Point of Origin

Point of origin is a concept taught in Kenpo that essentially means the point at which your weapon moves into action. So, if your weapon is your fist, and it’s down by your side, it moves from that point into either a defensive or offensive motion in response to a perceived threat. Kenpo, along with other styles, engages the individual’s energy flow in synchronicity, moving from one response to another. But Kenpo does something else. It employs intention as well, with each response in effect setting up the opponent’s next move. The goal is to redefine the situation in your terms, thus taking control away from your opponent.

As an empath, I love the feeling of synchronicity. It’s no doubt what drew me to martial arts in the first place. Staying in the flow of Source is exhilarating. It’s that feeling we get when things just flow well together. It’s positive and expansive. For me, it also means the joining of energies in an effort to embrace our natural oneness with each other.

So, the other day, I began thinking about what point of origin really means. We can look at it visually and describe it as I did in the beginning of this piece. But along with point of origin comes chi, and if you’ve ever watched martial artists engage their chi, movement takes on another facet, or dimension if you will. Children possess an amazing amount of chi. Every parent knows the struggle they have when toddlers don’t want to be picked up. Their energy goes downward and suddenly your pint sized child has super human strength, far greater than Mom or Dad possess. Spirit takes over, and uses that little body to assert itself in whatever fashion it wishes. So which comes first? Which is the true point of origin?

With parents as instructors, our boys also learned Kenpo. Our oldest initially began our family journey into martial arts when at four years of age, I signed him up for some private lessons. I wanted to see if he was really interested before committing, and it was easy to see his natural ability come through. By the fourth lesson, he had a rear thrust kick that any Black Belt would be thrilled to have. So the journey began. On the way, my husband earned his Black Belt, and we opened our school. I trained daily, and after three years, I earned my own Black Belt. Both our boys trained in our dojo, and each expressed their own natural ability.

While the boys were not to use their Kenpo to solve personal problems between them, occasionally they did anyway. I remember one day, the youngest was pestering the oldest, and when I looked outside in the backyard to see what they were doing, the oldest executed the best rear thrust kick I had ever seen anyone do. The problem was, he was executing it into his younger brother’s solar plexus. I watched as the baby of the family, flew backward around ten feet or so, landing on his behind in the grass. The instructor in me said, nice kick!! The mom, well, not so much. Each received a time out..the oldest for using his Kenpo to solve a problem when words would have done the job, and the youngest for antagonizing his brother. Of course, I had to let the oldest know just how awesome that kick was..but in reality, what I witnessed was chi in action.

There are many so-called points of origin in our lives. Many would regard birth as the beginning. As a student of A Course in Miracles, I would agree that it’s one beginning, but not our true beginning. When you believe as I do that we’re really part of one Source Energy, participating collectively in an expression of virtual reality, the point of origin for all of us changes. As we are a physical expression of Spirit, then chi is the intended manifestation of that flow of divine energy which binds all of us together. It’s alignment with Spirit, and it feels amazing!

As a hedgewitch, I experience this same flow as immanence. We’re all connected by Spirit, whether we’re referring to people, the earth, animals, or tangible objects. It’s all an expression of thought made manifest in some way, and thought is an expression of Source energy. As above, so below is another expression of this alignment of divine energy. In ritual or spell work, balanced intention flows as energy is raised from our quantum field, our energy signature that extends outward from our physical bodies. It’s how empaths “feel in” to others’ energies. Our quantum fields overlap, and knowing or awareness simply is.

So point of origin then, begins far sooner than does whatever response we put forth physically. It’s intention of Spirit which signals the body to act, in an effort to survive. In Spirit, all is possible. It only gets murky when our point of origin is the body. Ego blocks the clarity acting from Spirit brings, so engagement of chi is negatively affected. Remove the ego, clarity is restored, and chi moves freely.

Can you imagine what the world would look like if we engaged our collective chi as one?

~Blessed Be!