Something on Chi

One question which bugs me is.... what is chi?

It's been bugging me for about a decade and fathoming its depths can be a lifelong study. And damn frustrating and exasperating. Ok, I could just jump into the books and accept what'd written about chi energy. That will get me by but do I really understand what it represents?

To me, chi is life. The ancient Chinese described it as "life-force" and for good reason. Chi permeates everything and links the parts of our surroundings together. The Tai Chi practitioner and Acupuncturist understand chi energy. They likened it to the flow of energy around and through the body, linking each part forming a cohesive and functioning unit. By understanding its rhythm and flow they can guide exercises and treatments to give us stability and longevity.


Both good aims and no doubt chi moves through our surroundings in much the same way, a conduit to thread energy along and direct to wherever it belongs. Chi takes many forms and energy is present in everything.

If we accept that scenario, chi takes on a new meaning. Suggesting we can understand, guide and harness it to create places and surroundings of beneficial chi flow where it can accumulate and be absorbed by ourselves and any other creature who comes into its presence. We can strengthen its weaknesses and build places where it is comfortable. Wow, now that is something worthwhile. Why not choose the garden as a potential source of chi flow and accumulation?

One thing I find searching for the secret life of chi is chi is present in all things and expressed in the energy each omits and receives. Even a humble stone has chi energy but accepting a stone has chi can become rather complicated. A stone receives energy in its making and is retained, released gradually as it changes from one form to another. You can feel its energy but a stone is something of stability and certainty, a base for life to begin and be preserved. There's something very Yin in a stone.

Life to me is more simplified and expressed in the movement of birds and insects, the branches of a tree rustling in a breeze or the waves rolling into the shore at my feet. We are accompanied by chi and its presence obscure until our ''chi eyes'' develop and view our surroundings as compositions of all things.

Nature present and provider and we passengers in time and there not to abuse and plunder as we seem to specialise in but as beings able to observe, accept and encourage interaction between all things.

Chi remains that mysterious being, and that's probably best. Maybe it should keep some of its secrets from us human beings and instead we just taking a little part of it for our sustenance, pleasure and enjoyment.