Touching The Air

by Rebbie Straubing

The tealeaf steeps in the water that surrounds it. This is how it makes tea. We drink the tea.

A similar but invisible process takes place on a much larger scale all around you. All material things steep in the air that surrounds them. They make a sort of “air tea” in their aura. While we don’t think twice about touching most things, we rarely take the time to touch the air around them. But just as we enjoy drinking the tea, we can also benefit from touching the air.

Why Touch the Air?

Why bother touching the air around something? For the same reasons you would touch the thing itself. You get information about things by touching them. You can get additional input about the nature of a thing by touching its air.

We also touch other beings for the joy of the contact, for the purpose of healing and for the pleasure of intimate connection. Any purpose of physical touch has an air-touching counterpart that will bring a new dimension of tactile experience to your fingertips.

How to Touch the Air

Although the air is always touching us, we don’t usually set an intention to touch it back. In order to bring a higher degree of consciousness to this interaction we can call upon the breath. Conscious breathing will help us develop the greater degree of sensitivity we need to make the air something rewarding to touch.

Step 1 - Fingertip Breathing. Hold your hands in front of you with palms up and fingers extended forward and slightly upward. As you breathe, feel your breath coming into you through your fingertips. As you exhale, see, sense and feel the breath leaving through your fingertips. After a minute or two of this fingertip breathing, your fingers may start to tingle or vibrate. Your hands may feel extremely awake and energized.

Step 2 - The Fingertip Game. Once you have energized your fingers and can feel them activated, turn your hands so the palms are facing each other. Tilt your hands toward each other so the fingertip of the middle finger of one hand is close to, but not touching, the fingertip of the middle finger of the other hand. See how close they have to get before you feel the energy field between them. Once you feel it (you may even see it), play with it. Move your fingers around each other, gently palpating the air they have influenced with their vibration. See what information you get about your own fingers by feeling the tea they make in their air. Notice if it is a soothing feeling, if it is peaceful, soft, buzzy or electric. See how far apart you can separate your fingers and still feel their air.

Applications

Let’s look at three ways you can use your expanded tactile sensitivity in daily life:

1. Making Choices. As you walk through the supermarket you may feel several pieces of fruit before you choose an apple for your lunch. In the department store you may touch the fabric of many garments before you take one off the rack to try on. If you do a little fingertip breathing as you walk from the parking lot to the store, you can scan items for the feeling of the air around them and see which one’s air you’d rather be eating or wearing or mingling in any way with your own air tea. It can help you fine-tune your choices and bring you more satisfaction from your interactions with the physical universe.

Simply scan the fruit, clothing, books, jewelry or whatever may be on your shopping list, with your sensitized fingertips in the same way that you played the fingertip game. Let this process guide you to the selection you seek. It will give you information about the vibration of the individual items that, to the ordinary physical senses, may not be apparent.

2. Healing. For bodyworkers and energy healers, this is a valuable diagnostic tool. You can use your energized fingertips to scan the air around the afflicted area of your patient. You will find very specific locations of energy disturbances. You can then apply whatever therapeutic modality you use to treat that imbalance.

3. Connecting with Others. Touch is one of the natural inclinations of love. You can add a more subtle dimension to your physical affection by appreciating the feel of your beloved’s air. As you hold your baby in your arms, feel the brilliant air all around her. As you gaze into the soulful eyes of your basset hound, feel the air above his head. Play the fingertip game with your mate and notice how well you already know his air, how at home you feel in her tea.

Your unique creative spirit can guide you to many uses for this expanded sense of touch. I invite you to develop this ability for the purpose of a more fulfilling life in the physical world, for healing as is needed and for ever deepening love.

Dr. Rebbie Straubing, spiritual writer, counselor and workshop leader, has also developed The Yoga of Alignment, an inner system of alignment based on the principles of meditation and a compassionate approach to daily life. She offers telephone consultations through her website at www.theyogaofalignment.com Dr. Straubing can also be reached at yogaofalignment@cs.com.