September 10, 2020
Since we’re all probably marooned, I’ve decided to post photos of different places I’ve visited over the next few days. It is always a pleasure to be out traveling. But short of flying to a foreign country, I often just drive out to the Appalachian mountain. In just 30 minutes I am there staring at and lost among valleys and waterfalls. At the millennium I lived in Lake Harmony, Pocono Mountains. Often I would see deer, bears and smaller wild animals like racoons, squirrels and foxes in the neighborhood. There were 2 lakes and 3 ski resorts around the area. In Winter there were a lot of skiers. I did not ski myself but I loved the snow. I would do Tai Ji Quan outside even when the weather was freezing. I also enjoyed the seasons: they are one of the reasons I love the country.
The house, which was set back from the main road, had 3 bedrooms – one downstairs on the first floor and 2 upstairs. Sometimes friends and students would visit and stay over. Where I live now, in the foothills of the Appalachian, there is a woodland and a large creek behind the park
in the back. Deer would sometimes wander into the backyard. An occasional owl would land in the trees and hoot in the darkness. Squirrels are a regular presence all season long, rabbits usually in Spring.
It is difficult to travel to other countries now. The fear of infection affects us all. To be riding in the closed space of an airplane is a bit daunting and scary. The last country I visited was the Philippines last year, before the pandemic hit. The summer before that was Spain. The family stayed in Barcelona for 5 days. It was the conclusion of a Mediterranean cruise that included Italy, Montenegro and Greece. The trip was a graduation gift to Isabel, 21, who had just graduated with honors from the University of Delaware with a degree in bio-engineering. She had also won a fellowship from the National Science Foundation that gave her a generous stipend and scholarship for 3 years. For the first 2 days of our tour, I was with Isabel, her sister Ava, 18, and wife Lolit at Delphi to see the Oracle of Apollo while the rest of the family stayed in Athens. Photos of the tour are posted in my website blog.
I make it a policy to break away if I am traveling with a group. When I traveled to Peru, I was alone most of the time. But on a few occasions I was with a group, for instance in Lake Titicaca, the penultimate stop of the tour and highest navigable lake in the world at 12,000 feet. While the group of 20 was having lunch at Tanguile Island, I Ieft them, walked to the bottom of the
mountain and jumped in the lake. A guide who told me he was also a shaman said that what I did was an old way of healing and cleansing. I did it simply because the water was inviting.
In other places like Machu Picchu, Borobudur, Stonehenge, I did Qigong or Tai Ji Quan. There are exercises that change according to the time of year. With Tai Ji Quan, you can integrate it into your schedule anytime.
Rene
For those who do not have a meditative practice, here is a description of a simple method. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask:
Opening the Body to Nature
(Originally published in Yang-Sheng Magazine.)
By Rene J. Navarro
I have often done qigong and Tai Ji Quan in power vortices – in the pyramids at Gisa and the temples in Upper Egypt (Karnak, Dendera, Abydos), in the Tor on Glastonbury and the Stonehenge in England, in the peaks of Huangshan in China, in the stone circles of Scotland, Iao Valley in Maui, Hawaii, and Mount Banahaw in the Philippines. I have even done qigong in enclosed spaces like the Egyptian section at the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in NY City.
It is essential – even critical – to harmonize our lives, culture and lifestyle with the world around us. We are at risk of losing the earth to deadly pollution, severe exploitation and extreme climate changes. The situation is dangerous for the world, humanity and the diverse animal and plant species, an issue we’ll have to address sooner than later. But there is, in the meantime, a very simple way of connecting and harmonizing with nature and translating the language of ecology in our daily lives. Since the body itself is naturally constructed with energy points like the earth in feng-shui, it is really quite easy to align to the world around us. It is just a matter of:
- Keeping quiet and still and listening
- Avoiding distractions from the senses or the mind
- Allowing the body to settle down
- If you need to breathe, make it soft and gentle like a tiny ripple on a lake.
If you are standing, plant your feet shoulder-width apart and straighten your back and relax. You can do the same thing if you are sitting on the edge of a chair. Remember to slightly bring your chin down toward, but not touching, the manubrium. You may not be aware of it in the beginning, but this act stretches the cervical vertebrae and opens Governor Vessel 16/Fengfu and Governor Vessel 20/Baihui and Yintang/Esoteric Hall, 3 way stations in the journey of energy/Q . Bring your hands down, palms either facing the outer thighs (to align the Laogong/Pericardium 8 to the Gallbladder/Wood meridian, especially Gallbladder 31) running
down from the head to the feet) or the palms facing to the back (to feel what’s behind you). Put your tongue up to the hard upper palate or just behind the teeth to create what is indicated in the Neijing Tu as the Sacred Ground.
