Practice resurrection.
—Wendell Berry

To me it seems obvious that if there's a physical force pulling us down to Earth (gravity) then there must be a spiritual force drawing us up to the Heavens (levity).

What prevents us from feeling levity is the general disheartenment that comes from worry & anxiety. And it's strange that the more our rational & technological advancement takes away the need to worry, the more we worry. We are addicts.

The good student knows she has no choice.

When people ask me why I get up in the middle of the night to meditate for two hours, I feel like saying: "Because I have no choice." But I don't because they wouldn't understand. To them everything is a matter of choice.

If you are so consumed by worry (fear) that you cannot even appreciate the beauty of levity as an idea let alone feel it as a presence, then start meditating – it's your only hope.

Dantian makes its nest amongst the twitching fibres of psoas.

If your Taiji isn't taking you on an amazing journey then you're doing it wrong. (Failing to put spirit above form.)

To say that theology comes down to theopoetics is to say it deals in imaginative figurations originating in the depths of our sensuous, affective, and preconscious life, that its engagement with the world takes place in the preconceptual, prethematic base of our existence, in the dark and ambiguous ground from which we all spring.

—John D Caputo

We creatures have been created to create. Not simply propagating the species but using spirit to make it new.

A tense response
effectively erects
a barrier

When you feel the practice getting stale & flat, always come back to yielding. And remember, true yielding is from & to the heart – it is the heart breaking open to welcome in the Other.

You will find poetry nowhere unless
you bring some of it with you.
—Joseph Joubert

Poetry precedes prose
Always

The artist has no choice but to create. Their creativity is as primitive, basic & uncontrollabe as the sex drive. When it bursts free, in the act of creation, anything is possible, and what's created surprises the artist more than anyone.

A healthy psoas is juicy, supple, responsive.

—Liz Koch

When we let gravity take the body then we sink down and the knees break forward. When we let levity take our spirit then the eyes brighten and we look ahead & slightly up. Both gravity & levity take us forwards.

Culture is a poor substitute for Nature.

What we call learning
is only a process
of recollection
—Plato

To get stronger you must endure pain; whoever says otherwise is trying to sell you something.

resist the herd

Traditionally in Taiji there are no grades or belts, just the appellation Master. My own teacher explained that it is usually bestowed after at least ten years of training, during which time the student has acquired enough knowledge, skill & charisma to successfully hold down a class of their own. Although he later confided in me that a Master is really someone whose spirit has been fully awakened by another qualified Master.

The Other is not an appetite but a generosity.

STAY WOKE

(root out fascism)

& remember:
the ultimate fascist is
not the petty tyrant
but the cruel Ego

Levity is felt as a gentle call, a tender lure.

A barely audible call to prayer.

Relax, open up, become porous: then levity  ↑  lifts us almost weightless.

The energy we work with is not qi. It is not in the body, travelling along meridians. It is a function of our relaxed engagement with two fields: the field of gravity from the Earth pulling the body downwards; and the field of levity from the Heavens (the space surrounding the Earth) pulling the spirit upwards. It is my quiet trusting mind that allows & encourages this delicate play upon my being.

The goal of life
is living in agreement
with nature
—Zeno of Citium