The Vital Force Archive

Liz Salada recounts the Easter weekend T'ai Chi Chih and Meditation Intensive led by Steve Ridley, where 14 teachers and 11 students practised Tibetan energy rites and the Eight Pieces of Brocade.

Carole Gates of Victoria, B.C. breaks down the flyer she used to publicize a Teacher Preparation Course, listing objectives, prerequisites, format, cost, content, materials to bring and a registration form.

Steve Wornoff of Sacramento contributes a pyramid poem, printed as a graphic with its words set among four yin-yang symbols, on T'ai Chi circles softly centering him.

Norma Treasure, seventy-five, wrote from Crofton, B.C. to thank Codye for the videotape, saying Justin Stone's recorded instruction suits her better than attending a class once a week.

Carmen Brocklehurst reports on the seven-day teacher training at the Albuquerque Convention Center led by Steve, where fifteen candidates were accredited, and names the supporting teachers and new graduates.

Ruth Marie Arguello-Sheehan reports on over 60 mostly retired students at an Arizona resort plus a mixed-age class including physicians, and previews her talks at the National Council on Aging conference.

Three haiku by Don Arenz, professor of English at Concordia College and student of Chris Curran, on coffee and absence, bare feet on the earth, and the patience between student and teacher, sent to the journal by Justin Stone.

Mark Harrell's three-line pyramid poem observes that trees bathed in the same sun and blessed by the same rains still grow and flourish differently, each according to its own characteristics.

Reprinted from his book Abandon Hope, Justin Stone describes the inner Certainty that matures through spiritual practice, the Vedantic "Neti Neti," the Buddhist roots of suffering, and why psychic experiences fade.

In a letter to Justin Stone, J. R. L. catalogues energy sensations that began in a 1988 class: heated palms at church, a pencil point of energy from a crystal, and auras around pine trees.

Deborah Szekely, owner of the Golden Door and Rancho La Puerta, recounts waking at 5:30 a.m. in China in 1978 to find thousands practicing T'ai Chi, and calls it the indispensable antidote to desk-bound life.

Lois Mahaney hunted everywhere for a poem she needed for a calligraphy deadline, gave up and did her daily practice instead, then walked straight to her purse and found it.

Jeanie Lemaire's sample workshop proposal, written with Corinn Codye and accepted by the Life Spectrum Institute in Maryland, lays out objectives, participant benefits, brochure copy, history, room requirements and instructor biography.

Richard Brier's short poem answers a student's question about life and purpose with a master who stands, sits, drinks water, burps, smiles and calls it simplicity itself.

Corinn Codye urges accredited teachers who have gone inactive or struggled to fill classes to start again, recommending regional teacher associations, auditing training courses, the annual conference and contributing to the Vital Force.

Jeanne Carlson-Linscott describes moving T'ai Chi Chih under a March full moon in a Kailua Kona botanical garden soon to be bulldozed for condominiums, and the message she heard from the earth.

Justin Stone quotes the Sufi teacher Sheikh Abdullah Ansari on worship, sacred law and reality as selflessness, and says faithful T'ai Chi Chih practice moves one rapidly toward identity with reality.

Corinn Codye's two-line piece turns the phrase "I love you" into a pair of questions, asking who it is that loves and who it is that's loved.

Steve Ridley describes an eternal state of Being underlying the transitory Becoming, and names T'ai Chi Chih as a way to stay rooted in Reality while responsibly involved in change.

Roundup of newly accredited teachers' classes, from Harriet Henderson's Church of Religious Science in Newhall and Lynne Blackford's Montana retreat workshops to Dorothy Marks's 65 students and St. Luke's Hospital Arthritis Clinic.

Steve Ridley of Denver writes that balancing yin chi and yang chi brings stability amid constant change, and names knowing the Supreme Ultimate as the deepest aim of T'ai Chi Chih practice.

Encouraged by Justin Stone to overcome her timidity about sharing inner thoughts, Marilyn P. Harrison offers a poem on small things, leaves, water drops, and pain fading along the T'ai Chi Chih path.

Corinn Codye describes T'ai Chi Chih as meditation with eyes open, practised at dawn or in evening rush hour, closing with Zen master Hakuin on contemplation within activity.

In an April 1976 letter to Justin Stone, John Burchard reports a 65-pound weight loss, blood pressure falling from 140/95 to 120/75, and informal readings he took on three hypertensive students.

Corinn Codye describes how the 1989 Seijaku course and a Heightened Awareness seminar sharpened her focus between writing, parenting and teaching, followed by letters from Pam Towne, Susan Webster and Tim Stuetz.

Miko's two-line pyramid poem proposes that bending with the wind grows us more than standing in rigid defiance, a brief image of yielding over resistance.

Renee J. Wilson recounts a weekend meditation intensive led by Steve Ridley for 28 participants before the accreditation course, with Oriental warm ups, breathing, yoga, Tibetan exercises and outdoor T'ai Chi Chih.

Jeanne Carlson-Linscott announces that her students Cheryl Valois and Bruce Brummitt, who met at a Fargo Teacher Training Course, married in March and are considering the Peace Corps.

Renee J. Wilson reports on Canada's second accreditation course, led by Steve, which produced 13 new teachers and a Saturday practice in Beacon Hill Park with about 40 people.

Carole Gates recounts teaching 90 students in five classes in Duncan and the Cowichan Valley, mentoring four teacher candidates through her first Teacher Preparation Course, and planning a June celebration to introduce them.