it was a remarkable teaching on learning the practices and experiencing the energetic field that helps us align to Higher Principle and work through the fixations that pull us off from this alignment.
It always takes me some time after out retreats to begin to feel the impact of the resulting expansion which takes place. I always feel like a rag completely wrung out, and don’t have enough energy to know my own name, let alone know what I’ve learned. Even as I refill my tank, the expansion of my energy and consciousness is always way ahead of my awareness and understanding. So it the months after a retreat I have to let all this go to work on me and hold myself open to what might come. I’m not a patient person, at least with myself, but fortunately stuff happens at it’s own given pace whether I’m patient or not.
I’d like to say that encourage this process by meditating rigorously, eating well, getting lots of rest and exercise, and other virtuous activities… but I don’t! Oh well. As I tell my inner teachers, in reference to my limitations as their student: it’s hard to get good help these days!
Anyways, one thing that has emerged from the murk has been a a whole new orientation towards the importance, energetically speaking, of bones. I’m not sure why this is an outcome of the retreat topic, but I don’t look gift horses in the mouth any more, especially from spirit. Once I’ve said “Yes” there’s no point in saying “but, but, but…”
Ya’ got it all wrong...
The first insight I was granted was along the lines of “You’ve got it all wrong!” Great start, huh? Since I can be rather fixated in my thinking, I probably require teachers who will jar me out of my complacency. This happen to anyone else? Parenthetically, I also require they have a sense of humor, even if I’m the butt of the joke. So actually, “You’ve got it all wrong” is a great starting point for me, since it signals that I have to let go of all my preconceptions in order to receive the emerging insights.
Boneness-- it isn’t what you think...
So, what’s wrong with the way I’ve understood bones? Well, as was said, almost everything. It has been made clear to me that I don’t know from “boneness.” Boneness is a word I’ve just made up for the intrinsic nature of bones. (Hint: 5th chakra is about things in their essential form).
For an energy healer the scope of ones consciousness or “field sense” is crucial. With apologies to my Mexican friends for the very American idiom, it’s the whole enchilada. What we can do energetically is often constrained by the certainty from the most insistent lower chakra that it knows what’s up. If I have a mental model about “how bones are” that is firmly fixed in my mind, then I won’t register anything more about the nature of bones than my model accounts for. If I have an emotional feeling that red energy is “bad” then I will avoid generating the hot red energy that the bone marrow needs to generate new cells. We will only know what we already think or feel.
Lesson One: ya gotta be willing to let go of your certainty to expand your understanding.
The way I learned about bones in their physical actuality has been through one of two sources: skeletons in anatomy classes, or bones from the butcher. The trouble with the first is that the bones are from preserved skeletons are… well… they’re dead! Thinking of bones as dead in this way means I tend to think of bones as if they are dry, stone-like and solid when in fact they aren’t.
Bones from fresh meat are a little closer to the nature of “boneness” because at least, being fresh and not dried and preserved, they still have something of that wet and fibrous quality that is a part of “boneness.” But they too are dead.
Lesson two: it’s not good for healers to have dead things as their template when creating vitality.
Ather physical impression that tends to influence our energetic approach to bones is that they are dense and solid in nature. I mean, they certainly feel that way when you pick them up, don’t they? From this impression, we tend to orient towards bones as if they are relatively impervious or at least resistant to subtle energy because of their physical solidness. If you think something is solid and resistant to flow you don’t bring your energy to it.
Oh, I almost forgot: I also tend to think of bones as separate from each other.Seeing a skeleton in anatomy class anatomy class or in an anatomy chart it’s “clear” that bones appear to be separate and distinct things only strung together by wires or tissues. Sure, they are attached to each other by tissues like tendons and ligaments, but the bones themselves aren’t connected really. Are they?
Lesson three: things aren’t always as they seem.
Okay, enough set up. I’ll cut to the chase and give you what I’m learning about bones as an energy healer. These may all seem obvious to you but, as I told my own teachers, it’s hard to get good help these days. Get over it.
Some Items about boneness.
To whit:
- Item #1: Bones are alive
- Item #2: Bones are wet
- Item #3: Bones are connected to each other
- Item #4: Bones are flexible springs-
- Item #5: Bones transmit energy like nobody’s business
Yeah, tt’s a teaser. If you are intrigued at all, you’ll have to come back for the next blog post where I’ll fill these in with a more detail.
* For one musical reference to the title click here.
A version of the old spiritual try "Dem Bones Gonna Rise Again"
To be continued…