QiGong Prison Ministry

Its been six months now since i have been inside the prison with any consistency.  Who I am as a Qigong Teacher remains so informed by my prison teaching, and yet a whole new aspect of me is forming as well.  Soon, I suspect, my reformated self will be prepared to reenter the walls and continue teaching in a fresh way.

I have been working for Mingtong Gu in many capacities for 9 months now and recently created a Teachers Blog on The Chi Center's website to capture the many creative offerings of the dynamic teacher community.  As my writing energies are creating new practice materials and blog posts there, this site has grown quiet.  The chi keeps flowing, just in different currents.

Here is a post I just wrote seeking to offer an insight from my recent illness:

I was getting quieter and quieter with each relapse, each rebound. Each cycle drew me inward another loop of the sprial.  Would I find the black hole in the center?  I wasn't sure who I really was anymore.  Certainly not the handle-everything-Guma from the July Teacher's retreat. I struggled to discern if I could find the energy to drive down for a day of healing at the November Retreat, would I even know who to be? Did I have the energy to be a authentic and current me, with folks who knew a different me? Another relapse confirmed my ego's dilemma that it wasn't worth the struggle.

With more cycles, and more practice with the view off this shady side of the mountain, I'm drifting down into a different sense of the spaciousness within myself. My personality is learning how to synchronize with this frequency and resonate the harmony within each unfolding relationship. So when I went to LinLings shower I could flow with this newer version of me. Yet quiet a few folks, looked at me and pondered out loud, "You don't look sick."  Well what could I say? I was so alive in the formless 96% of me, that the form 4%, that was coping with the illness story, just didn't show up that loudly.

So each time I show up at Wisdom Healing Qigong events, I hope to be the fresh and new me, fully alive with the integration of the most recent transformation generated by the gifts of the practice. You can help me stay honest by not expecting me (or any of us) to be who we were six months ago, one month ago, or even last week.  The truth of this practice is that it is transformative, so let us hold ourselves and each other loosely, tenderly and curiously and see who we become with the next upgrade.

<a href="http://s885.photobucket.com/albums/ac54/Melissaalma/One%20Soul%20-%20Folsom%202011/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_3973.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac54/Melissaalma/One%20Soul%20-%20Folsom%202011/IMG_3973.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

"Life always gives us
exactly the teacher we need
at every moment.
This includes every mosquito,
every misfortune,
every red light,
every traffic jam,
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss,
every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction,
every piece of garbage,
every breath.

Every moment is the guru."

~Charlotte Joko Beck

Its been a while since I filed a “this is how class went” report … these were from classes April 13, and 14, 2011.

Wednesday’s classes on C Yard CSP-SAC were special in what the men did to initiate their practice and the healing they gave me that transformed my teaching the next day, Thursday, at Old Folsom Prison in the Greystone Chapel.

Sean Adams’s (my son’s friend) suicide had me deeply troubled this week and I was emotionally bound up, traumatized by the manner of his death. My thoughts frequently took me to the men inside and the what they work through when the sense of futility threatens to overtake them. Wednesday in the Spiritual Insight group, the men's prayers about the infinite, inclusive presence of Grace, penetrated into my suffering as our silence together grew very deep.

Still, I wasn't spiritually or emotionally prepared to take energetic leadership in my normal way in the Moving meditation class. I choose to go with what was real. I did not guide other than to ask the men to initiate their own relationship with the chi within themselves, and the chi of the group. The men arrived in four waves and each wave settled faster and faster based on the growing field in the room. The presence soon grew very palpable. Their sharing spoke to the responsibility taken and the tangible presence felt by the late arrivals. Moving into our circle, the T'ai Chi Chih practice was straight forward, with minimal queuing and a deep trust in the ability of the chi to be the teacher.

For the last month, we have been working with giving and receiving, activating the deep compassion of the men for each other, by having someone with a personal issue or celebration come into the center of the circle and practice deeply receiving while the rest of us activate the flow of the universal life force energy on their behalf with our intention and movement.

This day we had already done two sets of Push Pull with 4 different people in the center, when I felt moved to ask for support without telling any of the story. The field had grown so sincere and the men were being so generous with their chi gifts. I was engulfed with waves and waves of soft deep penetrating chi, leaving me feeling so fulfilled, melted by their gift. We all felt very enlarged by the flow of compassion energy amongst us.

We did Pulling in the Energy in silence. There was no way do anything other than count repetitions. I was so blown away. I didn’t have any man capable of leading class, so I divided the class into four smaller groups (3 of 4 and 1 of 5) and had them play with Working the Pulley and then whatever they wanted. They enjoyed the strong chi, felt in the more direct connection, with the smaller circles. We concluded with a discussion of three principals for cultivating more energy which had been so active this day: initiation, focus and sharing.

This 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, trust my students abilities and ask for help. We all received so much more, by me doing less.

Thursday
It had been a busy morning with tending to details of getting ready to leave for two weeks. So it really wasn’t until organizing myself spiritually as I was walking into Old Folsom prison, that I noticed the deep integration that I could only contribute to yesterday's healing. Setting the chi field, my notion to include Dr. Pang came with a strong siver up my spine. I had been listening to Mingtong's teaching on the way up and had a number of ideas I wanted to share about activating healing.

The teaching session was strong as we had the Hoberman ball to play with and talk about. We did a La Chi (opening and closing around a chi ball between the hands) meditation shifting our central focus from our hands, to our personal Dantien, to the center of our group, to the center of the chapel space, and then out to include the whole prison grounds, and then throughout all of our relationships. Then we traveled back in. Standing we did an organ blessing to Ringing the Gong, (a qigong warm up exercise) to travel deeper inside the web of energetic relationships within our being.  The chi field was strong in its guidance for me and I responded with strong energetic guidance of the class with many visualizations that were fresh and very alive.

We began the T'ai Chi Chih movements with the Hoberman ball in the middle of the circle. We revisited the expanding waves/layers of our relationships with the chi field as we practiced Bird Flaps its Wings. Around the Platter Variation became a play of form and flow and formlessness. Before we started with Bass Drum we gazed in to the chi ball between our hands and used our intention to amplify it, watching/feeling the chi sensations grow from our mind’s focus. Then we moved. Oh my.

