Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Negative Pressure

We learned something a couple of years ago (from a neighbour I think) about how to cool the house down in the evening after a hot summer day. Even though we keep the house pretty closed up on hot days, by evening it can get pretty warm, even here in the cold north. I can't sleep when it's too warm so this has always been a bit of an issue for me. Many people sleep in their cool basements which is another great way to beat the night time heat. We don't do that, and I certainly couldn't do that when I lived in apartments.

Anyway, here's what you do. When the evening starts to cool and the temperature is cooler outside than in, you open one window wide (we do the kitchen window) and place a fan in the window or as close as you can get and have it blowing outside. Then you open the window in the room (s) you want cooled, usually the bedroom, and keep all the other windows closed. Within a very short time you will find the bedroom cooling to the point of being pretty darn cold sometimes.  It is absolutely amazing and quite delicious! I often wonder why I didn't know about this little trick years ago but alas I did not.



The point is if you don't find a way to blow the hot air out of the house there is often very little or no cooling even with all the windows open unless there's a cool breeze that can get in somehow. What we create with this little scenario of blowing the hot air out is called negative pressure. The hot air is blown out, sucking in the cooler air from outside. This is similar to the way wind actually works, it doesn't blow, it sucks (sounds fun doesn't it?). As the warm air rises it pulls the cooler air along with it.

That's my meteorological helpful hint of day. Now onto the metaphorical aspect which is what I find really fabulous about this phenomenon. The house full of hot air is like the psyche full of beliefs and concepts. We often spend a lot of time blowing ideas around trying to jam in new ones but unless we have a way of getting the old ideas out it's pretty darn hard to allow any cool new ideas to emerge.

Full, rounded breaths along with compassionate attention toward the feelings already lodged in the mind/body is how we begin to create space. When used along with inquiry into the beliefs that have held it all in place we create a wonderful vortex of negative energy, so to speak, that allows something new to arise. The wonder aspect of the Liberation Process is the wonderful cool breeze that refreshes us and brings with it fresh, new ideas. All we have to do then is take action in the direction this delicious new energy takes us. Way fun!

You know what else I think is really cool about this. I learned about the fan blowing air out thing around the same time I really got into dismantling the illusion in a big way. Life is so perfect!

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