Starting Anew

Fall Session Begins!

This week was the first week of classes after our long break and move to a new studio. It was great to be back into a class routine, to meet new students and to feel the softer, quieter energy of the new digs. In all classes, we focused on new entrance and exit procedures, grounding our energy in the new space and getting reacquainted with our practice and each other. Both Qigong and Taijiquan also focused on Standing Meditation, alignment and rooting. Qigong classes further highlighted regaining our flow individually and as a group and acquainting our new students with the movement patterns. In addition to our forms we practiced self-massage techniques. Taijiquan classes further highlighted weight change (move from behind) and waist turn (turn from the front) and how this is applied to each individual movement.  Please spend a few minutes on a regular basis reviewing these principles within the movements that you know as well as observing how they play out in your daily life.  It is as important to take one or two movements and study them as it is to memorize choreography. It is also important to observe your movements in your day to day life, how your alignment is, your relaxation and tension patterns, your state of mind, and so on. All these approaches will bear fruit in your study of Qigong & Taijiquan.

Recommended reading: 

Qigong as a Portal To Presence
The Root of Chinese Qigong, Chapter 3 

The Five Levels of Skill in Taijiquan
The Essence of Taijiquan, pages 96-103

Coming attractions: The Dantien, External Harmonies; Dui-la

KimSights

One of our students asked how my recent Pilgrimage along the Kumano Kodo might spill out into my teachings. I don't know yet really; I'm actually just beginning to digest the experience. I was however recently sparked by a discussion on a Face Book page I'm connected with regarding the KK. A couple people mentioned they found it somewhat "touristy." I found that really odd; that was not my experience at all. I rarely saw others, all the Innkeepers and other Pilgrims really contributed to the sacredness of the experience, but really, the trail itself defined my experience. It was so difficult I just don't see how anyone can think it is for tourism. It is true, I and others I met had serious obstacles to overcome to even get on the trail: Typhoons, Earthquakes, Pouring Rain, Injuries, along with the slick thousand year old steep stone and gnarled thick tree root paths we had to walk up and down most of the time in strong rain, sometimes 1/2” an hour downpours. Perhaps there are times when the weather and all circumstances would be "perfect" and I suppose then a "tourist" would be happy. At the same time, it is a Pilgrimage, and for over 1000 years, defined as such. And so.... it is about obstacles, not tourism. And also, this was my intention. To have a Pilgrimage, not a tourist experience. 

It occurs to me that our life, our practices are like that too. The "Trail" (whatever it is) & One's Intention define one's experience. What do we want? To be a Tourist or a Pilgrim?

This musing reminds me of something our Taijiquan teacher Chen Xiao Xing said one time to a student, asking of the Laojia Yilu (Mother Form), "How long will it take me to learn this form?" CXX replied, "I can teach it to you in an hour, is that what you want?"

Intentional Gratitude

I'm finishing up the last few work details this weekend before I officially embark on my sabbatical. Next Tuesday I leave for Europe where my first stop is Berlin, a city I've always wanted to see. Then I meet several other Moonites in the the Soca Valley of Slovenia for Grandmaster Chen Xiao Xing’s final seminar outside of China. 10 different countries will represent! I’m really looking forward to six strong days of training with my good friends from Great Britain, Russia, Norway, China and more, many of whom I have known for years. Taijiquan, Qigong and the Martial Arts in general attract the best of humanity and international training experiences offer all of us a chance to connect our deepest passion with each other, we from all over the world. My life and how I interpret the world has been shaped and transformed by these extraordinary experiences. I’ll finish my trip with a few days in Amsterdam before heading back to Seattle. 

This in and of itself is quite a full meal. However, with all the profound changes of this past year I really felt I needed something else – something introspective, something quiet, reflective and solitary. Since my mother died last year and I decided to let go of the Market Street space, I have noticed a deep craving to walk. What does one do at 10 pm at night to research such a craving? Google “long walks” of course! The Kumano Kodo in Japan popped up. I knew instantly this was what I wanted and signed on the next day for a "self-guided" experience. And so, September 3 sees me back to Sea Tac on board an Air Canada flight heading for the Land of the Rising Sun. I chose the longest accessible option of the Kumano Kodo, the Nakahechi and Kohechi routes, both, like the Camino De Santiago, are UNESCO designated walks, the only walks in the world with this designation. I will be 11 days along this thousand-year old sacred Pilgrim Trek with bookends in Kyoto & Nara.  I lived in Japan for one year in the early 90’s and knew I’d make my way back someday. Japan met and shaped my heart and my psyche more than any other culture in the world and I’m so grateful to be able to return at this time of my life. 