At Daughter on the Mountain Top, I had them visualize the self they desired to be in 2-5 years in the center of the expanded Hoberman chi ball, emerging from the infinite source of creativity. What did the Holy think possible for them? Then with Daughter in the Valley, the next stage of growth beyond that, 5-10 years out. The chi was so strong with their intention to activate their deepest desires for their self actualization.  The chi field 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 amp'ing it up double or triple and then began. Repeating this at the beginning of each set of three. Our pausing between each segment, became a pause, ground and dissolve into the infinite, and then reformulate ourselves anew, as the new segment became or reality, noticing the accumulating sensations with each set of circling.

We did 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 that I was shrinking the earth down to be the size of the 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. oh my!
We grounded in that expanded state for a quite a while.

I jumped then to Working the Pulley and noticing how many of us were off rhythm, habitually, I asked the class to pay attention and synchronize with me. Almost immediately, I felt a different nudge, we were all flowing beautifully, just not synchronized. Why not include all the variations? So on the other foot I asked us just to flow, each in our authentic rhythm, and to feel the overarching union that included all the differences. Feeling a strong teaching occurring in this, we moved to Passing Clouds, which we rarely can do in a synchronized manner anyway, and we held the wholeness of the variations easily.

We tend to get our feathers ruffled when someone is unable or unaware of the benefits of surrendering to the group flow and synchronizing our movements. Today however, the strong chi field was guiding us to include all the diversity as a part of the strength. Bring us back to that perennial truth of paradox and playing with opposites to come into wholeness.

Before Cosmic Consciousness Pose, we recognized the state of integration we were in, and saw it as our true state. We did a short guided visualization to see that state of integration present, just as strong, later tonight resting on our bunks, eating dinner, tomorrow in some activity. Choosing to see ourselves, as this state of integration, into our futures, not leaving this state in the chapel to be picked up next Thursday. We stood in Cosmic Consciousness Pose for a long time and felt its name. Then pulling from the beginning of class, we revisited the various layers of the chi field we had been participating in and then sat for 10 delicious minutes of silence.

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!

Tonight I am drawn into older blog posts by intuitive Penney Pierce who saw me before I could see myself, and to whom the flow draws me back into orbit with from time to time.

This  blog post ( Feb 9, 2011) reads in part: "So it is not stories of soul evolution or grand accomplishments that are important, but the living of love that both radiates and creates a quiet dignity within.  This allows others access to their own reservoirs of love and makes it safe for more love to be expressed in the world. 'Love thyself,' even if you don't know the fullness of who you really are yet, others know and support you in finding that fullness.  By you being an example of one who chooses love, in difficult times as well as easy ones, others will learn so much more than a book can show.  By being willing to share your processes and vulnerablity with people, they may be encouraged to risk revealing their own caring side. Courage and beauty touch others when words can not."

As I read these words I felt the soft pass of the feathers that grace the post's leading image, as if my guardian angel had batted her wings in my face, saying, " Read carefully, I'm describing your work in the prison, know what it is that you are." 

Penny's words also encourage me to reactivate this blog with its processes and vulnerabilities so that who every chooses to read might be brushed by their own guardian angels wings.  And to that end I'll try and get some materials out of my journals soon.

Moving Meditation (Qigong) on C yard at CSP-Sac today, took me another important step in working forward the prayer that our prisons become places of healing and peace. Lately I’ve been thinking it was one step to ask (pray) and another step to visualize (manifest) the new possibility.
I had been explaining about visualization and we practiced, after a deep opening, visualizing the empty chairs filled, and any barriers dissolved that were keeping the other students from getting to class. And I was getting ready to bring up the big visualization project I hoped they’d all participate in and the door opened and three more students came in and filled the empty chairs.
Gathering them into our centered Qigong state, I suggested that we all ask the question: “What kind of place would this prison be, if it was governed by compassion?” Not seeking the answer right yet, just opening into the question as we practiced. We talked about everything being created out of our imagination, if not ours, God’s, or our ancestors. We imagine and the creative process begins. If we can’t even frame the question, if we can’t even wonder about the possibilities, how can it come about?
I told the story I read about in the plane coming home last night from Pittsburgh, of the groups who gathered in the church basements in divided Germany, daring to ask the question that seemed so far fetched: “What would Germany be like a thousand years from now when the Berlin Wall finally came down?” A movement of prayer groups began gathering all over Germany to ask these questions and imagine a new future. And the unimaginable became history, in dramatically less than a thousand years.
So why not us? Why not ask the question that seems so far fetched? Why not see where our creative minds might take us?

“What kind of place would this prison be,
if it was governed by compassion?”

Coming home I was thinking about conditions, prison conditions. Certainly prisons are one of the most conditioned places on earth. The rules are tight, the conditions kept severe and deliberate, as controlled as possible. I was holding that up against our discussion of holding the future of the prison in the unconditioned field of potential, in the possibility that compassion or unconditional love might become the purpose orchestrating the conditioned life of our prisoners.
Here is a play of opposites if ever there was one. And that seems to be exactly the challenge that God has put me up to. If we can visualize this, anything is possible.
Typically we think these are two opposites, conditional and unconditional. Unconditional sounds like freedom and that is seemingly impossible in the context of the prison system. The prison’s very purpose is to take away freedom and impose conditions upon those they wish to punish. So to juxtaposition compassion, which is often thought of as unconditional love, with the conditions of the prison, and its deliberate withdrawal of freedoms, finds us quickly dismissing the notion as impossible. Out of the realm of possibility. Is it?
Perhaps it is, if we continue on perceiving the prison’s as God-less places, perceiving prisoners as devils, and dismissing resurrection as fantasy. Let us stop choosing to be blind to the unconditional presence of God in whom the prisons live and breath and choose their future. Any kind of condition can arise from the unconditional.
Our prisons could look very much the same, the prisoner’s sentences remain the same, and public safety still be the primary reason for isolating people behind bars. Within all the conditions that are required for prisons to fulfill their purpose within society, we could conduct our mission with compassion.
Compassion is certainly not the opposite of public safety. Compassion can be full of rules and expectations, full of conditions. Yet compassion believes in love as the primary agent in healing. Compassion leaves no one out, delegates no one as hopeless.

“How would our prisons be, if compassion were the governing principle?”

