June 17, 2024 - Energy

The repeated bouts of extreme tiredness is a bit frustrating. I did come across something that suggested that my Chi might be blocked. I’m not much of an energetic medicine person but I do recognize that there is energy.

It’s always interesting to me, as a Western Herbalist, that people think there is no history of energetics, or an equivalent to Chi in the Western tradition. Many Western trained herbalists will take Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) because they want to have that component added to their healing toolbox. However, they couldn’t be more wrong about there being no history of energetics or Chi. There is a long tradition of it. I guess it’s like the wheel, no matter where in the world people invented it, it’s still round. The problem is that the Occidental’s were much better at their attempt to wipe it out than the Orientals. Some of my TCM colleagues have told me that they sometimes call TCM “Traditional Communist Medicine” because of what has been attempted to be removed from the tradition by some.

Anyway, in Western tradition, Chi would be called things like: Spiritus vitae, Pneumo, the breath of life, and in the Bible it’s called “spirit”. In North America there were many schools of medicine before the American Medical Association systematically took over. One of them was the Vitalists, for whom that vital energy was a very important part in healing.

Why am I going on about this?

Well, even though I’m not that great with energy work, I have done things like making a ball of energy between the hands. We even tried it in Kung Fu class a few years ago. It was a very interesting feeling when Sifu Rybak had us close our eyes and she went around putting her hands inside that ball of energy we had each created.

The thing is, during this time of repeated exhaustion for no apparent reason, the idea that it could be blocked Chi became a reasonable conclusion because, since that has been happening, I can no longer make that ball of energy between my hands. It used to be easy. Lately, if I can feel anything at all happening, it feels more… sticky. It’s like instead of a ball that pushes back at you when you try to squeeze it a little it just tries to pull your hands back together. It’s kind of a weird feeling. Obviously, something has changed!

Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of my knowledge in this area. I have next to no idea what to do with this situation. I’ve been doing more meditation and breath work (what little I know how to do) but would like to know more.

Note:

Another blog post that was mostly done but didn’t get published on time.