July 19th, 2017

A meditative practice of stillness, flow & loving appreciation.

Our interpretations, beliefs and resulting feelings effect how we experience our life, our emotions and body & relating with others. Including how loving, honest & comfortably present in our body & relating with each other we allow ourselves to be.

One way of exploring and enhancing our experience of being alive here in embodying ways, is to really attune to the beliefs & feelings we subconsciously & consciously choose to hold about the natural body, emotions, enjoyment & appreciation.

Recognizing how subjective and varied interpretations & thus feelings can be about a, and our own, body or experience.
How we are the creators of our own feelings of presence, unity, health, comfort and appreciation, or disassociation, discomfort, shame, fear or aversion, with our own & others body and emotions as a whole and in specific areas & realms.

* Wuji - zhan zhuang :

* Begin in in a comfortably balanced, standing position with feet about hip width apart, crown of head gently feeling like lifting upward, heart area relaxed & open. A simple standing meditation posture.

* Relax into your full being in this position for a while. 5 minutes, 30 minutes...whatever you choose. Ideally give yourself at least 5 or 10 minutes to begin to ground and become more present in the now here in your body.

* Slow, deeply rhythmic, fully inhaling & exhaling life energy.

* Relax with calm, appreciative feeling focus which is neither grasping nor avoident, simply openly present and honest.

* Allow this quality of attentive, appreciative feeling perspective - awareness to expand from isolated areas or less loving emotional attitudes that you may tend to notice or identify with habitually, to gently expand more spacious, kindly loving interpretations & feelings throughout your whole unified body - being.

* After a while of standing in stillness, we become increasingly aware of where we may be holding undue tension physically. We may noticed a pain in our hip or shoulder. Perhaps a tendency to slouch with shoulders caving forward, collapsing ones heart and breathing. And how that creates a web of extra tension in additional areas of the body & emotions in attempts to compensate for the postural & emotional imbalances.

Awakening in feeling ways how that tension & discomfort is also connected with our beliefs & interpretations, including inaccurate and unloving ones, we identify with & view life or some people or experiences through, react to. Which influence our varied life & relational choices. 

Perceiving our whole self as including rather than disassociating from, shaming or fearing our body as part of nature, our soul & ways of expressing & experiencing love, harmony and creativity here.
And equally for that of all human beings.

Gradually we can grow recognize, admit & honestly deal with how such associations & interpretations become so normalized, even when inaccurate or blinding us to other equally valid, loving interpretations and feelings which may be more true at least for others & their intentions.
That there are other at least as equally valid alternative ways of interpreting our embodying being. Being human. What is important in life. And most anything else.

We are directly, meditatively facing the truth that we all have many options for how we and others choose to interpret and feel about not only our body & emotional feelings, but for so much of relational experiences with our growing self, each other & life overall. Not just one blinding dogmatic interpretation.  We are freeing ourselves and respecting the freedom of each other, to be what we naturally are, both kindred and diverse.


* Allow this gently grounding quality of wisdom to grow in us with feelings of appreciation, comfortably relaxed softness & openness to life.
Complemented with attentively balancing, upright centrally aligned focus, rooting into our core being and honestly stating our subjective boundaries and preferences with loving kindness.
In awe of the mystery of being alive & the creative subjectivity of meaning & purpose.

Notice how this can support our integrity & clarity for communicating honestly with ourself and anyone we relate with in any way, to support mutual understanding by honestly stating our boundaries, questions, feelings & preferences and staying open to hearing and being heard. To being understanding and understood.

* Do feelings of shame, guilt, fear, disgust, aversion come up when you really relax into the present in your bodily home?


* When we allow ourselves to move out of the perception distorting knee jerk habitual or biased negative associations, we create a quieter, calmer space to relax into. Which quiets the noise of made up stories of acquired and projected beliefs, allowing our nervous system to come back to center.
Allowing our mind, our feelings to come back to a more balanced, clear space that is more curious than negatively assumptive & projective.

 This creates a quiet void space. Which is sometimes referred to as wuji - emptiness.
It is in a way our natural state. A space of eternal now. Of primordial potential. Of purifying and opening our embodying soul to our intimately interrelationship with all that is.