Dear friends,

There are two men I know well from my teaching inside Old Folsom who are waiting nervously for word of their freedom, both have their paperwork saying their time is up. One's innocence has been confirmed, the other has served his time and is well rehabilitated. Both have been here on this edge before and been told to wait and more years have passed. Final rounds of paper work are being shuffled now for each of them once again.
Please join me in praying for the free flow of paperwork energy so that these two beautiful men might be set free to share in the full bounty of life and give generously of their gifts to humanity. Their names are Frank and Shelby.
They could be out by Christmas, they could be out by New Years.  May this be the last year of their incarceration. May they be given the freedom they deserve.

Haola (all is well, so be it!) Haola

Sound Healing Afternoon Workshop
December 12, 2010 1-4 pm
Judy's South Natomas home

Ive been in Pittsburgh PA helping out with a new granddaughter for the past month and it has been a very special kind of Qigong retreat for me as I attach deeply to both the pure sweet energy of a newborn and the vivacious tenacious energy of a 2.5 year old.

One of the treats that has come, is the benefits of practicing the Sound Healing with the children. Especially Estelle whose tiny digestive system is often uncomfortable with gas and bubbles, and the ways of the new world outside the womb brings its adjustment challenges. She quiets right away when I bring the vibrations of the sounds linked deeply with my love into her absorbent energy field. Lately she has had some kind of issue with her eyes (tear ducts) and the Heart Sounds quiet her quickly and the irritation seems to have passed rapidly. When she is fussy after eating, or hungry and mommy is busy, the digestive system sounds quiet her most every time. The other day Peter threw a two year old tantrum at nap time and I finally just held him took him to the rocker and began with the sounds, he was asleep in my arms before I finished, relaxed and peaceful. All the chanting has kept me at ease and comfortable while being away from home. A contrast to previous visits here I got homesick and longed for my normal energy fixes of my garden, prison work and Qi teaching.

This Sound Healing technology is a powerful tool for personal transformation, emotional well being and energetic harmonization. It moves below the level of the dramas and traumas provoking our emotional reactions and harmonizes the energy field eager to find its naturally healthy patterns. This has been a deep focus of my Qigong studies this year. In September I finished a 6 month project of organizing the Mingtong's teachings into a double CD set with 36 page color pamphlet. This is now giving people the opportunity to learn this practice without attending a workshop (although I always recommend that). You can purchase from the Chi Center or from me for $30.

All this to say that I'll be teaching an introduction to the Sound Healing Sunday afternoon December 12 from 1-4 at my home. Sliding scale $20-$60. Free Sound Healing Booklet with CD's for the first 10 registrations. I'm eager to share this to help you to balance the challenges and the gifts of the holiday season and give you an incredible practice to bless your new year! This afternoon together will be all you need to get started.

I'm eager to hear from any of you who would like to study QiGong with me this winter. Please let me know your interest and availability and I will seek to put together some classes to meet your needs.

Chifully, Judy
Haola Blessings upon your Holidays and 2011!


PS Please consider this starting point workshop with Mingtong Gu, it is the pre-requisite for advanced workshops.
The Healer Within Workshop and Public Benefit Event
with Mingtong GuFree Pubic Benefit Friday January 28th 7-9pm
Opening dinner 6pm Friday January 28th
Saturday Jan 29th and Sunday Jan 30th weekend workshop (includes Friday dinner and event).
Location: EarthRise Retreat Center, Petaluma, CA
For more Wisdom Healing Qigong information and events please see their website at chicenter.com.

Monday evening Sacramento Emotional Sound Healing classes:
Because this practice is moving so strongly for me, I'll be happy to share it with you Monday evenings 6-8  Sept 13, 20, 27, Oct 4, 11, 18. 6-8 pm Pay what you can afford. I'll share Sound Healing, Inner Smile, and some of the spinal opening movements that I have found so powerful. Email me to confirm attendance and get directions to my home.

Two Saturdays from now: While its a drive, it would be worth it and we have some carpools going down to the Wisdom Healing Qigong event on Saturday, September 25 at the Marin Civic Center. Ive produced a special CD/Book teaching the Sound Healing that will be highlighted.

Make it if you can!  AND you can come at a two for one price for the evening program if you register on line now.  ($30 for two)  chicenter.com.

Wisdom Healing Qigong activates our Ultimate Goodness. Through the practices, through the teachings, through the community and most importantly through the Chi field our Divine Purpose gets activated, energized and realized.

When I teach Qigong in our prisons, we are activating the energy of all creation, the Hun Yuan Chi, the oneness within all beings, in all of society. This energy of the Goodness of Life leaves no one rejected, isolated or abandoned. Together we are releasing the blockages and encouraging a very deep flow of the energy of freedom within the men’s physical cells and within their life confined to cells. We are cultivating a flow of integrated energy inside the walls where our society has abandoned and discarded those who have been broken and have broken the rules. Together we manifest and express our integral part of the whole fabric of society; a truth we must recognize to put an end to the cycles of crime and punishment.

If a person is willing, it doesn’t take much to activate this energy flow. If a person is willing to practice with dedication, old patterns of behavior and emotional trauma as well as addiction and other illness patterns are replaced with healthy new patterns harmonized with the divine potential within us all. This ancient science of healing and wholeness has been around for thousands of years, its time to apply it to the people living with daily trauma and repression, victims and perpetrators alike.

Ive been thinking lately of the overarching purpose of getting my energy to flow freely.  After an inspiring conversation with a fellow chi-junkie last night, this essay flowed freely out of listening to the Qifield.

If the energy is flowing freely, everything in our lives needs to learn how to surf or get out of the way. Surfing takes balance, and skill. It requires a cultivated sense, a feel for the wave, the ocean and who you are today. Staying simultaneously in touch with all three gives you the ride of your life.

The Wave: what’s right in front of you now, in all its manifestations.
The Ocean: the big picture, what sends forth the waves, and draws them back in.
Who I Am Today: your personal energy body which includes all your knowledge, your experiences, your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual condition, your stories about what you can and can’t do.

How do we cultivate the balance, how might we learn the skills? There are many ways. Too often however the teachings we are attracted to focus on one or the other, the wave, the ocean or our condition.

