LIGHT
Know What You Are: Instructions for Becoming a Light Warrior
Do you really know what you are?
I mean really know?
Most of us have been given a fairly simple explanation.
We are human beings.
We have bodies.
We have a soul.
But lately, I have been wondering whether we have the whole thing backward. What if we are not a human being who possesses a soul?
What if we are something far more mysterious, something ancient, luminous, conscious, and alive, temporarily expressing itself as a human being?
I want to be careful here.
Some of what follows is science. Some of it is spirituality. And some of it is simply me standing at the edge of what we know, looking into the mystery, and asking:
What if?
Because sometimes the most interesting discoveries begin there.
Most of the Visible Universe Is Not Solid
Look around you
The chair.
The floor.
The mountains.
Your car.
Your bicycle.
Your house.
Your hands.
Your face.
Everything appears solid. But solidity is not the whole story. Matter can exist as solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Plasma is often called the fourth state of matter. It is composed of charged particles and makes up most of the visible universe.
The stars are plasma.
The sun is plasma.
Lightning creates plasma.
The space between us is plasma.
The universe we see is filled with it.
Now, that does not mean that human beings are scientifically proven to be plasma souls wearing holographic bodies. At least, nobody has proven that. But I cannot help being fascinated by the question.
If the universe is overwhelmingly made of something dynamic, charged, energetic, and responsive to electromagnetic forces, then why are we so convinced that the deepest truth about ourselves must be the few pounds of solid matter we can see in the mirror?
Maybe the body is not the entirety of who we are.
Maybe it is the place where the mystery becomes visible.
This Is Why I Love Fascia
Anyone who knows me knows I have a deep fascination with fascia, especially the extraordinary relationship between fascia, human touch, and massage.
But fascination may be too small a word. The longer I work with the human body, the less I see fascia as simply something I massage, and the more I see it as something I am in conversation with.
Fascia is not merely tissue to be loosened, stretched, or released.
Fascia is a living, continuous web that connects everything to everything else.
Fascia holds us together.
Fascia adapts to how we move, how we breathe, how we protect ourselves, and how we experience the world.
And after all these years with my hands on thousands of bodies, I have come to believe something profound:
When we touch fascia, we may be touching far more than anatomy.
I have come to experience fascia as something far more extraordinary than the packing material we once imagined it to be. For much of medical history, fascia was treated almost like biological plastic cling film. Something to cut through. Something to peel away. Something standing between us and the important structures underneath.
The muscles.
The organs.
The nerves.
The bones.
But what if the tissue we kept cutting through was itself one of the most important sensory and communication networks in the human body? Because fascia is not just wrapping. It is a continuous, living, hydrated, sensory-rich network of connective tissue extending throughout the entire body.
It surrounds muscles.
Penetrates muscles.
Supports organs.
Envelops nerves and blood vessels.
Separates structures while simultaneously connecting the entire body.
It contains collagen, cells, nerves, water, and a slippery substance called hyaluronan that allows tissues to glide across one another.
And here is where it gets really interesting. Researchers have discovered that fascia is richly innervated.
It contains sensory nerve endings involved in proprioception, your sense of where your body is in space.
It participates in nociception, the detection of potentially threatening stimuli associated with pain.
It contributes to movement, tension, body awareness, and the continuous stream of information traveling between the body and the brain.
Some researchers have even suggested that, because of its enormous surface area and extensive innervation, fascia may be considered the largest sensory organ in the human body.
Think about that.
The largest sensory organ you may never have known you had. For decades, we were looking through it to find the important stuff. Perhaps the stuff we were looking through was important all along.
This is why, after all these years, I remain fascinated by fascia. When you work with it, really work with it, it does not feel like you are touching isolated parts. Nothing exists alone.
Pull here. Something changes there.
Protect one place. Another place compensates.
Injure one area. The entire system reorganizes around it.
The foot communicates with the hip.
The hip changes the spine.
The breath changes the rib cage.
The rib cage changes the neck.
The jaw tightens.
The shoulders respond.
The body adapts.
The body compensates.
The body listens.
The body communicates.
Perhaps the most fascinating part is that the conversation moves in both directions.
Your brain influences your body.
Your nervous system changes your breathing.
Your breathing changes muscle tone.
Muscle tone changes mechanical tension.
Mechanical tension affects the fascial network.
And the sensory-rich fascial network sends information back toward the nervous system and brain.
Again. And again. And again.
A continuous conversation.
