Energy, my teacher would say, is rather like a mist, and like a mist it tends to obscure the visible. Our whole education aims to dispel the mist and study the solid things revealed. Energy is considered a distraction or an illusion – a hindering veil.

In taiji we struggle (relax) to allow and encourage energy back into the picture. Quieting the mind, imagining rather than thinking, and allowing things to possess at least two realities: themselves in themselves (selfhood), and themselves in context (love).

And sometimes the mist will settle and condense, become a liquid, and flow.