Move like a great river
Mind, body, and lifeforce move as one. All actions are done with whole heart, with full presence, and with spirit. One fully attends to this, now fully attends to that (which becomes the new this). So-called multi-tasking, instead of being a frantic division of attention, becomes a quick succession of present moments with full attention to each moment. One is still as a mountain, and moving like a great river. (52)
Calling Energy
You can spend much of your time identifying with thoughts and emotions, or being a persona (mask) of social fiction, or being a helpless pawn in someone else’s game, standing to one side until human life is over, or being anything your little heart desires. You can also open to the pure energy of being. You can call for the energy of the universe to flow through you. And it will.
As you begin calling energy, you become less identified with who you are and more identified with the energy of being. By “being,” I mean grounding while opening awareness and to fluid interplay with what is.
The warrior of spirit learns to “call” energy through certain ways of being. Since universal energy appears inexhaustible and does flow through humans, the warrior works on allowing and encouraging that flowthrough. Awareness is focused on whatever blocks the flow, then on evaporating the blockage.
A simple way of energizing is through breathing. All warrior arts emphasize breathing methods in their training. Proper breathing produces heightened energy. Most of the people I see in my profession as a psychologist breathe shallowly, taking little sips of air as if air is highly expensive! When shallowly sipping, we rob ourselves of free natural energy, oxygen and the oxygenation of the body (including the brain). Inappropriate breathing appears to be a correlate of depression and anxiety.
Rhythm
Martial arts movements, like the movements of daily interaction with others, vary in rhythm: slow and still movements of long duration; exploding in sudden bursts of energetic expression; weaving and swaying with the unpredictable rhythm of reeds blown in the wind. Martial artists (and conversational artists) follow the rhythm of What Is.
Rhythm, that delightful word of total consonants, refers to “measured and balanced movement.” Movement is measured and balanced in two major ways: accent and time value.
In music, notes are often accented (given more emphasis). Accenting changes the rhythm and the experience. For example, experience the difference between the Morse code “Y” and “V.” The Morse Y is Dah de Dah Dah and sounds like the old Dragnet theme: Dah de Dah Dah. The V is De De De Dah, accented on the fourth beat, and sounds like the familiar portion of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: De De De Dah, De De De Dah.
These accentual shifts create a different rhythm with each rhythm producing its own unique mood and experience. Similarly, in the behavioral and martial realm, one shifts the rhythm of the interaction through accenting a particular portion of a movement. Accenting is done through allowing a sudden burst of energy at that moment.
In a study of people’s responses to the experience of musical rhythms, Gabrielsson (53) found three major experiential categories: structure, motion, and emotion. Structure refers to the experienced pattern of accents and beats. Structure is the orderly form we create amidst the flow of life’s current.
Motion refers to the perceived rate of the beat. In referring to their perception of the motion in music, people used such descriptors as “walking, dancing, jumping, rocking, swinging, graceful, and driving forward.” Hey! Instead of marching yourself or dragging yourself through the day, how about jumping-rocking-swinging-dancing? Change your beat rate and shift your energy.
Motion is linked with emotion. Gabrielsson reminds us that the intimate bond between motion and emotion is expressed in our everyday language: “one jumps for joy, sinks down in despair, trembles from fear.” I’ll add struts with pride, expands with happiness, and dances with delight.
In his research, Gabrielsson found that the described emotional aspects of people’s experience of rhythm produced the following dimensions: vitality – dullness, excitement – calmness, rigidity – flexibility, solemnity – playfulness. The warrior of spirit moves away from dull, rigid, solemn rhythms and from uncentered excitement to vital, calm, flexible, playful, spontaneous unpredictability.
An essential aspect of rhythm is its expressive character. In music, notated (written) rhythm is not the same as played rhythm. The first has no expressive character and merely points to a rhythm to be expressed. The expressive character comes from the liveliness of the musician. That means you! You are the musician, you are the expressive character, and you are the liveliness. How do you want to play it? Vigorous verve? Doldrum dullness? [Maybe you can let IT play you!]
Body movement expresses rhythm. Look around at folks walking. Each follows a unique rhythm both reflecting and producing their current emotional state. The sad drag along. The excited bounce. Those in hot pursuit of a chosen goal speed on a direct trajectory.
Playing with the rhythm of your movement in interaction with others can produce reactions of tension, relaxation, hesitation, surprise, and joyful expectation in others. Rhythm is powerful in its effects. Choose your rhythms with care. Practice with various rhythms during the day. Play.
