Gridwork

A topic of conversation and inquiry that has come up for years has been the concept of "gridwork." What is it? How do we do it? What does it feel like? What does it accomplish?

In the realm of energy healers, deep feelers who have often been thrust into a lifestyle of seeing behind the obvious physical form of things to the unseen aspects of what they are and what is possible, gridwork is a term that describes paying attention to subtle energies and shifting them to beneficial effect. 

The "grid" refers in this case to the physical reality all around us. Sometimes that means city streets and buildings, stone, metal and asphalt. Sometimes it's wide plains stretching to the horizon. Sometimes it means mountains and rivers.

Science has shown us over the past several decades that the seemingly simple world we live in is actually a lot more complex and less predictable than we think. (If you want to dive deeper into this, check out the book The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot - it'll blow your mind in the best way.) What we seem, on the surface, to be surrounded by are structures, plants, wind patterns, sounds, tastes, smells, and so on. But when you look deeper and feel deeper, you have histories, energies, feelings, scars, blessings, sacred and profane areas all layered on each other, all for various reasons.

The "joke" about paranormal things happening where people have disturbed ancient grave sites or holy grounds is so pervasive because it is a very real thing. Events leave energies behind them, even when the event has passed. (For more info on this, pick up the book The Source Field Investigations by David Wilcock. He compiles large swaths of research showing how we actually know a lot more about the unseen world than makes it into mainstream information and common conversation.) 
Things that happen leave imprints on the land and the cities. It's easier to feel when you walk through (or even see pictures of) places like abandoned asylums and ruins of terrible battles. It also happens in the positive when you walk through holy places that have been well loved and cared for. Where people have sat and sincerely prayed for years, you can feel the sacred whispers of that past connection.

Some people are more or less attuned to this subtle information. It is neither a "good," nor a "bad" thing to feel what happens in the unseen realms. That said, the way that westerners are taught to ignore and suppress this sensitivity is, in my opinion, highly correlated with many mental health issues that seem mysterious if you don't take into account what the suffering folks may be seeing or feeling and unable to process, integrate, or affect as a result of never being taught.

In energy work like Reiki, we learn how to use subtle frequencies of energy and invisible light to adjust and clarify the health of a person. Gridwork is simply doing the same thing to a place instead. 

Photo by Josh Gray in Sedona, AZ

In my experience, Nature is one of the best ways to feel and learn about your own capacity for gridwork. Years ago, walking through a century-old apple orchard that I knew was also frequented by black bears, I sang as I strolled, not wanting to surprise one of my furry neighbors (who are generally peaceful and feel, to me, like big sweet dogs, unless you are unfortunate enough to find yourself between a mom and her cubs.) I figured that if they knew where I was, we wouldn't accidentally run into each other and have an awkward and potentially scary moment. 

When I would sing, the trees above me would blow and whisper. I didn't think much of it, because morning breezes were common in the Appalachian mountains where I was walking. However, after awhile, I started noticing something. When I would stop singing, the trees would stop blowing. When I would start singing again, they would gently sway and whisper back to me. Enchanted, I experimented with this during my entire walk. It worked every time. Years down the road, teaching my baby niece the sounds that cows and pigs and kitties make, as a result of this experience and other similar ones, we added trees to the list, making their sound a whooshing whisper. They talk to us, too. Practice for yourself. Notice how a tree reacts when you gently, politely and lovingly walk up to it and place your hand on its trunk, sending blessing into its body via your own body heat. Notice the movement and the response. Is the breeze making the tree talk? Or is the tree's talking making the breeze?

That's just a tiny example of how you can notice Nature talking back to you. (For more info about plants, check out the book The Secret Life Of Plants by Peter Tompkins. It's pretty amazing, and not even that new. We've known this for awhile, we just don't talk about it much.)
​Energy work, including grid work, involves layering these techniques and experiments onto each other, seeing what works, and using the practices that do. 

For sensitive folks, the world can be a harsh and overwhelming place sometimes. Noise and clutter of cities can exhaust us. Places in nature that have held tragedy (the Trail of Tears and old battle grounds, as well as slave plantations come to mind) can be confusingly draining. At most, if we're lucky, we're told by helpful family or friends that we are feeling something real. (In my experience, research about the history of places where I'd feel and see things showed me time and time again that my "random thoughts and imaginings" were actually the unseen aspects of a place, very real and quite verifiable. Of course it took years of this pattern for me to stop trying to prove it and just trust what I felt - research which I recommend to everyone, so you can know that you're accurate...) 

It is, however, a new thing to not only believe your finer senses when they tell you a place is wounded in spirit and needs help, but to actually be ABLE to help. That's what grid work is all about. Not just being a victim of what you feel, but empowering yourself to adjust the energies and heal the wounds. 

