Field Awareness:More Than Meets the Eye

It’s easy to say, “field awareness,” as Alan Briskin and I do in Space Is Not Empty. But when we pause to consider that the Irish language holds 32 distinct names for physical fields, those two words begin to open into something far richer.

32 Names for Physical Fields

According to Manchán Magan in Emergence Magazine, geamhar is a field of corn grass, biorrach a marshy field, and buaile a field for holding cattle before milking. There are names for a field tilled with a neighbor, a fallow field, a night field for grazing, a meadow between two woods, and an arable field in an arid place. There are fields for dancing, for games, for spreading flax or hay, for sheltering a mare as she foals. There are upland fields, low-lying open fields, enclosed fields, and level fields. A field with a fairy dwelling is called a cathairín. The list goes on.

Each word evokes not just a place, but a lived relationship—activity, memory, purpose. We, too, recognize different “fields” in our own lives: sitting beside a cool mountain stream, walking through crowded streets in Hong Kong, or savoring a cappuccino in a favorite café.

But what of the fields we cannot see?

What of the field that arises in an intimate conversation with a friend, or the charged atmosphere of an argument with a colleague that later seems like much ado about nothing?

Sensing Invisible Fields

In Space Is Not Empty: How Hidden Fields Are Shaping Your Life and Our World, Alan Briskin and I explore how we sense these invisible fields—and we do so through the body. Where else could we truly perceive them?

When we rely solely on the mind, we distance ourselves. The brain rushes to categorize, interpret, and narrate, drawing on memory, bias, and mood. “This room feels claustrophobic,” we might think—forgetting the argument that took place there weeks before.

The heart brings us closer. It attunes us to emotional tone—the joy that might linger in a bánóg, a field once alive with dancing. Yet even mind and emotion together do not tell the whole story.

The body offers the most direct and precise access.

Bodily knowing arises more slowly, requiring patience. We must wait for the body to “speak.” This means sensing what is happening within ourselves, within others, and—critically—what is emerging between us. That “between” is not merely the sum of parts; it is a field in its own right.

The challenge is to enlist language without losing immediacy—to find words that illuminate rather than distance.

Fortunately, the body helps us here. It signals when a word fits.

Is it sadness? Not quite.

Wistful melancholy? Yes.

When the words are right, the body responds—softening, opening, deepening our understanding of a field that is never, in fact, empty.

Sometimes that understanding reaches into the history of a place: a protected field where a mare once birthed her foal, or land between woods where battles were fought. What energies linger? What patterns repeat?

Are we, in this moment, gestating something new? Or caught in a subtle struggle we don’t yet understand?

Accessing Energy and Information in Relational Fields

By tuning into the body, we begin to sense how a field—physical or relational—is shaping us. This awareness allows us to choose how we respond.

In a leadership group I work with, I often notice tension in my own body. I notice it reflected in the group: limited eye contact, clipped speech, a guardedness. As I intentionally relax, invite connection, and occasionally introduce playfulness, the atmosphere begins to shift.

The most direct route to sensing a field as a whole is through what Eugene Gendlin called the “felt sense.” Through his practice of Focusing, we can cultivate this innate capacity.

For me, Focusing weaves together interoception (awareness of bodily signals), attention to arising images or words, and gentle inquiry:

There is a pressure along my sternum—is that right? (Pause to let it answer.) What might it be asking for? What wants to be known here?

It may sound unconventional. Yet experience teaches that the body carries a quiet, reliable intelligence—one that can guide us toward more conscious, life-giving choices.

Sometimes that guidance takes the form of our offering simple “meta-statements”:

• “Although this conversation seems difficult, I sense a real possibility for us to find a way forward together.”

• “There’s a lot of energy and humor here—what might be sparking it, and how could it help us move ahead?”

Naming what is present often shifts the field itself. It brings the implicit into awareness and allows something new to emerge.

There are surely more than 32 ways to perceive and make meaning of invisible fields. As we learn to sense them, name them, and engage them, they become not only visible—but responsive, alive, and open to change.