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Post-Equinox Greetings, In the midst of the grey rain, we passed a threshold. It may have slipped by unnoticed, that moment when the balance of light and dark was precisely equal. As a friend and I discovered after our dawn practice together, the day we reached equilibrium at our latitude in Corvallis, OR was March 17 — three days before the official equinox. Balance is like this, isn’t it? Ephemeral, easy to miss, hard to pin down. Chaos, by contrast, seems pervasive. Lately I’ve been reflecting on conditions that are hard to change, places that feel so stuck we don’t see how there will ever be a way out, spirals that only go in one direction — down. So what do we do? My suggestions is that we practice asking for the help we need. I know prayer can be controversial, but my suspicion is that the sheer scope of our problems these days calls for support that is larger than us. What I know from studying ecology and the human body is that nature is wise. There is something alive in us that wants to flourish. What if we practice calling that forward, within ourselves and from each other? What if we ask the world for the help we need? In this spirit, I’ll be offering a special form at our next Monday night Qi Gong class. It’s called Swimming Dragon, and I realized in the midst of practice one day that the shape of this movement form is very similar to the image of the staff of Asclepius — the Greek god of healing whose symbol adorns the western medical profession — with a snake twining around a central shaft. It strikes me that there is deeply encoded wisdom here, a call toward greater healing that crosses time and culture. This insight supports my understanding that Qi Gong is more than exercise. It can be movement for movement’s sake, yes. It can also be an invitation for something deep within us to come forward, to support our own health and the health of the greater whole. Moving our bodies is an antidote to that which refuses change, a reminder that life is always evolving, and that health is a dynamic state. I hope you’ll join me on Monday for Swimming Dragon. We meet at 6:30pm at Heart of the Valley Yoga. See you there. Warm wishes, Georgia
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