Momentum, energy, ebb, flow. These all work together to make movement, movement alone, but also movement in conjunction with other things. In fact, everything is moving all of the time. Our planet is moving around the sun. It is also rotating, spinning as it makes its journey. Which in turn means that we also are moving, even when we think we are not.

Through all this movement, everything interacts. The earth streaks through the sky pulling at the gravity of the sun. It is not a perfect balance as the earth is winning. Its distance away from the sun increases a few inches every year. The same is true for the planets and solar systems, and galaxies in our ever expanding universe.

But while things interact on a very large scale, they also interact on a small scale, the scale that we inhabit. We interact as well with things around us through our movements, our energies, our emotions. We swing, we sway. We move in conjunction and in opposition with other people, other energies. Sometimes we swirl in the frenzy of the moment. Other times we collide into others and go careening off into a crash. The trick is to see the patterns, see the energies, so we dance around the hard spots.

When we feel like the world is spinning around us, it probably is. We are not in tune with the movement of energy. We feel like we are a speed bump that everything is hitting. What we need to do is become aware of the movement, the speed, the directions of everything. This way, we can start to blend, to avoid, to get out of the way, and then to match so we fit in.

The Japanese martial art Aikido teaches this. When an attack comes in, instead of blocking as in other martial arts, the master will get out of the way. Then they will blend their movement so that they match the other person, so they merge into their flow and energies. This allows them to take control of the movement and redirect the other person. It is the perfect blending scenario. As one movie had it, there was a pilot about to take his unarmed ship through a frenzy of other ships fighting. He said, “I am a leaf on the wind. Watch me soar.”

We can do this in life. Sometimes we will give as we move through the chaos, adding what is needed to help ourselves and others. Sometimes we back away and allow others to have their moment whether they are someone explaining something to others or the boss exerting his/her will.

Sometimes we need to be the block, the force moving in the other direction to change the flow of energies, to take the less popular, but right path. It is hard at first, but gets easier as others see the rightness of what we are doing, and start blending their energies with ours. Then we turn the tide and create a new movement.

The better we pay attention, the better we move through the current, blending where we need to, moving around where we need to, changing the flow where we have to. We give in to the movement of the universe, and eventually, the universe gives in to the movement of us. This way, we become one. Enjoy the dance.