The sound of a word creates a different resonance than on paper or typed into a computer. To speak is to share your resonance creating waves in the air, with an effect that is picked up by ears, thus creating communication. Language grew due to the need to convey information audibly.

The power of writing is a vital part of the transmission of ideas and knowledge. So which is the more important? Speaking or writing?

It’s not either/or, it’s both, which is where the confusion is with qigong.

The Mandarin sound for ‘q’ does not exist in English. The nearest we have is ‘ch’. If the English ‘q’ had an option on being pronounced softly, we’d be sorted.

Here is a brief history on how and why there are different spellings for the same practice.

All currently used spellings are correct from their sources. Originally they were more phonetic, enabling a truer pronunciation ‘chee gong: Qigong is a more precisely written translation of the alphabet characters from the Mandarin pictogram. A truly direct translation is unattainable due to many subtleties contained in said pictogram and the different way our Western alphabet creates words, resulting in closest corresponding letters being used and a transliteration occurring.

The most used systems for transliterating Mandarin into English are:

PINYIN (QIGONG) – Developed in the 1950s based on earlier romanisations of Chinese. It was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) adopted Pinyin as its standard in 1982, followed by the United Nations in 1986. Pinyin means ‘spelled sounds’ and is now the accepted system, having taken over from the following.

WADE-GILES (CHI KUNG) – This is a system devised in 1859 by the British diplomat Sir Thomas Francis Wade professor of Chinese at Cambridge, further improved by his successor Herbert Allen Giles in the Chinese-English dictionary of 1892. This was used widely in English language publications outside China until 1979.

YALE (CHI GUNG) – The Yale romanisation of Mandarin was developed in 1943 by the sinologist George Kennedy to help prepare American soldiers to communicate with Chinese allies in the field who did not have time to learn the Wade-Giles system.
This used English spelling conventions to represent Chinese sounds, assisting verbal conversation. The Yale system avoids the difficulties faced by the beginner trying to read pinyin using roman letters that don’t carry their expected phonetic values. The Yale method was widely used in Western textbooks until the late 1970s.

The ‘q’ in pinyin is pronounced like ‘ch’ and thus written as ‘ch’ in Yale and Wade-Giles. The older transliterations helped to convey pronunciation, whereas after the cultural revolution, the Chinese government’s new pinyin method did not as much.

During the height of the Cold War, preferring the Communist pinyin system over Yale was a political statement. The situation was reversed once the relations between the People’s Republic of China and the West improved. Communist China became a member of the United Nations in 1971 and by 1979 much of the world adopted pinyin as the standard for Chinese words. In 1982 pinyin became an ISO standard.

Interesting note.

If pinyin is the industry standard, why has the more well known Wade-Giles spelling of Tai Chi Chuan taken over pinyin’s Taijiquan?

We are since composed of around 70% water, so it’s clearly the element that is most ‘us’. We are certainly emotional beings, inextricably liked to the moon cycles. We feel things ‘in our waters’.

The composition of water (H2O) remains constant no matter what is dissolved or carried in it.

It contains no calories or organic nutrients, but has a neutral energy of memory and magic as a centre place of our life. Drinking high quality water is therefore essential to wellness.

How can we trust this fundamental element in us and seek its steady nature to engender our own?

To be in full flow requires support. Water needs a container or it will ooze and flow all over the place. Elemental containers are forged from the Earth. The passage of Water erodes rocks over time, as river beds and ocean floors. Despite being flexible and softly buoyant, Water is also powerful and can cause destruction at its fiercest.

This transforming element can move from frozen iced water, through flowing streams, then warm up to form rising droplets as clouds, no wonder the Taoists often refer to the properties of Water, to metaphorically illustrate wisdom.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) bone health is governed by the water element, as is the brain and nervous system. When we use blue colours and healing sounds, these reverberate their frequency into our waters, and bones.

At Winter time of year we descend into the season of the Water element in TCM. This conservation time lends itself to meditation and coziness, and as the nights draw in, so do we. This period is vital for rest and recuperation. Like Water, can we let ourselves rest to the stillest point?

A snowflake lands with ease and silent grace, blanketing the land with its fellow white flakes to offer a refreshing clean, pristine view covering the anomalies of the land. Here, whispered memories of what’s gone before become stories to share in the now. Fears subside and will power restores as visions for our collective and positive future emerge.

