“Ch’i,” or Vital Energy – How to Get It; How to Use It

Like most of you, my sense of personal vital energy, or ch’i, is sometimes up, and sometimes down. About a month ago, after completing (yet another) huge proofing round for Unveiling (due out at the end of this month!), my ch’i was down – and so was I. Too many hours at the computer. Too many hours in a tight-focused mindset, driving myself to “accomplish,” and over-ruling the needs of both my body and psyche.

But this is just part of being human.

All of us, at some point or other, push ourselves to extremes in order to accomplish something important – something that may even (temporarily!) override what we know is right for our overall well-being.

I’m not talking about indulging in negative behaviors, such as extreme overeating, or use of drugs, or even indulging in (protracted) negative thought-patterns. (But for a good blogpost on this subject, see the recent posting by Julie Marie Rahm (aka “America’s Mindset Mechanic”) on The “Shoulda” Virus.

But today, I’m talking about how we recover from – not so much a deep well – but from stumbling into a little ditch. Not horrendous, but we do need to get ourselves out of it.

Over the past month, I’ve made a lot of improvements, and both look a lot better, and feel much better also. (“Better” as in – friends telling me that I’m looking “great” and “fabulous” – without makeup! “Better” as in – my energy and mood are consistently a good notch improved from where they are a month ago, so that things might still upset me, or get to me a little bit, but my recovery – both physically and emotionally – is much, much faster.)

There are really just three things that kick this “recovery” off:

• Exercise: Walking, together with yoga, Chinese “silk-weaving” exercises (for ch’i building, and a bit of free weights and core
• Diet: Lots of raw foods, lots of freshly-juiced drinks of greens, veggies, and a bit of apple. Minimal carbs. (Yes, I still indulge in things that would be better less-indulged-in. That’s the next step.)
• Supplements: Liquid vitamins with ginseng. Recently added Co-Q10, Salmon oil, and acetyl-L-carnitine, for metabolism boosting.

The result? In the past month, I’ve increased my early-morning walk from a mile to three or four miles, and feel fabulous while so doing. While my productivity level feels the same, my feeling of flow and ease while working are both increased, and I’m happier.

All of this is just the precursor work — just getting in shape, both physically and energetically, to really get in shape – which is my next major intention.

Part 2 of Esther’s story continues our Purim weekend for just a few more days.

Unveiling – Table of Contents and Study Guide

Just got a new webpage loaded – a Seasonal Study Guide.

People who have advance copies of Unveiling (really manuscript drafts) have been reading them slowly. Yes, Unveiling is a pretty meaty book. (In the latest proofs, its about 450 pages of text, then there are references. And I still need to produce the Index.)

But it’s not really the length. And it’s certainly not hard to read. The style is easy enough, and lots of stories.

The challenge is that it brings up stuff that we have to process. And when that happens, we each have to put the book down, and take a little time for the “processing.”

This happened to one of my friends who was reviewing it. And then it happened to me, just the other day. The (“final-final”) proofs came in; I started reading through from the beginning, once again.) And the thing about reading proofs is – there’s enough time between reads so that I become emotionally “sensitized” once again. It’s one thing to write the words; it’s another to read them as a “reader.”

And now that I’m reading them as a “reader,” some of the stuff comes up and just punches me! And this is even though I’ve actually written the words down, and then read them many (many) times.

So yes, Unveiling takes time to read. It’s really about the emotional processing involved.

So I had a lovely experience this last weekend. I was invited to participate in a Purim celebration at a local synagogue. I helped the children learn a little dance; I provided the girls with pretty dancer’s veils to use, and the synogogue had lots of rhythm-making instruments for the boys. (What fun! Noisy, but fun!)

So we all had a good time. But this motivated me to put up Esther’s story (from Unveiling, Chapter 8) onto the web – and I’ll keep it there, just for a little bit. (For this coming weekend, I’ll pull back on Esther, and put up the bit about Scheherezade – in honor of the Persian New Year, Nowruz.)

All this tied in with something that I’d been thinking – that we really needed a “Seasonal Study Guide.” Something to correlate Unveiling with our dance practice, and with the energies of the different seasons.

