Earth Palms

Hold on…before we get to Earth Palms…let’s feel Earthy Soles. As always, it’s better if you can go barefoot and find some good, grip-worthy soil. Sand will do; maybe you can find a garden or a good lawn. If that’s not the case, because your ground is frozen and your feet are fragile, then push your imagination through your carpeting, through your house foundations, and then: into the Earth.

Coil your feet. Grip the ground, like you’re clawing at it, but gently. Grip just a little more. Grasp the ground with your feet enough so that you must sink into your heels, a little on the outside edges of your feet, and onto the tips of your toes. Center your weight in your heel.

Sink into the Earth.

Feel with your Earth Palms

• Hover your hands, palms down, about shoulder width and cheek bone height.
• Spread your hands, and just a little, grip with your fingertips (like holding two small basketballs).
• Soften your focus and feel: feel the Earth pushing up. It’s radiant. It presses upward (see below).
• Resist the Earth’s pressure. Press down on it.
• Let your whole body sink into your hands, as if you were pushing on a high wall, about to pull yourself up and over it.
• Warm yourself with Earth.

It’s true that the Earth presses up. You can feel it.

There’s some technical science, strange science, and weird ideas about why and how. But you can feel it.

When you feel the Earth, then you know.

Thank you: all those who attend the First Baguazhang Dreaming Workshop. I appreciate your support and the powerful roles each of you played in capturing your dreams. Let me tell you a few things.

I typically prefer teaching specifc and peculiar details about form or about partner drills or about proper anatomical movements. I can tell when people get it and understand it. I cannot tell what you dream. Dreams defy specific teachings. And teaching people to unite with their dreams, in their own, personal way is beyond the scope (so far) of being me. So the latest workshop was a challenge.

I set up opportunities. I gently directed attention. I kept lessons brief and made space for inner exploration. The deep secret: put pressure on normal living expectations, in this case pressure was on sleeping.

We contorted sleep while moving in a Baguazhang way around real, live blazing fires in the middle of the starry night. And I wondered often: how is it working for him, for her, for him, for her, for him?

In the First Dreaming Circles Workshop, practitioners got a mellow taste of proper Baguazhang and drank deeply of Earth Palms in the starry night. We started right at 10pm and rode a wave of sleepiness through 7am. In five teaching episodes, spaced by 45 minutes of sleep, people practiced:

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Explore inner realms and celebrate transformation using Baguazhang palm changing, poetry, and dream cycling. This Baguazhang Dreaming Circles Workshop coincides closely with several holidays worldwide—Imbloc, Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, American Ground-Hog Day, Setsubun, and Lichun—suggesting that this poetic time of year means

• returning of warmth and wisdom
• increasing light
• inner growth
• new beginnings

Using a fusion of Baguazhang circle walking, Baguazhang partner-training drills, circular-free writing, and brief wake-sleep periods, participants explore inner realms and personal development, while enhancing dream visions and dream states.

Participants are welcome to spend a longer time at the camp. The intensive Baguazhang Dreaming Circles Workshop encompasses one entire evening. By switching, in 45 minute intervals, between artistic activities and sleep-dreaming, we provoke profound states that deepen our consciousness of being-awake and dreaming-awake. Situated in Goblin Valley Area, magestic mountains, chilly nighttime temperatures, and dreamy starry skies accompany practitioners on their inward journey. Please bring these things…

• a sleeping bag rated for at least -20° Fahrenheit
• an 8×10 tarpaulin
• writing tools and an artist’s sketch-pad or notepad
• some healthy snacks
• one gallon of water
• one open mind

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