“Have patience. Wait until the mud settles and the water is clear. Remain unmoving until right action arises by itself.” Lao Tzu

Water governs the nighttime of rest and sleep, reducing physical activity so Qi life force energy can be used to repair and restore, enabling us to emerge with each new day, readily reborn for new action.

Dreaming is a watery activity. Dreams often arrive in waves of colour and flurries of recognition, suffused with symbolism, where the usual rules of time and space dissolve and expand into possibilities beyond the rational mind.

Here, ideas, insights and inspirations can be birthed through.

Lucid dreams on the inner sea of visions have us floating or diving exploring realms way freer than in everyday life. This is the domain of the artists, creators and seers where the sea of all possibility washes in new ideas, removes detritus and drops enough content into the consciousness of the dream to be shared with the dreamer on awakening.

Trusting the let go.

The potency of the earth as the mightiest support and water the biggest buoyancy, offers a combination of a super-powered invitation to sink in.

Feel this union underpinning you now.

Try this;

• Feel the seat, bed or floor beneath you
• Notice what happens when you trust this support
• Surrender to gravity and feel each exhale dropping you lower
• Be aware of the earth supporting us all and the water within assisting
• Sensed the support of your bony architecture
• Drop into the strength of your pelvis, your spine, legs and arms
• Watch as muscles relax, jaw drops and spacious ease is revealed
• Be aware of your brilliant nervous system sending lightning speed information
• Soften your belly, inhale and connect with the curious sense of wonder at the middle of your dantien (elixir field) just below your navel
• Breathe in here and say I am calm, I am centre, I am balanced
• Sink in to this power
• Relax, be like the still calm water

In this sacred place of stillness your mind can land for a gentle regroup. You could imagine a little bead of light situated in the dantien, beckoning you back in over and over again, with such compassion it’s a relief to return.

Here is where you let go..

Here is where you key into your centre of essence and vitality..

Here is where traumas can be processed..

Here is where dreams are seeded…in the quiet dark held space of water supported by earth.

Here the fear can subside dissolving into the abyss of transformation. Freeing your wisdom, opening clarity to underpin your will to action that is in true expression of you. You can trust this flow of activated authenticity and be ready to be the Chi you want to see in the world!

“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with fear and worry and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success.” Lao Tzu

These active and passive aspects of ourselves are two sides to the Yin Yang dancing coin of exploring balance.

Doing expands, expresses and uses up vital life force.

Being returns us to replenishment, quietude and calm.

Without being, there is little resource for doing. 

And yet the existence of both is essential for wellbeing. 

Our bodily systems are wise, there is a gut instinct at play linked directly to metabolic nuances. Our autonomic nervous system helps us to maintain a steady balance between fast action and calming rest, providing an equilibrium of health resonating in each cell. If we can listen to what is required, rather than assuming our mind knows best, then we open up to  a deeper relationship of self care and an honouring of this miraculous body/mind/spirit set up. We step into the ‘Do-Be’ dance, a dance of complementary opposites. Here is the Yin Yang principle at play. 

Our cells are alternately discharging waste products and receiving nutrients to enable their cellular business to occur. Indeed it feels more gracious to acknowledge this as a dance rather than a strict choice of this, that or the other. 

‘Being’ is essentially Yin in nature. Like water, which flows and returns to a place of holding, it can, when left to its own devices, find the lowest point to settle. It needs a spark of fire to prevent stagnation or drowning. 

‘Doing’ is essentially Yang in nature. Like fire, it expands and expresses with action, which can burn out if unchecked. Doing needs a dose of being to assist in the balancing of its fire. 

There are a myriad of illustrations of the Yin Yang dance through nature, in and within the seasons. 

Like the breath – we cannot breathe out unless we’ve breathed in.

We cannot wake up, if we’ve not been to sleep. The night gives rise to the morning, as the day gives to night. 

Yin is not just dark, female and shadowy, just as Yang is not just white, masculine and sunny.

Within each there is an aspect of the other to encourage the ‘Do-Be’ dance to continue to nurture life. 

It’s not just a balancing of opposites, it’s a balancing of being. Like the Earth and the Sun being at a sweet-spot distance that enables life on earth to proliferate. Or the forces of gravity and electromagnetism that need to be at a particular degree, neither stronger or weaker, for matter to cohere. 

In contemporary society, Yang has had the upper hand for way too long. Consequently, we’re in an epidemic of low self care, sickness and disease, despite all the advances in modern day science. 

How can we be more Yin and hold space for ourselves to heal? 