Many people ask, “Are there any techniques?” Yes, there are techniques. You can do Tai Ji Quan or 8 Precious Brocades or a series of Qigong or Daoyin movements. But you can reduce them to the most basic level like what is listed above. Just quiet down, close your eyes, and it helps if you feel grateful for who you are. There is always something special or even magical that happens when one feels a sense of gratitude for the blessings of life and when one finds the stillness that is the very essence of worship (Dao De Jing, verse 16).
When one is positioned for standing or sitting meditation as described, one does not have to do anything else. Just keep to the bullet points above. It is that simple. You do not need to travel to the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid, or in Haleakala Volcano on Maui. You can just do it in your backyard or in your own living room. You do not need any extra equipment or any elaborate clothes. If it is necessary to focus, you can light incense or a candle or play a soft meditative music or breathe softly. But these can be distracting for some people. So find what you are most comfortable with.
You will possibly realize, as you practice more, there is a subtle activation of the Bai Hui/GV 20 at the top of the head, the Qi Hai/CV 6 and Shenque/CV 8 in the area of the belly, and the Yongquan/Kidney 1 at the bottom of the feet. These are 3 of the most prominent points in the body that are the easiest to activate. There is also the Laogong/PC 8, the power point of the palms. Often, the vibration of qi starts at the fingertips or Jing/Well points, collects at PC 8/Laogong and travels up the arms.
Stay in position for 30 minutes to an hour. It is usually difficult in the beginning to be still for more than 5 to 10 minutes. But with regular practice, you will start to feel comfortable doing it for longer and longer periods of time. You will also start to feel different experiences. The energy of the feet sinking into the ground, for instance. Or the Jing/Well points of the fingers feeling vibration or some meridians opening. The optimal experience is when the body itself seems to become transparent or porous as if its boundaries have dissolved. The whole body would seem to be “breathing” after a while. There is a sense of opening to the outside world. The body and the earth in incredible alignment and harmony: It is
the path of stillness that is suggested in Chapter 16 of the Dao De Jing.
At the end of your work – call it meditation, call it qigong, whatever name you may use – be sure to make a gesture of closing. Put your palms over and breathe into your navel. Imagine the energy collecting in your lower belly (often associated with the dantian/field of pills, qihai/sea of qi, navel center) and resting there in a sturdy container. A closure is necessary in a ritual so that you can connect again to the mundane, and return to the everyday world and time.
Blessings to you!
PS: for my poetry reading featured at the Marble Summer Arts Festival, please go to this link:
9/11: Just received the final copy of my poetry book “Ascension and Return: Poetry of a Village Daoist” before it is published by Tambuli Media later this month. I did not realize there was much work required to put it out there. :) Even the small mistakes — plain commas and periods and typos — took time to find. There will be an ebook for those readers who prefer the medium. For now, we have only the hard copy. The forewords were written by Dr. Mark Wiley and David Verdesi, two famous scholar-warriors who have studied eastern culture and traditions for decades. The 39 poems and prose poems were written over 45 years.
Introduction to “Ascension and Return”
By Rene J. Navarro
I did not write the poems for a book. They were written at random. Perhaps that’s not the right word to use. I should rather say they were written at certain intersections of my life and reflected on experiences in my own journey. In a sense they were entirely unplanned. For instance, an idea – an inspiration – would occur to me, I would write a few lines and later develop them into a poem in my journal or computer (like “Clearing the Life” that started at dawn one day and ended a week later in 1994) or I would write a poem from beginning to the end non-stop on the blank page of a book (like “Cheng Du Dawn” in 1984 or 85). That’s almost exactly what happened with these poems. Who knows what inspires one to write? What method does one develop or follow in the course of a writing life?
Some poems I wrote as a project, inspired by something – music (like Robert Schuman’s Kinderszenen”), a place (like Bali, Cairo, Hangzhou, Chichen Itza or Bantayan Island), a time in my life (like “Memory,” a recollection of the war when I was a kid) or an experience (like “Drawing the Characters – Ars Poetica,” my attempt at Chinese calligraphy).
