Category: Sometimes Ben Writes About Stuff

Yesterday I tried to do things a little differently. I came to the cushion after writing all afternoon, wondering if I could find a clue to this wakefulness (dark and quiet again right now, and hard to get out from under the warmth and comforting weight of covers, but harder still, far harder, to lie there awake, so I'm up) and I found my energy very high in my body--I could feel it like a cloud around my head--and I set about grounding it, breath by breath, exhaling the energy down and into the ground. It helped, I think. The clock's numerals this morning read a higher number, and its glow less harsh.

I practice drawing the energy lower while I work, trying to stay more centered. It creeps up and out. I breathe it down again.

I'm trying to learn to meet the energy of these moments, the shifts in flow. Stuff is happening. In trying to meet the energy, I'm also trying to shift the energy, change the energy, control the energy. I'm trying to expand my consciousness, to set the foundation for intuition and insight. I seek the blessing of a grounded center: If spirits be attracted, let them be benevolent.

Waking up in the middle of the night doesn't scare me the way it used to. I'd realize I was truly awake, that sleep would not return, and a feeling would grab hold of me as I gave up and turned to look at the clock's red numerals' infernal glow to see just how few hours I'd slept and how many hours until morning. We call that feeling despair.

The waking still happens sometimes, but I'm confident now that I'll ultimately get back to sleep. It might take a while, often a couple hours, and while I'm up I'd certainly prefer to be able to fall right back to sleep. But I'm confident now that sleep will return.

Of course it's best when I just sleep through the night.

Sometimes I can point to something that happened: Oh, I did this and it kept me over-energized at bedtime, and so now I'm awake. Sometimes, though, it isn't clear. Tonight, this morning, I woke up at 3:00am and asked, "Why am I awake?" I couldn't see a good reason for it. Nothing in yesterday's behavior seemed to push me towards it. But I'm awake and not falling back asleep. Fine. I'll write. It's 3:54am right now.

Jerry wonders why I have to figure things out, what's the purpose of turning my mind to find answers to questions like this. Are you sure you aren't just putting energy into the problem itself? he asks.

It's certainly possible. But at the same time, there's this: I think my mind turns itself to answering questions, just like my eye turns to a sunset, my ear to music. It's what it does.

Do the answers matter? I don't know. Either way, sleep comes, or it does not.

These days, mostly it comes. 4:19am right now and I am not afraid.