The Vital Force Archive

Derek Hirsch's pyramid poem tells the reader to let go and let the river be, moving from blue to the morning sky's hue and closing on the line "We are one."

A news item submitted by Corinn Codye reporting that Dutch insurer BERG-Diensten cut auto premiums 30 to 50 percent for Transcendental Meditation practitioners judged lower-risk drivers.

Justin Stone argues that enlightenment is manifestation rather than intellect, drawing on D. T. Suzuki's term MYO, the swordsman and the improvising jazz pianist, to explain "Sink into the Essence".

Steve Ridley argues that expanded consciousness comes not from reaching for idealized goals but from continually releasing self-definition, including the fixed concepts we hold about other people.

Carmen Brocklehurst thanks the 20 teachers from Vermont, California, Georgia and New Mexico who came to Steve's April 9 Albuquerque review class, now renamed Teacher Renewal, and the many who stayed to help with Teacher Training.

Steve Ridley answers the question "What is Enlightenment?" by calling it the natural, authentic condition of every being, actualized as the mind-body's seeming conflicts dissolve: nothing to achieve, only allowing.

Linda F. McKenzie describes practising in a circle with a small group, where teacher and student disappear, and her gratitude to Justin and to Steve, who taught her.

Carmen Brocklehurst welcomes the eighteen teachers accredited by Justin Stone at the April 1991 Albuquerque training class, recalls their teaching presentations, and urges them to the August conference and Seijaku training.

A pyramid poem for the summer solstice, tracing guiding brightness from overhead down into the feet and the outward joy that gathers as a display of soul.

Tom Bleckov's two-line pyramid poem plays on tension and release as "chi sion" and "chi lease" to describe the process of Seijaku, with a note from Jeanne Jacobs on his recent Seijaku course.

Steve Ridley's pyramid poem, dated April 4, 1991 and dedicated to the Albuquerque accreditation graduates, asks whether they can abide in patience like a deeply rooted tree.

Steve Ridley answers a student who stopped practicing when his hands vibrated strongly, arguing that sensations of heat, pressure, pain or emotional surges signal harmonization in progress rather than danger.

Justin Stone asks teachers not to recommend unprepared candidates after one entered a course without being ready, praises the Albuquerque course, and previews a maximum Chi program at the Seijaku Course.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts organizing Justin Stone's April 1991 lecture, moving from a 100-seat Hilton room to a larger one as prepaid tickets passed 70, and likens Justin to Master Hakuyu.

Steve Ridley argues that spiritual growth requires continual re-birth, and that self-satisfaction creates resistance to the progressive change that would otherwise bring evolutionary transformation.

Steve Ridley instructs teachers to send only well-qualified candidates to accreditation courses: excellent performance of every movement, at least six months of practice, maturity, and an attitude of respect and cooperation.

Joy Barbour facilitated Arizona's first T'ai Chi Chih teacher training course in Bullhead City in May 1991, with Steve Ridley teaching; newly accredited Loretta Hopper adds her own thanks and names the thirteen graduates.

Three students write in: Karen Greene no longer needs prescription medication for menstrual cramps, Yun Yu Hu regains movement in an inflamed shoulder, and John Schneider finds himself rooted amid confusion.

Richard Brier argues that a teacher who does not practise daily has no right to teach, and describes how faithful training after the first eight to ten classes opens students to higher energies, grounding and letting go.

Two newspaper features reprinted in part: The Times on San Mateo teacher George Balliet, who found T'ai Chi Chih while recovering from an industrial accident and now runs a 12-week class, and The Albuquerque Tribune on Caroline Chavez leading seniors.

A passage quoted from Jin Shin Do: Acupressure Way of Health defines Shin, or Shen, as spirit dwelling in the heart, master of chi in body and mind.

Four aphorisms from Justin Stone, including "Every Blade of Grass a Guru" and his claim that all practices come down to knowing who and what you are.

Teacher updates include Christeen McLain speaking at the American Holistic Nurses' Association conference, Shoko Purdy teaching in Japanese to her mother, Michael Martin's free drop-in classes on Chicago's Navy Pier, and Theda Gillespie's library demonstration with the mayor.

Richard Brier likens the continual rocking and weight shifting of T'ai Chi Chih to being held by a mother, describing a cosmic soothing that cleanses self-doubt and spreads outward into the world.

Justin Stone offers two brief teacher-and-pupil dialogues, one in which admitting ignorance proves a student ready to learn, the other conceding honesty about preferring good, beauty and wealth.

Teachers from Arizona to Florida report on new classes, free outdoor Saturday practice, ocean view park walks, and Linda Braga's partner practice method for mixed-level groups.

Justin Stone contrasts those who glimpse the Vertical and turn to lectures, books and argument with those whose complete experience of oneness leaves daily life tasteless, and describes integration back into the Marketplace.

Justin Stone's 1966 preface to Wen-shan Huang's Fundamentals of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, paraphrased to suit T'ai Chi Chih, calls the practice a Chinese yoga and a walking meditation rather than exercise.

Hannah Hedrick's T'ai Chi Chih classes for American Medical Association employees in Chicago appeared in The Reporter, which promoted the practice as self-defense for the mind, plus Ruthmarie Arguello-Sheehan's magazine piece on mentor women.

Jeanne Jacobs builds a pyramid poem from paradoxes, the unheard song, the dance of no movement, the formless form, arriving at love without expectation and the One, the Tao.