The title “Ascension and Return” is drawn from my Daoist studies and experiences and my engagement with the world, chosen after all the poems in the book were written and selected for inclusion in the collection. A Bhutanese monk said that leaving is easy, returning is hard. It is true especially when one has lived life as a hermit or in rustication.
The earliest poem in the book was written in 1974/75 as part of a series of poems about children. My children Norman and Albert were small at the time, we lived in Brooklyn across from a drug addiction center on Albany Avenue, a block away from Kings County hospital. I had big Bose speakers and a Miracord Benjamin turntable, newly acquired after settling in an apartment. I had a growing collection of vinyl records. The children and I were listening to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and the classical repertoire and The Little Prince as narrated by Peter Ustinov. Norman was in primary school. Al was in a nursery. We were flying kites in Prospect Park. We were involved in the anti-Marcos movement and joining demos. It was at that time that I thought of writing poems about children. I wrote about kite-flying, the bombing of Sulu and a few other subjects that became the “seed” for poems later.
While I had written haiku sometime in the early 70s, it wasn’t until the early 1980s that I began to write haiku consistently every day as part of my martial arts practice and discipline. The poetry was not written as a separate art but as an integral part of martial arts. I did not say “I am a poet” as other people who write poetry usually say ; I said I am a martial artist and therefore I write poetry. It was I thought in the tradition of bunburyudo, the combination of combative and artistic/literary endeavor that some icons like Li Bai and Musashi Miyamoto were known for. That’s how I defined myself. A kind of Cartesian logic. Like Li Bai, whose poetry reflected his perspective as a Daoist, I wrote from my “consciousness” as a martial artist. I considered poetry as a medium of expression like painting or music: it was an extension of the person’s being and background just like a tree — the person — has fruits, leaves, flowers, roots and branches – its poetry — typical of its species and genome. In short, it could be said, a poem is biographical. It is not an exercise, although it is true that poetry exercises are good for the poetic muscles. I know some poets who wrote about Tai Ji Quan after taking one lesson or the I Ching after reading it over the weekend! That is, before they’ve internalized it. Poetry to me wasn’t (isn’t) just an intellectual exercise but often a deep engagement with the subject. I wasn’t into Daoism at the time. Since my early 20s my interest was martial arts. When I began to write on a Chinese subject, I already had a background on it through immersion, serious study with a master or I had been involved in the discipline as a matter of practice.
The Chinese speak of having “gong” – as in Qigong or Gongfu. “Gong” in Chinese has the radicals for strength (the character is really a saber) and a carpenter’s T square. It means a combination of strength (li) and work measured through time. It is often associated with Qi or energy. In a real sense Gong is an accumulation of Qi gathered over time. “He does not have Qi,” the Chinese would say of a person who has not really developed the art, whether it is the piano or a martial art form. You cannot intellectualize the practice: the art has to be embedded in your bones. Simply memorizing a form is not enough.
The first product of this work with the haiku was a poem that came out of my visit to China to study contemporary Wu-Shu in 1983. I do not know exactly when I wrote it but “Cheng Du Dawn,” a 7-verse haiku, came out spontaneously sometime afterward. It required very little correction. It used Daoist images and symbols – “reeling the Dao in silk,” “crescent moon” and the bats (neidan/internal alchemy), “stroking/lute strings and peacock tails” (Tai Ji Quan). There are rare times when a poem is “birthed” instantly as if it was handed down from above. Like Minerva in a way. Since then I have written several poems based on the scheme of the haiku and wrote rengas loosely based on the haiku with poet friends like Debra Kang Dean, Jaya Ward and Nadine Sarreal (the latter two lived on the other side of the globe). Each one of them gifted me with a different experience: Debra, an exemplary poet, was my Tai Ji Quan colleague; Jaya, an Englishwoman, who lived in India, was a healer I met in a Daoist retreat back in the late 1980s,; and Nadine, who had an MFA, was a Filipinx writer. Each one of them brought a different flavor and vintage to the exchange.