We are, after all, human be-ings.

Why do we need to balance ‘doing’ with ‘being’?

• our systems work better when in the steadiness of balance, to prevent dis-ease and heal outstanding disorders
  
  
• honouring the innate balance at the core of our existence allows us to be more measured with decisions
  
  
• fostering a relationship with the eternal now moment, we become more present with life, a key to unlimited energy
  
  
• Doing the ‘do’ without being the ‘be’ leads to ungrounded, over stimulated behaviour, eroding true health

Taoist meditation/affirmation 

Using the power of the I AM BALANCE statement, activated by the breath, along with placing your hands on your lower belly at the level of the sacral chakra. Say the following to yourself, three times.

• Breathe in ‘I’
  
  
• Hold for ‘AM’
  
  
• Breathe out ‘Balance’
  
  

Notice how this centres you in the middle of your ‘Do-Be’ dance. This balance place in your belly is the ‘dantien elixir field’. This is your zone of potential, a centre of resource to access your complementary ingredients to a balanced life, where Yin and Yang interplay in harmony. Drop in here whenever you feel out of sorts and reconnect to the ‘I Am Balance’ within. 

In our formative years we are influenced by societal directives and now find ourselves in a culture of consumption, at the mercy of mercenaries who know how to manipulate. 

Can we remember to choose cognitively over the pull of automatic reactions and old patterns?This can be tricky to navigate. With the over-culture’s twisted reports of “important information”, we can lose our mental footing, our clarity, focus and energy. This diverts us away from engaging with our truth and more towards becoming puppets who blindly devour and pollute. When social media was spawned it seemed like a solution for far-flung friends to be in touch. Now we find ourselves playing into the steely hands of consumer-bots, spending far too much time surfing and scrolling. This habit alone has changed everybody’s lives in developing nations, compelling us to surrender to a form of mindlessness which taps into psychological vulnerabilities. We are all in training; and where we focus, our energy flows. 

Is there a pattern you are perpetuating that is not a conscious choice? 

Would you like to change it?

Perpetuating old patterns feels recognisable and reassuring – albeit outdated. 

So how can we re-programme ourselves with positive re-patterning? 

Counter-action is called for. It’s time to power up from the inside. 

Qigong is our great ally here. 

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably already doing a version of energy work. 

We are all wired to repair. Wounds heal and Qigong enhances this innate ability.

Qi is pure information. It is a language of truth and can be felt as a resonance, a frequency sense and state of coherence. Qi cannot be tricked, psy-opped or manipulated. What a relief! We know where we Be with our Qi.

Qigong encourages reframing and repetition to anchor in new ‘forms’ of truth alongside pathways of deep self-care. It gives you strength on the inside of your body – both physically and energetically – which supports healthy mind function. This is key to becoming anti-distractible.

So yes, we CAN create new healthy habitual ways.

How long does it take to create a positive pattern of behaviour?

“Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to work out how long it actually takes to form a habit.

On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behaviour becomes automatic, 66 days to be precise. How long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behaviour, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally’s study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.”

See article https://jamesclear.com/new-habit 

CREATING NEW PATTERNS

Building new habits is not an all-or-nothing thing. Embrace the process, commit to your chosen system and make small incremental movements forwards. Research has found that missing an opportunity to exercise the new behaviour doesn’t affect the habit from forming i.e. it doesn’t matter if you mess up every now and again, just get back on the horse!

Which healthy new pattern do you favour?

What is being called forward from reading this?

Movement?

Sound?

Vision?

Affirmations?

Ah yes! Combine a spot-on affirmation with a simple movement and you’re getting closer to activating the subconscious sector of your mind, the part that’s actually running the show.

The 100 day practice challenge. 

Primordial Qigong came into my life in the summer of 2017, when Ken Cohen visited the UK and shared this foundational lineage form. At the time I was living off grid in a chalet on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall. Here I hit rock bottom being isolated and yet deeply communing with nature. I practiced this form for 100 days, finding my ‘home’ deepening inside as I dedicated myself to this new practice. I was reassured by the regularity and support it offered. My energy body knew my soul’s home was my Dantiens, thanks to this deep nurturing of self. Eventually, my body needed a home too and in 2019, through a remarkable turn of events, I found my now home in Somerset. My body could settle in at last and enabled my soul to as well. This primal form has continued to support me steady.

How to engender regular self-care?