A student asked me, “What are your hopes and expectations for your walk?” I answered, “nothing at all.” The Ceremony and Celebration of our Market Street dojo (Dojo: Japanese for “A Hall for Training the Way”) continues to resonate with me in ways that eradicated all cravings for “hoping" or "expecting.”  It was a completion of a cycle, we all knew it, but it was much more. How many of us have an opportunity to stand in a room of 150 people and receive such profound appreciation? How many of us have a chance to look at so many people and tell them what they have meant to their life? How many people have a chance to watch stunning demonstrations of work shared and absorbed? How many people have a chance to witness a community gather and share with each other their deep gratitude? In these weeks following our celebration I recognize the great gifts that evening bestowed on me and more, on all of us; I recognize there is nothing more to want, hope for, or expect. 

I believe this evening manifested as it did because this was our intention. We intended to celebrate, to express gratitude, to be with each other with our full selves at this sacred completion of a very meaningful cycle that has touched each of us. We did it perfectly. Starting with the weeks coming up to the event itself we moved ourselves to this completion. The final classes we shared together were among the richest we have ever shared, full of presence, tears and laughter. Full of joy and beauty. The party planning and demo practice and secret surprise for Teacher Kim were all impeccable expressions of the heart. We did this transition together and I cannot help but think this experience will be one of the touchstones we visit over and over again for the rest of our lives. Impermanence is the only thing we know is for sure in this life and to so fully acknowledge and celebrate it is a tremendous act of love. Perhaps this is what my first teacher was pointing to when he said, “one of the most important things you can ever do is leave correctly.” 

In my speech I mentioned a dream I had a few days before the event. I had been spending days putting together the photo collages. My psyche was filled with everyone I had ever encountered in this space. In my dream, everyone was with me. I felt everyone’s presence and remembered the details of our lives together. And then, the dream expounded from there: concentric circles of our connection spiraled outward into the universe. At that moment, I felt to my core how completely and absolutely our lives interconnect, how we all touch each other in ways we know but also in so many more ways we will never know. It seems to me the access code to this realization must be gratitude. Every day now I wake up with one singular intention: to be grateful. 

Thank you all very much for the Grand Salute to Market Street. Thank you for being a part of my life and thank you for allowing me to be a part of yours. 

Respect, Salute, 10,000 Thank You’s. See you in the fall. 

Kim

Ceremony Long Form (1 hour, 20 min)
Demos only (35 min) 

Hallelujah

Lucas Smiraldo's poem brought down the house at our Market Street Salute. I still sing it everyday. Thank you, Lucas. 

1.
I  thought I’d seen this form before
I tried it once and I wanted more
I swore the universe just ran right through ya’

The tiger claw and the denjima
From Chen Bu roots to Omaha
The lineage rent and law are coming to ya’…

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

2.
A stranger from the land of wheat
Crossed a sea to find her feet
And she deserved a seat and what’s it to ya?

We the student took the cause
Of health stock and many flaws
But most of us will pause at hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

3.
You’ve heard a reference to the moon
Of Chen Xiaowang arriving soon
But did you know the tune is not a secret?

To spread the word, obey the form
Adore the sun, and love the storm
And all the ways my core sings hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

4.
Market Street’s a fickle place
Of twice the rent and half the grace
A willow leaf of palm flew through the door

The wind, the tide, the lease, the floor
And rumors of another shore
And all the while a lunar hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

5.
One night on a quiet road
I plunged into a riot node
Of fireflies, crickets, toads, petunias.

The willow tree was feigning sleep
The woods were lit and dark and deep
And all the bellow praise was hallelujah.

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

6.
We thought we’d seen this form before
We tried it once and we wanted more
We swear the universe just ran right through ya’

We wave our hand to Market Street
The cause is just but the time is fleet
And ever does it wend to hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

7.
I thought I’d seen this form before
I tried it once and I wanted more
I swore the universe just ran right through ya’…

***
At the open of the closing
Embrace The Moon
July 22, 2018
Original lyrics by Lucas Smiraldo to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”

Compass

My intention was to travel to Colorado over the break to take care of my mother's estate. At the last minute I decided with everything going on: recovering from the workshops, moving the School, still grieving my mother's death, and preparing myself and the School for my 2 month break this summer, I needed rest more than I needed more emotional stress. I changed my direction completely and took a week for myself in California that included long beach walks, spas, great food and a lot of sleep. I spent this past week continuing lots of sleeping and time in nature. I will have to still deal with everything, but now at least I'm rested, my mind is more quite and I feel grounded. 

One of the feelings I became aware of is that I am pointing myself in a new direction. One that is wholly unfamiliar. It is as though my magnetic core has been shifted. One of the images that moved me was of the many fisherfolk lining the beach at dawn and dusk, casting their lines and waiting.  As I watched I realized they were really waiting for nothing at all. I woke up one morning from a dream and wrote this down.