So go visit
Seasonal Study Guide, and you’ll see the Table of Contents, and a brief description of content, organized by season.

And do honor Esther by visiting her page – Esther and Purim.

Personal Energy or Ch’i Training – How to Get It and Use It

This blog, and possibly several that I’ll post after this, will address a topic brought up by Donald Michael Kraig (DM Kraig), author of Modern Magick: Twelve Lessons in the High Magickal Arts (see link below). Don, who writes on the Llewellyn website blog, recently posted a brief discussion on how we generate magickal energy. Don’s post referenced one by a gentleman referred to as “Frater A.I.T.,” on personal energy work. A little extreme, maybe, but to-the-point.

The essence of Frater’s message is that if we are to be effective with “magickal” work (that is, using our intention and will to create reality as we desire), then we must be doing some form of “personal energy work.” Frater A.I.T. references the “Middle Pillar,” which is an energy-draw-down exercise well known in esoteric circles. In fact, Israel Regardie, one of the 20th century’s leading esoteric masters, wrote a book on this subject, The Middle Pillar.

There are actually four things that we need to do, for effective magical (or “magickal”) work:

• Access personal energy, or ch’i,
• Remove (or at least ease) the tension blocks in our bodies that keep us from accessing and circulating our personal energy, or ch’i,
• Build and circulate our ch’i,
• Direct our ch’i, or intrinsic vital energy, according to our will.

In The Middle Pillar, Regardie makes two very useful points supporting the above. First, he identifies the importance of clearing out the tensions (both physical and psychic) that would inhibit our free flow and use of personal vital energy. On p. 86 of The Middle Pillar, he states,

“… unless some method is devised for distributing [the awakened energy] and thus relieving the pressure, the center itself will in the course of time suffere derangement through over-stimulus, and there is bound to ensue some serious disturbance to the nervous and psychic system.

Freud, Jung, Reich, and others have all identified the association between emotional or “psychic” tension and tension in our bodies. Ida P. Rolf, founder of Structural Integration (Rolfing-TM)noted the same.

One of the clear goals of hatha yoga is to prepare our bodies for increased energy flow, and one means of doing this is to open up the various tight spots where we tend to store “stuck” psychic or emotional residue, along with physical tension and pain. Eckhart Tolle further describes the existence of our pain-bodies, in The New Earth. (While Tolle does not associate pain-body with our tendency to store aspects of it in our physical bodies, this is well-known to both practitioners of hands-on healing methods as well as practitioners of body arts, such as T’ai Chi Ch’uan.)

Regardie’s second useful point has to do with circulating this vital energy, or ch’i. He quotes from the revered Chinese manual, The Secret of the Golden Flower (p. 88):

Therefore you only have to make the Light circulate; that is the deepest and most wonderful secret.

All this is to set a background for discussion.

The Middle Pillar brings energy down from higher consciousness. When a person is able to do this, he or she can then circulate the energy.

An alternative means of accessing personal energy – not necessarily igniting the various centers, but certainly a good way to bring in energy – is to use the Taoist method of the Microcosmic Orbit. This leads to the same kind of energy circulation as is described in Middle Pillar instructions as “Circulating the Body of Light.”

After being reminded, by both D.M. Kraig and Frater A.I.T. (through their blogposts) of the importance of energy circulation, I added various energy-development and circulation exercises back to my daily routine. In particular, I began with the Chinese Silk-Weaving Exercises, which I initially learned many years ago from a book by Michael Minick (now sadly out of print).

In future posts, I’ll describe some of the results of my practice. For the moment, let me add my encouragement to both D.M. Kraig and Frater A.I.T. with regard to energy practice. However, allow me to specifically recommend yoga together with basic T’ai Chi and Chi Kung. If you can find good YouTube vids on the Silk-Weaving exercises, please share. (I may have to make and post my own.) These practices, being more physically-based, will have a greater likelihood of energizing our physical bodies and clearing out stress points. Then, it should be easier to do the more cognitively-based exercises, such as the Middle Pillar.

Best wishes to all.

Woke up early this AM with the flu-cold that had developed overnight in full control; all sorts of achy-painy things, it hurt just to move. And of course, in this kind of state, my energy is really way down.

