Elsewhere, I alluded to a series of twelve essays, let's call them, which I wrote after a series of adventures, let's call them -- more-than-alluded to here and here, -- the immediate causal factor for the undertaking of which enterprise, let's call it, was my hand finally reaching the bottom of my barrel of dissatisfaction, which I had long been drawing from, and which again I allude to here.

A little bit of that context you keep hearing about.

So -- I had my adventures and experiences, and while in a sense, and especially at first, they were enlightening and liberating, in the end, after all that adventuring and enlightening, I found myself... well, much in the same position as I had been in at age 16, or 18.

Same house. No friends. No money. No prospects. No luck.

So lonely, filled with a despair that I felt would make me burst.

Sitting in a cold, almost-empty room, looking out the window, wondering -- What am I supposed to DO? What is the POINT of all this?

Around that time, about five and a half years ago on a sunny, if cold, December day, I went for a bike ride.

It was a little colder than I expected, I pushed myself a little harder than I should have, and I got sick shortly after that.

Scary-sick.

I mean, I suppose I wasn't going to die, but I sure felt like I was.

It started like a cold. Then, it got worse.

I'd be in bed at night and pour sweat, then shake and shiver, pour sweat, shake and shiver.

I'd cough, and then, when my chest and sinuses had begun to fill with phlegm, I'd start to wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air.

I was drowning.

It got worse, and so -- I finally got healing help.

I mean Qigong healing help from Spring Forest Qigong Master Jim Nance.

But let me step back.

You might say, So, you sweated too much in the cold and got sick, huh?

Well... yes, but no.

This takes us off track, and while that's never stopped me from taking you side-wise on an edifying perambulation, I'm gonna restrain myself this time. Instead, I'll point to the path and tell you what I've seen there; we may return to it another time.

In short, Qigong has taught me better.

Maybe that cold, sweaty bike-ride was the immediate causal factor for my getting sick, but the deeper issue was that my Qi was already well out of balance.

And, just as we learn in Spring Forest Qigong that the main cause of the Qi blockages that lead to any and every kind of health challenge is unbalanced emotions and stresses -- the last two years, and, mmm, the last six months in particular, had been a carnival procession of unbalanced emotions and stresses for me.

As is so often the case -- when you finally stop, the momentum of what you've been doing catches up to you and, as is so often the case -- hits you hard as a MF.

That's OK, though.

One time, not long before I left the Spring Forest Qigong healing center, where I had worked for a little over four years, I had a conversation with a healing client who was, as Master Lin likes to say, having a moment.

She wasn't getting what she wanted, I really wasn't having it, and I told her the truth very plainly, very directly.

So, she started crying.

haha.

I mean, all you can do is laugh sometimes, because it's so absurd; but, of course, I didn't laugh at her -- I listened to her.

What I'm saying is, after that, things started to shift in our conversation, we worked something out, and by the end, not only was her heart glowing, as the sympathetic resonance of my own glowing heart told me, but -- she apologized, in her polite, understated, ironic English way, for her bit of an emotional moment.

I said, No need to apologize. Thank you for letting me have an honest conversation with you. One reason I like this work is, a lot of the people who reach out are at the lowest point in their lives. Some are even on death's doorstep. When people come to that point, they're usually so broken down and stripped down that they're honest, and I can finally have a real conversation with someone. Otherwise -- all day long, I'm talking to people with masks on. How can you talk to someone like that?

That's where I was when I got sick; and finally, I was able to have an honest conversation -- well, with God, but also with myself.

Of course, there were tears -- way worser than what that lady on the phone showed me, lemme tell you.

But, that's when I started practicing Qigong honestly, daily, without hope.

Don't let that confuse you.

Hope is important -- it's healing.

Let's say, without expectation.

And that's when, and why, I really started healing.

Earlier, I said:

I found myself... well, much in the same position as I had been in at age 16, or 18.

Same house. No friends. No money. No prospects. No luck.

So lonely, filled with a despair that I felt would make me burst.

That's true. I was very, very well-acquainted with that position, having inhabited it much of my adult life. I was very well-acquainted with depression.

At that time -- I have to say it again, nothing was going right for me.

And yet, when I gave up expectation and began to practice Spring Forest Qigong daily, honestly -- though I felt nothing at all, -- within a few weeks, I noticed things were changing.