We can be part of the “Be Here Now” group and focus on the Wave. We can be part of XYZ spiritual tradition and focus on the Ocean. We can be part of the “When I heal my ____, then all will be well,” group and focus on Who I Am Today. You really can’t surf on the flow of life focusing on one of these, or even two. It takes an awareness of all three.

When we have cultivated our awareness, and gotten skillful at one, those are the teachings and the practices that feel at home for us. Naturally. Teachings cultivating skills in the other ways of awareness may attract us and feel awkward at the same time. Naturally. So keep paddling out into the waves, out into the ocean, out into ‘who you are today.’ When you have activated all three, in the heat of the day or in the morning dawn, you’ll catch the wave and surf it all the way to the shore.

If the energy is flowing freely, everything in our lives needs to learn to surf or get out of the way. Getting ‘out of the way’ takes balance and skill. It requires a cultivated sense of what in life is for you, and what’s not: when to pass politely or dodge, when to transfer, and when to ‘slip on through to the other side.’ And not just for the person answering to our name. When do we “Get Out of the Way” on behalf of our family or other relationship or group? When do we “Get Out of the Way” on behalf of the Creative Energy of the Universe?

If you dodge a gift coming at you because you couldn’t imagine gaining any personal benefits; caring for your abusive father while he is dying, for example; you could be missing out on the transformative time of your life. The gift was coming towards you, as a member of your family. Receive it.. Dodge the insults he hurls at you while changing his diapers instead.

Transferring is to offer a piece to another person’s puzzle that makes them more complete. And discovering what pieces a stranger or friend might have for you to accept. I transfer wisdom and skills I learn ‘on the streets’ into prison each week. It’s not mine to hold on to. It is what is wanted of me.

Slipping on through to the other side is to integrate and move on. Keep moving. Standing still no matter how delightful today is does not bring forth tomorrow’s potential. How long are you going to stay with a teacher, when you are no longer growing? Bow deeply and move on. Make room in both your field of attention and his, for the next possibility to ripen fully. Life is not an all or nothing proposition.

To keep the energy flowing freely takes balance and skill. Keep teetering. Keep practicing.

Its not often, hopefully, that we get to practice with defeat.  When the tide turns, when the wave surrenders to the beach and returns to the sea, when the votes are counted and the absentee ballots, could, but likely won't, make a difference; its time to practice with defeat.  My husband spent years as a community activist and the past 9 years as a City Councilman here in Sacramento.  Up for reelection against a much younger woman, from the newest part of a district that has doubled in size since he took office; the energy of change overcame the energy of mature vision and dedicated service to all neighborhoods rich and poor alike.  So now we practice with equanimity, leaving bitterness behind.  We practice with seeing potential in the openness of the future. We practice with knowing change as the constant.

Specifically, I practice with the Sound Healing techniques I am learning from Wisdom Healing Qigong.  Election night we waited and waited, continuously looking at a 51% our opponent had after the mailed ballots were counted and before the poll ballots came in.  Over and over we saw those numbers and pushed on the refresh button. My practice was to claim the spaciousness of the unknown for the group gathered.  It took focus to remember, as the night wore on and the other candidate results changed and various victories were declared, that our numbers were the same numbers.  Her votes hadn't grown, ours hadn't shrunk.  All the other numbers were changing, just the city council numbers were standing still. This was still just 3,600 votes, there were so many, many more unknown votes.  Past midnight we headed home hoping for sleep to ease the waiting.

I often use the Hun Yuan Ling Tong (HYLT) chant to fall asleep, but tonight that was too complicated.  I returned to the strong and easy Haola chant (which means 'all is well'), taking an inhale and an exhale to move the word and its meaning silently through my being.  After several wanderings into worrying, the chant took hold and I slept, for a few hours.  Re-wake, I challenged myself to fall back asleep and not check for new results.  That didn't work so I tried and found nothing new. Satisfied with being unsatisfied, I returned to the Haola chant and got a few more hours sleep before the phone rang with the results that the poll numbers were in and she had maintained her lead.

The energy of defeat is thick and slow, humbling and deflating.  The day passed slowly as Ray left for this duties and condolences and I wandered the garden, locked out of even my prison work.  Defeat energy crept slowly up my backbone and was moving into inertia when I reached out to a few friends for a walk.  Friends didn't materialize, but I took myself to the Natomas Oaks Park anyway.  Walking around and around, I looped the HYLT chant for a mile or so and then turned to the Organ Sounds.  Slowly, steadily a whole new sense of order and strength, well being and lightness claimed its rightful place in my being.  This deep integration that was so noticeable and stabilizing was welcomed into every nook and cranny. I slept soundly right through the night.

Each day a bit of the disintegration of defeat returns, and each day I call back in the integration with the Organ Sounds.  I like this practice.  It gives me tools, technology to directly and respectfully address all my energetic world and pull forth the foundational essence of harmony into my daily reality.  Now if I could just shed my inertia around getting started with the Sound Healing pamphlet, that would be good.  Haola!

Strange bed, familiar chi.

Sleeping in a different home, on a couch or in a strange bed, I am often unsettled the first night as my personnel energies adapt and relax to the new surroundings, learning to surrender and relax into that particular chi field. Staying at my Qigong friends beautiful home at a recent Wisdom Healing Qigong (WHQ) advanced workshop, I tossed and turned on their couch and slept fitfully, until somewhere in the middle of the night I switched into deeper reflection on my condition and embarrased myself.

These two friends had just completed their first hundred day gongs, practicing three hours a day, often in this very room. My own chi field knew deeply the same practices. Quickly my hearts desire (my prayer) became: May my WHQ chi field merge with theirs and this rooms’ and may whatever my field can offer to theirs in the timeless, spaceless realm be shared, and whatever their strong field had to offer mine, be shared, and may this merger take us all deeper into the vastness of the HY chi field. Giving purpose to my restless energy, I remember no more, I slept soundly till the next morning.

Finding the Chifield’s purpose

Sometime you get that sense that you and another person you just meet have “work to do.” There is something energetically active and full of potential when you are in this person's presence, sharing the same chi field together, and yet sometimes it takes a while for the lineal mind, the lineal time and space process to pull forth the opportunity for materialization of whatever is to be. This was how I sensed things with Elliot at the healing retreat in April, and he with me, and yet, other than odds and ends conversation and mutual respect for each others cultivation, nothing particular emerged out of the field of potential for us to do together.

