Chi Center; second week

Day 8

The day was fairly typical except for newly arrived students and two new teachers, Sarah, a new roommate of mine, and Vivian, both excellent in their own ways. Vivian  and Adrian also led a workshop for questions and answers for those new to qigong and I went.

Mingtong directed us to eat lunch with a new arrival and I paired with Alisa, who does body work like Pilates, dance and yoga professionally. 

sitting out on the veranda of the dining hall

A friend of Mingtong’s, cellular biologist and psychologist Joan Borysenko, was a surprise guest in the afternoon. A lovely, warm woman, she had a spontaneous healing at the age of ten. She shared that and other stories of her life, including a trip to China with a team from Harvard to study qigong. They found that qigong masters were able to kill cancer cells in petri dishes using chi, leaving normal cells alive.

steps to the trails

Day 9

It’s hard going to 3 meals a day and wondering where and with whom to sit, or whether to go off somewhere by yourself. The anticipation of it almost caused me to skip out, but I took Mingtong’s advice and embraced the feeling by going for it. Each time it was fine.

I’m feeling sensations in my body during sound healing and during visualizations more often and more deeply. A memorable exercise that Vivian led today, involved acknowledging and embracing the little child you once were, who may still be hurting, or angry, or sad, and embrace her. The visualization was quite easy for me with that one.

Day 10

Not much progress except a feeling of being again the outsider. It’s happened a few times: the room is laughing and I’m not. I don’t laugh. Sometimes I’m smiling, but today, not even that. 


After we were all lying down after supper for the evening sound healing last night, one person started to chuckle, who knows why. Then others started, then as the first person's laughter grew stronger, more people joined in and the first one grew hysterical. Mingtong joined in, too. I saw it was Analisa’s sound healing and I felt bad for her. Sure enough, I saw she was lying still in her soft bed and had covered her face with a cloth.

Finally Mingtong turned up the lights and allowed the laughter to subside. He proposed an activity: find a partner and sit opposite them and share the highlight of your day. He spoke in his soothing tones and soon everyone was settled and quietly whispering to one another.

looking down at the Chi Center from the ridge

The two other times it was during the butterfly exercise. We were lying down with our feet together and knees up at such an angle as to make the knees bounce up and down, an exercise to loosen blockages in the hips. On two occasions, one person began laughing, and the contagion spread. Mingtong encouraged it. Laughter, crying, they’re both good he said. I have had a few tears, but little laughter. I smile, or I feel a little sadness, but I am subdued. That’s me.

Mingtong’s long talks are done. This week he takes questions and answers. He commented on it today, that he had talked so much last week, he had nothing left to say.

We were bid to begin silence starting at lunch and to close our eyes and count while we chewed our food until each bite was totally gone. We were dismissed early to walk in nature and to focus on one aspect in nature of our choice. Shelly and I walked to the arroyo. We walked in silence and I observed all the different types of earth along the way.

Later, after sound healing, Shelly came in and said, “I have to talk. Today when we were walking, I turned around and saw you, and you were beautiful, you were glowing, and I realized how much I love you.” We hugged.

Arroyo

Day 11

A very intense day. Practice was extremely grueling. I was one of the few who persevered and kept my arms raised in the exercise called Spinal Bone Marrow, and kept my arms pumping in Chen Chi. I later learned that the first lasted 45 minutes and the other 20 minutes. I was aching at night and had violent dreams.

Silence continued through lunch. We had a healing circle in the afternoon. Nine chairs were grouped in the middle of the kiva where those to be healed were to sit.  I was feeling "off" and Shelly encouraged me, so I sat down in the first for group for healing focused on the brain. Mingtong circled close to us, calling out exhortations such as, "Healthy brain! Creative brain!" while everyone else made an outer circle. The would take a step and with a "Haola!" sweep their arms up and down, raining energy down upon those in the center.

I began to cry silently before they even started to chant. I cried again when I sat a second time in the last healing for the lungs and thought unexpectedly about my grandmother Selma who died of tuberculosis when my mother was ten.

We met in small group after and ate dinner together. I had Wendy in my group who I have been sitting with in the kiva and talking with often at meals. She lives in nearby Galisteo and has PD, but takes no pharmaceuticals except for medical marijuana. She has tremor and slowness. She is well liked but often ignored by the others, though offered assistance when she looks like she needs it.

I shared in the group about my social anxiety, but that the positive social interactions have been the highlight of my stay here.

The end is near, but I think I have had a breakthrough at last. I am tired but feel myself pulsing with an inner energy.

inside the Ranch House

Day 12

The past two nights have been miserable. My body can’t get comfortable - a headache in my right temple. Dreams. Is it “chi purification,” which Mingtong says we may experience due to change, the breaking down of blockages? Energy moving? My symptoms are worse.

I did the exercises, I participated fully all day, and I went further. I had a healing in the dorm room from Linling, Mingtong’s wife. I lay in my bed while she stood over me and similar to Mingtong's healings, chanted and encouraged me to relax and open. I fell asleep very soon and before I knew it, I heard the door closing and she was gone, leaving a 40 minute recording on my phone. I felt quite rested and rejoined the group in the kiva. 

Chi Center driveway

Day 13

My off periods have been bothersome. Meds have been necessary, but not more than usual. I took four carbidopa levodopa and one mirapex, which is less than I had been needing before I started doing qi gong daily. Still I hope to reduce further.

We had practice in the morning, and then testimonials. Some drama queens and bold ones went to the stage, were hooked to a mic and live video, and told their stories of healing, or progress towards healing. In an hour and a half, maybe a third of us spoke, mainly due to the fact that no one kept to the suggested 3 minutes. They were entertaining however, some poignant, some humorous.

Then a surprise visit from Grandmother Flordemayo, a Mayan woman who is a teacher and healer, and her friend Patricio, another Indian. He sang a song while beating a drum, and she said a prayer. They are both involved in planning the “Gathering for Humanity” that will take place here in May, in an as yet to be built geodesic dome.

view from the ridge, cottonwood tree

Mingtong and the guests ate lunch with us. Afterwards Mingtong was available for photos. I had yet to talk with him privately, but I asked for a photo with him. I had my travel sketchbook with me and had done quite a few pencil and watercolor drawings of the area. I asked if I could show him. He didn’t comment much, but he told me he didn’t know how to draw. Nevertheless, he had to teach drawing once in college. I asked him about his fine arts degree, and he said it was in video and photography. 





As a goodbye, Mingtong gave me a hug. It was a long hug, or longer than I would normally expect, with a little shaky squeeze at the end for emphasis. It really should not have surprised me considering that "huggering" was happening a lot at the Chi Center. Almost everyday Mingtong started us off with the command to hug someone. Each time I chose someone nearby, or really, we chose each other, someone who was turning my way, and we held each other close until Mingtong ended it. It was for much more than a minute always, though he never said how long. They were long enough that your arms grew tired and you needed to consciously relax them, breath and snuggle in closer to be comfortable.

People are important to healing. Mingtong said you can practice on your own, but to really get the full benefits of Wisdom Qigong, you need to have a group. The powerful Chi Field a group creates is very healing. The retreat was indeed intense for me because of all the remarkable people and Mingtong's own intensity. 



It is a start for me. I have an inkling a change has, or is in the process of taking place. My intention is to reverse my diagnosis, so I can be told, "You must not have had Parkinson's after all!"