Heart us invisibly thyme time
round rose bud fire downland
bird tread quagmire dry gill-over-the-ground
stem-square leaves-cordate earth race horsethyme
breath neighbors a mace nays
sorrow of harness pulses pent
thus fruit pod split four
one-fourth ripens unwithering gaping
—Louis Zukofsky, first stanza of 80 Flowers, 1978
round rose bud fire downland
bird tread quagmire dry gill-over-the-ground
stem-square leaves-cordate earth race horsethyme
breath neighbors a mace nays
sorrow of harness pulses pent
thus fruit pod split four
one-fourth ripens unwithering gaping
—Louis Zukofsky, first stanza of 80 Flowers, 1978
Truth is not something I can tell you because it cannot be explained. (Poets miraculously put it into words.) But if I were to work with you, one to one, then I guarantee we would touch it together and you may even feel it. It is like a small bud in the heart aching to bloom. Thymos, as well as Greek for 'life' is a tiny bud of thyme.
One of the most common questions I am asked is: What is the difference between Taiji and Qigong?
That's easy. Taiji is a martial art so its principal energy is Spirit, whereas Qigong is a class of energy exercises, and its principal energy is Qi.
The next question is always: What's the difference between Spirit and Qi?
Spirit is the vital animating spark that brings things alive or wakes things up, whereas Qi is a pervasive energy prevalent in Nature, especially in Living Nature.
Life requires both but Spirit precedes Qi.
When walking in Nature, experiencing its beauty and vibrancy then you are feeling Qi. If you are suddenly startled by a noise in the undergrowth and your hackles rise and your senses sharpen then you are experiencing Spirit.
The good student is not the one regularly attending class or the one doing lots of practice or the one hanging on every word from the teacher's mouth but the one who is learning. John once said to me: You do realise that you only started to learn anything from me after Max (my son) was born? And I remember it well. Even though the added commitment meant I couldn't practice all hours as before, the birth of Max woke me up and charged me up and suddenly I was able to really hear what John was saying and then put it into practice. Learning, like everything else, is a matter of spirit.
When, at 16, it was time to chose A-levels to study at school, I was decidedly undecided. Expected & pressured to do three sciences and try for Oxbridge, I realised that my first love was poetry and my greatest talent was art. So I compromised and chose Physics, Maths and English Lit. And I must admit that the depth of thought I put into Shakespeare far surpassed anything at University, including the PhD.