When I saw Elliot at the Advanced Workshop on Sound Healing sitting across the room, something in me activated and my mind acknowledged and vowed to circulate and talk to him during the break. During the break he changed sides of the room and came and sat behind me and we reconnected with enthusiasm. I was deliberate about mentioning to him that I was still hoping to find out what pieces of each other’s puzzle (giving purpose to this activated sense between us).

We hadn’t made plans for dinner so we went together, and ended up in a conversation about Elliot's practice and chi reactions. I had a very strong sense about his using Spinal Bone Marrow Practice (SBM) visualizations to truly know his core self as a column of light as a way forward for him through his challenges. Sharing together we uncovered a few golden keys.

I asked about his interest in the Sound Healing. The depth of his interest was strong in his voice as he responded, and I told him about this project I had just proposed to Mingtong, "Would he like to help?"

A week or so earlier in a conversation with Jaelle about our keen interest in providing better home-study materials for students, teachers and people who could not come to workshops, the idea of receiving underwriting from other enthusiastic Wisdom Healing Qigong (WHQ) students seem to just spring out of the chi field as an exciting possibility. I had thought of Elliot during that conversation and again when I saw him, and suspected the chi field might have some manifestation desires here that Elliot and I were a part of. So I had put the sample CD/book in my purse before I left the car for the restaurant.

I explained the idea for the upgraded Sound Healing materials to him. He was excited and eager to participate. Underwriting flew out of my mouth almost as fast as the "Yes" flew out of his. Elliot had been approaching Mingtong at the healing retreat about ways he could help with materials development and his energy to contribute had not found a way yet to manifest. Haola! Our heart's desires, and the WHQ chi field’s desire are synchronizing the energy for manifestation right here, right now.

All of the classes I’ve attended in Folsom Prison with Judy have been extraordinary, but this day was especially so. The power of the storm seemed to make the connection between heaven, man and earth so much clearer, more accessible, tangible. Reaching our thoughts into the sky above was easy because you could HEAR the sky, the loud claps of thunder exploding over our heads…Envisioning the circular cycles of water from rain to stream to river to ocean to clouds, to rain again – easily translated into the circular motion of our wrists, arms, and chi flow… It was quite a downpour, and as the rain flowed over the rooftops and buildings, we got to dance with Mother Nature for a while…

Facing the windows and inviting the storm and all that lay beyond it to create our other half, was a wonderful way of PARTICIPATING in the reality of our connectedness beyond the walls of confinement. Judy’s words carried us to the far reaches of the universe, chi-field by chi-field, defying the notion of limitations. But expanding our chi outward seemed to be the easy part. Judy then encouraged us to complete the circle, to allow the gifts to return to us, and that, at least for me, is the real challenge.

The imagery of a magnetic force helping to draw the chi back, in and through, was very useful. I pictured having some of those silver magnetic balls located throughout my body, with a larger one in my tan tien, pulling, pushing, moving the chi around. I had come into class that day hurting from my fibromyalgia, and I left pain free. But as I said, EVERY class in the Prison, without exception, is an incredible experience that I feel very honored to be a part of.

Thursday in the chapel at Old Folsom, we played with a storm. The yard had gone down because of a fight and all the men sent back to their cells just before we arrived. Nevertheless, the Yard Sergeant gave us permission to hold class. It was small class of regulars. We got into the chapel just before the rainstorms hit and were taken in by the weather energy. Instead of a inward facing circle, we adjusted to a half circle with the windows looking out into the prison and the storm as the other half.

As happens when we drop in deeply, each move seemed to have a special relationship with the storm and a visualization or perspective would lift into my mind and come forth through my mouth. Rocking motion became a sensory perception of the energetic difference between the earth and the sky, and a deep absorbing of the out pouring of energy from the heavens. In Bass Drum we cycled your energy through different extensions of the field. First focusing on our hands, then the chapel, then the prison, then the physical location, then the city, the planet, the solar system, the galaxies, the cosmos and off into the infinite. As we cycled back we pulled some powerful chi back into the prison and each of our lives. And that was just the beginning as the poured down around the chapel.

I sensed that we were getting quite expansive participating so with the rainstorm, and while that was good, we needed a balancing counterpoint within. I slowed the movements way down, taking our time, drinking in the chi cultivation as the rain rushed from the sky. For a few moves, I tried taking the class attention into the back weight shift. This helped ground us, then some recent dreaming of becoming a chi magnet came to mind. Together, with just a few verbal suggestions, we each became chi magnets attracting the dynamic full spectrum of universal energy represented by the storm, its parting, blue skies and piercing sunlight; swept away by another storm front.

Once the magnet image was in the field, it pervaded all my verbal cues as we moved through the T'ai Chi Chih movements. We played with where within the moves we could feel a magnet force drawing our energy through the cycles. Feeling the force draw us forward and back, open and close, and pull us around the circles. The earth chi magnet just beneath our feet was solid and powerful with each Gentle Conclusion between the moves. The magnet image helped us all surrender deeply to the flowing force carrying the movements through our bodies, through our semi-circle in the chapel. Protected from and still very much participating with the energy of the storm, we surrendered together to the powerful flow of the chi, directed by the magnets of our intentions and the imprints of the movements. The exterior chi and interior chi merging into a strong, vital sense of harmony that will sustain us all through many practices yet to come.

(The clouds parted again to let us out of the prison, and then crashed in once more while we were driving home!)

May you weather all the storms in your lives filled with harmonized chi!

When we see Beauty, when we think of beautiful things, what’s the common element? What seems to be at the foundation of all things beautiful? Across all things beautiful, in the eyes of all of us who behold beauty, what lifts them to our attention and invokes us to name them as beautiful?
Light.

When we reflect upon Joy, when we are engaged in joyful thoughts and activities, when we see others being joyful, what is the common element? When so much brings joy to so many different people, and it is not the same from me to you, what lifts them to our attention and invokes us to name this as Joyful?
Deep inner smile, presence of happiness in our center.

