The Subtle Body: Nuance Combats Fake News, and I Feel You

Welcome to March, Galaxy! It’s a time when things seem to be waking up and moving around a little bit, then maybe going back to sleep under the occasional blanket of snow. But underneath, I think we all feel that stirring and reawakening beginning, even though we can’t see it. As we work with energetic pathways, chakras among them, I’ve been thinking about all of the things that we can’t quantify, but we know are there, which is sort of the essence of the energetic, subtle-body maps that we have as a part of the yoga tradition.

The phrase “subtle body” is a favorite of mine. The definition of subtle is something that is so delicate, or so specific, or so je ne sais quois, that you simply cannot analyze it. The idea that there are things that might be felt, might be real, but cannot be analyzed is something that I love to contemplate, both for the challenge it gives my analytical mind, and the spaciousness it gives my creative mind.

I guess back in the day, very real scientific concepts like atoms, microscopic organisms, invisible waves of energy, things living on the bottom of the ocean floor, stars being born light years upon light years away… these were all things that we couldn’t see, hear, touch, or verify, but were 100% real.

So even though I can’t locate a spinning red vortex at the base of my spine, and I can’t segment out my being into the various sheaths of the koshas (food body, breath body, mind body, wisdom body, bliss body), , and I can’t see the 72,000 pranic pathways that make up the nadis, when I hear them explained, there is something that resonates and tells me that there is something real there. And then when I get really focused and observant, really grounded, when I let the chatter and anxiety of my thoughts subside even a little, I can sense what’s skirting the surface of my awareness and get just a little contact with it.

I say this a lot to my yoga classes - the physical sensations of a yoga practice are strongest and loudest at the beginning. Those sensations will get quieter over time. Once they do, there are layers of perception that are waiting to be experienced, that you wouldn’t have access to with the loudness of all of those strong physical sensations. The work isn’t to continue to feel more, stretch more, chaturanga more, breathe louder, work harder and longer. The work is to notice the small things that you wouldn’t otherwise feel, because you were too busy thinking about your calves stretching in Down Dog. The work is to feel less, but notice more.

There are some very funny Instagram reels that riff on the basic idea of empaths being less empathic than they think, and just very tuned into their own anxiety. Part of why I think they’re funny is because they’re true, and they’re sometimes very much me. I am most definitely subject to the whims of my anxiety and all the false messaging it gives me. I also have had many experiences that weren’t borne of an anxious mental state that very clearly showed me connections, energy, and subtle awareness that I know was real, but couldn’t be seen, or talked about, or quantified.

I’ve had a dream about someone and later found out that I was in their dream. I’ve decided out of the blue to teach a yoga pose that I later found out two of my teacher friends also taught. I’ve seen what I can only describe as someone’s energy or aura emanating from their physical bodies. I’ve felt energy being transmitted during hands on assists - both receiving and giving. I’ve had interactions where I can sense quite clearly what is felt, underneath what is said. I knew the exact moment, to the minute, when my Dad died, even though he was in a hospital bed in Detroit, and I was teaching a yoga class in Milwaukee.

Sometimes I’ll walk away from those experiences, and my inner skeptic, who is loud and bossy, will offer logical explanations for why what I was feeling wasn’t true. Those battling voices - the energetic empath and the skeptical side eye are allowed to have a little dialog with each other in my mind. I think we should be allowed to test our sixth senses every once in a while. But if, after contemplation, I determine that what I felt was real, I hang onto that feeling.

And I trust it.

I actually think that’s a really important skill to cultivate right now - can you trust what you sense, even when your eyes are being told something different? Because currently, there are a lot of places where we can be given information that is totally untrue - including our government. A few years back, I was teaching an anatomy weekend in St. Louis, and I got to see George Saunders speak on my downtime. His most recent book was “Lincoln in the Bardo,” and someone asked him if all of the historical sources that are included in the novel were real. Saunders answered that about 70%-80% were factual, and the rest were made up, and challenged us to try to figure out which ones were which. Then he said something that I wrote down and haven’t forgotten since: “Nuance combats fake news.”

Or maybe: subtle body awareness combats the narratives our minds and bodies might want to keep us adhering to.

Or maybe: I know what I felt, and I’m not going to let another person rationalize that feeling away.

If we didn’t trust that feeling, we might not know that atoms exist, or that there are invisible energetic waves all around us, or that a star is currently being born somewhere in space.

This month, we’re going to get very quiet, notice the subtle things, and trust what we feel. I like that mantra for us this month: I trust what I feel.

Which makes me want to share this Julia Holter song with you - it’s a favorite, and I’m sure you’ve heard it in a yoga class of mine at some point. She sings:

“Can I feel you?

Are you mythological?

Figures pass so quickly

That I realize my eyes know very well

it’s impossible to see

Who I’m waiting for in my raincoat.”

You feel me?

Xo,

a