The Universe is made of energy. It’s not just some woo hoo mental concept––energy is a real thing. Would your house still be warm in winter if it wasn’t heated by the energy stored in fossil fuels (or tree bodies)? Would you be alive without the energy of the sun stored in the foods you eat?

We can’t see energy, but it’s all around us. It’s like the wind. We can’t see the wind but we can see clouds racing, hear trees swaying, feel our hair fluttering––we sense its effects. There are many kinds of unseen energy. Wild animals are constantly aware of energy fields of their environment. They know ahead of time when storms are coming, when the seasons are changing, when predators are nearby. Birds have built-in compasses that are guided by the Earth’s magnetic fields.

The five senses of humans are conditioned to tune into but a tiny fraction of all the available frequencies of sound and light. What seems inaccessible to us can be expanded by learning to shift our awareness to a broader spectrum, by learning to tune to different energies.

Our own bodies are bundles of nested energy systems. We are constantly emitting energy not only with our actions but also through our thoughts, feelings, and intentions.  We can feel this energy in ourselves and others. We can also feel the energy of a group, or of a culture. We are absorbing and emitting energy whether we are aware of it or not.

We actually have some control over this. Just like we choose what food we put in our bodies, we can also choose what kind of media and conversation we put in our minds and hearts. What we absorb we also emit. Negativity and depression are energies. So are Love and hope.

Choosing hope is not easy in an environment of negativity, but we can do it. As the activist Marianne Kaba says, “Hope is a discipline….It’s work to be hopeful. It’s not a fuzzy feeling. You have to actually put in energy, time, and you have to be clear-eyed, and you have to hold fast to having a vision. It’s a hard thing to maintain. But it matters to have it, to believe that it’s possible, to change the world.”

Hope is a discipline. It’s a practice. It’s a commitment. It’s an energy.