Compass

You never see it coming:
The lightening that
Strikes you down to the ground
And buries you. 
And turns you into ashes
And leaves you waiting to become
The Condor
Rising. Will you?

Maybe. 

Or perhaps you will stay buried, you will remain
Ash and be washed over by the tide
Perhaps you will smolder just under the sand until
The fisherman notices you out of the corner of his eye
as he baits his hook
And stands there with a long line of others
waiting.

No matter what, that sharp pierce to your core
shifted your magnetic center
Pointed your compass in a new direction. 
What direction?  
Physics only gives you so many choices. 
And yet, here they all are. Struck down.
You could not have seen it coming. 
Who sees lightening coming? 

You hear thunder rumbling, after,
a rapid expansion of air, an inhale.
You learned to count when you were a child.
They taught you. 
But they never taught you how to exhale
So no matter how much you count,
You can never really know how far away the storm is
It shocks you unawares

Only in hindsight you see
you were too close
and now you are buried in the sand
and conventions of Physics and Lightening and Love and Grief
Can never hold your ashes. 
The needle spins in a new direction
Pointing somewhere
You wait to be oriented again.

But all the landmarks are unrecognizable. 
You try to find yourself
searching the old direction,
looking to the compass you once knew
Looking to the place you learned to exhale  
before the storm, 
But the laws of physics only carry you so far
And you feel there are so many more lightening strikes ahead  

Get ready. 
Count. 
Go the ocean
See the glimmer of the sun
Search inside the shroud of the mist
Taste the salt
Feel the wind
Breathe
Stop asking
Questions

Return to Spring 2018 Newsletter

The Time Between Elements: Transitions

By Eric Hartmann, M.Ac. L.Ac. 

In 5 Element acupuncture, each Element corresponds with each Season. The qualities of the Season informs the energetics and functions of each Element. You may be saying to yourself, 5 Seasons? Yes! The 5 Seasons are: Spring, Summer, Late Summer, Fall and Winter.

The Late Summer, the time of the harvest, is associated with the Earth element. The Earth element represents the solid ground beneath our feet or, in other words, stability. As anyone who has experienced an earthquake can attest, when the earth isn’t stable, one doesn’t feel secure, safe and steady. 

The organs associated with the Earth element are the Stomach and Spleen. These are considered organs of digestion. It makes sense that the organs of digestion would be associated with the season of the great abundance of fruits, berries, and vegetables which nourish us. 

As each Season moves into the next season, so do the Elements. One Element transitions into the following Element. That time between seasons, that transition when it’s still Winter and a little bit of Spring or it’s not quite Spring and it’s not quite Summer, for example, is associated with the Earth element.

Recently, I had the interior of my house painted, the ENTIRE house! I had to move furniture, clothes, wall hangings, books, etc.. out of every room in order to paint.  I threw plastic tarps over the furniture that remained in the rooms so as not to get paint on them. Everything in my house was in disarray, in different places and/or covered up. In the morning, I wandered around looking for my socks, a spoon for my tea and my briefcase. My entire routine was upended and I felt discombobulated. This temporary rearrangement of my house is similar to what happens between Seasons. It’s a period of adjustment as we leave the ‘old’ Season and move into the ‘new’ Season.

I realized that my external environment had shifted (temporarily) and left me feeling disoriented.  However, I also realized that my internal environment had not changed and when I turned inwards and focused, I felt steady and stable. It’s times like these that I repeat my personal mantra of, “Don’t just DO something, STAND there”. It’s when I quiet myself, steady myself, that I realize I have the inner resources. And it is a repeated practice, every time I notice myself wandering around the house looking for my socks (which happens frequently), I repeat my mantra.

So, as we transition from one Season to the next, from one solid place to the next, remember your own mantra, your own access to your inner resources.

May your feet be solid on the Earth and your head up in the Heavens!

***

Eric Hartmann, M.Ac., L.Ac. is a licensed 5 Element acupuncturist who has practiced for almost 20 years on Capitol Hill. You can find information on Eric & his practice here.

And be sure to join us for May 12: Harmonious Living Through The Guidance Of Nature with Eric.

Return to Spring 2018 Newsletter

Leap of Faith

This session is the final session in our Market Street location. I have been teaching in Seattle for 25 years and for fifteen here at 1716 NW Market Street. I and we together have built quite a unique environment. I have worked 7 days a week running classes, private lessons, workshops, hosting the best international teachers multiple times a year. I have also been heavily involved with Chinese Medicine clinics and colleges, written and taught Western scientific studies. I have been able to train other top notch teachers. I have been interviewed, written and published. All this while managing the studio, its teachers, renters and the overall small business elements. Unexpectedly during these past years I developed a global reputation for successful teaching and successfully transcending the challenges of running a center. (Kim's CV here). I have also continued my own training and the creative development running a shop takes. Most essentially though I have been able to provide safe harbor for a significant amount of people in their transformational process. I have been able to do all this in exactly the way I wanted to with no one to answer to but my own intuition, creative vision and integrity. And you have showed up. You have really showed up. Its been great! 