When we see Peace, when we think of peaceful times, what’s the common element? What seems to be at the foundation of all things peaceful? What quality, what energy lifts them to our attention and invokes us to name them as peaceful?
Stillness, inner calm, restful, relaxed

When we’ve experienced Wisdom, inside our selves or in another, what’s at the center of all expressions of wise thought, which inspire us in a deep profound manner? What is it that we notice deeply, that invites us to see this as wisdom?
Inclusiveness, honoring all of life

We do not need to wait to hear wisdom, to experience joy, to feel peace and see beauty. They are not random acts of grace for which we must be in the right spot at the right time, in the right mood to experience. Nothing stops us from knowing these. Not a prison cell. Not a death sentence. Not the murder of our child or the burning of our home. Not hunger. Not disease. Not barren wombs or battlefront assignments.

Cultivating the qualities of wisdom, joy, peace and beauty in our selves, in our lives, is the cultivation of these foundational energetic qualities. Watching for their presence in and around us. Learning to identify with them. Practicing bring them forth. Creating our world from these deep resource energies.

This for me is the essence of Qigong. The cultivation within my being and within my world of these qualities: inclusiveness, an honoring of all of life; an inner calm, relaxed stillness; the presence and radiance of a deep inner smile of happiness to be alive. Qigong has activated these energies within me and circulated them throughout all of my activities. Not in an instant, take a pill and it will be all better kind of way. Rather in the way of a slowly emerging sense of truth of ‘who I am meant to be’ manner, lifting up from a variety of experiences inside and outside of my Qigong practice sessions.

And the quality of Light, the essence of Beauty, how do we cultivate that? Light, which holds sacred its birthplace within the dark womb of primal nothingness, is used both to see and be seen. When we flow forth from our own inner light, using our own radiance to see, the world becomes illuminated through the eyes of this (our) Light. When we recognize beauty, when we recognize the presence of light, we share this mutual blessing of radiance emanating from the source of all creation, through us, through everything. Light resonating with light, vibrating in potential, is creativity at its own core. Quickening each other into an expression of wisdom, of peace or of joy.

When we recognize joy, we connect with our core joy, our experiences of joy, we connect with the deep inner smile energy within. When we recognize wisdom, we resonate with it from some deep place with in and know it includes us, and all of life. When we recognize peace, we tap into this restful, calm core tranquility that waits patiently for us.

When we wish to cultivate these qualities within our lives, we can turn to cultivating their source energies. We can practice activating our deep inner smile, practice relaxing and doing our best to find stillness, we can practice inclusiveness, honoring all of life. We can practice our Qigong feeling these energies circulating and growing within all that we know as our lives and all that might yet be possible for humankind.

A topic of deep inquiry for me has long been the field of communal intelligence, in Qigong language the chi field (Qi-field).  I'm emersed again and finding that writing about it is helping to deepen my understanding yet another level.  Much of this post references ideas explained in the previous post below "What is a chi field."

B Yard Inner Smile – Web and Avatar

I used the Inner Smile meditation setting the chi field for Qigong class on B yard (Folsom Prison) Wednesday. In this meditation we begin filling our head and brain with an inner smile. There is a standard way this meditation flows, but today I took off a bit differently. We distributed the inner smile visualizing it flowing through the entire nervous system to every nook and cranny of ourselves. After that hum built up, we activated the “nervous system of our relationships,” the web of interconnectedness of our lives with others, and released the inner smile into that network in an easy, fluid unconditional way. After that hummed for a while, I brought us back to consolidate the energy expansion by referencing the dan tien (don’t know why I dropped down to the belly without coming back to the brain, but it felt right and later I sensed why that was guided. We stood and felt the inner smile return from the far corners of our worlds of relationships into our beings and into our circle there in the prison chapel.

For me the re-absorption of all that unconditional smiling energy was a natural process, organically integrating deep into the spaciousness and solidness of my being. My observer self smiled its own pleased smile, knowing how difficult a similar meditation had been at the Qigong retreat when we returned to the heart. It fascinated me that my experience was so different at the belly, and I wanted to test the pathways again, stabilizing this experience. So we all released our smiles into the web of our lives and watched the flow return once again.

It wasn’t until a while later in class that the guys mentioned that they had all watched Avatar as the prison movie that week and had gotten excited about the web image in the smile meditation. They found the image easy to visualize because of the movie. Then I knew why I used that web image, I had never heard it used that way before, nor had I every guided or written about the inner smile that way. I had hesitated when it first came into my mind stream, then trusted and used it anyway.

The chi fields that the men had brought with them, which included so much of the rich visual imagery from their recent viewing of the Avatar movie, was active and energized in our mutual field and I had accessed that when guiding the chi field setting meditation.

Sharing my delight in the connection, we started discussing the nature of the chi field and healing, and other images from the movie arose -- the riders and “bird/horses” connecting their mind streams, the waves of prayer moving the hero from his crippled body to his Avatar body, the bonds between the land, animals and folks. We were discovering the chi field together, everywhere without any boundaries of prison walls.

Julie, swimming and her daughter

The next day after teaching next door at Old Folsom Prison, Julie and I went for a meal at a local café. We were talking about the recent blog essay “What is a chi field?,” class that day, and about her recent flare up of her fibromyalgia. We had been mindful and deliberately aware of the chi field present to/with us in this time of conversation as well as while in class. We had talked about the ability to activate the chi field by just calling up a memory, I had asked her to think of her daughter. She did and instantly understood how the energy of love could be activated with the use of a visualization.

A bit further in the conversation, I began sharing some of the healing principles of Wisdom Healing Qigong and talking about learning new patterns of thinking as we are shifting paradigms. I used an example of learning swimming strokes; we can manage with some sort of crawl stroke that gets us across the pool, or and we can work hard to learn the same stroke, or new strokes in a way that flows and is powerful. As these swimming images came to mind, my observer self had been slightly caught off guard as I had never used that kind of image before. Yet I trusted the chi field, and used the images even after an initial mental hesitation and internal questioning. She looked at me in a way that I knew the image had hit home deeply. I asked what she was feeling or thinking about, and she spoke of her daughters repeated attempts to help her learn to swim more effectively.

This time, it seemed that the energy pattern of her daughter’s love for her, expressed via their shared swimming experiences, was as active in the field, as Julie’s love and concern for her daughters transition through the last days of her high school experience. The field gave me the imagery that would serve Julie best in our discussion about healing and paradigm shifts, fibromyalgia and chi reactions.

