Activation, Two Ways

Wednesday’s classes on C Yard CSP-SAC were special in what the men did to initiate their practice, and how that transformed my teaching on Thursdays at Old Folsom Prison in the Greystone Chapel. My son’s friend’s suicide had me deeply troubled and emotionally bound up. I thought of the men inside, and what they do when futility threatens, and how recent prayers about the inclusive presence of Grace would draw our silence deeper.

Still, I wasn’t prepared to take energetic leadership in the moving meditation class. I chose to go with what was real. I asked the men to initiate their relationship with the Chi, and that of the group. The men arrived in four waves, and each wave settled faster and faster; it soon grew very palpable. Moving into our circle, the T’ai Chi Chih practice was straight forward, with minimal queuing and a deep trust in the Chi.

Lately, we’ve been working with activating compassion for each other by having someone come into the circle, while the rest begin movement on their behalf. I, too, felt moved to ask for support without explaining why. The group had grown so sincere and generous; I was engulfed in waves of penetrating Chi. I was fulfilled, melted by their gift.

We did Pulling in the Energy in silence. I was so blown away. After working in smaller groups, we discussed what had been so active in cultivating more energy this day: initiation, focus and sharing. The class had been a very powerful activation initiated by the men, my queuing was minimal and I trusted them with the energetic leadership. It was good to get out of the way, to do less.

On Thursday, walking into Old Folsom prison, I noticed an integration I could only contribute to yesterday’s healing. The session was strong as we had the Hoberman ball to play with and talk about. After an opening meditation, the Chi field was strong in its guidance for me, and I responded with strong energetic guidance and many fresh and lively visualizations.

The early movements of the practice became a play of form and flow and formlessness. Before Bass Drum, we felt the Chi sensations grow from our mind’s focus. At Daughter on the Mountaintop I had them visualize the self they desired to be in two to five years. Then with Daughter in the Valley, five to ten years out. The field of Chi was sweeping us all up into our potential.

Our Carry the Ball to the Side took on whole new flow, too. As we placed our hands into position holding our Chi balls, we gazed into them, feeling the Chi between our hands, and intentionally amping it up double or triple and then began. We repeated this at the beginning of each set of three. Our pausing between each segment became a ground to dissolve into the infinite, and then reformulate ourselves anew, noticing the accumulating sensations with each set of circling.

After a healing session for two men with Push Pull, and then in Pulling in the Energy, left foot, we visualized Old and New Folsom prison grounds in the center of the circle receiving the Chi, and then on the right foot the earth. In guiding the earth blessing, I realized I was shrinking the earth down to the size of a ball in the center, the size of a globe, rather than enlarging myself. I had felt a fleeting swirl of “oh this is too much Chi” and wanted to open further. So in Graceful Conclusion we felt the enormity of the earth under our feet. We talked about relative size of humans and Doc shared about our blood vessels reaching the moon if end-to-end and more. Then I invited us to do this move again, this time leaving the earth that enormous size and expanding our sense of self to do the move over the earth. We grounded that expanded state for quite a while.

I jumped then to Working the Pulley. Noticing how many were out of rhythm, I asked them to synchronize with me. Yet I felt a different nudge: we were all flowing beautifully, just not synchronized. Why not embrace the variations? We continued to flow, each in our own authentic rhythm, with a unity that included all the differences. We tend to get our feathers ruffled when someone is unable or unaware of the benefits of flowing with the group. Today, however, the Chi was guiding us to include all the diversity as strength. Playing with opposites and the perennial truth of paradox, we come into wholeness. We stood in Cosmic Consciousness Pose for a long time, and felt its name.

Oh, my, I thought, it doesn’t get any better than these two days, and my role had been so different each day. Taking strong energetic leadership at Old Folsom, and stepping back and trusting the students to initiate at New Folsom. The Chi field activated strongly fully either way. Haola. All is well, so be it.