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The Breath that Cleanses

Peggy La Cerra PhD writes a column in Spirituality & Health Magazine, and I really enjoyed this excerpt from the May-June 2012 issue:

“Although we rarely stop to think about it, we are cleansing and revitalizing ourselves with each and every breath we take. Our bodies are designed to expel an impressive 70 percent of their toxic load via respiration. This cleansing process begins at the cellular level. As our cells convert sugars unto a simple form of usable energy, carbon dioxide is generated as waste. This toxic gas is then absorbed into our bloodstream, transported to our lungs, and released into the atmosphere, when we exhale. Then the plants, with which we share the planet, take in our expelled carbon dioxide and use it to create the energy that fuels their existence. And, fortunately for us, they then release the waste product of this photosynthetic process into the atmosphere – the oxygen that sustains our own existence. “

You remember, it is the science of life we learned in elementary school.

But read on, for she so eloquently illuminates and describes the web of life that this simple lesson reveals:

“In this unparalleled display of the elegance of co-evolutionary design, the plants and animals of the earth are cleansing and nourishing and renewing each other, every moment of their lives – a quintessentially physical phenomenon that displays all the hallmarks we usually ascribe to acts of divine grace and spiritual love.”

I love this reminder that we are always already giving and receiving such nourishment and grace – with every breath we take and give!

So keep breathing, and bring to you what you need.

Til the next move,
Enjoy your practice

Dorian

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The Taiji Circle

The Taiji Circle is such a great graphic!

In one elegant and simple design it conveys so much meaning.  A circle with an S curving through the middle, one half white, the other half black, and each side with a dot of the other side’s color in it.

Seems no matter how long this symbol has been a part of my life, the meaning to which it points goes ever deeper.   The symbol refers to the yin-yang philosophy that the dualistic nature of all that we see in the world can be understood not as mutually exclusive contrary opposites, but as complementary to, arising from and dissolving back and forth into each other.  Night becomes day, summer becomes winter, etc.

Qualities, not Things

Yin and yang are qualities, or aspects of things, they don’t exist on their own.  No thing that exists, exists in isolation or absolutely.  And therefore, no one thing is yin, and no one thing is yang – but everything may be yin or yang relative to something else.   And the same thing maybe yin in one regard and yang in another regard, relative to a single other thing. It’s just not as simple as black and white.

No Conflict

Seems to me the human challenge is to recognize the harmony among the opposites. Black and white relate to one another, and black and white have the seed of their opposite within.  I find this incredibly valuable to remember – especially when I am in what feels like conflict with someone else.  Whatever I feel is in opposition, I first notice the seed of that in me, in my position, and then I remember that my position exists in relation to theirs – this gives me the ability to accept their position, without abandoning my own and points the way toward some resolution reflected in the greater whole.

The Whole

Right! The greater whole – the circle in which all this dualistic interplay is happening. For ultimately, there is something which cannot be talked about or described, because it is not subject to the yin and yang of life, but encompasses them both.  For me, this is where blogging stops and the practice of taiji begins. Moving through 108 moves of my taiji form, I feel the harmonious interplay of all the seemingly opposing forces – up and down, advance and retreat, form and emptiness, mind and body, and on and on and on…..

Til the next move, enjoy your practice

Dorian

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A Rocky Start

I am finding it is not so easy to start blogging again after such a hiatus.

I wrote a long essay about receiving (zou jin) and some of it’s applications in life, and then I had all these second thoughts about publishing it. Though I received some reassurance from trusted sources, still I couldn’t settle in my decision.  Too much detail about other people and events in my life, I just didn’t feel comfortable publishing it all.

And that is my lesson for the moment.  I like feeling settled in a decision  – big or small. And so, when central settle eludes me, make a change, do what I need to do to get comfortable.  Find my ground, my root, my central equilibrium. Come back down to earth.

So, it is a rocky start,  but like any practice, I know if I keep at it, it will get easier as I go along.

til the next move

enjoy your practice,

Dorian