So I lay there, not feeling as though I could get up, and not feeling as though I even particularly wanted to, and of course, all this pain-body stuff starts working its way through my head. (Pain-body, b/t/w, is a term coined by Eckhart Tolle, he describes it in his book, A New Earth, and I reference it – a fair bit – in Unveiling.)

So the best way to handle our pain-body stuff is to just love it, embrace it, accept it. And when we are really low-energy, we can’t resist, we can’t fight it, and it’s hard even to get ourselves distracted. So I’m looking at this cold/flu, this whatever, as a really good pain-body processing time. And, oh yes, indexing.

I’m not saying it was impromptu – it was definately planned – but this was my first invitation to a photo shoot that I didn’t set up and arrange. Karen W., marketing guru and genius, arranged with her dear friend Janice, of AutumnCat Studios, to do a shoot at our place.

Janice and her husband Jerry show up, full equipment; lights, reflectors, heavy-duty camera. We ID a great place in the house, they hang huge backdrop, we get fabulous natural light. Shoot commences. Karen and I alternate; mostly “professional” for her, and a different form of “professional” (dance costume) for me.

Three lessons learned:
1) Per Janice, lighting is everything. Most of her needing a photographer’s assistant (aka husband Jerry as “Set Monkey”) is that she needed someone to adjust background lighting precisely, and to hold the reflector precisely. Test shots are more about lighting than pose. I’m getting it. Photography is not so much about the camera, it’s about the lighting. First lesson of the day: Understanding and working with photographers’ lighting is why it’s important to work with someone who’s good. Thank you, Janice! Can’t wait to see the proofs!

2) Costumes. Omigod, costumes. After two years of writing, all my costume stuff is in disarray. I barely pulled together two costumes for the shoot; much to do with cries of anguish as safety-pins exploded. Second lesson for the day: Get costumes altered & adjusted for fit, tested, organized, and “preopositioned.” That means, everything that needs to come together for a specific costume “look” has to be stored together; not in separate places all over the house. One costume needs one dedicated set of jewelry & accessories, not to be shared with other costumes, unless I’m taking them out to play with creating different “looks.” (This is not to be done fifteen minutes before the shoot, but rather on a calm at-home Saturday.)

3) False eyelashes are an enormous hassle and take huge amounts of time. But for shoots, they’re worth it! Third lesson: Allow extra time for false eyelashes (or “falsies” of any sort), and more time thereafter to remove them, clean them, and store them. And more time to recover from the trauma of adrenaline from any kind of mini-performance (photo shoots count), making costume fixes, and putting on and putting-up-with weird things glued to the eyelash line. So the real third lesson is: Allow extra time for everything.

“Princess Training” – It’s Not All Tinsel and Tiaras

Who among us hasn’t fantasized about being a Princess? Why else would our favorite fairy tales, from Snow White to Cinderella, hold our interest? Why else would some of our favorite movies be the Princess Diaries, not to mention our classic favorite; Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Over the past few decades, Princess Diana held our imagination, as she became our social and fashion idol. Her sad personal history invoked both our sympathy and our fascination.

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck appeared in the 1953 movie, Roman Holiday.

This spring, we’ll all become fascinated with the royal nuptials of Kate Middleton and Prince William. We’ll have our royal wedding fantasies all over again – for the first time in decades! And won’t we all wonder – and perhaps wish for – what it would be like to really be a Princess?

Well, the truth is – we might – each of us, individually – start becoming Princesses.

Think about it. What does being a Princess really mean?

It means inherent nobility, doesn’t it? It means that a woman is sufficiently evolved so that others accord her the respect and the honor that acknowledges her as being of a different “quality” than most (“common”) folk.

We can take this two different ways. Some of our Princess ideas involve someone who is so refined, so delicate, so sensitive, that her sleep is disturbed if there is so much as a pea hidden under layers of mattresses. That’s one fairy tale.

But a more true-to-life fairy tale (yes, still a fairy tale, but one with a richer meaning) is the story of The Little Princess; about a girl who called on her inner Princess in order to get through times of hardship; of privation, of loss, and of both abuse and ridicule. She called upon and trained her inner Princess – and she was rewarded by having others ultimately honor and acknowledge her.

