The Vital Force Archive

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.

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.

Nancy Rolph-Johnson watches a tree outside her window glide, slide and arrive front to back and side to side, carrying spring birdsong, wind and rain, and wishes for its wisdom.

Bob Poland, 84 and a year into practice, describes being the only man at a Prajna retreat, April Leffler's talks on attention, four full practices indoors and out, and finding his way home in the dark.

Nancy Daniel falls asleep on the train home from the Philadelphia Flower Show, wakes heading the wrong way, and does two full practices on an icy, unsheltered platform.

Diana Bahn recounts hiking to Bear Lake after the Boulder conference, meeting KG and Lisa Otero, and sitting by the Big Thompson River imagining her stress carried off to the sea.

An announcement that the 2018 conference will take place near Philadelphia in the summer, hosted by April Leffler and Kathleen McAllister, with the place and date still to come.

Donna Aldous practices outdoors during an eight-day silent retreat at an abbey in the Santa Rita foothills near Sonoita, where Passing Clouds and fifteen years of present-moment practice prepared her for daily silent prayer.

Donna Deffenbaugh's poem moves through cold water, mossy spruce, ancient hemlock, granite peaks and frozen lava floes, arriving at no destination but the arrival of being here.

Mary Wichmann collects three student comments from her summer practices in a church memorial garden, including thanks for teaching a woman in a wheelchair and Lorraine's dawn practice with waking birds.

Carol Mockovak describes the free summer practice she and Vanjie Bratt have led since 2005 on the Mississippi riverbank at St. Paul's Hidden Falls Regional Park, which inspired a participant's poem.

Joy DeHarpporte's poetic account of an August practice beside the Mississippi, led by Vanjie and Carol, where a soaring eagle, breeze and silence turn shared movement into communion.

Becky Watkins arrived at her family's beach vacation burned out, angry and sorrowful, and found that eight days of swimming, news-fasting and practicing in the sand left her healed and light-hearted.

Susan Sobelson describes thirty-two teachers, students and passersby circling on Raspberry Island in the Mississippi for World T'ai Chi and Qigong Day, a singing bowl marking each movement as barges and trains passed.

Tom and Julie Schuster recount climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, where a fear of heights was met by visualizing the grounding and opening of Cosmic Consciousness pose, culminating in Daughter on the Mountaintop at the summit.

Sheryl Adair chased waterfalls for years before a visiting hiker discovered a big one hidden behind the rhododendrons on her own mountain lot, and helped cut a trail to it.

Sheryl Adair pauses on a rock above a bend in the Chattahoochee to practice Rocking Motion, watching two Canada geese drift into white water and paddle furiously through.

Laurie Jacobi credits a Robert Graves line about Celtic poets treating their fingertips as oracle agents with transforming her feeling for Pulling In the Energy, especially outdoors among birds and trees.

Carol Mockovak recounts the July 25 gathering at Hannah's Bend Park in Cannon Falls, where 28 Minnesota-area teachers and students practiced beside the Cannon River, then shared a potluck.

Donna Deffenbaugh invites the reader back to age seven or nine, lying in dewy grass or warm sand watching clouds, sinking into earth energy and carrying it to the supper table.

Jim Shorr asked students what draws them inside themselves, and their answers about gym classes and home practice led him to describe the Oregon practice circles he and Neal Roy sustain, from a downtown Portland church to the Rose Gardens.

Sheryl Adair practices outdoors in Sarasota on the fourth anniversary of Justin Stone's death, while visiting her nearly 97-year-old uncle, and finds herself carrying all of life during Carry the Ball to the Side.

Julie Heryet recounts the 3rd Annual T'ai Chi Chih Banquet at Folsom State Prison, where exonerated former inmate Franky Carrillo returned, then practised at 2pm under the oak tree he once watched from inside.

Mary Wichmann's new hiking boots sat unused in the closet after a dermatology procedure on her foot, until an email about a community hiking group led her to the Sonoran Desert and Superstition Mountains as another moving meditation.

Vicki Shroeder and Steve Stevens preview the August 6-9 teacher conference at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, with a peace and harmony theme, Seijaku sessions and reviews of Justin's writings.

Linda M. Barrows recounts a few years of practice: tiring legs before Cosmic Consciousness Pose, her teacher Monica's shift from "most distant star" to "healing energy," and Six Healing Sounds under a backyard oak.

Carolyn Shelley watched a flock of ravens circling overhead during an autumn outdoor practice and drew a metaphor from the collective nouns constable, unkindness and conspiracy for what TCC offers.

Mary Frances Reis describes how a three-month stay at an eco-spirituality center led her to match the nineteen movements to Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's universe story, from Rocking Motion as the flaring forth onward.

Hope Spangler's 15-week for-credit college course moves outdoors to a campus sculpture garden waterfall, where honeybees and a metallic green hummingbird come to drink as the class practices.

Linda Jones left a faucet running overnight while filling her patio fishpond, flooding the patio and killing the fish, and turned the loss into a lesson in impermanence, mindfulness and releasing guilt.