Because I have never done what I do “for money,” my motivation always one of service, and because of my extraordinary deep well of boundless energy I have been able to successfully pull it off, never really thinking about anything else including the financial ramifications and physical tolls. It was always, in my mind, my destiny. However, with rent prices and property taxes sky rocketing in Seattle and especially in our Ballard hood, unbeknownst to me, I was becoming the proverbial frog in a boiling pot of water. (The frog in the pot doesn't feel the water getting hotter and hotter. It can't perceive that it is being boiled to death until its too late).

Last fall when my mother died unexpectedly I got a good look at what unrelenting suffering in one’s final weeks looks like. I turned 60 ten days later. Shortly thereafter I got the notice of the hefty rent & tax increase for the next 5 year lease. Perhaps if that notice would have come one year earlier or one year later I might have been able to suck it up, but I was in quite a raw place, staring at my own mortality in that way. It woke me up. I felt the boiling water surrounding me. I jumped out of the pot. 

Dojo environments are the only thing I have really been able to count on in my life. I have been in them for 40 years. They have formed me into the woman I am. I know for sure I have been able to share a part of what I have learned within them with many others.  So it was more than a simple business decision when last fall I starkly realized conditions around me have changed and I am unwilling to boil myself to death to keep this particular incarnation of the sacred container going. 

What next? The great news is I am not closing our container. I am moving it! We have been invited to move to a lovely shared space: Shift Movement and Healing Arts and we will begin classes there this fall. Its a great open space, has a "dojo" feel, a sprung floor and its actually a bit larger than what we have now. Parking may not be as convenient for some, but access will be better for most. Our teachers are going with us and a few of them are also opening other classes in other locations. We are still, "Embrace The Moon, School for Taijiquan and Qigong." Most of the schedule will remain as is. Also, in Shift, there are other teachers doing interesting practices you may even want to check out. Everything changes in this life, our practices teach us this and train us for this inevitability. And so, the Moon's container will change, but our intentional transformational process will continue.  

It is a leap of faith for me to make this change.  I do not know where this next incarnation of Embrace The Moon or of Kim Ivy will lead. I have a lot of ideas but I am trying to stay with the creative alchemy that exists in the unknown as long as I can tolerate it. Frankly, I have been more than uncomfortable letting of what has been, putting myself so intentionally in the unknown. And especially being so transparent and openly vulnerable with all of you about it. Its ironic that I am not really a huge fan of change, isn't it?? I like to feel the ground under me. I like my routine. However, after a great deal of wrestling with my ego, studying the options, feeling grief, fear, and much more, I am now fully on board.  I am excited to see what this frog can do now that its out of the pot. I'm also excited to have your creative energy join with mine. Its a short life. We should enjoy our collective energy, vitality and spirit and see where it takes us.  

Lets celebrate this lovely Market Street space with a strong Spring Session. Save the Date: July 22, Sunday, a big send-off party! 

With deep respect and gratitude. I feel wholly supported by you. See you for these last 12 weeks on the Market Street floor! Schedule & Registration here! 

Salute! 

Kim 

Return to Spring 2018 Newsletter

Camp

As a young girl I begged to be sent to Summer Camp. Each year I pleaded to stay longer and longer until one year I got to spend close to two months at my favorite adventure spot in Northern Minnesota. I fell asleep under the Perseid meteor shower and the Northern lights. I woke to bird song carried into my tent by the cool morning breeze. I can still hear the tune of cicadas as their song arced throughout dusk's filtered sun. It all gave me a feeling for the infinite.

It was hard to come home after those months. It was the Midwest in the 60's, a very conservative place with strident definitions of right and wrong, religious ideologies, and generalized certainties. Very little of those divisive times synced up with me the way my experiences in nature did. I didn't quite understand why I felt adjacent to it all and I became isolated and depressed. To survive my cultural surroundings I played outside as long as I could - until the street lights went on - and waited for summer camp time to come back.

I don't remember exactly when or why but one year I stopped going. I sat in my room and listened to the music of the times, and watched the world blow up around me. Kent State, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War and Stairway to Heaven. Somewhere in the middle of all that I found the writings of Alan Watts. I had never been acquainted with Eastern philosophy or the concept of Yin/Yang before but it was a life-line for me; the idea that nothing is absolute, that everything changes, made sense to my gut the way my earlier experiences in nature did.