Later the discipline of writing haiku helped me write longer poems, avoid adjectives and adverbs when I can and learn more Asia-oriented images and symbols. But beyond the haiku, with its loose syllogism (re: Roland Barthes’ The Empire of Signs), there are other forms we can follow in poetry (and much of other styles and genres of writing). Indeed there are forms beyond the quatrain, alexandrine, sonnet, villanelle, pantoum, ghazal and whatever else is taught in school. While not poetic, these paradigms served me as a kind of pattern – the symphony with its 4 or 5 (Beethoven and Gustav Mahler) movements (as in the case of Isak Dinesen’s Ehrengard); the leitmotif of Richard Wagner (as in Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kroger); the Yijing, the Book of Changes; the meditation, Qigong and alchemical formulas; and numerology and healing protocols. The styles of Du Fu and Li Bai, especially the fu (translated as rhapsody or prose poems) also helped me develop a more expansive approach to poetry. Even the way the Chinese traditionally address their letters could serve as an outline of the progression of lines: the top line is the country, followed by the state, county or district, then the town, the street and house number and lastly, the name of the recipient. In traditional verse you can start with an overview or a larger picture and then you narrow down your vision of the landscape until you get to the individual or single object. In short, you do not have to be restricted to the canonical forms. You can be imaginative, diverse and various, and creative.
When I started studying with the famous Daoist master Mantak Chia, I began to learn more about Daoism and its principles and esoteric practices. I read the classics. I developed a regular Daoist practice in my daily life. Out of this regimen came “Meditation,” a poem about a practice called Xiao Tian Zhou, translated as Small Heavenly Circle and popularly known as Microcosmic Orbit. The lines are short, mimicking the station to station trajectory of the meditative route. Other non-poetic Daoist ideas influenced my poetry. For instance, in “Return” and “Mattapoisett Spring Equinox Morning” I used the Yi Jing (Hexagram 24 in the former and 51 in the latter).
In 1984 I began attending a weekly poetry workshop at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. It was at this workshop that I first met the poet Len Roberts, a professor at the local community college and at Lafayette and a National Poetry Series selection. He said he liked “Sulu,” a poem about the destruction of a city in Southern Philippines, for its form (it was shaped like an airplane, again not a traditional poetic model) and its approach (it was political but not agitprop). After the session, he asked me to see him at his office. “Bring your poems,” he said. For the next 20 years, he mentored me, giving patient, generous and detailed critiques and sharing his new poems. Sometimes we would sit by the pool (with a bottle of beer) in the afternoon or the fireplace at his house (with a glass of wine) at night and read poems to each other. It was at one of these quiet and informal sessions that I was first exposed to the poetry of DH Laurence and Thomas Hardy, two authors who were famous as novelists.
I moved to Boston and began studying acupuncture and herbalism at the New England School of Acupuncture and Traditional Yang Family Tai Ji Quan with Grandmaster Gin Soon Chu in the decade of the 1990s. My life had changed entirely. After my graduation I pioneered a Qigong course that included meditation, Tai Ji Quan and Qigong at NESA. I spent more time in meditation, I practiced Tai Ji Quan along the Charles for hours, I learned a version of Quanzhen/Complete Reality neidan/internal alchemy. I passed the national exams in acupuncture and opened a healing practice. At Walden Pond, the poet Debra Kang Dean (she had written a few books by then) and I shared our practice of different Tai Ji Quan styles. We read poetry at Borders Books in Framingham. The experience with her gave me a larger view of eastern arts and a more capacious concept of poetry. And then I left Boston and spent a few years living “like hermit” (I told my friends) in the mountain in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania. At the millennium I traveled to and taught in several countries like UK, Cyprus, Egypt, Thailand, Philippines and the Netherlands, among them, and learned more Daoist practices and Daoist literature.
When I taught English (as a second language) in the University of Zhejiang in China about 10 years ago I wrote an entire book of poetry based on the legend of the Weaver Girl and the Shepherd Boy, the classic story of impossible love. It was the first time I wrote a whole book on the same theme and subject. I did not intend for it to be published but perhaps it will be my next poetry project, if I still have the time in my 80s.
In 2006 I first traveled to Bali and encountered Hinduism for the first time. I’ve visited Bali a few times since then and met some of the Hindu priests and healers. It was an entirely new experience and a different education: I began reading Vedic literature – different translations of and commentaries on the epic Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — that turned me to writing longer lines and prose poems following the traditional forms of the east and different symbols. Of which more later.
I am now editing a book of essays that is also going to be published by Tambuli Media. Another book of poetry based on the Chinese legend of the Weaver Girl and Shepherd Boy and a book of stories are also planned for the future. Both are finished except for the editing and design.
Well, it looks like the pandemic is keeping me busy. :)
For particulars, please get in touch with:
Tambuli Media
1121 N. Bethlehem Pike #60-179
Spring House, PA 19446
www.TambuliMedia.com