The Vital Force Archive

April Leffler collects her students' metaphors for T'ai Chi Chih: sun melting a snowball of stress, wind rippling a lake, and trains passing a porch while the mind travels, plus Desiree A.'s list of life's paired energies.

Sr. Antonia Cooper counts the nine different names Justin Stone gave the rest pose in the T'ai Chi Chih Photo Text, notes his openness about how and when to practice, and prints the 2011 mission statement.

Jerry Bumbalough describes teaching seniors with Alzheimer's and dementia at an adult day health care facility, where early frustration turned around after Antonia advised him to simply say, "Copy me."

Nancy Werner-Azarski, who has attended every conference since 1996, lists what one weekend gave her, including lectures and meal talk, and how an injured knee upended her bias against seated T'ai Chi Chih.

Sandy McAlister turns her disappointment over a rose dropping its petals into gratitude, connecting the lesson on impermanence to Justin Stone's Chih K'uan practice of holding fast and letting go.

Joe Michaud's short poem watches a woman move through T'ai Chi Chih with liquid smoothness and unspent strength, ending on the turn that the dance dances the woman.

Pam Towne links year-end closet clearing and shredded tax records to the letting go practised in Seijaku, where each repetition passes through resistance back into softness, and thanks Justin Stone in his final process.

Joe Michaud's poem moves from moment-to-moment dying and returning to life, to Master Chang's butterfly dream, to the two dark and light fish chasing each other's tails, ending with a koan-like demand.

Melinda Antoon Cormier, a 56-year-old artist practising in Lake Charles, mentally ran through the Six Healing Sounds during a resting stress test, and her angioplasty revealed a naturally grown bypass around a minor blockage.

Stephen Thompson counters life in the fast lane by urging practitioners to step outside themselves and observe their own moving meditation, watching self-doubts, fears and desires arise and letting them go.