This morning I realized it’s even simpler than I last described. The descending energy is simply the gradual emergence of self-awareness in the body. It’s not so much that the descending force carries with it an “instruction” for feeling some specific feeling. No, the only thing a part (or stratum or column) of the body is asked to feel is itself.
This recognition is engendering greater trust. The assignment of responsibility to an outside force is suddenly waning (and I wonder how specifically my language will correspondingly change). There’s more trust, because as far as each part is concerned, “it’s just me.” It’s not an external pressure saying “wake up!”; it’s just that part waking up, a.k.a. feeling itself, a.k.a. feeling.
More trust makes for less noise. Noise arises in the perception of a battle: attack/retreat, emerge/withdraw. Noise reflects the lack of precision in these movements. The part is always overcompensating, pressing outward too far, retreating inward too far...until it realizes it is only fighting with itself, like a dog chasing its tail. A new calm, clarity, and precision becomes possible, and the gradual spread of wakefulness in the body accelerates (exponentially?).
When “I” feel something in my body, that’s not the most accurate way to describe it. Rather, that part of the body feels something. That part feels itself. That part feels. So when I become aware of a feeling in my body, it is more accurate to say that the part is becoming self-aware.
For example, if I ate too much chocolate yesterday, or stayed up way too late on the computer watching YouTube (hypothetically speaking, of course), this has physical consequences. The resulting feelings are not entirely pleasant, and if each part is accustomed to numbing out or “sleeping through” these feelings, I don’t (or it doesn’t) actually feel them. The descending force is not asking my body to feel some foreign feeling. Like I said, it’s just the gradual emergence of self-awareness in the body. So if the top of my head allows the light of self-awareness to shine and touch adjacent parts, then eventually my stomach may start to wake up. If my stomach relaxes and allows itself to feel itself, this enables the continued movement of awareness through the body.
At this point it is not simply a top-down movement; no, it shifts and turns and finds its way, like a river making it to the sea. As long as the recognition that this is simply the emergence of self-awareness remains, the river will find its way closer to the sea.