A simple way to do this is to imagine gentle liquid light flowing through a place that feels scary or wounded. The light rinses through the stagnancy, clearing away old ills and bringing fresh energy to the space. It's like blood flow in the body. Infections are healed by clearing the area and bringing new life to it. The same is true for the unseen world. 

An important thing to know for the grid worker is that this is often silent, unseen, unrecognized effort. Most people don't even notice. Don't expect to be applauded for what you do. That's not why we do it. We do it because it needs to be done, we have the minds and hearts to help, it makes us feel better because shifting the frequency takes the sting and burn out of the wounded spots that are bugging our minds and spirits, and for every bit of stagnancy we clear, we know that future experiences had in that spot can be brighter and healthier. There's a reason why there are places in the world where accidents all happen on the same road or people get hurt in weird ways, over and over. Energy compounds. Momentum grows. So shifting the direction now makes a larger difference in the future that we'll ever be able to see as one person with our own limited perspective. 

That said, I have seen results of this. An example is a beach on the Pacific Ocean that I knew from scientific study and social anecdote tended to be really polluted. No one much went in the water because we all knew that to swim there meant you'd be sick later in the week. Each morning for months, I sat on the beach and sent healing energy into the water, focusing on the studies done by Dr. Emoto and others about the effect of our thoughts on water, which is also alive, and, like all living things, wants to be healthy and thrive. 
Without consciously looking for results, a couple of days before I left that place, I happened to be in a room where a new station was playing on the TV and I heard that the beach that I had meditated on was now one of the cleanest beaches in the state.  I'm sure that I wasn't the only factor there. For all I knew, completely different and seemingly unrelated efforts had also been going on to clean the water. But that's how energy works - it builds momentum so if you are sending prayers and intention in a certain direction, perhaps it is easier for others with similar intention to just so happen to focus their efforts in the same direction as you. 

As I mentioned before, this isn't work we do for clout or recognition. It's work we do because it is the right thing to do and leaving this place better than we found it is the point, right? Say what you want about reality being fluid and malleable (which it is) - none of us exists in a vacuum. Pollution is a very real problem and every way we can address it helps. Each of us has a place to sit on the game board of life and if we have the intention to be a beneficial presence, taking the time to take care of ourselves so we can show up with the strength and focus to actually provide that help, then who knows what the end result will be. Certainly better than doing nothing.

Tips for Grid Work
1) Get into Nature.
It's way easier to see and feel subtle energies in natural spaces than around man made containers. Nature is more movable and flowing. It's easier to see a tree respond to you than the stones in the building you may be walking by. If you want to lean, make it a habit to go out into whatever natural spaces are available to you with a mindset of discovery and inquiry. Mentally tell the space that you are here to help and learn, and be very mindful of what you see, hear, and feel during your time there. Notice and pay attention. Be teachable. 
2) Research.
If you feel odd about a place, look up its history! I struggled with a deep suicidal depression as a teenager and about 20 years later I discovered that less than a mile from where I was thinking about slitting my wrists, hundreds of thousands of soldiers had died in a horribly bloody battle at the end of the Civil War. I was feeling, in part, the pain still on the land from that awful time. Knowing what is hurting you helps you to address it. Look up what you are attracted to, trying to demystify your own intuition. We each have a different internal language and we can't effectively speak it if we don't understand it.
3) Meditate.
Techniques for meditation vary for everyone. It is often assumed that meditation means sitting still with no thought, but as you've seen in my previous post about my meditations, that couldn't be further than what I personally practice. Try different things and see what works for you. You have to learn to use the tools you have if you want to be empowered. The world needs deeper feelers and thinkers to find solutions for the problems we face and to come up with ideas that will move us forward in our evolution. Respect the talents you've been given by learning to use them.
4) Pay attention.
If you feel funny about something, notice it! Don't just shrug it off. Keep a journal of what you feel and later, after you've researched consciously or just so happened to find out where that weird feeling came from (because often the information finds us) write down the results! This is how you learn to trust yourself. You have to acknowledge your senses in order to move deliberately. This will likely not be supported by everyone you know because people in western culture are taught to ignore and dismiss what we don't understand. So don't even talk about it unless you are in a supportive environment. Not everyone needs to know. Remember what I said about this being something that you won't get a pat on the back for? Keep it to yourself if you need to. But listen to yourself and trust yourself to learn how to use what you have over time.

Sending blessings to you in your inner and outer journeys. Different cultures from different areas in the world and different times in human history all have their ways of interacting with the spaces around them. All have elements of truth embedded, and there isn't only one way to do this. Notice what lights up your heart and follow that. And thank you for doing so! The world needs it.

Thank you for reading! If you have questions you'd like to read more about in the blog, let me know in the comments. I'd love to write about what you want to know about. It's more fun that way.

Have a beautiful day and remember to breathe deep and make a decision to enjoy your life. You deserve it.