A bit like the Sun in the Chapter on Cause, Effect and Nurture, we can describe our energy in two different ways.
Physical Energy
Most foods that we buy nowadays have some sort of label to let us know how many calories we will absorb if we eat or drink them. A calorie is a measurement of energy. (For the purposes of this description there is no need to give a scientific explanation of the calorie – anyone who is interested can look it up here). It is enough to state (as you all probably know already) that we have to eat and drink to get calories into us.
Calories are a kind of fuel.
The energy that results from the intake of calories gives us vigour to go about our day to day living. If we do a lot of physical exercise, we need more calories because, obviously, we need more energy. Otherwise we will get fatigued and start losing weight. If, on the other hand, we are eating and drinking a lot of foods that are high calorie and not exercising at all, we are not burning off the energy that we need to burn off so we start putting on weight, or our arteries get clogged etc.
As we go through life, we take in calories and burn them off every hour of every day – as does every other living thing. And this is indeed linked to the Sun, which is the principal provider of the energy needed for plants to grow so we (and the animals that we eat) can eat them.
Spiritual Energy
Another way to describe the energy we have is to look at our energy in the context of our spirit. Our spiritual energy gives us our will to live and our desire to be creative, to love life. The French term joie de vivre comes to mind!
It also increases when we are inspired by a fellow human, moved to action to do something altruistic or generous, or when we discover some potential in ourselves that was dormant.
We have life energy at conception and this increases and decreases throughout our life. It increases as we are loved and nurtured, as our emotions are acknowledged as being real, as our root foundations are honoured and enabled, as we are affirmed and praised, and as we learn to put the inevitable anxieties and fears and ups and downs that we have growing up in perspective.
On the other hand, our spiritual energy decreases if we are lonely, isolated, empty inside, full of sadness or surrounded by negativity or cynicism. If we are depressed we are usually very low in energy, no matter how much we eat or drink.
At the time of our death our energy is dissipated. Some people would say that this energy has moved on. Perhaps it moves on to descendants or other people who were emotionally close to the deceased.
When I was writing this website a good friend of mine died unexpectedly. I could feel some of his energy around me and within me. My memories of him are of wisdom and generosity and this inspires me. That energy is a really positive energy.
Humans and Energy – General
Before I get into the nitty gritty of the Chapter I think that it would be interesting to consider the relationship that humans have with energy.
The only humans that live within what I’ll call our energy envelope (that is, use less energy than we actually have) are hunter gatherer tribes and farmers that use very primitive farming methods. The rest of us live way outside our energy envelope. We first started to do this when we got horses or other animals to do work for us, and/or identified materials that we could use either as tools or to make our lives more comfortable [1].
Take the example of wood, an early energy-saving material for humans. We can use it for fire to cook and keep ourselves warm, to build houses, furniture we need to make our lives easier, things to transport us faster than our legs e.g. boats, or carriages pulled by the aforementioned horse, etc. etc.
This is only sustainable (i.e. causes no harm) up to the point where we are using less wood than the time it takes to grow trees to replace the wood, or, as we know nowadays – in the case of fires to keep us warm – putting more carbon into the atmosphere than can be absorbed by the growth of new trees.
When it is the opposite we are interfering with the design of the natural world – and our actions become unsustainable. Of course, when we start burning turf, then coal, not to mention oil and gas, we multiply unsustainability a thousand-fold.
The harm that we then do in using more energy than we possess soon becomes virtually irreversible!
Conclusion
I would like to get back now to our physical and spiritual energies described above. For those of you who have stuck with the website this far you may have an expectation that it is spiritual energy that I am more interested in. And you would be right.
But we need to remember that whatever we put into our body in the way of food or drink (or drugs) will determine much of our energy level too. Both spiritual and physical energy are equally important and have a kind of mutuality.
For example, if we are very low in spiritual energy we may comfort eat to try to bring our energy level up, when it would be more advantageous for us to not eat at all and take some exercise.
And then of course, there is the false energy that we get from drinking to excess or taking drugs. But our body trumps our brain here the next day as it demands the energy back in the form of a hangover!
So while we are alive there is a constant exchange of energy with our environment. Much of our energy is used up adapting to changes in, or trying to change our environment.
The existentialist philosophers say that if we didn’t know we were going to die we’d never do anything meaningful with our lives. It is the (unconscious and conscious) knowledge that death is inevitable that spurs us on.
And more paradox – while, of course, death brings closure, our knowledge of its inevitability may give us energy, and contribute to our level of aliveness.
[1]. I mention the difference between product and process towards the end of this post. It is interesting that when we start living outside our energy envelope we usually do it to become more productive!