| WORKSHOPS & RETREATS |
| Workshops (1 or 2 days) |
| • Boston, MA |
| • Northampton, MA |
| • Reading, England (UK) |
| Immersions (3+ days) |
| Retreats in Nature |
| • Qigong Retreats for the Five Seasons |
| Home |
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OverviewWelcome. We’re very excited about our Toward Harmony with the Earth: Qigong Retreats for the Five Seasons series, and we hope that you will be also. Our vision for this series is that each year we’ll hold a retreat during each of the five seasons delineated by our Taoist water tradition - Spring, Summer, Late Summer, Fall, and Winter. We hope to return season after season, year after year to the same remote natural setting so that we can experience change and continuity within nature’s rhythms. In these retreats we explore how to use qigong practices both to cultivate our own energies and to connect with the energies of Earth and her seasons. Earth and Her SeasonsThe Taoist perspective is that Earth is the mother from which all life in our physical world springs. We have much to learn from her about how to live as natural beings in harmony with ourselves and the web of life she nurtures. In particular, her five seasons offer us many lessons about how to let go and flow with life and change. Cycles of Retreats Focused on One Qigong PracticeDuring each yearly cycle of the Five Seasons, our retreats focus on one of the qigong practices from our Taoist Water tradition. We explore how you can tailor that one practice to each of the Five Seasons. In each retreat we also teach you more about the practice itself. We plan to hold the following retreats. 2011/2012 Cycle - Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body Qigong Practice of Energy Gates qigong naturally stimulates the water elemental energy within us. The water element comes to the fore and is especially accessible in Winter. Consequently Winter is the ideal time of year to learn and practice Energy Gates. Therefore this Energy Gates focused cycle will begin with a Winter 2011 retreat and conclude with a Winter 2012 retreat.
Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body qigong is the cornerstone upon which all the core practices of the Taoist Water-Method tradition build. Ideally it is one of the first practices that you study and one that you return to time and time again. This Winter 2011 to Winter 2012 cycle of retreats will offer you an excellent and unique way to either learn for the first time - or refine and go much deeper into - the practices of Energy Gates. During each retreat we'll teach anyone new to the practices the Standing Meditation and Cloud Hands exercises. For those with sufficient experience, we'll especially focus on the Standing Meditation and Cloud Hands exercises this Winter, the First and Second Swings in Spring, the Third Swing in Summer, the Spine Stretch in Fall, and return to the Standing and Cloud Hands next winter. If you attend all of the retreats in the cycle, you will significantly build your understanding of the whole set of Energy Gates practices. Attending just one or two retreats in the cycle will also advance your Energy Gates practice as well, of course. As always, you can only do what's possible for you, right? 2013/2014 Cycle - Marriage of Heaven & Earth Qigong Practice of Heaven & Earth qigong naturally stimulates the wood elemental energy within us. The wood element comes to the fore and is especially accessible in Spring. Consequently Spring is the ideal time of year to learn and practice Heaven & Earth. Therefore this Heaven & Earth focused cycle will begin with a Spring 2013 retreat and conclude with a Spring 2014 retreat. Attend Any Retreat in Any CyclePlease note that you may attend any retreat in any cycle. Each retreat will be related to the others in the series, but also will be a complete learning experience in and of itself. SummaryWe see this retreat series as an opportunity for each of us to cultivate our own energies by deepening our qigong practices and by exploring and building a more conscious personal relationship with Earth and the web of life she supports. We also hope this series can be a tiny contribution to helping spur our society as a whole to move toward greater harmony with Earth and all she sustains. Sound interesting? Click here to find out more about our upcoming Spring Retreat on April 27 to 29. Otherwise, please read on for more details of our vision for these retreats.
Our VisionThe Earth as our Mother and Teacher
Taoists view Earth as a living being. She is our “great yin” or Mother, our most primal manifestation of the feminine energy of the Tao. She nourishes, supports, and sustains us and all other beings around us. Her nurturing energy is available to us always. Earth is an ever-present teacher of how to be what Taoists call “natural” in all aspects of life. By studying her ways we can learn how to let go and flow with life’s changes. We can learn how to gain a sense of wholeness, interconnectedness, and harmony with those around us. We can learn how to become balanced, whole, and healthy within our ourselves. In these ways and others, “She brings us to our own perfection” of who we are. How do we listen to Her voice? One of the most direct ways is to learn to feel, explore, and enhance the ways that our chi flows in and through her and her chi flows in and through us. These flows between us occur directly, as well as indirectly through her web of life that surrounds us and into which we are integrally connected. Qigong practices are a wonderful vehicle that we can use to explore these chi flows. While most of us initially practice qigong to develop and understand our own energies, a natural outgrowth of such practice is that we begin to become aware of how we are connected to and affected by the energies of what’s around us, including Earth’s. In this way, we begin to hear Earth’s voice, i.e. her energies, “echo through creation.” Once we begin to hear Her voice, many of us are drawn to learn more. Our Toward Harmony with the Earth: Qigong Retreats for the Five Seasons are designed to help you learn more. For more information on our Spring retreat to be held April 27 to 29, please click here. The Issues of Our Times
In addition to wanting to help people like you come together and explore and build your own personal relationship with Earth, we are offering these retreats as a tiny contribution toward perhaps spurring our society as a whole to find its way toward greater harmony with Earth. Unfortunately throughout the world people each year are living less and less “in accordance with nature”. This trend - coupled with our ever-growing technological capacities for exploiting, overriding, and often destroying natural processes - threatens Earth and the web of life she supports. In the course of doing so, we also are unraveling our humanity. We more and more are becoming humans doing, rather than human beings. Our ways of organizing ourselves have created greater material wealth, but not widespread emotional, mental or spiritual peace or harmony. Clearly we must try to find ways of organizing our societies so that we “do not go against the way of things.” One way to start is to try to live “in accordance with nature”. For more information on our Spring retreat to be held April 27 through 29, please click here. |
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