So, so often, I found at the healing center that people could not, or would not, practice their Qigong like that -- daily, honestly.

I think, like me, they were burdened and poisoned by expectation -- what they heard someone else say, what they imagined should be happening.

They were burdened and poisoned by comparison.

The thing is, whether you know it or not, whether you notice it or not, if you are doing the Qigong, you are moving, cultivating, and purifying the Qi -- within you, and around you.

Remember: Qi is not just energy, but energy with consciousness and intelligence.

Everything is a form of Qi -- and I don't just mean the things and people around you, but the luck and life-circumstances around you.

And, some of the highest-quality, most potent, transformative Qi there is, is the Qi of unconditional love, kindness, and forgiveness, and of happiness, joy, peace, contentment, and gratitude.

It is also a universal principle that what is higher governs what is lower.

And, what I'm saying is, those kinds of high-quality, potent, transformative Qi, which most people pass by in the bazaar of many sounds, flavors, and colors, thinking them wares of little worth, are precisely the kinds of Qi we cultivate in Spring Forest Qigong.

They're central, absolutely crucial.

People get caught up in techniques, terminology, high-level retreats, advanced meditations.

No, Boo, focus on the fundamentals, the wares of little worth.

And, by the way -- don't pass this one by as a ware of little worth: your intention in practicing is absolutely crucial, too.

If it comes from your heart and soul, then it's in line with the divine, with God, and -- as one of Master Jim Nance's teachers liked to say, How can we lose with the system we use?

Would you please tell me who's more powerful than God?

I said here:

In the name of the God of Soul and Mind -- for what can we invoke higher than this?

Exactly.

Anyway.

What I'm saying is, though I felt nothing at the time, doing that Qigong, I was doing it honestly, daily, with an intention in perfect harmony with my soul, all the while cultivating Qi of the finest quality.

And, wouldn't you know it? My luck started to change.

I mean, my body healed, too. You may think that's the point, but, man, that was the first signpost on the highway I'd just turned onto, and I blasted past that in the blink of an eye.

Many people have had that experience with Spring Forest Qigong.

It's part of the wisdom of the system; and, as many people have also found, it's also why Master Lin said in his Level One course, Spring Forest Qigong is a simple, ADVANCED form of Qigong.

Yes, Sah!

Anyway.

What I'm saying is, I got well. I found a job, right away, in a place I really wasn't familiar with, which paid more than I'd ever made before, for my doing work, quite simple, which was based on the kind of work, which everyone had told me "had no future," I had spent most of my adult life doing.

I moved to a town I didn't know, and -- wouldn't you know it? -- found what, I think, was the best neighborhood for me. I mean, I just picked it out on a map with a blind finger, more or less!

And, better yet, though in my years of despair and longing, I dreamed and dreamed that one day, I might just meet real Masters, like Chunyi Lin or Jim Nance -- never did I dream -- well, that I'd live in their house, so to speak.

But -- I did, after all.

With Spring Forest Qigong, you are cultivating your Qi Field.

And. as I said here, many years after I began that loving labor of personal cultivation:

The implications of this are many, broad, and subtle; yet, it begins simply and humbly with the actions we take in the silent introspection afforded by our daily Qigong practice – our self-cultivation. Seeds germinate in darkness. 

Yes.

Now -- would you believe it? None of this was what I intended to talk about when I began to write.

And yet, it was, because I needed to give you context, as I always do, but especially for what I meant, and am about, to share.

Because otherwise, it won't make a lot of sense to most of you.

I mean, even with context, maybe it still won't, but hey -- that's not my problem, Boo; check the name of this website again and read it slow if you need to.

I reserve the right to my allusiveness, elusiveness, and -- dare I decree? -- my abstrusive obstrusiveness.

I've got some word-portraits on this website; what follows are picture-portraits.

Collages, some call them.

Why I decided to make them is another story, and this one's already too long.

But in the context of what I've shared today, I'll be uncharacteristically direct now and say that these were like a joyous proclamation of my healing, praise for the divine means of its doing, and a casting into verse, by way of image, of the epic of my life of those last couple years, mine own Odyssey, little loop within the larger, as I so litltingly put it here.

I left a couple collages out of the carnival procession, since -- well, they may be a little weird for you, and -- more importantly -- a little out of context.

15 April 2022