The body is listening to itself through the web that holds it together. Now, science does not tell us that fascia is a crystalline antenna downloading energy from the plasma of the universe. But I understand why people reach for language like that. Because when you have spent enough time with your hands on human bodies, you begin to understand something that is difficult to explain:
The body is not a machine assembled from separate parts.
It is a relationship.
A living conversation.
A continuous exchange of information.
A web.
And perhaps that is true of everything.
Your body is a living network of relationship and communication, and fascia may be one of the primary ways that network senses itself.
You Are Literally Giving Off Light
Now here is where things become wonderfully strange.
The human body actually emits light.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Living cells release incredibly faint particles of light called photons as a result of metabolic and oxidative processes. Researchers call this ultraweak photon emission. The light is far too faint for the human eye to see.
But it is there.
You are, in the most literal scientific sense, quietly shimmering.
I love that.
Now, science has not proven that love makes your aura brighter. It has not proven that gratitude thickens a plasma field around your body. It has not proven that peaceful thoughts transform quantum waves into perfect health. But science has shown us something just as extraordinary:
Your inner thought life affects your physical life.
Fear changes breathing.
Stress changes muscle tension.
Grief changes sleep.
Safety changes the nervous system.
Compassion changes behavior.
Belonging changes us.
Love changes what we do next.
Thought becomes chemistry.
Chemistry influences physiology.
Physiology becomes behavior.
Behavior becomes a life.
That is miraculous enough for me.
Maybe “Raise Your Vibration” Is the Wrong Language
We hear it all the time:
Raise your vibration.
Stay in a high frequency.
Protect your energy.
I do not know whether emotions are literally frequencies being broadcast into the quantum field. I am not sure anyone does. But I do know this:
You can walk into a room carrying fear, and people feel it.
You can walk into a room carrying anger, and people respond to it.
You can walk into a room fully present, peaceful, open, and loving, and something changes.
Maybe that is quantum physics. Maybe it is neurobiology. Maybe it is body language, facial expression, nervous-system regulation, attention, memory, and a thousand subtle signals we barely understand. Maybe it is God. Maybe those are not mutually exclusive. I don’t actually know, but I am becoming increasingly comfortable with not knowing.
The Real Practice
So what are we supposed to do with all of this? Perhaps the answer is simpler than the explanation. Become the thing you wish to bring into the world. If I know that I am loved, not as an idea, but in my bones, my body, my breathing and my face changes. I even make better choices.
If I practice peace, then I become less reactive.
If I practice compassion, then I cause less harm.
If I practice forgiveness, then I stop forcing my body to carry yesterday into tomorrow.
If I practice gratitude, then I begin noticing abundance where I once saw only absence.
Not because repeating those words magically commands the universe. But because what I repeatedly practice becomes the way I meet the universe. And the way I meet the universe becomes my life.
I am safe.
I am loved.
I forgive.
I accept.
I am grateful.
Perhaps this is what it means to become a light warrior.
Not someone who has escaped darkness.
Someone who can remain present inside it.
Someone who can stand in the shitstorm without becoming the shitstorm.
Someone who does not deny fear but refuses to let fear become their master.
Someone who can feel anger without becoming cruelty.
Someone who can experience grief without closing their heart.
Someone who can walk through a frightened world and continue practicing peace.
The light warrior part is not fighting everyone else. The light warrior part is remembering who we are.
Remembering what you are when the world tries to convince you that you are only your fear.
Remembering love when hatred would be easier.
Remembering compassion when judgment arrives first.
Remembering presence when the mind wants to run.
Remembering light when everything appears dark.
Know What You Are
I do not know whether the soul is plasma.
I do not know whether consciousness exists outside the body.
I do not know whether fascia is somehow interfacing with dimensions of reality we have not yet learned to measure.
And I am not going to pretend science has proven things it hasn’t.
But I know this, you are not as solid as you appear. You are not as separate as you feel. Your body is a living network of relationship and communication. Your cells are quietly emitting light. Your inner world changes the way your body meets the outer world, and every day, in every interaction, you are choosing what you bring into the field of human experience.
Fear or love.
Reaction or presence.
Judgment or compassion.
Resistance or acceptance.
Darkness or light.
Perhaps enlightenment is not something you achieve. Perhaps it is something you remember. Perhaps the instructions have always been remarkably simple:
Know what you are.
Become the love.
Practice the peace.
Forgive.
Accept.
Be of service.
Be kind.
Be selfless.
Be compassionate.
Have no expectations.
Be grateful.
We are not scientifically proven to be plasma beings. But we are beings born from the same universe as the stars.
We are alive.
We are conscious.
We shimmer.
And, quite literally, we shimmer.
And remember, do not forget that you are a light warrior!