It's New Year's Eve and all my Facebook friends seem to be posting "Happy New Year" messages. I don't really "celebrate" the New Year: I'll be going to bed just as usual tonight, and when that happens will depend more on how redecorating the sitting room is going than on whether it's before or after midnight. However, the year end can provide a convenient point from which to reflect on the past and look forwards to the future.
I've just returned from over three weeks in the USA, amongst other things attending a beautiful five night silent retreat with Adyashanti, and staying with the very friendly community at OneTaste. It's been a rich time for me, and I've already scheduled my next trip for a couple of weeks around Easter. I'm finding myself simultaneously reflecting on and trying to gain more mileage from various learnings and enjoying a newfound sense of what one might call "the eternal now."
2009 may be the end of the decade, but for me it also seems like a year which has marked the end of a personal era. I've been doing many new things--new ways of being in the world (at the start of this decade I had never experienced complementary therapies, no mind started to practise myself ... nor had I started to explore spirituality)--and this year I've lost a much loved "heart friend" in the death of my German Shorthaired Pointer, Oscar.
2010 brings many new adventures: the first group classes and weekend workshops of my Chi Kung teaching, which I'm really excited about ... the start of three new professional trainings in disciplines I've had in the back of my mind to study for some time ... and a determination to both stop participating in various things which don't really serve me (the amount of time I spend on Facebook, for example!) and start to open up new areas in my personal life.
Most of all, however, I look forward to continuing to welcoming life, and encouraging my clients to do the same. It may be an over-used cliche to say that life is the path and not the destination, but it's very true. Both biodynamic massage and Chi Kung are powerful ways of emphasising the simple enjoyment of being present to what is ... every moment is fresh and new; you don't have to wait for another year to pass in order to celebrate this simple truth!
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Monday, 8 June 2009
Are you enjoying this?
The issue of enjoying yourself came up on my Chi Kung teacher training this weekend. Joy -- as in enjoyment -- is an interesting thing. (Of course, on another level, it's totally uninteresting; it's just joy!).
If you have a practice -- be it Chi Kung, some other form of fitness training or sport, meditation or massage (giving or receiving) -- you're not likely to want to do it regularly if you don't to some extent enjoy it or get something from it which brings you enjoyment. If this enjoyment only comes from the sense of achievement or release which comes at the end, however, you're into a cyclical "no pain, no gain" activity which can easily become exhausting or never-ending. Nevertheless, there is also something to be gained from being with difficult times ... this is perhaps why the word "practice" is used; there's a sense of experimenting, of feeling things out, in order to get closer to "getting it right" -- like practising a piece on a musical instrument until you are accomplished enough to perform it, to bring it to life and make it real.
But what would it mean to "get it right?" Can joy be available at all times? I like to look at the Chinese characters for joy in considering this. There are two of them; Xi and Le. Xi is sometimes translated as elation; the character depicts singing and music making, describing the feeling we have when we typically might say we are enjoying ourselves or "having a good time." Le, however, depicts music making of a more serious nature, with ceremonial drums which are used to make contact with the spirits; it is the feeling we have when things are going as they should, in the natural order of things. In Chinese medicine, the pathology of Xi is to have too much ... whereas the pathology of Le is not to have enough. Joy is said to "loosen" our energy -- as will a good massage, a peaceful meditation or Chi Kung session; the reverse will however happen if we argue against the way things are, so that we tighten and brace ourselves against life.
So, it's really very simple; if your practice is going as it should, if you are not fighting yourself or the situation you find yourself in, then you will feel joy. If you are doing something which involves conflict or internal division, then you will not experience that looseness, that joy (Le) ... though you may of course experience a great release and elation (Xi) when the practice ends. It's a good question to work with with if you experience difficulties -- in any area of your life, not just within your practice.
