The Vital Force Archive

Excerpted from his book Heightened Awareness, Justin Stone links spiritual evolution to Gopi Krishna's Kundalini, habit energies, mindfulness at meals, and the Satori that came to Hakuin after a woman broke a broom over his head.

Nancy Johnson's pyramid poem walks a labyrinth with a lotus at its center, recalling Thich Nhat Hanh's counsel to step harmoniously while hills, trees, fountains and birds keep company.

Justin Stone describes Prajna, the innate wisdom buried under habit energies, quoting a Sufi master, Krishnamurti and Paul Reps, and argues that TCC practice balances those energy patterns so letting go happens effortlessly.

April Leffler introduces the theme of the 2018 Philadelphia teacher conference, Flowing From Emptiness, quoting the Lotus Sutra and relaying what teachers said about being emptied out by life.

Nancy Johnson's pyramid poem traces the lifelong friendship of Ruth and Nina, from meeting at the edge of a sandbox as children to travels, families, birthdays and healing moments together.

Eliza Fulton recalls her surprise that TCC teachers face no continuing education requirement, and argues that Justin Stone gave teachers his example and their own inner teh instead of rules; with Pyramid Poems on silence.

Ahead of the 2018 Teacher Conference, Lorry Marcketta rounds up Philadelphia art destinations from the Rodin Museum and mural tours to her favorite, the Brandywine River Museum, closing with an acrostic poem.

Nancy Johnson's pyramid poem takes an owl's point of view, puzzling over the white-robed Brothers walking slowly below and wondering whether those long gowns hide wings.

Carmen Brocklehurst unpacks the name T'ai Chi Chih as "knowledge of the Supreme Ultimate" and recalls her clumsy first classes with Helen Brungardt Pope before discovering the feeling of chi.

Dora Wiemann's beginner class sank into moving meditation during Daughter on the Mountaintop and stayed there through Daughter in the Valley, emerging only when Carry the Ball to the Side's instructions intervened.

Nancy Johnson's pyramid poem sets a great horned owl against a satellite at dusk, weighing solo grace and the ability to meditate against metal, programs and waiting for commands.

Donovan Rundle takes the saying "It takes One to know One" as a statement about the knower united with the Universal Chi, arguing that no part can know the whole from outside.

Susan Kenney remembers Clifford, a student of 44 who traveled by skateboard, called out the movements while stooping to read them off the page, and lived in a monastery-like studio apartment.

Sharon Sirkis passes along a college student's story: after a class discussion on grounding and avoiding distractions, the student hung up from an undistracted hour-long phone call wondering whether the dog had been fed.

Diana Bahn recounts climbing onto a ledge in the Columbus Circle subway to free a trapped pigeon, and how the rescue loosened her struggle with teaching "Bird Flaps Its Wings."

Maya Campana Caudill writes that she and her husband, in their late 70s and early 80s, still lead free twice-weekly T'ai Chi Chih and Qigong practice in the park for about 16 people.

Donna Deffenbaugh recounts buying olive green drawstring pants and velveteen shoes for her first T'ai Chi Chih class, the too-big black replacements her teacher teased her about, and what practice is really about.

Sandy McAlister links a Bay Area synchronicity workshop and two retreats she led, drawing on Linda Braga's Seven Qualities of Movement to show how moving as one unit produces harmony and beauty.

Sandra Babka, at 76 and living with nerve damage, recounts a lifetime of exercise and practicing TCC in airports and doctors' offices, paired with an anonymous student's account of letting go through Abandon Hope and a cancer diagnosis.

Pam Towne links softness to letting go of muscular tension and self-critical thoughts, and recommends Seijaku after a year of practice as the way to feel release after resistance.

Becky B Watkins recounts a free eight-week class at her downtown Louisiana library, where Irma, a student with no fingers, rode the bus through pouring rain and practised Rocking Motion softly and beautifully.

Dan Pienciak, who learned Seijaku from Justin Stone in 1997 and needed ten years to feel its benefits, argues the advanced form belongs to the essence of TCC rather than a fringe few.

Victor Viereck compares dry spaghetti, hard and brittle until boiling water softens it, to a body full of tension that becomes soft and flexible as Chi is added through practice.

Prompted by Julie Heryet's Folsom update, Hannah Hedrick describes her weekly class for recently released offenders, where students broke up a fight and welcomed the aggressor back, and argues against nit-picky correction.

Becky Shinas writes a rhapsodic prose poem of awakened heart, intergalactic love and shining Divine embodiment, closing on the eternal celebration of Cosmic Chi.

Julie Heryet credits Sandy McAlister's playfulness for loosening her insistence on accuracy, describing how frustrated elders at a Senior Center and inmates needing to feel safe changed her teaching priorities.

Celia Ortenberg remembers being pushed on the beach swings by her father and finds the same pause of weightlessness at the turn of Rocking Motion, with gratitude for her life and practice.

Five tenth graders at Albuquerque Academy describe what a year of T'ai Chi Chih gave them, from skepticism to grounding during a student walkout against gun violence, followed by Pyramid Poems on silence.

Carmela Beck names what keeps her practicing daily even when she does not feel like it, from easing sciatica and low back pain after an injury to a growing sense of reverence for all of life.

Host April Leffler introduces comments from eight teachers accredited at the six-day Aston course in March 2018, including two from the UK, on softness, auditing feedback and nerves about facing students.