Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

He laughed, flashing a perfect smile, his eyes sparkling, and said that if I practiced every day,
adding a revolution every few days, I would reach twenty-one before long. He explained that this
would mean that my “vestibular apparatus”—my balance, spatial awareness, and stability—had
become strong and vital.
And that’s exactly what I did. I got back on the horse, palm fronds in hand, and started to spin
again. This time, I made it to five repetitions before I started to get dizzy. I then placed my hands on
my hips and took the three superhero “power breaths” I saw my friend take earlier. Once I took that
second breath, with my hands on my hips, my feet firmly planted in the earth, I started to believe that
maybe I could be a superhero too.
Then, following his meticulous cues, I got down on the ground and performed an exercise that
looked like a “leg chop.” My years of Pilates served me well in using my core strength and being able
to maneuver my legs up and down, but I could feel that something else was going on entirely—
something deeper was being opened and released inside my own body. It felt like a new kind of
strength and vitality bubbling up from a deep well inside me. My entire body was coming alive in a
way that was foreign, but not completely unfamiliar. It was exciting!
Each exercise took on an entirely new dynamic and texture, different from anything I’d ever done,
ushering me into what felt like an altered dimension. I had to surmise that it was because of the
breathing, the incredible focus, and the rhythm—that powerful, unbroken, steady, forward-moving
rhythm that was implicit in each exercise he instructed me to do. It swept over my body like a wave,
until I suddenly felt as though I was part of everything around me.
The sun had only just started to rise and I am decidedly not a morning person, yet I felt as if I
were ready for anything. After my final power breath, I looked at my new mentor and said, “I’ve
never felt this awake and, may I say, powerful at six forty-five in the morning!”
To which he replied, “We were meant to rise with the sun and align with its rhythms. It gives us
natural power and energy. If we sleep through the dawn, we miss it—we miss this precious
opportunity. When you add these secrets to what you already have here in nature, you have something
very, very precious. I am very glad that I could share this ancient secret with you. Promise yourself to
do it every day, and you will have a long, happy life.”
I nodded. But then remembering the yogic abdominal undulations he had performed earlier, I
asked why he hadn’t shown them to me.
“The Sixth Rite is one that you must build up to. It requires great concentration and focus. When
you are able to channel your procreative energy into your higher mind, you will start to develop a
spiritual consciousness of the divine, of higher realms. You must be ready. Once you have practiced
the five rites for many moons, you will know when the time is right.”
As casually as he had performed the movements, he handed me a yellowed, tattered book
containing the rites that had clearly been his for a long, long time. I felt so honored, as if I were
receiving an ancient artifact, and wondered if I had earned the right to receive such a valuable gift.
Smiling knowingly, as if were reading my mind, he opened his arms and gave me one of the all-time
best hugs of my life. Embraced against his powerful, vibrant body, I could feel the energy of his being
literally bouncing off his skin and into mine, as if it were beaming out all the way to the sun and back
and, together, we were somehow creating a rarefied circuit, a channel. I couldn’t remember a time
when I felt so energized and alive!
Feeling almost out of body, I heard my voice come barreling out of nowhere, “How old are you