Notes on energy play
There’s an activity I’ve seen in both pagan/occult circles and (my limited experience of) acting workshops that involves throwing around a ball that’s not physically there. In the acting context, this is treated as a work of imagination and collaboration, reaching each other’s body language and trying to move your own body in believable ways. In the woo context, it’s constructed as an exercise in feeling energy, tossing around a ball of concentrated energy, sometimes giving it a ‘flavor’ and trying to get an understanding of the flavor that someone else threw to you.
I’m not saying that both groups are doing the exact same thing, but I’m not saying they’re not, either. Intention matters, but it’s not everything. I think it’s just as possible that acting students are tapping into ‘energy’ to make their miming more realistic as it is that a bunch of witches playing “magicatch” are mainly reading each other’s intention and attention and playing off them. After all, intention and attention are a big part of magical work.
This is on my mind lately because working with energy is a fascination of mine, even as I’m never sure if what we mean by “energy” is well-defined. As part of my personal spiritwork study lately, I’ve been focusing on it, including playing those games of catch with friends. I’ve found it rewarding, and focusing, and have definitely had the experience that we sync up. We generally agree on what counts as a “catch” or a “miss”, and the senses of each other’s “flavors” feel significant even if they’re probably not provably above chance in a double-blinded experiment.
The sheer feeling of gathering something up and letting it go and seeing someone several feet away react to it is wonderfully collaborative and exciting, and the satisfaction of receiving whatever they sent you and having then acknowledge it is just as good. All the times I’ve done it lately, we settle into a rhythm of trying to cheerfully outdo each other, soon moving from something that’s not experimentation, not energy “work”, but recognizably play. And play is important. Play connects us to each other and gives us a sense of agency. Before my magicatch session today, I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Now I feel much more cheerful and, well, “energized.” I believe that our magic doesn’t always have to be serious, or towards a specific end. Equally important is exploring for its own sake. One could argue that it helps build skills that are important for work later, but one could just as much say that play, in itself, is important to help us be whole people.
On that note, tonight’s energy play session, and this post, mark the last things I have to complete for a “curriculum” I set for myself involving visualization and energy manipulation, a practice I’ve come to call Illumination. It’s funny I suppose to mark and celebrate the end of what’s basically “schooling” with a reflection on play, but I think something can be both. I was privileged to go to elementary and junior-high school at a place that focussed on Montessori-like techniques of exploratory learning, and that to me is still how I find I learn the best. Wrapping this one up, I’m excited to move onto another curriculum with the same attitude, one where I focus more directly on spirit interactions, rather than simply managing my own space. I’m very excited to find more ways to learn and play together.