I began my quest to more deeply understand. Having few resources at hand I sought out the dead end of drugs and alcohol. Luckily I changed my course and moved away from home. I found the Martial & Internal Meditative Arts and have been at their study with abandon ever since. I have lived and travelled in Japan and South East Asia and still travel to China to this day so I may steep myself in ancient cultures that figured this Yin/Yang thing out a long time ago. I do not idealize these cultures by any means but when my foot falls on their soil my heart feels at home in a very real way.

It is clear my life unfolded from those early experiences. Much of how I spend my time in day to day life now, what interests me the most, is the the inquiry into and the contemplation and practice of yin/yang flow. Most of the time I feel for how to navigate the change that is all around. When I doubt this I go to the garden. I remember Spring turns into Summer, Fall and Winter. Cicadas sing and sleep. The days are light and then night comes.

I find the world right now gives me more and more chances to tug on that early lifeline. The absolutes and dogmatic view points our culture and really our world is attached to has put many of us in survival mode. Our human mind is out of control. It is grasping for something solid that has little sense of the infinite. We have forgotten camp and the night sky. Our heart suffers. I don't think it is unreasonable to feel a sense of dis-ease and anxiety in the face of all this. At the same time we can't live in this state with any long term success and have to find a way to be in it as we go through it.

One year I was in Standing Meditation with my Taijiquan grand teacher, Chen Xiao Wang. Time dissolved in a way that felt like I was canoeing along the lake at camp. When we finished he said to me, "100 minutes." I was so surprised! I said, "all I heard were the birds singing." He replied,"When the mind is quiet you hear the birds sing. When it is not, all one hears is squawking." The story resonates. Somewhere we need to find refuge in quieting ourselves down right now. Yes, time will pass and it is likely what happens in that time will be painful and unpleasant for many people. And yet everything does change and we are part of that too. Yin changes to Yang and back to Yin again. It is written in the night sky, in the cicada's song. We must nurture our lifeline, watch and act with a clear mind and be ready.

100 Days of Practice, 2017: Student Interviews

Most years at Embrace The Moon Taijiquan and Qigong we take up the personal challenge to engage in 100 days of consistent practice. It sure seems like a good idea at the time! This year approximately 70 people signed up to try. Three people succeeded! (I think more did but didn’t record it). I decided to conduct a quick interview with each to plumb their own personal process and attempt to gain some motivational insight!  Here are my questions and their answers! Successful Moon Students are:  1) Lynnette Woerne, with Embrace The Moon for 22 years. 2) Caterina Randolph, with Embrace The Moon for 7 years. 3) Nicholas Griepentrog, with Embrace The Moon 4 years, and another 10 of previous practice in L.A. 
 

1)    What inspired you to take up the 100 Days?

Lynette: Each year you have suggested this for establishing a home
practice, so after over 20+ years of practicing at the dojo I was inspired
to tell myself now is the time and accepted your suggestion.  

Caterina: I liked the idea of a commitment to my practice for a set period of time. It made it a challenge that I could take up and try to “win”.  Somehow, that was a hook for my competitive Western mind in a way that the open-endedness of a daily practice for a lifetime didn’t have.  By doing it, I found how much I liked having a true daily practice, so I won in more than one way.

Nicholas: It was your specific idea of someone going through the form, one movement per day, for the 100 days.  I wanted to know what would happen and the best way to find out was to do it.

2)    What was the easiest part for you?

Lynnette: Knowing that I could include the parts of the qigong routines
that seemed right for me.  I settled on standing meditation followed by
gathering qi from 8 directions: S,sw,W,nw,N,ne,E,se.  Then including other
movements like pulling the 9-oxtail or tapping, or measuring the stars with
fingers widely spread, or etc-- not always the same to fill out the fifteen
minutes.  

Caterina: The easiest part-not sure. I guess deciding to do it in the first place. I was ready and had a lot of commitment.

Nicholas: The first 60 days or so were pretty easy.  This was Laojia Yilu, which I know well, so it was time set aside to explore.

3)    What were your roadblocks?

Lynnette: Sometimes waiting too late in the day and feeling very tired but my Crystal Bowls Meditation CD helped me through those points.

Caterina: The roadblocks were the old usual ones.  I don’t feel connected to my body today.  I feel tired today. I don’t know what I’m doing and will do it wrong.  I look like a fool. 

Nicholas: The biggest roadblock was my own stubbornness. Things were relatively smooth up to the time of CXX’s workshop.  I’d developed a specific schedule and created a habit of following it.  Spending 5-6 hours a day working on Xinjia Yilu made the idea of 15 minutes of Laojia seem daunting.  Thankfully I came to my senses and realized the only thing forcing me to adhere to that schedule was me.  Every single day in the workshop I’d have already spent 15 minutes working on a particular movement.  I’d met my commitment but not had the sense to see it.

4)    Did you have anything unexpected show up during your 100 days?

Lynnette: Unexpected was how much I truly enjoy practicing in my living room.