Synchrony
Synchrony means to have the same timing, the same rhythm. Movement toward interpersonal synchrony appears to be a natural process. At a Maui seminar, I invited participants to do the Dah – Dah exercise:
Pair off and face each other, knee to knee. Sit quietly. Let attention go within. Listen for your inner rhythm. What is the rhythm of your inner being at the present moment? Quietly open to the inner sound of dah – dah to accentuate the beat, the pulse, the rate of the internal rhythm. Now sound it out loud while listening to the sounding rhythm of your partner. Become aware of differences, similarities and possible changes of rhythm over time.
The Maui participants were wondrous folk of differing professions, cultures and life experiences. The room was flooded with dah – dah sounds, expressions of unique individual rhythm. After a short time, the partners moved to synchrony. Synchrony happened with no conscious effort. Often the merge of partners’ rhythms occurred within a third rhythm, previously non-evident.
Participants were uncertain as to how the third rhythm was created (“I’m not sure if I changed my rhythm or my partner or both of us”). The significance of the third rhythm synchrony was a natural and pleasurable process. Perhaps there is such a thing as a characteristic “inner pulse” of each human. (54)
Separation Rhythm
The ego is a created set of rhythms based on the illusion of separateness. To become stuck in the rhythms of the “ego” is a serious choice with severe consequences. One becomes isolated from reality: all is in relationship at all times.
The rhythm of separate self is the rhythm of fear, of anger, of pride, of desire, of stupor. The fear rhythm is restricted and small (uneven and of low amplitude). The rhythm of anger is of uneven high amplitude, like the rhythm of a fire with varying amounts of fuel – now burning intensely, now smoldering. The rhythm of pride is a steady inflation, followed by a staccato pop as reality bursts the bubble.
To continuously create the ego illusion, to follow the rhythms necessary for the sustaining of this illusion requires energy. Not only is the ego addiction an energy drain, it also blinds one to the rhythms of reality, to the actual ebbing and flowing of life.
The Rhythm of Others
When serving as clinical director of a community mental health center, I was called to the reception area. A large man was being verbally aggressive and nonverbally threatening. The man showed signs of escalating, rather than calming, and seemed to expect confrontation. I stood by the man’s side and responded with a slow rhythm of verbal and nonverbal expressiveness. In my inner vision, I did not view the man as an opponent, but as a partner in a larger dance – a rhythmic dance of calmness and healing. The man became increasingly calm and was soon able to move out of the reception area to a private room for consultation.
Rhythm, in music, produces a “feeling of regularity…, a safe ground in the ongoing musical flow.”(55) Similarly, your own internal rhythm is your safe ground. You are grounded in your naturally flowing rhythm. To move into the rhythm of another is to move into the other’s safe ground. You do not have to give up your own core rhythm while moving into the rhythm of another.
Rhythm also refers to frequency of vibration (and we are vibratory beings). When one vibrational frequency is linked with as a similar, but not identical frequency, the two will tend to entrain, to merge into one. If you know how to become attuned to the rhythm of the Larger Context (mostly by becoming still, then opening), you can merge with the Larger Context. No “enemy” exists. Therefore you can never be overcome or have the need to overcome.
Catching That Free-Flowing Rhythm
He felt stuck in his job. He was bored out of his gourd. I asked: What do you do that is fun? He said (and shifted from pained stuckness to radiant freeness as he spoke): I ride my motorcycle.
As soon as he re-called that free-flowing feeling, he shifted to that way of being. Even though he sat in a chair in my office, nothing was before him but the open road. He decided to practice “riding his motorcycle” through his workday, especially when he saw certain pre-determined cues in his office décor, and especially at specific times of day.
You can do the same. Sit quietly and recall what makes you feel alive, filled with enjoyment, free – flowing. Once you re-call, re-collect, and re-member, allow the energy of it to flow through your body. Feel the feeling of it. Set up some cues in your life-space (pictures, images, objects, words). When cued, stop and catch that free-flowing feeling. (56)
Your Action Practice
How do you practice engaging life? What stances do you habitually take? What is your rhythm of the day? How do you deal with the rhythm of others? Are you and your actions synchronous or are “you” usually somewhere else? When walking, are “you” walking? When driving, while talking, while living your life? Are you engaging? Do you engage each moment’s situation with your whole being?
How can you be more engaging in this existence? Do you wish to be? Would you rather be in some form of stupor? If so, your action practice might be to deliberately engage in stupor, to be aware of your degree of commitment to stupor, and to remain aware of how well you are being stuporous.
Proficiency in embodying the other warrior weapons (compassion, surrender, opening, mindfulness, relentlessness, centering, and calm) automatically calls forth action. From what actions are you refraining? From what are you holding back? For what are you waiting?
