Photo Credits: Forest scene: Malene Thyssen

The Float Power in Prana

Spring/Summer 2018

Summer is almost upon us here in the North, but it is still spring. It is that time of year when prāna, the life-force, bursts out and manifests as the pale, vibrant green of new leaves, as the deep, rich softness of new grass under your feet, and as air that tastes somehow sweeter than it did just a few short, gray days ago. 

Every year at this time, my desire to talk about, write about, even sing about – if I only could – prāna, grabs me. There is no doubt in my mind that understanding prāna – as the divine, intelligent, life-energy that flows through our bodies and the entire world around us – is one of, if not the, most important ideas we can pursue. It is linked at the most profound and causal level with everything from with the way our bodies work and heal to the transformation of individual and global consciousness.

Every day I struggle to find ways to take this idea of prāna and make it relevant, truly meaningful, for the way we live and struggle through our daily lives. This is especially so at this time of year, when I sense that this life-energy is so abundant, so near, so graspable!

Recently, when I was walking my dog in the vibrant green and blooming park, an answer came to me from a very disparate part of my life: As some of you know, synchronized swimming is one of the great loves of my life, and I compete on a Masters synchro team.

A while back, a young woman who had been at a very high level in synchronized swimming in Japan, was in Toronto on an exchange and came to swim with my team. This young woman was trying to help one of our younger, very athletic teammates with a synchro move called a “boost”. In this move, you begin submerged in an upright, coiled position with your head below the surface of the water, and then propel yourself, straight up, out of the water. Olympic synchro swimmers manage to boost their torsos and even part of their upper thighs above the surface of the water. Although they make it look effortless, it takes an extraordinary amount of muscle power and coordination to pull this move off.

Photo Credits: Snychro Swimmer: Wheaton College -Lets go Wheaton

The young woman struggled to explain a concept that she said she could only vaguely translate from the Japanese as “float power”. She said there is a moment – the briefest of instants – when your body is coiled beneath the surface and your head is just about to break the water, when you can sense that the power of the water is ready to lift you up. If you can catch that instant of “float power”, she said, it would lift you and help propel you out of the water. My teammate and I struggled with this very zen concept, but we eventually got so that we could feel the float power….

On that spring day not long ago when I was walking my dog in the park, I was suddenly aware, not just of the life energy that was all around me, but also of the massive, immeasurable potential of even more life to come that was quivering just below the surface. And I realized that this great, latent, about-to-burst energy was float power – and that if I could catch it, I could ride it, and it would lift me up out of a dark, uncreative space that I had been submerged in for a while.

More importantly, I realized that float power isn’t just available in the springtime. Prāna, this intelligent life force is – in all its utterly incomprehensible capacity – flowing forth around us every minute of every day. We are swimmers in an infinite ocean of prāna, and the waves that we can catch and ride, too, are infinite.

Creativity Exercise

This exercise is simplicity itself. You just have to sit on the grass. Whether you live in the North, where it is still spring, or in warmer climes where, even though it is technically still spring, summer has a hold, your assignment is to find a place where you can sit on green grass and observe green things that are growing.

Prepare yourself by getting into a meditative state by breathing slowly and deeply, and that with every breath you are breathing in prāna -- the radiant, luminescent life-energy. 

Then, as you sit, physically and closely connected to Mother Earth, look for a blade of grass – or any other growing thing – that is newly born. Focus in on the color, its vibrancy. Vibrancy is not just something you can see; it is something you can feel, too. The word vibrant comes to us from the Latin vibrāre which means to vibrate – to move or quiver rapidly. Tune into this vibrant, vibrating life energy. Let it seep into your cells and fill your being. Allow this vibrancy to flow into your creative work – regardless of whether you are doing it now or later. This cosmic creative force is always there for you.

Photo Credits: Siddharth Mallya

Sunlight made visible

the whole length of the sky, 

movement of wind,

leaf, flower, all six colours

on tree, bush, and creeper:

     all this

is the day's worship.

The light of the moon, star, and fire,

lightnings and all things

that go by the name of light

are the night's worship.

Night and day

in your worship

I forget myself

O lord white as jasmine.

Mahadeviakka

Akka Mahadevi, as she was also known, was a 12th c. saint from India.

Her work here is translated by A.K. Ramanujan in Speaking of Shiva.