Caterina: I learned so many things from the experience it was truly surprising, and that part I didn’t expect. I thought I couldn’t learn by doing things wrong. It was like I was holding a fragile glass sculpture and was afraid I’d drop it and ruin it. What an idiot!  Among the discoveries that showed up was that I actually do understand the principles, and there is no end to the well of my fascination for the process once I start working with it. I also learned that a daily practice helps with leg strength, and a lot of the resistance and weakness in my practice was lack of the ability to stay with the position. I discovered all the places I come up out of the correct posture, all the places I lose focus and intention. I discovered places I was “leaning” inappropriately, and places my stance was clearly too narrow, or too long.  I started noticing where there was disconnect between upper and lower body. As Yogi Berra put it: You can see a lot by just watching.

Nicholas: I went in with an exploratory attitude so I wouldn’t say things were unexpected but there were things that struck me as unusual.  The one that sticks out most is that, within the context of working on a single movement, fajin were the most difficult movements to spend 15 minutes on. 

5)    What did you learn?

Lynnette:  I learned that I can include a 15 minute qigong practice in my days and feel that I definitely benefit from doing so.  Now I welcome those moments rather than thinking of them as a burdensome obligation.    

Caterina: I finally understand what you meant by exploring, or “finding” it. It appeals the scientist in me too, who had the working principle that you can speculate about a question and wonder about it forever and enjoyably, but you don’t truly know the answer until you do the experiment.*     *For things for which you can devise an experiment only, of course.  I find that I am learning to work with qi just fine without ever having come up with a good western theory about what it is exactly.

Nicholas: The key learning for me was leaving the space open to explore movements.  Changes of intention, speed, and focus allowed me to experience a given movement in a variety of ways. 

6)    What was the funniest story about your practice?

Lynnette:  Having my granddaughters with me overnight one day and almost forgetting; then after settled in bed at 11:00 pm with the eleven-year old I said "Oh dear, I haven't done my qigong (I took it seriously that the 100 days needed to be consecutive).  So I got up and she said I'm getting up,too, and she sat on the sofa nodding along while I played the Crystal Bowls CD and moved through the 15 minutes of qigong.

Caterina: Can’t think of anything really humorous.  An observer would have found it a hoot, I’m sure.

Nicholas: The funniest part was seeing the dogs react to it.  Practice would occur as time was available but I’d always have the same music on.  Quickly they recognized that this meant practice time.  All three would get on the couch and two would watch intently while the other napped.  They’d switch roles from day to day but always two watching.  They did this for everything, except for kicks which they seem to dislike. 

7)    What might you share with others about the experience?

Lynnette:  It is amazing how a daily practice can really benefit the
flexibility of one's body.  

Caterina: All of the above.  Just try it!  Practice because there is fun and joy and wisdom there and in you. And levels of connection you didn’t think possible. Between your mind and body. Your spirit and intention. You and your environment. You and the world.

Nicholas: I would encourage everyone to take this up. That said I strongly recommend making the commitment flexible.  Life will happen and we must get our practice where we can.  I got sick during the time frame and there were days where my energy level was just enough to lay on the couch and that was it.  This doesn’t mean I couldn’t practice.  It just meant that I needed to be smart about how to practice.  I used those times to work specifically with intention and visualization.

8)    Other things you might want to say?

Lynnette:  Without Qigong I don't think I would still be alive at 77 years old with a joyful outlook on Life in spite of 8 very stressful final years in my computer programming and systems design career,  a big move from a house I truly loved, deep grief over the death of my husband of 46 years, a hip joint replacement and two knee joint replacements.  It is not just practicing qigong, it is the supportive environment of a very positive teacher and practicing with others.  

Caterina: Think I’ve said it now. Thanks for bringing this precious gift here and opening it up for us.

Never Mind, Just Do It

“The more we know, the less we understand.
-Lao Tzu”

I recognized a feeling I had for Asian philosophy and perspective at fifteen, when I encountered the writings of Alan Watts.  I felt an instant kinship to the non-dualistic; it made sense to my gut in a way hardened definitions of right and wrong, religious ideologies, and generalized certainties did not. In retrospect, my life unfolded as a response to this affinity and to the intuitive disappointment I felt at the lack of it in my own family, community and culture. I sought out expressions of beauty that expressed this yin/yang heart/mind base layer wherever I could find them. Back then such expressions didn’t fall off trees like overripe fruit in the way they do now. They were mysterious and hidden, but one could still dig around and link into compelling expressions of art, poetry, story and even of movement, my preferred mode of inquiry. Twenty years later I moved to Japan with the intention of staying there. After a year I found living in a foreign culture too isolating for me but I did take the opportunity to travel on my own for many months throughout South East Asia to drink in the culture a bit more.  I have taken many trips since to China. Each time I am east of the Pacific Ocean I feel in a truly visceral way that I am home.