In A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgeson Burnett, Sara must cultivate her inner Princess in order to survive the harsh treatment when she is orphaned and left in a girls’ school. Her fortunes finally change, but only after she has had to call upon every ounce of strength, courage, and compassion that she can muster. A wonderful read, especially when we’re feeling lonely and sorry for ourselves!

Being a Princess is something that we develop from the inside, not something that we inherit.

Think about it. Being a Princess is not easy. Princesses are called “Your Serene Highness.” There has to be a reason for this. As we cultivate our inner Princess, one of our first steps must be to develop our serenity.

In my forthcoming book, Unveiling, I write a lot about archetypes, and about cultivating a body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway. Surprisingly, we do have a template for this integration pathway. The modern Tarot deck is drawn from the ancient Qabalah; the Judaic studies of how we can transition between states of consciousness, depicted as the “Tree of Life.”

The Tarot devolved; the Minor Arcana became the playing cards that we use today in card games. Originally, though, these cards meant something. In fact, the various suites meant something.

The Suite of Spades used to be the Suite of Swords, and referred to the Element of Air. This is the suite that we associate with spring. So, starting in just three weeks, we begin our study of the Element of Air. In dance, this translates to spins, turns, movement across the floor, creating patterns in space with our veils, etc.

The different face cards meant something as well. The idea of “Pages, Knights, Queens, and Kings” refers to levels of study and mastery. The “Pages” face cards can also be interpreted as the Princesses. Think of the face cards – for our purposes – as being “Princesses, Warrior Princesses, Queens, and Kings.” Each is a level of mastery.

So we start our year with the transition from winter to spring; almost every old culture has its New Year beginning sometime between Imholc (Feb. 2nd) and the Vernal Equinox. (The Druids started their New Year at Imholc, the Chinese start sometime in February, between Imholc and the Vernal Equinox. The Persian New Year, Nowruz, starts on the first day of spring.)

Often, new students enter our Studio around this time of year. They’re ready to shake off the winter doldrums and start moving their bodies!

What we will include in our curriculum this year, for the first time (in approximately 2,000 years) will be “Princess training.”

Each of you enters as a Princess-in-Training. Your first year – whether you are physically part of our Studio, or studying with us from a distance – involves learning how to “be a Princess.”

A lot more interesting, and a bit more complex, than one might think.

For more details, I’ll shortly post a starting page on the Alay’nya website. Feel free to follow along with us, and you can post your comments and reflections, as you apply the “training” to your life, here on this blog!

Dear Ones –

We started our new round of classes this last Sunday (and will blog about that soon), following an absolutely delightful little Open House the previous Sunday (and will blog about that soon, also!).

I made a little “covenant” or pact with new intermediate student S., who has a great background in dance; strong set of basic techniques. And like many of us, she’s ready to find her “true self” in dance. She’s ready to open up her realm of technique, of choreography, of self-expression … but I get ahead of myself.

One of her dance “idols” is Suhaila Salimpour. I agree, Suhaila is one of the “great ones.” In fact, I took my VERY FIRST belly dance workshop with her, many years ago. She was eighteen at the time, and she taught the workshop in Philadelphia. It was such an adventure to go to my very first workshop! (She did a great job, by the way.)

So both S. and I would benefit by having practice sessions throughout the week, and I suggested that we each get one of Suhaila’s DVDs and work out with it. (Suhaila has lots of DVDs out, and there are at least a few with the Fairfax Public Library.)

Yesterday, to make good on my promise – before I got so distracted with other things that it slipped off my list – I pulled Suhaila’s Yoga Fusion DVD from my shelves, and fired it up in the very early morning hours. (What better way to get an official government “holiday” started than with a good workout?)

This really is a good workout; about 40 minutes. And it really is NOT for Beginners! The people who will benefit the most from this DVD will already have some dance training, and are in reasonably good shape, and who want to improve not only their flexibilty, but the smoothness, the “liquidity,” of their undulations – and get better control over their core muscles.

What I particularly like about working with this DVD is how Suhaila takes us into undulations (both “normal” and “reverse”) starting with the yoga cat/cow alternation. A great way to improve our sense of how the undulations come about naturally and organically in our bodies!