Celestine - Energy

The third insight is called “A Matter of Energy” and for me it took years to really see what it imparts.    

I first read this book as a lost little Lez-teen recovering from Catholicism. I put my fingers together. I thought maybe I saw light or smoke but I couldn’t convince myself it was anything beyond bent light or faulty contact lenses.  

   In hindsight, however, that pretty much reflected my relationship with life at the time. Nothing made real sense. No person, no paradigm ever really worked. I was in Community College after dropping out of high school. I’d fallen in love - hard! I’d fallen really, really hard. And even though she’d been my best friend for years, it was becoming apparent we couldn’t even be friends anymore. (It’s amazing to talk about this from a vantage point of forgiveness). I finally found myself uttering the words “This isn’t worth it to me anymore” and that was just about it. I wasn’t coming from a place of love no matter how much I tried to love her. I was angry, resentful, insecure and unsupported. So the one love of my life no longer even wanted to speak to me. I tried to recoup. I read. I attended health masses. I threw myself into jobs I thought I was destined for but all doors closed in my face one by one.  

   Anyway, at this point in my story, I’m disappointed to say the least, depressed (obvi) but putting one foot in front of the other. Slowly, I started to feel a little potential. There’s something about college. You choose your courses. It’s not the money; it’s the choosing what you’re going to learn that makes college an investment. I had a relatable English teacher who called me a “great student.”  That was all it took for me to get my footing. I shared a laugh here, a thought there... I was exploring. I was alone, but not really. There were friends. I was doing my best. I was thinking - mulling over my situation. I dated, but not seriously. I felt like a moth trying to find my way away from a flame.

   One day I looked up at the teacher of a class called Sociology and this was where Celestine really began to take root inside me. The course sounded good on paper (the study of groups of people). It seemed like Asimov’s Foundation. I’d been curious. Also I could bang the class out on Saturdays so it was easy to schedule. 

   He was going on and on about these facts I’d never been exposed to before.  Other kids were interested, but it all seemed pretty matter-of-fact to him. He was nothing particular to look at (and do not I say this to be mean) - just a guy. He was talking about the difficulty in purchasing deodorant. He explained the dangers of antiperspirant and how our bodies are supposed to sweat. The metals in antiperspirant we are conned into wiping under our arms for a societal construct were actually destructive in a way nobody ever mentioned in my presence before.

• Thing is, while he did this, he was glowing!  

   This sweaty middle aged white man droning away in a room full of kids on this Saturday afternoon about the deodorant - was just glowing! The longer I watched the more I realized what I was seeing. I’d read Celestine, but this was the day it really clicked! It wasn’t the deodorant lecture I was enthralled with (although that was intriguing). That was just a truth he was imparting. It was the easy, natural way in which he procured it. This was supposed to happen. I could actually feel the vibration!

   Now, mind you, he wasn’t like lit up. It wasn’t light. It was like energy, but I could see it! And it suddenly fell in with the rest of Celestine for me in that moment because - I will never forget him. He went from whatever/whatever to perfectly beautiful for me to behold! I could see that I was both energized by him and energizing him! I realized at that moment: he was doing exactly what he was meant to do exactly the way he was meant to do it. Even if he was only meant to truly connect to me at that moment. I gave away nothing in class but I held back tears inside. It felt other-worldly.   

   I even researched what he said.  It was true.  I haven’t worn aluminum antiperspirant since.

   The point is, we all have stories. We all have purposes. This realization that we are all part of a greater story or a higher meaning will hit you when it’s time. We really are all right! The difference between a person you look upon with love and a person you look upon with anything else, is you. Are you grounded? Do you feel your own worth? (Nod to the magic mirror gate in Neverending Story). Are you truly present?

   - I will tell you that I mostly notice the auras from afar between people now. I was walking to work one day when I found myself locked on this Spanish couple handing out Jesus leaflets on a corner. The woman was handing them out. The man was I don’t know - manning the shopping cart? But I could clearly see an energy flowing from him and around her. He was there for her, but she was there for something else. And the energy sustaining her was both from him and from something else that was much more powerful. I could see their connections (energy flowing in circles between, under and around them). And I understood that there was an authenticity to what they were doing. The reasons they were there that day, on that street corner, handing out Jesus leaflets, those reasons were altruistic. They weren’t like the angry, hypocritical, insecure, God-fearing control freak “Christians” who come to feel superior at Pride Parades. She felt called to pass on the Good News of Jesus. And he loved and supported her efforts. I could even feel this as she handed me a leaflet and smiled.  

   Now it’s not often I even bother to engage with a Jesus campaigner but we couldn’t even talk. The thing was in Spanish and despite working in the South Bronx and years of effort, I’m still far from fluent. Still, I could see her intention.  And it meant something to me. It even seemed to mean something to him!

   I thought the plant experiment from the third chapter in Celestine was the end all be all, but I can’t grow anything unless it’s from the actual ground. If I lift it from the Earth it will be dead within the year. I try and try, but nothing I do will ever sustain something unconnected.

   My family and I even did Emoto's rice experiment. We had three jars of rice. We were nice to one, ignored the other, and the kids and I laughed insults off daily at the third. I think the ignored one decayed the most. Idk. The results seem so off I don’t even remember them. And I've read his conclusions were thwarted since but I've never read and understood the refutations.

   But do your own experiments. Explore your own stories. There’s a flow illuminating us all here. The fact is that E=mc2 and fundamentally, we are all energy. There are rational explanations for the power of our attention and they are empirical. Pay attention to your own attention - and watch where it leads you.