Of course all my experiences are filtered through my Nebraska raised, American educated mind.  This odd combination of nature and nurture engendered within me, I believe, the capacity to take my feelings about my Eastern experiences, especially as developed within the movement arts, and translate them into Western ideas and words. Early in my career I realized I had a knack for being able to use metaphor, analogy and allegory to articulate difficult concepts such as non-duality. I was no scholar but I seemed to be able to bridge the two sides of the ocean in a way that sort of made sense to an audience of eager but unfamiliar Western minds. I became relatively skilled at communicating to students across diverse educational and experiential backgrounds.  This capacity generated a sense of confidence within me and I believe helped me to cultivate both a useful career and an interesting relationship with the world.

And yet this mind/word/explanation skill is not at all how I learned to feel what I was talking about. My teachers, both Eastern and Western only rarely used words to teach. They demonstrated a process or a technique – perhaps only four times at most, and then it was up to us students to hunt and peck through what we saw, or what we thought we saw, to find something. Anything. It took a lot of tenacity to stay with it but it was understood that was the process. We didn't ask a lot of questions. In fact, words really got in the way. Sure, a morsel here and there to clarify a point could be useful but one learned to discipline both the hunger for that food and the tossing of it out. And one really became good at seeing.

Words are fun. I love a good twist of the phrase and find irony to be one of my favorite perspectives. Yet both as teacher and as student, my favorite learning environments are still the quiet ones with only the soundtrack of foot and breath, the smell of sweat, curiosity not logic driving 'one more time.'  I do very much find full commitment to this style of learning is the only way to break through physical, mental and emotional resistance to hard held patterns and beliefs. And then after a good sweat, after many training sessions, after a goodly number of ‘one more times,’ perhaps there is something to talk about.

This is the “old school” method you may hear reference to. It is a true gift because what it really teaches us is not how to know something but how to not know something. As useful as words and explanations can certainly be they also risk robbing us of the great mystery of having no idea. Too many words,  too much mental activity and even the quest for logical explanations, cheats us out of simply seeing something. It robs us of feeling a feeling and dulls the hunger for the hunt of hidden treasure somewhere inside of us.  Knowing in a very real way, stops the mind. (Or as the East might say, the Heart/Mind). Somewhere, even in the East, we have become hyper-competitive, goal oriented and locked up in the “right and wrong” of things. We know so much, have so many words, so many ways of articulating ideas, we have become in many ways devoid of inquiry for inquiry’s sake.  And I think worse, we have become so incredibly uncomfortable with not knowing we have forgotten how to relax with the vast and fathomless. This is a much bigger problem then not knowing something. 

Lately I find myself stopping mid-explanatory sentence and simply saying “never mind, just do it.” Though I have a lifetime of words, I increasingly recognize I really don’t have much to say. On the other hand I do feel the biggest value I have is my vast library of sensations acquired over years of “one more times.” And yet even with demonstrating, teaching, corrections and yes, even words, I cannot extract my experiences out of my being and give them to another person.  What I can offer though is a window into the courage of having no idea, and following that not knowing inward, one more time. 

SUMMER: THE FIRE ELEMENT

Guest Blog by Eric Hartman, M.Ac., L.Ac.

Sun! Warmth! Joy! These are some of the most commonly ascribed qualities we have for Summer and all it represents. Typically, it’s a time of longer days, warmer temperatures and more outdoor activity. I see my neighbors more often as we are outside working on our gardens or sitting outside in our yards on sunny days. We stop and chat to each other, connecting in a way that doesn’t happen during the wintertime. When we have warmer days, there is a celebratory, joyful feeling in people who are out and about.

How does this season then relate to the element of Fire in Chinese medicine? The Fire element is associated with the season of Summer and all of it’s associated qualities. The organs associated with the Fire element are the Heart, Small Intestine, Pericardium, and a functional organ (not a physical one) called the Triple Heater. I won’t go into all of them but would like to use the Heart as an example of the Fire element. The Heart and the blood vessels (all 50,000 miles of them!) circulate blood, warmth, and nutrients to the entire body and organs. It is the great connector.

Just like what we are doing in the Summer—warming up, circulating and connecting.The Chinese doctors viewed the human body and it’s organs like the structure of their society. The Heart was considered the ‘Supreme Controller’ or Emperor/Empress of the kingdom.  It is said in the Nei Jing (the classic text of Chinese medicine) that the ‘Mind is housed in the Heart’. So, when we say, “speak from the heart”, the Chinese had realized this thousands of years ago.  The emotion of Joy is associated with this organ. So, when we speak our Mind, it comes from the purest of love and clarity, the Heart.

So, as a way of nourishing ourselves in this season, observe Nature and emulate it. Go outside, take a walk, and say hello to someone. It’s good for your heart!

