Beyond Positive and Negative Energy

I've been thinking a lot about energy lately. I recently took some time away from work and spent a few days visiting some of my favorite indoor places during this heatwave. One of my favorite places to wander is an antique store, although I have to admit that they can be energetically overwhelming for me. I'm an echoseer—I see echoes of events that have happened around objects and places—and antique stores are full of stories. I've noticed that they often feel dense, for lack of a better word. There is simply so much there. These objects have existed for decades, sometimes centuries, and they've accumulated layers upon layers of experience. I think we sometimes need a much broader energetic vocabulary than simply "positive" and "negative," or "good" and "bad."

Take, for example, an old school bell I recently brought home. It dates to the late 1800s, and when I connected with it, I experienced several different impressions. The strongest was one of excitement: I saw a newly graduated teacher, filled with anticipation, ringing the bell to begin her very first class. But there was another impression, sharper and more frustrated—a different teacher ringing that same bell in exasperation with her students. If we limit ourselves to calling energy either "good" or "bad," we don't have a very useful way to describe what I experienced with that bell. There was excitement, anticipation, pride, frustration, impatience, and probably dozens of other emotions woven into its history. And I think labeling that frustrated teacher as "negative energy" would be unfair. She was frustrated. That's a normal human emotion. Experiencing an unwanted emotion doesn't make someone a negative or bad person, and the energetic imprint of that moment doesn't need to be treated as inherently sinister.

Perhaps a better term for bad energy would be energy I simply don't want to carry into my space. I don't believe every object that feels heavy, dense, sad, angry, or unsettled is dangerous or negative. Sometimes it's simply carrying a story. That doesn't mean I have to keep every story exactly as I found it, either. Before bringing the school bell into my home, I smoke-cleansed it with cedar. I wasn't trying to erase its history or declare those past experiences "bad." I was simply clearing away the accumulated energy and creating a fresh energetic relationship between the bell and its new home. Perhaps that's another way of looking at energetic cleansing: not as an act of fighting darkness, but as a way of acknowledging what has been, releasing what no longer belongs, and making room for what comes next.