Energy Prayers seen

That evening as I was seeking sleep, lying quietly next to my husband, I was very aware of the vast buzz of energy engaging with permeating my being from the inside out, and the outside in. This is not unusual after two days of prison qigong classes and a several hours of dance meditation (5 Rhythms). Rather than worry about how I was going to get to sleep, I drifted into an application of my recent writing about the Chi Field.

Could I give all this energy purpose? What function might give all this energy structure enough to let me fall asleep under it? My sleepy mind was co-mingling energy structure with physical structure, like a tent or shelter. Easily, my mind rolled over to my husband, who was being challenged by the recent mud-slinging in his down-to-the-wire re-election campaign.

“May all this energy serve to source him with the infinitely available resources he needs to sustain his virtue, values and sense of well-being. May all this energy serve to let him deeply know he is loved unconditionally both by me and the universe. Haola! All is well, so be it.” I remember nothing further as I went into a very sound sleep.

The next morning as we were sharing the bathroom, he turned quietly and said: “Thank you for loving me so.” I was caught off guard. He loves me deeply, yet this came out of the blue. His words, with their unusual vibration, hung with me until later that day I recalled my going-to-sleep prayer experiment to give purpose to all that extra energy. That evening I asked him what prompted his words. During the night, he told me, about midnight (the prayer had probably been about 11:30 or so) he had awakened, rolled over and “saw without seeing” this halo of light and love over the two of us. He knew it was our love. Haola!

Applying the lessons of the week to the Campaign

Since these experiences of the last few days, I have been exploring the potential of doing my share of campaigning from inside my Qigong practice. I started applying the visualization techniques of chi field cultivation to our community, through my web of connections (I was the community newspaper publisher for the decade of its foundational growth and engaged on many levels in the 80’s and 90’s). Then matured and expanded that energetic web focusing my consciousness on my deep bond with Ray, and his web of connection inside the community formed through all the events and activities of being an activist since 1980 and serving in an elected manner on the City council for the past 9 years.

Soon I began visualizing my Inner Smile permeating all this web, the best I could, and visualizing the Divine Blueprint for the community and for him manifesting through this election in an infinite variety of possibilities (winning or losing being just two). Activating all the energy of the accumulated good will and virtue, all the energy of our citizen’s desires for safe, vital communities, healthy avenues for their children’s, and the economic energy of serving of each others needs with resource exchange.

Reflecting on the formation of any healthy chi field, I began including and activating the energy exchange at the foundational level with the natural landscape of our community, directly through all the trees Ray has influenced the planting of (he directs the Sacramento Tree Foundation), the soil I so lovingly till, and their indirect interconnectedness with all the land of this District One, including the two powerful rivers flowing through and merging here, the two interstate freeways flowing through and merging here, the sun and the blue sky over head, as well as the hopes of our ancestors for a blessed life on this fertile soil. Through my mind stream I connected with the natural landscape along the rivers and in the mitigation lands that was saved from commercial usages through Ray’s efforts, as well as the acres of industrial and retail vitality in the new business centers and thousands of new homes built up via the planning process he sheparded.

Soon I was including and activating the energy exchange of the entire multi-dimensional purpose of District One. In every field of energy there are sub sets of differing functioning and structure. Sometimes they function together smoothly and in harmony, sometimes they factionalize and become competitive interest groups with the appearance of opposing purposes. A political campaign seems this way. Quests for leadership focus on making the community a better place. Confronting each other on the surface with accusations and bravado, yet at the root they still arise out of the communities self manifesting energy, each side representing a flow seeking fulfillment in greater power and influence.

My prayer for the campaign inside my practice became:

May we connect deeply with this primal energy of a community seeking leadership, seeking a healthy place to do business and raise children, seeking success and happiness in the multiple ways that is defined. May we see this source energy connected to the even deeper source of energy that gives rise to life itself, seeking its fullest expression in life affirming ways. May we listen for the divine blueprint within all life is seeking expression here in this campaign, using the energies and process available to realize its potential.

May we see this in all of the activities, of both sides of this political campaign, as well as those who do not vote. May we smile at the essential nature of choice, of voting, all choices springing from the same fountain of life. Each choice having the potential to bring forth more love, peace and wisdom, as well as the potential to play out in ways that serve one faction at the expense of another– be that humans at the expense of the natural environment, the now rather than the future, the us vs. the them.

The best we can do, is relax and do our best. Relax into the essential nature of the energy sustaining our lives and all life. Do our best with the choices in front of us today, remembering both yesterday and tomorrow, seeking the best for all concerned. Do our best, knowing that even in opposing viewpoints, actions and results, the divine blueprint is being engaged and will find its way forward, through the generations, through harmony and strife, through both our prayers and actions.

We can remember that leadership is engaging the purpose of its group in art of manifestation. Virtue and intention are determining factors for the spiritual dimension of manifestation. A leader who can raise his or her vibrations can transcend limitations for the highest purpose.  Haola to the election! Haola to District One!

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the Qi-field or chi field lately as I am editing some materials for Mingtong Gu.  Wanting a simpler, more direct explaination of this concept, I started from scratch with my own words and this flowed forth...

Energy is a raw material until given purpose.  With purpose, energy brings all manner of things into creation, and destroys all manner of things too. As the purpose behind any organization of energy shifts so to does the nature of that energy pattern’s appearance and activities.  Energy organizes to function as a liver in one way and as a bone in another.

The energy of a group functions differently when the purpose is to play a game, worship or build a shelter.  Even within groups of a common purpose, the energy will be different enough that it can be sensed by most people.   The energy of a Qigong class will feel noticeably different from teacher to teacher within the same form of Qigong, and even more distinct with different with teachers of different Qigong traditions, and  find even greater variation between different classes of mind-body practices such as yoga, meditation or T’ai Chi.

In a group of people gathered for a common purpose, or an organ (group of cells for a common purpose) the energy can be organized and functioning in beneficial and non-beneficial ways.  When the energy of a group is organized and functioning in a manner that is optimizing everyone’s highest potential we are delighted and call this healthy.  When the energy of a group or organ is organized and functioning poorly, breaking down and unable to fulfill its purpose we are disappointed and name this unhealthy or diseased.  Our state of health or disease arises from the organization and functioning of the energy, not the energy itself.