Please read more about Eric & his work here and look for his seasonal blogs. Save the date for his workshop at the Moon, September 30 on Health & Healing through the 5 Element Lens. 

Initiation

Sometimes I think it could be the top of the Howe Street Stairs or the top of the Himalayas and the feeling would be the same. Walking up step by step: lung grabbing breaths, firing hamstrings, sweat rolling down my back. The earth beneath each footfall, the sky above with each inhale, mind quiet, heart open to that sense of connection to whatever it is we are connected to. Sometimes I think all I ever need, will ever need, is my body and my breath and the vast library of sensations within. 

On my route today I remembered the first time I encountered myself in this way. Before that moment, I had no real sense of myself at all. It was a rugged early childhood-the type that engenders no sense of worthiness. It was no one's fault. Who can be blamed for generational incompetence anyway? How far back can we go? And still, wandering in that soup of alienation is no one's idea of a good time. 

In the early 1960s the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports initiated many of us young people into the world of breath and sweat. As for me, I remember loving those push ups and sit ups. I felt competitive. I broke time records. My schoolmates groaned and moaned at the requirements but I loved them. Pushing myself and feeling my blood course through my small frame was the first time I felt connected not just to my body but to my sense of worthiness. It was all mine and no one could take it away. My life's course must have been set at that moment.

It's been a shitty few months in my life. Tragedies, surgeries, near deaths and real ones. Good friends moving - the ones that affirm your sense of worth in ways you don't realize until one day you turn to them and their place in your space is a hole you sort of fall into, their laugh, their look, their constancy no longer there to hold you up.  And to say nothing of the social riptides degrading and eroding and shattering the landscape at our shore's edge. I said to a friend I feel my own worth was once again at stake. 

I signed up for a $59.95 e-course on Soulful Aging. Our first assignment was to remember a time when we were young and happy. I wished for my money back. But I thought about it all day today and then on my stairs route I remembered JFK and the President's Council on Physical Fitness. I remembered encountering my muscles, my bones and my breath for the first time then. I don't really remember many times of youthful glee but I do remember going to my body in its absence. And there I felt something. I felt worthy. I felt connected. My life's course must have been initiated then.

Activism

Some of the best friends I have in the world live in Manchester. They are safe, thankfully, but I have no idea what it must be like to be there right now. I keep imagining what it would be like if someone bombed Seattle Center this weekend during Folklife, the Stadium during a Mariners Game. It could happen. It might. In the meantime the world goes on. People cut each other off in traffic and bike through stop signs while looking down at their cell. The walker is warned about the intersection but remains oblivious to anything except the screen and the music playing through the ear buds. Who can't feel this terror and turmoil and unknown and never been here before and not want to rail against it, not want to hide from it all? The baby is fed, the job is attended. All of this, along with the Garden in all its glory, the hummingbird and the hasta, the crow and the clematis, the poppy & peony, is our world right now.

I come to the dojo that is also in a state of change. A close student dies, another sells their house and moves out of the area, another has a stroke. Rents rise, traffic jams the roads, parking is blocks away. This is our city right now. In the meantime the doors open and people step away from social chaos and their garden refuge and come to practice, everyday. Its a blessing and a burden, to keep these doors open but I do it. Its my work. Its my path. It simply is.

I've long held the floor is a place of neutrality. Some think this means I don't believe it is also a place of activism but that is not so. If our practice is not our activism then what is? We find our feet, we feed our root, we turn our attention away from "out there" to "in here" and we breathe. We find and cultivate our inner place of refuge. We make time to find space in our nervous system, which moment by moment jumps from grief to rage to confusion to grasping for answers. We find a moment where we stop chasing all of that and find calm and connection and remember beauty. Love. Even just for a moment we find it or if not, we remember it is there waiting for us. What is more socially active, more personally nourishing than that?

Today is Embrace The Moon's 22nd Anniversary. So quick these years! How the world, this city, my life have turned and changed over that tiny course of sunrises and sets. I'm not sure where I would be in my life without the dojo, in all of its many incarnations past, and those to come. Maybe I would be in the doorway like my homeless neighbors, maybe I would be an Amazon multi-millionaire. Both possibilities are within reason. I said to a friend the other day I'm not even sure what it is I teach, what it is I learn. Is it that which we call Taijiquan? Qigong? I don't think so and yet I am also sure of it. What is it really that any of us teach or even learn in the midst of "all this?" These questions rise and fall. Their import varies on any given day. And yet, somehow doors open, breathing rises & falls. Practice remains steady. I'm not sure what the framework is called but it is familiar. Deeply. And within it, I school and am schooled, by my teachers & friends, by the art itself, by the fellow travelers along the Way, by the Great Mystery.

Respect, Salute. May Peace Prevail on Earth.