Self-care empowers, nurtures and restores. Building this into everyday life is a healthy pattern to promote and is key for thriving, but can be a challenge for the busiest of us who yearn to be more relaxed. 

Winter is a good time to tune in to deep recuperation, as this season is connected to the Water element, the year slowly flowing down to the Solstice point, beckoning us into the cave of Yin Being, where deep restoration can occur… we are invited to stay here energetically after the Solstice stillness, until the Imbolc on Feb 1 when the quickening of the Spring begins and the Water moves to nurture the new growth and we enter the Wood element season.

Being like Water without distraction, can help you drop into your still point, and let your waters re-find a natural stillness.

Find your sweet-spot of balance and resource with this centring Qigong practice 

• Stand hip width apart 
• Ease in ankles and knees 
• Soften your belly, breathing steady 
• Breathing out, bring your weight into the balls of your feet 
• Breathing in, bring the weight to the heels 
• Gently rock back-and-forth with the breath, letting your system reclaim its inner balance
• Gradually return back to centre, claiming your sweet-spot of balance

AFFIRMATION

The repetitive nature of mantra-like words soothes, reassures and realigns. 

Say your own statement, knowing that to begin with the mighty ‘I AM’ will definitely get through to your subconscious. At least 3 times and with feeling…

• I AM balance
• I AM healing
• I AM nourished  
• I receive

Repeating this defragging behaviour is essential. New patterns need time to become habituations. Each time you choose to return, the pathway gets stronger, and you become stronger in your internal make up. The new behaviour eventually becomes an automatic default setting. Every time you choose you, you reaffirm the truth at your core. 

Have the language of Qi at your centre, Earth Mother under your feet and Love in your Heart.

You know what truth feels like, this is your barometer, your base-place. 

Breathe in, dear one. Be brave, be true, breathe into the courageous heat that is at the centre of you.

Breathe out and be grateful for all that you Be, as part of Mother Nature in her resplendant entirety. 

We generally associate the exhalation with relaxing and letting go, but what about remaining in that let go to receive the next inspiration? Stay steady, waiting for the ‘yinhale’.

To breathe in and out facilitates our biological urge for balance. Our systems are wired for this stability from every cell up through organs and into auras and energy fields, all zones showing up areas of imbalance as dis-ease. When we bring ease into the beginning of the breath cycle, we breathe this relaxed sense in with the air. I propose that any form of self-care practice is linked with this ‘yinhale’.

As we receive we must surrender, to open and Be receptive.

Try this

Be at ease. On your next ‘yinhale’, consciously relax… watch the gift of the breath enter your body by means of marvellous mechanics, facilitating the physical expansion to house the volume of fresh air. At the top of the breath notice the turning point and watch as your exhale expresses appreciatively. This can be considered a yang action, although it’s effect of relaxation has a yin quality. Within the yin & yang principle is an eye of the other, we can sense this here and is a beautiful topic to discuss and experience further.

We oscillate between doing (exhale) and Being (inhale).

The simple act of receiving the breath in a calm manner, nourishes your being on so many levels, physically with oxygen, energetically with vitality (chi) and, with this approach, serenity. This is important to acknowledge as an ignition into self care – kindness to you first, then all will benefit.

I see reflections of the balancing act of the breath everywhere as an ever present illustration of the yin yang dance. As we awaken to a new day, we are born again into the light, and as that day dims, the night’s dark beckons back sleep and a trip to deeper body slumberland with space to spiritually convene with the cosmos. We have the inhale awake and the exhale of sleep; we need them both to balance and Be. This sweet spot of balance is where zero-point can be experienced and contrary to the stillness initially touched, is a place of deeper than ever resource. We let go, to hold space to fill with fresh resource and entry into other realms. Watch this 3 minute video on how to access this Stillness meditation

Without sleep our systems cannot replenish, stress struggles to disperse and connection to source is more difficult. To have a sleep pattern eroded, severely curtails levels of health and we know insomnia is rising which increases stress, already way beyond ‘normal’. Are we becoming a world of sleep deprived exhalers, running for deadlines, giving-giving-giving, neglecting self care at the longterm risk of true health. Health is not just an absence of disease. Health is your true wealth. Finding the ease is key to deep sleep. Broadening your awareness helps dissipate tension, giving space to compression.
Try this

Ideally, be in nature or notice where it is in relation to where you are. Preferably, stand in a relaxed posture, feet apart, with knees slightly bent. You can do this from sitting too, by rocking your body. Sense a fine thread drawing you up from the crown of your head to the stars. Become aware of the plentiful vast volume of air all around you. Know that Mother Earth has your back, and your feet and body, she has and always will support you. Be with that. Sink in and soak up that truth. Relax into the support of the ground and into your bony architecture. Let your belly relax too. Breath ease into your being…

..and as you breath out, shift your body weight slightly forward with knees slightly releasing, like you are pressing down more into the ground. With the next easy breath in, rock back to steady centre. Continue, rocking with the rhythm of your easy breath, nine times will do the trick, but three will be good too. Notice how when breathing in and coming backwards, you inhabit the back of you more, into the observer space. You can watch yourself here, in action.