This collective expression of energy manifesting because of a particular purpose, in Qigong language we call a chi field.  Chi, or life force energy, given purpose organizes into a fields of activity and manifestation.  Whether this is as a liver or a Qigong class, a person or a nation, a redwood forest or a rock concert, the field of energy comes alive to fulfill its potential.  We can speak of a chi field of a particular teacher, a tradition, a Qigong class or of a particular movement pattern.  We can speak of the chi field of our body, or our digestive system, or our family, or of our nation.

Although used most often as a noun, the phrase “chi field” has both the qualities of a noun and a verb; it is both an expression or manifestation of energy (noun), as well as the process or activity of that energetic expression (verb).

The chi field of any thing or activity has both temporal and transcendental qualities.  For example, the quality of the chi field of a particular Qigong class will be enhanced when the students all pay attention and follow the teacher's guidance.  There is a cause and effect relationship to the health of the chi field, that day, that class. This is its temporal nature.

Simultaneously, there is a transcendental quality to the chi field. Students and teacher alike can remember the high quality feeling of the energy when they all paid attention and the sense of harmony was palpable. They can remember and activate this feeling in a different place, on a different day, during a different practice, initiating the chi field again and cultivating it further with their subsequent practice and intention.  This chi field comes alive for any of them whenever they choose to engage with it, independent of normal boundaries of time and space, and beyond the direction of any one individual in a causal way.

Stripping away all purpose, all organization, all functioning, all forms of manifestation, what is at the foundation of all things and activities?  Energy. When we add information to energy, we get all manner of things, we engage in all manner of activities.  So this energy before any information is added, this pure, simple, undifferentiated energy is the foundational building block for all of creation.  When we get to down to this basic, primal level of all of creation, we capitalize the letters in Chi Field.  Different spiritual and scientific traditions point their differently named fingers* at this field of infinite potential where nothing is yet manifested and yet all is alive in its creative possibility.

In our Qigong practice, as we purposefully seek to maximize the potential of our life force energy and come into harmony with the flow of the universe, we cultivate the alignment of our chi field (personal purpose) with The Chi Field (Divine Potential).  Through these practices we intentionally merge our personal energy, in all the ways it is organized and functioning, with the clear, clean energy at the center of creation.  When it is our purpose to harmonize in this manner, our energy naturally optimizes in a beneficial way.  Synchronizing our personal energy to the source of life, we receive life in its richest possible expression.

Haola!  All manner of things are well, so be it.

*(Tao, Unified Field, Creator, Zero Point, Source, Holy Spirit…)

Recently another Qigong teacher eager to start working inside prisons in New Jersey found this blog and wrote me asking for advise.  Every prison situation is different and there are few direct paths in prison volunteering.  I was prayed in, each of my programs were initiated from the prison itself.  Still from being in the flow for a few years now here is my advice:

•  Let the chi lead... Set your desires strongly into your practice and watch out.  Initiate the divine forces to align with your deepest desire.  Visualize yourself inside while practicing, deeply engaged in what we find so liberating, so peaceful, so healing.

•  Check your motivations and come clear (as much as possible today) on evangelistic, rescue, validation, etc. needs of your ego.

•  Call it Moving Meditation, QiGong is so foreign sounding and no one can pronounce it.  T'ai Chi gets the Officers nervous with its martial arts reputation.

•  At the prison closest to you find out who is going inside for other religious programs, get to know them and find out how the system works there.  Especially seek out any non-main stream folks, i.e., Meditation, Course in Miracles, art, poetry type of programs.  Sometime the papers do features on these kinds of things and you can research it out.  AA/NA volunteers (especially those who are engaged deeply with the 11th step) are a good source too. Through the volunteers you can get a sense (remember it is only their perspective) of how doors might be opening, which chaplains are the most approachable.

•  See if you can tag-along (shadow) another volunteer for their programs, get a sense for yourself and meet first hand some of the insiders.  Once your energy gets inside more will synchronistically and synergisticly get flowing.

•  Talk to everyone about your desire and soon you'll bump into a correctional officer, administrative staffer or parolee who will let you know their opinion of the best approach.

•  Head straight in:  call the staff member in charge of supervising the volunteers and volunteer.

For the few of us who have been called to prison work as volunteers from the outside, going in, capturing that first flush of heart opening awe is special.  When I first started (1998) I talked into a tape recorder all the way home hoping to capture all these first impressions and intense feelings for my journal, only to find out months later when I went to transcribe that there was too much road noise.  By then that first flush was past.  Julie is a new volunteer coming in with me now and this is the commentary she shared with me after her second visit:

1/10/10 Driving home from attending Judy’s Qigong class inside Old Folsom Prison, my head and heart were bursting with so many thoughts and feelings…

It is hard to describe what an honor and a privilege it is to be allowed into their class – their world. It is a special, somewhat private thing that they have all shared – some for many years, and a stranger could easily have upset the wonderful balance they’ve achieved… It is so obvious to me that their time together is precious, in part because it is brief, in part because of what they’ve created together…

But I feel so welcomed and accepted – and the time feels precious to me too. All of these factors, the prison environment blended with the spiritual atmosphere, the brevity of time, make me feel so much more alive when I’m there. We are truly present to each other, to the moment, to our shared purpose – there is no time for shallow small talk – no need for it. The conversations I have with the men there and with Judy afterward feel so beautifully full - it just all feels so real, genuine, and honest. I find it interesting that for someone who has often had a difficult time feeling safe in the world, I can feel so safe there, but I do. It reminds me in some ways of how I often feel in an A.A. meeting. I don’t need to know anything about the people who are there – what they’ve done, where they’ve come from… We have in common the pain of our addictions and the desire to heal from them – and that is all we need to know.

In Folsom we come together, each of us with different wounds to heal, different “prisons” we are bound by, but with the common goal of healing, not only ourselves, but each other, and we hope, humanity…. When one of the men last week described how during class he forgets he is in prison – he feels truly free, I thought about how so many people on the outside, with no bars around them, will never know that kind of freedom. It was not long ago, that I was one of those people, who had constructed my own pit of despair. Physically I was free to move about, but mentally, spiritually and emotionally I was locked inside an internal hell of hopelessness and fear. These men, with the gentle guidance of their teacher Judy, have found a way to peace and serenity that so few “free” people will ever know. And they are helping me to find it as well. I feel so grateful and blessed to be a part of their journey.