The Vital Force Archive

Ed Altman draws on Master Tesshu's The Sword of No-Sword to argue that desire's root cannot be cut by words, and that quieting the Mind comes through T'ai Chi Chih and merging with the Cosmic Rhythm.

Neena Mitchell of Syracuse, New York traveled as itinerant instructor for West Virginia's first T'ai Chi Chih class, convened by nurse Dee Howell in a central Appalachian mountaintop home.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts attending Lois Mahaney's retirement dinner in San Francisco and the trial-and-error years Lois spent building the Vital Force database and Teacher Directory after turning 70.

Guadalupe Buchwald thanks Ed Altman for leading a teacher-student intensive in Victoria, the first Canadian TCC event since 1991, where he refined each movement from knees and spine alignment to moving from the center.

Sr. Margaret O'Connor describes how master teachers, renewals and auditing build understanding, citing Amy Hackenberg's report on Ed's low heels and groundedness pointers and the San Diego group's January CBS appearance.

Kathy Vieth describes the week-long accreditation at St. Louis's Mercy Center retreat, where 10 of 12 candidates were accredited, and admits sending a student who was not yet ready.

Carolyn Allenby travelled 200 miles from New Jersey to Dale Buchanan's studio in Great Falls, Virginia, describing its natural light, rock fountain and video corner, then joining a Saturday morning class.

Jo Trautmann describes her first two classes at a Sun City retirement community in Texas, where twenty-plus students seeking balance and flexibility brought a surprising stillness to the room.

Amy Tyksinski describes her daily morning resistance to practicing, the summer she practiced only once or twice a week, and Ed Altman's conference question, "What are you holding on to?"

Sr. Antonia Cooper, OSF recounts being interviewed by filmmaker Christina Lundberg for a documentary, screened in New York in December 1998, about twelve wise women and her own Tibetan pilgrimage.

Sharon Sirkis lists twelve tactics she uses when she does not feel like practicing, from telling herself she will only do Rocking Motion to switching to Seijaku on her teacher's advice.

Dan Carpenter, a student finishing a semester class, compares the flow he finds in Perpetual Motion and Rocking Motion to carving down a mountain on his snowboard, and recounts practicing at dawn during an ice storm.

James K. Hecker, incarcerated 17 years at Soledad, San Quentin and Old Folsom and formerly a Navy medic, answers the questions he is asked most, and describes practising on a lockdown tier until racial tension broke.

Two short poems in near-pyramid form by Stephanie Wing and Soussan Farsi, students of Virginia Lee Cepeda, one on God and the listening world, one on preparing for a sudden event.

Judy Tretheway describes teaching T'ai Chi Chih in a chapel at Folsom Prison, passing through clanging gates to practice with men whose chi and teh she found strong despite battered bodies.

Jo Trautmann's short poem watches scattered seeds grow quickly, slowly, or not at all, some sprouting then withering, a reminder that even Mother Nature cannot win them all.

Ed Altman locates softness and continuity in the legs, showing how a slow full weight shift and released tension in ankles and knees let the heel and toe rise without effort.

Justin Stone's short poem looks at a mountain throbbing with life and indifferent trees that witness everything without attachment, then asks whether these are the wise ones.

Linda Meyer describes the May 16 gathering at Barbara and Cec Riley's Orinda home honoring Lois Mahaney's fourteen years with the Vital Force Journal and Teacher Directory, with Lois's own thank-you following.

Eileen Hastings, a student of George Balliet, sets a pyramid poem aboard an airplane, where overheard conversation quilts around her and she settles into the space beneath sound.

Noel Altman reports Ed Altman's upcoming live interview on the "David Essel Alive!" radio show, new board members at the New Mexico association, Shepherd's Centers adopting TCC, and class enrollments rising after a "Good Morning America" segment.

In Judy Mirczak's healing stories column, a California practitioner describes how years of Ritalin for childhood hyperactivity wrecked his digestion, and how regular practice brought his metabolism into balance and added fifteen pounds.

Tara Stiles hands out strips of small blue dots for students to stick on steering wheels, mirrors and cupboard doors as reminders to check the breath or the t'an t'ien during a busy day.

Linda Braga's Valentine's Day 1999 poem sets the ringing of a singing bowl against the singing of her own soul, finding God's voice in the round and round.

Dale Buchanan recounts a dream from the 1998 New Jersey teacher training in which Justin Stone repeatedly caught his falling weight, after which Daughter on the Mountaintop became effortless.

Five classroom anecdotes from Sharon Sirkis, Noel Altman and Joyce DeGidio, including a Senior Center singalong of "Down in the Valley," a recreation center class lost to bingo, and a shirt worn backwards.

Justin Stone sets down the aphorisms he jotted after sitting, among them that bliss comes with stillness, that contradictory partial realizations can both be right, and that emptiness is clearest on leaving the turiya state.

Elissa Maguire reports on Florida's first accreditation course, where Ed Altman led ten new teachers to accreditation, with auditors Roberta Taggart, Diana Daffner and candidates Barbara Hamilton and Priscilla Brands describing their week.

Justin Stone traces Pyramid Poetry to the ease of writing Haiku in Japanese, explains the one-two-three-four-three-two-one syllable form, and introduces poems by Mark Maloney, Ed Altman and Sharon Sirkis.

Justin Stone, prompted by a teacher's plan to speak at an Albuquerque Consciousness Fair, argues there is no "higher consciousness" or good and bad karma, and warns against box-office titles like one Zen writer's.