Your background presence is where you can go to drop away from business and into the listening. Your system is wise and knows what you truly need and has varied ways to get your attention, depending on how keenly you listen. This listening is at a subtler level than the reaching for stimulants; listen behind that initial impetus and find your call to ‘yinhale’.

Ahhh.. Breathe… receive… release and trust. Big let goes can happen here. Self care is where you give time to release the old and create space to receive a new refreshment. This gathering, increases your personal energy quotient and like magic, stress reduces. Tension does not want to stay in the body, it’s waiting for the space and time to release. Make it easy, shake it out, look for the ease and flow. See the ease in your life, in your breath, in your Be-ing.
What can you relinquish in order to create more time for self-care?
What do you need more – or less of – in your life to access this?
What can you do right now to access some of these into your now moment?

Allocated time is finite and there will always be an infinite amount of things to do. Be-ing is the chi key here, to expand into your now being a broad way. The important point here is that YOU GIVE TIME TO YOURSELF. This (non)action will ripple its repercussive nature widely into all areas of your life and for those who’s lives you share.

Be a ware.

What areas of Self Care would you like to have a better handle on? Are you struggling with the damage from stress, anxiety, worry, fears, depression? Would you like to know how to rebalance and strengthen your energy and build stamina? Here I share with you the list of techniques I get into when I wake in the middle of the night and what happened when they didn’t work!! I also drop in about a well known physical activity is actually a nervous system reset and how you can forge a way to come into a conversation with your energy to find your way to wellbeing.

We open up with Tracey Ash, sacred earth warrior, teacher, heart activator & DJ Pixi-Pete, on a tipping-point talk around the table, with main messages for humanity and how we can activate our higher resonances whilst amongst the mainstream melée.
Pete provides an inspired musical segue via a Murray Kyle remix of his ‘Here in the Now’ track ‘Raising up our voice for Unity’
We continue a sweet dive into the earth worship songs for contemporary life-loving musical vibe with Murray Kyle on the eve of his support tour with Nahko and Medicine for the People.Including:

• be a voice for the collective changing paradigm
• build bridges on land, resources, reciprocity
• gather in musical community
• how music features in times of conflict
• audience v. performance – how he manages large gigs
• aligning lyrics with energetics of the heart
• singing to nourish and nurture, reweaving interactions
• air power, sing together, breath together
• sing in and to nature
• water as a transformational element
• personal practice to ‘drop anchor and spread branches’
• call to the wisdom of our earth
• his ancestory
• unwind stress & tension, return to resourcing and giving
• REWILDING of earth and people
• top tip for 21st century living

Musician, filmaker, creative catalyst, artist, activist, father, shadow-busting mojo reclaiming, maverick workshop facilitator Jamie Catto has recently completed a true labour of love, ‘Becoming Nobody’ about his great inspiration Ram Dass.Using historic clips to balance an engaging conversation with Jamie, we are shown how our old roles and disguises can become increasingly burdensome. The film captures a loving man full of joy, wit, honesty, humour and wisdom, at ease in conversation while sharing his considerable pains and pleasures. The life experiences that have freed him from the attachments of his ‘Somebodyness’ have transformed him into the radiant soul who now inspires a new generation.
Included in this episode of Chi Time, Jamie also tells us about his work with Extinction Rebellion as well as how he was inspired to create this definitive film about Ram Dass.Timely tunes are involved – from the soundtrack of the film, plus a previously inreleased track – Lonely Robot.Background details include how certain tracks were produced, how to mine for gold within discomfort, core teachings from Ram Dass and why it took a while for this film to be birthed into the world.
‘Becoming Nobody’ is released in the US in September and is touring across America until early October. With the Love, Serve, Remember Foundation. See https://www.jamiecatto.com/ and https://rocofilms.com/becomingnobody/