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.
Sky Palms
Try this…
- See the Sky: notice its colors; see the sun or stars or moon.
- Hold your palms up. Notice the weight (even in your room) of Sky.
- Soften your focus and imagine: holding it. It—pressing down. Feel it.
- Resist the weight of the Sky. Hold it up…really.
- Lighten up. Relax, and let its weight sink through you.
- Enjoy your Sky.
Why Sky, Not Heaven?
Baguazhang Systems typically revolve around Eight Palms: Heaven, Earth, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Cloud (some prefer Lake or River instead of Cloud). Following my eyes, I see Sky not Heaven.
Why? I can watch Sky from here. Right now.
Heaven requires believing. Heaven conjures mental images. Heaven provokes, for some, imaginary ideals. In my practice and teachings of Baguazhang, I avoid integrating belief systems. I prefer tapping the shoulder of perception. See what I mean?
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I stopped publishing for a bit. You may have read the last article, published in February, right after the great Dreaming Workshop. I continued to teach, but moving was inevitable.
I sought to provide my son, who’s 2 now, with fresh air. So my family and I moved to Montana. We live in Hamilton right now…downtown. A quiet town of a little more than 4,000 folks, Hamilton is just right. What amazing and dramatic Changes!
Publishing continues now.
I’ve been filming at Blodgett Campground, west of our little town. And as I grow closer to the forest, so I grow closer to Baguazhang. Keep your eyes on this site please.
Plus…
I’ll tell you about Sky tomorrow.
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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