If you have a practice -- be it Chi Kung, some other form of fitness training or sport, meditation or massage (giving or receiving) -- you're not likely to want to do it regularly if you don't to some extent enjoy it or get something from it which brings you enjoyment. If this enjoyment only comes from the sense of achievement or release which comes at the end, however, you're into a cyclical "no pain, no gain" activity which can easily become exhausting or never-ending. Nevertheless, there is also something to be gained from being with difficult times ... this is perhaps why the word "practice" is used; there's a sense of experimenting, of feeling things out, in order to get closer to "getting it right" -- like practising a piece on a musical instrument until you are accomplished enough to perform it, to bring it to life and make it real.
But what would it mean to "get it right?" Can joy be available at all times? I like to look at the Chinese characters for joy in considering this. There are two of them; Xi and Le. Xi is sometimes translated as elation; the character depicts singing and music making, describing the feeling we have when we typically might say we are enjoying ourselves or "having a good time." Le, however, depicts music making of a more serious nature, with ceremonial drums which are used to make contact with the spirits; it is the feeling we have when things are going as they should, in the natural order of things. In Chinese medicine, the pathology of Xi is to have too much ... whereas the pathology of Le is not to have enough. Joy is said to "loosen" our energy -- as will a good massage, a peaceful meditation or Chi Kung session; the reverse will however happen if we argue against the way things are, so that we tighten and brace ourselves against life.
So, it's really very simple; if your practice is going as it should, if you are not fighting yourself or the situation you find yourself in, then you will feel joy. If you are doing something which involves conflict or internal division, then you will not experience that looseness, that joy (Le) ... though you may of course experience a great release and elation (Xi) when the practice ends. It's a good question to work with with if you experience difficulties -- in any area of your life, not just within your practice.
Monday, 4 May 2009
Energy balancing
Gee, I've not been on here in ages ...
Just a quick entry for now.
Talking about energy can have different effects on people. It might intrigue you, it could turn you off. It can be labelled as "esoteric" or "spiritual." Some folks like to get all scientific about it, talking about vibrational rates, fields -- even quantum physics. Others go for "alternative health speak" such as chakras, meridians, channels, reflex zones etc.
So, what does it mean when I talk about "balancing your energy?" I believe the simplest and most immediate way to convey this is with the concepts of "being yourself" or "coming home." If you're being yourself, you're being truthful and you're acting naturally -- "going with the flow of the world." You're not excruciatingly torn in two about whether to take those few extra hours of sleep you've been meaning to catch up on, or whether to go to your friend's party. Such dilemmas may be there, but that's all - they're just "there." You're accepting of them and you have an inner conviction that you either know now what's right for you to do, or you will when the time comes for a decision to be required. It's no big deal. You're not holding your breath, raising your shoulders, clenching your fists, tightening your belly about it all in stress. Things are as they are. Life is good, whatever comes. You're "comfortable in yourself" -- AND you're in touch with the world outside, as it is. There's no hardness, no real conflict.
There may be deeper interpretations of the expression "coming home," but for most people this is a phrase which has an immediate resonance. And now we're back to the "energy speak" ...
Just a quick entry for now.
Talking about energy can have different effects on people. It might intrigue you, it could turn you off. It can be labelled as "esoteric" or "spiritual." Some folks like to get all scientific about it, talking about vibrational rates, fields -- even quantum physics. Others go for "alternative health speak" such as chakras, meridians, channels, reflex zones etc.
So, what does it mean when I talk about "balancing your energy?" I believe the simplest and most immediate way to convey this is with the concepts of "being yourself" or "coming home." If you're being yourself, you're being truthful and you're acting naturally -- "going with the flow of the world." You're not excruciatingly torn in two about whether to take those few extra hours of sleep you've been meaning to catch up on, or whether to go to your friend's party. Such dilemmas may be there, but that's all - they're just "there." You're accepting of them and you have an inner conviction that you either know now what's right for you to do, or you will when the time comes for a decision to be required. It's no big deal. You're not holding your breath, raising your shoulders, clenching your fists, tightening your belly about it all in stress. Things are as they are. Life is good, whatever comes. You're "comfortable in yourself" -- AND you're in touch with the world outside, as it is. There's no hardness, no real conflict.
There may be deeper interpretations of the expression "coming home," but for most people this is a phrase which has an immediate resonance. And now we're back to the "energy speak" ...
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