The Vital Force Archive

Carol Mockovak reports on Sandy McAlister's week-long accreditation training at St. Paul's Benedictine Center, where supporting Minnesota auditors, late snow and eleven candidates' own written reflections close the week.

Kathy Grassel invites conference-goers to sign up for the talent show and a Friday night haiku and pyramid poetry slam, judged by Antonia, Pam and Sandy, complete with sample Thanksgiving haiku.

Bonnie Sokolov audits a Minnesota teacher training four years after her own accreditation, refining Working the Pulley and Daughter in the Valley while learning to spot problems in stance, timing and weight shift.

Justin Stone collects jottings found among old papers, from Paul Reps's line about having "no thing" to be grateful for to the Uncarved Block, arrogance, boredom and the two levels of truth.

Pam Towne reports on two three-night February retreats led by Sr. Antonia Cooper on a ridge above Santa Barbara, one for students and one for teachers, flowing from the center with greater softness and continuity.

Sr. Antonia Cooper recounts three weeks in California: two retreats hosted by Pam Towne at Mt. Calvary, an interspiritual gathering at la Casa de Maria, and teaching with Judy Tretheway inside Folsom Prison.

Grace Hathaway recounts the February retreat at Mount Calvary Retreat House above Santa Barbara, led by Sister Antonia and Pam Towne, with the stone labyrinth, healing circle and participants' own accounts.

Sr. Antonia Cooper led a 16-hour retreat for 15 newcomers in a North Carolina retirement community, breaking a Passing Clouds impasse by switching to Linda Braga's Partner Practice.

Rae Scott arrived at her first retreat with no expectations and left with friendships for life, a deeper spiritual sense of the practice, and tearful memories the day after driving home with five classmates.

Sr. Antonia Cooper announces that, at John's suggestion during a supper at Judy Tretheway's in Sacramento, she will e-mail teachers periodic thoughts on Justin's writings for local sharing and reflection.

Tony Johansen describes practising at a Santa Barbara retreat with a paralyzed left foot and braced ankle, finding that uncertainty, not infirmity, breaks his connection to the chi holding him up.

Kathy Grassel reviews Christina Lundberg's documentary tracing her search for wise women teachers in India, Tibet, Nepal and the U.S., ending with Sr. Antonia Cooper describing T'ai Chi Chih deepening her centering prayer.

Short notes from Linda Williams, Robin Spencer, Diana Durkin, Fredora Powell Williams and Diana Wright on a February teacher retreat, including a silent final practice with 18 teachers.

Sr. Antonia Cooper, OSF, plans a trip to her community's Motherhouse in Wuerzburg for its 150th anniversary of ministry to women in need, then an overnight train to Christina Minelli's Italian TCC community.

Debbie Cole recounts how a Santa Barbara retreat mattered less than what surrounded it: an hour-long airport conversation about letting go, days with adopted hosts Tony and Rachel, and a roommate who listened.

Accredited by Justin Stone in 1979, acupuncturist David Fuess talks about his twelve key acupuncture points, alternate nostril breathing, polarity therapy, diet, and why yinning and yanging returns the practitioner to one.

Donna Aldous gathers participants' comments from a two-day February retreat at the Franciscan Forest Sanctuary, hosted by Sr. Viola Bens on the theme "Let it Flow, by letting Go," with ten practitioners attending.

Judy Tretheway accompanies Sr. Antonia through two days of teaching at New Folsom and Old Folsom, where a yard recall cuts one class short and inmates describe staying still inside their emotions.

Ron Richardson recounts Pam Towne's March workshop for 35 people at the Wellness Center of North Mississippi Medical Center, local newspaper coverage with a T'ai Chi Chuan misprint, and doubled class attendance afterward.

Jim Hecker distinguishes slow magic from fast magic, then recounts how teaching T'ai Chi Chih to thousands of men at Old Folsom Prison coincided with falling violence and a 94 percent successful parole rate.

Andrea Skillman recounts a November 20th World T'ai Chi Chih Day gathering of about 25 teachers and students, with workshops on weight shift and t'an t'ien rotation, origami peace cranes, and birthday cards for Justin Stone.

Linda Braga describes how more than 20 Northern California Bay Area teachers collected videos, music tapes, cash and six reference binders for the T'ai Chi Chih classes Judy Tretheway started at Avenal Prison.

Donna Aldous recounts travelling in France with Catherine Brieussel Boillot, practising daily on a snowy mountain at Seynod, in a vineyard at Die, and in Florence Germain Robin's quilt-hung studio.

Bonnie Sokolov tells how a promising student, Dan, vanished for a year after an injury and a job change, then returned to park practice and wrote her emails describing chi moving through his joints.

Four short anecdotes: a beginner renaming Bird Flaps Its Wings "The Chicken Flap," Sr. Viola's swinging foot in Working the Pulley, a New Folsom inmate stunned to meet a nun who practises TCC, and gag gifts from the Santa Barbara retreat.

Leslie Keith's beginning students in Willingdon, Alberta reported, at their second lesson, a long-standing kidney problem gone and welcome time alone with themselves, healing she says she cannot predict.

Linda Braga recounts how Helen, an unsteady 85-year-old referred by her doctor, stood through her first Seniors class and returned to report sitting in her car feeling amazingly calm.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst names teachers who rarely write in, among them Lyn Welch teaching through weekly chemotherapy, Pat Huesby's class of students over 90, and Margo Carpenter's unpaid weekend travel in Canada.