An old friend of mine, Jerry Kvasnica, artfully describes this energy, an invisible substance essential to life and central in our transmission of the qualities we wish the future to be made of.
“The most refined substance generation occurs at the spiritual level. Worship and meditation, to the degree that these are free of religious beliefs and concepts, generate a purity of spiritual substance that I refer to as “pneumaplasm.”
In actual fact, all substance originates at this level, and substance generated at the physical and mental levels is just a denser form of pneumaplasm. This spirit-substance connects spirit with form, essence with existence, heaven with earth, God with creation. It is the mechanism by which all life on the planet —indeed in the whole universe — is sustained and is the repository of all value.
Pneumaplasm is sacred…”
We know the feeling of this substance. Remember being with a friend, having fun together and relaxing into the safety of that relationship. Now picture getting excited together about something. Maybe enjoying a meal, your team winning, even falling in love. The substance changes. Actually, it’s changing in every moment of our lives. It’s like shifting weather patterns in our internal environment. Sometimes it’s sunny in there, at other times a storm could be raging!
We can learn how to generate and sustain this substance. Why is that important? Think of a mountain lake. When it’s calm, it creates a perfect reflection. Throw a rock in and the ripples distort the reflection.
Our outer experience is a reflection of our inner state. When we are stressed out, anxious, angry, etc., the inner surface of our “pneumaplasm” is disrupted. This creates a distorted reflection out here in our lives. Trying to fix things out here, without also changing our inner state is as futile as shaving a mirror. We have to work with the original, not the reflection.
Imagine it’s noon. You hear your chime go off. You stop what you are doing (in a reasonable fashion) and get ready to transmit. This time, because you have just learned about pneumaplasm, you are going to invest a minute before you begin your broadcast to center your sense of self. This is easy to do with a couple of deep breaths, closing your eyes, and becoming very present. Imagine doing that right now and how it might feel.
Much of our lives are about interaction with others. Relationships can shift pneumaplasm swiftly and dramatically. Here’s a helpful image: your Relationship Constellation.
Imagine that you are the sun for your world and that every person you know or meet is orbiting around you. Yes, this is self-centered, but it’s a valid image for everyone. Some people are planets and close in like a spouse and family members and best friends. Others orbit at a greater distance, symbolizing their relative “distance” from us. Then there are the comets, relationships that show up sporadically, someone streaking in and out of our lives but not sticking around.
It’s helpful to do a relationship constellation inventory from time to time to determine if everyone is in the best position! Why? Because each relationship is a pneumaplasm generator (or dissipater). We can learn to quickly perceive the difference and shift people around to gather close those who we generate more energy with, and create distance with those we don’t. BTW, the goal is not to get everyone as close as possible! Space is good. Spaciousness lets us breathe, us and everyone in our field.
This is your practice for the week, to experiment with your pneumaplasm. Hone your inner perception. Look for the connections between your inner state and what’s going on out here in “the world.” Track your relationships. Notice how the line begins to blur between these two and what seems to shift your pneumaplasm in relationships.
As we acknowledged in lesson one, we are creating our personal reality and we’re doing it, ideally, with love. Now you get to practice translating love in specific applications, by learning about the fluctuating state of your pneumaplasm and mastering its generation.
