Questions & Answers

To expand beyond our boundaries. We are in the conscious practice of remembering ourselves and letting ourselves become everything we can be. That means moving beyond old habits and old ways of being.

Yes. It includes our energy body: the physical size of the container of energy that is you. Where your boundaries are, how big your field is, all of this can change.

Changing the size of your field sometimes requires finding the discomfort that comes with change. That discomfort is part of the practice, not a sign you're doing it wrong.

Stimulate the nervous system and get the body ready to be comfortable. Start with the hands and arms, the wrists too. Then a little on the lymph system: head and neck, breastbone. Move the legs, move the body. You can spend more time on this than I do.

We want to build a stable structure for this new energy, and the structure is from the ground up. So we let the energy drop down first.

If you're outside, look into the distance. If you're inside, imagine yourself reaching far up. Wiggle your body, shake your body, whatever it takes.

That's what you're looking for. Feel any discomfort that comes up; it takes a little while. It may be obvious, you may feel embarrassed, you may shrink back. Just feel it, and notice where it lives in your body. Then you forgive it, which means you let it go.

Hands on your chest, and name the feeling. Then three steps: “I am experiencing embarrassment.” “I am greater than this embarrassment.” “I embrace this embarrassment with love.”

You'd never call it your shame. You say “I am experiencing shame” or “this shame.” We are the container, not the contents.

Somewhat, but precision is not nearly as important as body position and awareness of the centers.

Slowness matters less than you might think. Sometimes it feels better to be quick. Whatever seems to suit.

As you do the practice, you're allowing the energy to settle into place. Think of a jar of rice: you tap the jar, or shake it, to let the rice settle. The body is similar. It's a physical structure of bones, connective tissue and muscle, and it can reshape and organize itself to prepare a container for this energy.

You settle the energy ball into your pelvis and legs first. Above that is the belly center, and you want it to connect underneath to the pelvic center. Then you build the solar plexus on that, the heart on that, and so forth. That connection, that stability, gives you a big part of what the work brings.

The container, your body: how comfortable you are, and how much you can feel the energy settle and connect the whole body, from floor to crown.

For the most part, no. Keep your eyes open, or slightly open, and experience your peripheral vision. This is a good trick to quiet your mind. Of course, you can close your eyes if it helps you with one part of settling in, or whatever works for you.

We're setting up our body to take input, so that our nervous system is available and turned on, and our fascial system is starting to warm up. If you look at the homunculus, you understand that different parts of the body have a huge representation in our nervous system, and those are the areas we focus on in stimulating: the hands, the face and the head.

We habitually carry our energy high and above our body. The power and strength is in the physical structure. So your focus is to let the energy settle in and down.

Keeping the breath slow is another way of calming the energy field.

Right hand on the chest, left hand on the belly.

They begin to stimulate the energy, and we collect it by feeling our hands, and the air around them. Two Suns Rising then refines that energy.

That's up to you. It depends on how good it feels and how much time you have for the practice.

No. Rotating the foot that has no weight on it creates even more turning. It's something to explore, not necessary. If you like it, add it to your movements.

Yes, and that's very much up to you. These movements are just for comfort, and you'll find some work better for you than others.

No. It's something to practice. It's not essential to add it right now.

To remind myself to remember myself. Part of this practice is remembering yourself as the center of your life.

It takes a while to be fully comfortable on one foot. Put about 75% of the weight on your right leg and 25% on the left. To explore: put all the weight on the right leg by placing the left sole on the right calf, so only the right foot is on the ground.

In a normal day, we all have the experience of things going right and things going wrong. People upset us and events upset us, and we're waiting for things to happen. So we carry feelings and shadows from our world into everything we do. And so here we want to reset, to something more positive for the practice.

You can rewrite it however you feel works for you. You can have several dedications, and you can use them in other aspects of your life.

It's helpful to connect the belly and the heart, stimulating the skin in both areas, so that the attention is easier to bring into these areas, and to deposit the statements into these centers. It's a good circuit, because it allows you to have those two energy centers connected.

It enlivens the nerve plexuses. With them come capacities: strength and stability; inner knowing; understanding when things are dangerous; moving out and doing things when that's the right thing to do; understanding where a person is coming from; loving your life and the people around you, and letting that love move through you.

