Guided Writing Sessions

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Sensory delight/spiritual awareness

Poetry in motion.  I start each day with at least twenty minutes of qigong, and sprinkle the practice throughout my day as an amuse bouche.  A mouth smile.

Qi is the mysterious “spirit breath”, less poetically known as oxygen.  Gong means work.  I believe that by moving through the postures of qigong, I can unblock my energy from the tangles I create, opening to more flow.  I am not exactly Taoist, but I like this sense of clearing, and the subtle way that the practices engage my mind, even as their cadence moves in spirals rather than western linearity.  A thinking freed from logic, somehow.

I like that qigong is a way of praying, with my whole body.  With the Catholic forms I grew up with, I felt as if my body, my animalness, had to be sequestered away. My experience of western prayer was of memorization, and its holding still and emptiness were simply that.  Holding still.  Emptiness.  My best times of prayer were when I simply conversed with what was larger, in my own words.

With qigong, the emptiness of prayer mirrors the yin/yang symbol, with each aspect containing the seed of its opposite.  There was movement in its holding still.  Fullness in its emptiness.  Perhaps I was more able to notice this because of my unfamiliarity with the system.

I didn’t grow up knowing the system of five elements ( fire, wood, water, earth, metal), each with their season of dominance, their color, their organ of the body, their emotion, and their sound.  I stretch to admire these ideas, many of which feel distant, yet compelling.

I begin as stillness, standing in Wuji.  My feet are together, my knees slightly loose, my coccyx curled slightly under.  Sensing stiffness in my hips, I move them in belly-dance circles until they unclench.  I feel my spine stretching, as if I have become connected by some skyhook to the heavens. My tongue rests behind my teeth, it’s tip against the roof of my mouth.  My gaze becomes unfocused as my belly moves slightly, up and down.  I feel myself breathing.

Wuji is a posture of standing in an emptiness made of pure enoughness.  It’s spaciousness as fullness.   As I breathe, I relax.  

I notice the Lao Gong, at the center of each of my palms.  Like little mouths, they open as I stretch my fingers.  They yawn into breathing, like sleepy baby bellies.  I place them in front of my own belly, at the area called the tan tien.  The caldron.  A place for gathering energies and mixing them.  

With this power center activated, I notice my feet.  The area in the middle of each is known as yung ch'uan, bubbling springs.  They connect with the earth.  My attention moves from this rootedness into a spiraling up my legs.  It gathers in my belly. until it feels inclined to move as breath.  Then it rises into the area around my heart.   Here I sense abundance, grinning itself upon my face.  With this momentum, it peeks through my third eye. 

Next, this smiling energy ascends to the crown of my head, where it leaps into the sky.  It soars until the gravity of my heartbeat calls it back, descending with a sensation of stepping out of time.  I am moving into subtle body.  A place between my body and my mind.  

When this expansiveness fills my heart, it forms a sigh that clears away stagnation, making space for movement.   Opposites connect.  I shift my weight onto my left leg, freeing up the right.  My right leg sidesteps into a space my shoulder’s width apart.  

I settle my weight into this betweenness, noticing my connections with the earth again.  I sense my qi as rolling in slow dives down my legs and through my feet.  My energy descends until down becomes up, and I’m in my belly again.  All this mental movement, and all I’ve done is step into an opening posture. Rather dazzling.  

Now I move my attention to what’s called the microcosmic orbit. My awareness travels from my root chakra,  up my back, to my crown, then down again.  It’s like a waterfall of cleansing energy, mist becoming water.  Now I am met with myriads of possibility.  Each pose has a name that speaks as poetry to me.  White-crane-spreads-its-wings.  Cloud-hands.  Embracing-the-tree.  Parting the wild-horse’s mane.  Strumming the harp.  Grasping the sparrow’s tail.  Lady works with shuttles.  Holding the heart of the sea.  

My favorite is white-crane-spreads-it-wings.  I begin slightly facing left.  My right hand is  parallel to my chin; my left hand is at armpit level, nearly touching my right elbow.  I let my right arm lower as a crescent-moon of motion. Right hand is nearly cradling the left elbow, now. There is a roundness to my shoulders.  

While my right-arm was descending, my right toe turned in, my weight shifting to the right leg.   My left foot rises to balance on its toe. My left hand rises, slicing the space by my right shoulder.    Poised this way, crane’s spirit comes over me.  I turn towards the right corner, crossing my hands as I lift my left toe, circling this foot as my right leg supports my body.  As I do this, my wings unfurl.  My left toe is just touching the ground.  My raised right arm forms the top part of an “s”; my lowered left one forms the bottom.  As this motion, my shoulders are pushing outward, right towards sky, left to earth.  This “s” becomes yin and yang,  formed by my body, diagonally.  My wings.  

These are some of the positions I move as.  What fills them with joy for me is the cadence of their flow.  Every thump of my heels releases tension. I can bounce in any position, for comfort. I think of how a parent soothes a crying child with this same motion.  Contracting, then relaxing is another movement found throughout the form.  With practice, one posture flows into the other with no thinking.  

 

Mark Matousek has reacted to this post.
Mark Matousek

Hi Devon!

Praying in your body requires discipline and desire to experience things we were never taught. This is courage in action. Isn't it amazing how much we didn't learn as we went through life and there is so much we learn each day we choose to write. 

As you describe the physical movement with your feeling it is as if I too am moving through the experience right by your side. This is powerful. You address the complete body and spirit and each activity is a prayer that brings blessings. 

There is also peace and gratitude expressed in your work. These qualities emerge as a gift to the reader. 

Thank you for posting your writing.

Madeline

Thanks for enjoying my piece, Madeline.  I’m thrilled that you got a sense of what the practice means to me.  Your support brings me smiles.

Dear Devon,

I really liked how the whole piece revolves around praying with the body and how you can find stillness in movement, and that in that stillness there can be so much pleasure.  As I was reading your piece I could sense two movements,  there is this releasing of all the tension and at the same time all this integration happening at so many levels.  Thank you for sharing 🙂

DevonB has reacted to this post.
DevonB

Dear Devon,

Thanks for this writing on your morning qigong practice.  Reading it feels like a moving meditation, both relaxing and energizing.  It makes me want to step up my yoga practice!  I hope you're staying healthy and safe, and managing to enjoy these gorgeous early summer days. 

It's always great to read your pieces. Keep 'em coming!  : ).  

See you on Thursday in the weekly writing drop-in class.  Till then, my very best as always,

Mark 

DevonB has reacted to this post.
DevonB
  • Thanks for your feedback, Maite.  You grasped what I was trying to convey, so that is gratifying.  You added to my understanding of the piece with your comment about integration.  I think that word is going to be a theme with me this week.  It seems to be incompatible with rushing.  
    I look forward to reading more of your pieces and appreciate you taking the time to respond to mine.

Thanks Mark-  Maite’s comment helped me notice how integrating it was to write the piece.  It’s also helpful for me in remembering why I want to practice, on my resistant days.  Thanks for another helpful question.  I’ll be in the Writing Naked class when it starts in a week, so see you then.