In our busy lives where we are often surrounded by a sea of mixed views about life, our body, each other based in superficial characteristics such as our gender, ethnicity, place of birth, political or religious - nonreligious preferences.
As we stand in quietly spacious feeling awareness, releasing our tight grip that keeps us in tense, knee jerk reactive modes of being, our gradual opening up allows life energy to flow more freely into and through us. Nourishing our being as we get out of our own way, in a sense.

* Allow yourself to be comfortably present as long, as much as you feel open to during each practice session. Savoring the pleasurable feelings & greater physiological & emotional harmony which you are nurturing.


Moving Into a Tai Chi Qigong Flow :

* When you feel ready, when you feel more groundedly present, relaxed and calmly focused than when you began, very slloooowwlly & smoothly pick up your right leg and foot & step out then down to ground again to your right a comfortable distance ( 1 to a few feet ), so that you can sink down even more comfortably.
Into a type of horse stance. Similar to a stance referred to as a goddess posture in some yoga classes.

Exhaling as you expand open from your center. Inhaling as you contract inwardly toward your center.

Often in many cultures people are accustomed to moving fast and rarely slowing down, then feel uncomfortable or strange if they do slow down and more deeply feel what is in them more fully than constantly being busy and rushing allows quietly focused space for. Or being couch potatoes where the energy barely moves at all.
So it can feel challenging, frustrating, boring, confusing or emotionally uncomfortable if we have been stuck in that mode, to really slow down.  We are bringing much needed healing awareness, nurturing balance back into our being.

* We are now moving from wuji - stillness, taking the quiet, calm open hearted feeling awareness - energy we nurture in zhan zhuang, into movement. Into a more overt playful exploration of yin - yang. Into the complementary nature of life, including our bodies as one of many metaphysical layers or aspects of this cosmic pulsing.

Continuing with sllooow, smooth movement, flow all of our balance into the earth through your standing right leg, foot. Feeling your whole body unified in supple interconnectivity.

As you reach a center point of balance on the right side, you can remain here for as long as you want before continuing this flow into the left side. Or flow slowly and continuously without pausing.

Quiet the mind, open the heart & feel appreciation of being. Embodying this quality of loving, curiosity motivated calm, focused presence in the only time that exists - each now.

Continue with this somatic exploring of present focused, grounding, spiritually sensitizing fluid movement as long as you choose. Viewed from the back the movement could seem like a wide or tall U shaped arcing flow.
Savoring the sense of deepening into ones individuating & embodying self.
While also expanding ones feeling awareness of being one of countless diverse, equally valid beings, loving expressions & perspectives.

We are each equally life, exploring and co-creating kindred and diverse paths of exploration, learning, loving and creativity. It is beautiful. We are training & healing our whole being to remember, recognize and embody this.
Cultivating our appreciation of this healthfully enriches how we experience being alive here. And how we relate.

* Pay attention to the amount of openness you are willing to relax into. How much you are able to open into feeling pleasurably appreciative, comfortably relaxed & calmly vibrantly present including your body in each moment as you flow from one side to the other.

Allow yourself to open to enjoy this simple presence even more than you may think makes sense.
You are making the nurturing sense of enjoyment, kindness, by appreciatively engaging your whole being unitively in both stillness and harmonious movement. 

No expectations.
Just relaxing into the now.
Enjoying the release of endorphins, increasing clarity, open appreciation & suppleness which can occur.

Do you tend to favor a side? Or feel pretty balanced? Do certain moments or areas feel more fluid or more stuck? Does it change from day to day? Or based in your beliefs & responses to life & co-creating experiences?

What happens if you refocus to nurture & feel more of the calm, honest, relaxed and loving qualities again? Continue to bring focus back to this. This is our point of clarity and balance.

Allow yourself to be wholly present as you flow. Like a watery warm wave flowing in slow motion. The slowness arises from and feeds a relaxed openness and curiosity about being physicalizing soul consciousness in the only time that exists - now. 

When you feel like transitioning out from that particular process, simply inhale back into a centrally aligned standing position. Feeling yourself deeply grounding like roots expanding out from your spine, hips, legs and feet into the core of the earth.
Torso balanced and heart soft & open.
Head aligned over neck with the most relaxed balance over your spine and whole body.
Feeling warm, appreciative somatic awareness flowing freely through your whole being.

Taking what you are nurturing with this process, with you as you continue with the rest of your nows, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

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