These are both imagination AND real energy events using actual physiological structures in the body. Each of our capacities to feel and move energy is real. Even if at first it is subtle, it will grow. Remember, our attention is the director. Place your hand anywhere and it will heighten your awareness of that space. Keep attention there and the information available to us, and perhaps warmth and other sensations, will grow. This capacity to move our attention and associated energy is the foundation of all somatic practices.

“I am here. I accept myself. I welcome my whole self into this center.” We make the statement as the energy settles, and let those words enter. In the 63-Day Challenge there are three new statements: one for the first 21 days, another for the next 21 days, and another for the final 21 days. They go with the first Sun rising, the second Sun rising, and the blending of the two suns.

Quite grounded, because you've been building the centers from the ground up: the pelvis, the belly, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat and the head, resting on each other.

The crown center, just above the top of the head. It is the connecting center between your body, from your heart outward, and what we know as the heavens, that vast field of energy above us. Hold the ball of energy in a way that feels comfortable, and move your head so it best connects all the way down through your centers to the ground.

The heart is the conductor of the energy field. It may not feel like that at first, but as you build more, and make that a daily practice, you will find that your heart has a huge influence, not just on your own field, but on the field of the space you move into.

Adjust the tilt of your head. I drop my chin, so that there's comfort in each center. That's what you're seeking: to get rid of the kinks in your physical body that stop us from resting in ourselves. And the more comfortable we become resting in ourselves, the easier it is to work around other people.

The first Sun represents our hidden internal world, and making it tangible and real to us. The second Sun represents our human self, and freeing ourselves from our limiting history.

Our internal world becomes more apparent. Your perception of yourself changes quite a bit, and your awareness shifts to something other than vision. Vision is a big deal: it takes up about a third of the cerebral cortex. And vision is not all external input; the brain creates a huge amount of internal input to complete what vision is to us.

In the larger practice it represents the blending of the Two Suns, unifying our internal and outer worlds through the heart center, and opening a portal for who we're becoming. This continues over months or years of practice and becomes more evident as heart coherence shows up in the seals and gratitude phase. You may recognize this as a feeling of deep peace or even joy, and sometimes physical sensations and warmth throughout the centers.

In the movement practice it's a figure 8 movement of the hands and arms, an energy refining phase (between Trailing Clouds and each seal) used in place of, or in conjunction with, Two Suns Rising. It's a little more of a reach; you're still rotating, shifting your weight side to side and collecting the energy around your hands.

Three parts: 21 days for the first Sun, 21 days for the second Sun, and 21 days for Two Suns Weaving.

Most of us, myself included, spend a lot of our life barely knowing where we are. We are driven by thinking, we're driven by events in the external, and our identity changes based on who's around us. The 63-Day Challenge brings about the beginning of a large transformation in our capacity for presence, our capacity to be here.

The first 21 days are re-establishing our energy centers: the energy centers remembered. The first sun represents our hidden internal world, and making it visible to us. That hidden internal world starts to have a perception and tactile recognition of the energy, as we place those balls into each center every day.

It's a reference to Gurdjieff's understanding that there are many men in each man, and there are many women in each woman. Each takes over in different situations, with slightly different aims and slightly different self-understanding. All of those people that we bring to life eventually need to unify. They unify by recognizing: I am undivided. It's a statement of power.

“I am here” brings you into your body. That's the goal of that statement. “I wish to be here” is the beginning of will, human will. Gurdjieff's position was that people need to learn to build will. It's not something that comes automatically, because automatically we tend to be in a sort of responsive role with the world, not a self-directed role. And “I remember myself” is self-remembering, which is at the center of the Fourth Way. It's bringing back our essence. That's the goal of that whole statement.

Yes. The statement is the same for each center throughout the 63-Day Challenge, in three segments: the first 21 days, days 22 through 42, and then day 43 through day 63.

No problem. Just continue the next day. You will need to add a day on at the end.

This is a transition. Stretch the body, then rest your hands on your heart and belly to enhance the feeling there. That makes it easier to find gratitude.

Find a way to appreciate your life: the beauty of your surroundings, the people in your life, whatever brings gratitude to you today. Hold that, and let it fill the centers, which are now more alive.

You never rush the energy, because it has, in a sense, its own way of doing things.