This article was first published in InnerResources Magazine in the Summer 2007 issue.

   

In these modern times, our capacity to feel joy on a cellular level, has been greatly undermined by the amount of stress we have placed ourselves under in order to keep up the expected pace which our technological age has determined to be the norm.  “Stopping to smell the roses” is an adage that we blithely use, but which is literally a necessity for keeping the energetic system responsible for our joy and passion alive.  Smelling the roses, feeling the music, slow dancing with our beloved, or laughing uproariously with friends are the kind of moments in life which activate and “exercise” our radiant circuit energy,  increasing our ability to thrive on the pleasures and wonder of the world around us, rather than just slogging through life putting one foot in front of the other, catching brief flecks and glimmers of joy as they float by.  

    When the radiant circuits are fully open and their luminous energy is readily available to us, the illusion of separation is lifted and we can experience union and harmony in a myriad of capacities.  With the radiant circuit energy freely circulating throughout our bodies - subtle and physical - we can experience life as one humming, resonating connection.  Our relationships flow more easily, our bodies heal faster and more efficiently, granting suppleness and strength to our immune systems, while our sense of purpose in life becomes a torch illuminating our path.  A virtual “lightness of being” begins to permeate our daily experience, as well as a deeply grounded sense of inner peace.

    You know the feeling of this radiant energy moving through your body when you get goosebumps or “champagne tingles” as you listen to someone tell their amazing story.  You know this energy from the magical moments in life, like walking in the moonlight in the snow covered mountains, holding hands with your new love, floating on a lazy river on a sunny afternoon, or perhaps hearing a favorite piece of music.  It is a sensation of opening, lightening, and buoyancy.  It is the experience of thrill, wonder, awe, and passion well met. It is the experience of ecstasy.

    You may have also experienced radiant circuit energies at times when joy was not what you would associate with the moment.  Moments of exquisite opening or release - like the moment a beloved passes into the beyond, or the power of voices raised together in song, or the cathartic moments we experience when we are moved by compassion for another. These are moments when the illusion of our separateness feels as though it is being rent  from our emotional fabric, and we are catapulted into the experience of Oneness.  It can feel like exquisite pain, and yet it is a profound healing and movement of energy throughout our souls.

    Why is it such an exquisite sensation we feel when the radiant circuits are released with a surge? Why is that such a striking transition from how we feel normally - as if we have stepped off a cliff rather than dipped our toe into a stream? And how is it that our mind can recognize and appreciate the goodness and blessings of our life, but our bodies don’t feel the joy our mind knows we are entitled to?  The answer lies within Triple Warmer, our fight or flight energy system, working hard to manage survival in the age of technological bombardment.  

     Triple Warmer, with its bold, yang and fiery nature, acts as our body’s Commander-in-Chief always looking toward our survival, and intent on maintaining the habits we have developed in response to life’s slings and arrows.  Triple Warmer is not concerned about the quality of our life and existence, but simply with survival, and if Triple Warmer perceives that our survival is threatened, it has the authority to call up the energetic troops to deal with the threat.  The effect of this call is that those energies which have been “drafted” cannot devote the time and expertise to the jobs they manage on the home front.  The result that we experience in our embodiment can range from chronic low-grade overwhelm, fatigue, depression, apathy and weight gain, to weakened immunity and outright illness.   The challenge in this day and age for Triple Warmer is that the threats it perceives are no longer as simple as fight or flight from the saber-toothed tiger, or “this patch of nettles is mine, find your own”.  Present day challenges for triple warmer are much more complicated and insidious; radiation from bedside digital clocks or computers, pollution and chemicals, barreling down a freeway at 70 miles an hour, or the constant bombardment from electromagnetic forces like microwaves, cellular waves, radio waves and “wireless” waves,  not to mention the general pace of life and the chronic exposure to media with upsetting news.  Triple Warmer as an energetic system has not come up to speed at the same phenomenal pace which the world we live in has evolved.  This explains why our capacity to feel the delicious wonder of our radiant circuits pulsing and thriving through our bodies has been compromised, and why, when they do surge, it is often with a feeling of being on top of a roller coaster, when our stomach lurches upward upon our descent.  Maybe that’s why we like those carnival rides so much - they do for us physically what our energy systems are unable to do on their own.  

   

    Awakening and clearing the radiant circuit pathways in our bodies can be one of the most uplifting and healing choices we can make for our soul’s evolution and for our joy, as well as for our immune system and overall physical health.  We can increase our “lightness of being” by calming triple warmer and “exercising” the other circuits so that they can be fully charged and maintain an energetic resilience as we interface with the stress of the modern world.

   

    One of the sublime aspects of a radiant circuit system that is alive and well, is the internal communication which occurs between all of our organs and systems - energetic and physical.  Each of our 8 radiant circuits have particular physiological responsibilities, and when the radiant energy is flowing readily within and between every organ, cell and channel, there is literally a hum that can be felt  - an internal resonance.  This resonance is the harmony of all of our systems in perfect communication, and it includes a communication between our physical bodies and the energies of the external world that we interact with.  The physical sensation of this resonance is one of a deep sense of peace and unity within.  It is a sense of focus, calm strength, and resilience, a distinct sense of a vibrant and interactive attunement with the Divine.

   

    As a beginning massage therapist, I intuitively knew that I was always interacting with energy fields, but until I began my formal studies of energy work, I didn’t have the construct of specific systems around which to organize my therapeutic choices.  A few years into my studies of energy work with  Donna Eden and Sandy Wand, I had a more clear view of how my hands, doing massage, were affecting my client's energy.  In an effort to balance what my longtime clients expected of their session with me, and the energy work I was so deliciously drawn to, I began to make specific bodywork choices around what I intuitively knew they needed energetically.  One day I was working with someone who was in a funk emotionally, and in their life in general, and I knew that releasing the radiant circuit energy from its dormant, or suppressed, state was what would serve this person best.  I focused my massage choices on the channels that I knew were the holding tanks where the radiant energy rested.  With this intention, I found that I was intuitively treating the fascial system of my client’s body, foregoing oil, and working at a much slower pace than usual.  At one point I was doing a fascial release technique up the spine when I suddenly felt a thrilling rush of energy which felt like a genie being let out of a bottle.  My client felt it too, and exclaimed over it.  At that moment, a light bulb lit up over my head and I had the revelation that the body’s fascial system is the transportation system through which the radiant circuit energy can move in an instant to anywhere in the body that it is called to.  Our fascial system is all one piece of tissue, with no beginning or end, no attachments or seams.  It has the nice, moist, slick quality that is great for electrical conduction.  The sensation that my client and I felt, and the realization that the radiant circuit energy can be deeply affected through using myofascial techniques, changed my massage work immediately.

    Over the next few months I continued focusing on the fascia/radiant circuit connection, and the feedback I was getting from my clients was increasingly positive.  Though I was no longer using deep massage techniques with the focus on the muscular system, the experience of the person on the table was of a very deep release - from the inside out.  Physical pain and discomfort were being addressed, their bodies still feeling “worked over”, but the words I was hearing as they described what they felt at the end of the session were - “profoundly relaxed” “open”, “calm”, “easy”, “in tune,” “peaceful”.  I know from my studies with Donna Eden that energy needs space to move, and by creating more space along the radiant circuit channels using myofascial release techniques, the "strange flow" energy springs forth, thus fostering clear communication and support between systems, both physiologic and energetic.  Ultimately, it is our whole being that thrives when these energies are flowing freely throughout our body and energetic systems.  Our experience of embodiment becomes one of interacting with life experience rather than reacting to the experience of life.