Nov. 27, 2010
To unsubcribe, see below. To change your address, signup with new address on my homepage. Please set email preferences to “html”, not “plain text”, in order to see photos. For archives of Tao News, visit: https://michaelwinnv5.qlogictechnologies.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl#7 (may need to sign in at top to get a cookie). Inside Chi Flows Naturally: Dear Lovers of the Life Force, I had a lot to be grateful for, this Thanksgiving. My mother, Shirley Mae Liddell Winn, died peacefully last week, at the age of 86. She was a hoot, even with her Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t remember what you said 2 seconds before, but would recite all 26 of her middle names (invented by her in childhood), rattling them off proudly in her New Orleans southern belle accent, Her long-term memory was still intact. In Chinese medicine, it meant her spleen/earth element, which controls short term memory, was very weak, but her heart/core spirit was still strong.
Holding my mother’s urn, decorated in her favorite colors. I did Primordial and Big Dipper Star qigong ceremonies to smooth her journey to the Great Beyond. Cremation concentrates the jing essence of the body into the ashes, and it seems to make it easier for the Shen (vital organn spirits) to loosen their attachment to Earth.
I love her, and will miss her indomitably cheerful spirit. Perhaps all mothers who sire seven strongly independent children and a dynasty of twelve grandchildren have to have an extra cheerful quality to maintain sanity. I was the middle son of five boys she had in a row, followed by two girls. Looking back, I would never wish the job of raising us on anyone. My father was an army heart surgeon with the rank of Lt. Colonel. Behind her back, we nicknamed my mother The General. The main game we played as her army of kids was evading her control, which was mostly benevolent. I’m still working that control issue out….but suspect it has something to do with my attraction to the Taoist path, and its high value placed on spiritual independence. She may have helped to shape my allergic reaction to outside authority in general. Fortunately, I figured out early on that it was OK to surrender to the ultimate inside authority, the flow of the Life Force….as it helps me to manage all the outside forces of authority, the constant pretenders to the throne. 🙂
Feeling embraced by my Family Tree, on a recent hike in Joyce Kilmer forest (Robbinsville, NC). There is no escaping our ancestral influences, only the question of what issues we choose to help our bloodline to complete. I was alerted by doctors that my mother (out in Oregon) was possibly approaching death. With her Alzheimers condition advancing, her departure was timely. But like many, she had been using her strong will to hold on. I think she was waiting to get some kind of completion with her seven children. She didn’t let go until all seven of her children recently began doing a group meditation focused on her mid-brain, to focus our collective will on dissolving our family pattern of Alzheimer’s. At the end of the meditation, we would merge into her heart and smile. I think that is all she really needed, to have all 7 of her children doing the Inner Smile inside her heart space. I waited until my mother had stopped drinking water, often a sign of finally letting go. Two days later, just before I flew out to see her, I did a very slow Tai Chi for Enlightenment / Primordial Qigong ceremony in my backyard crystal Stone Circle. My intent was to show her the pathway to the Clear Light/Source. Seeing the Light is important when you’re dying, because the personality is afraid to go into what for it will be the darkness of Death. But the Soul, if it has the Clear Light as a beacon, will happily follow it. That allows the Soul to release the body from its job of holding a space for the personality (thereby forcing the ego to agree to die). If you’ve done a lot of spiritual work prior to your death, my view is that your personality and body essence merge into your Soul for an easy transition, and you have a more self-aware journey into the Great Beyond. If you are VERY integrated, i.e. achieved some level of soul or spiritual immortality, you have earned the ability and spiritual right to continue creating new realities from your Soul/Energy Body after you leave this physical dimension. In my understanding, both achieved and unachieved souls end up in the same realm, that of the Over Soul (Collective Higher Self, or metaphorically, the Stellar Mind). There are 12 of these Over Souls, that’s where we get the archetypes of the 12 signs of the zodiac, the Chinese calendar’s 12 Terrestrial Branches, and famously, the 12 Gods who live atop Mt. Olympus. But the achieved and unachieved souls have very different experiences, once they arrive in the celestial realm. The more integrated your body-mind (ego identity), and soul (true self) are at the moment of death, the greater free will you will be given by the Over Soul in your ensuing re-birth. The lazy, fragmented, addicted, or self-hating egos just get parked, like cars in a cosmic junkyard, until the Over Souls pick out their traumatized parts and recycle the fragments into hopefully more productive lives. In this theory, the incomplete soul and its “egoic fragments” do NOT re-incarnate, but its “pieces” (5 vital organ spirits or wu jing shen) do find themselves implanted into brand new soul patterns. Then there are the souls who spiritually worked hard to overcome the challenges dealt to them, and who materialized some degree of unconditional love while on Earth. They also get put to work by the Over Soul. But they hold a more integrated identity and get to consciously choose their ongoing process of cosmic creativity. In short, they graduated from Earth School and can choose to move on to higher dimensional playgrounds where their earth-learned Free Will can be put to responsible good use. Shirley Mae Liddell Winn, holding one of her many flying trophies. She bought a Cessna as soon as her nest was empty. Soon she was flying down to South America and up to Alaska, and crisscrossing the USA on air races. Amelia Erhard was her hero. A charming uber Club Woman, she quickly became a leader in whatever she focused on. It wasn’t long before she was appointed to the California State Aviation Board. She was super smart, graduating from college at age 18, and all-but-dissertation PhD in abnormal psychology by age 21. Then she switched to birthing babies. Some claim her children were abnormal, but I’m not sure if its genetic or a result of her education. My sister Robin was with my mother during her final days. Robin held the phone so I could hear my mother’s belabored breathing and sometimes faint, sometimes loud cries of agony. This I interpreted as her vital organ spirits gradually letting go of their attachment to the body. So when I did the Primordial Qigong/Tai Chi for Enlightenment ceremony for her, I invited her into my core channel at the level of the Mingmen (Door of Life, the “moving chi between the kidneys”) after every round of Earth or Heaven, 8 cycles total in the qigong form. The mingmen is where the Clear Light is entering our body. This Clear Light gets polarized into kidney fire and kidney water, which then nourish the creation of the rest of the body’s energy channels and organ spirits and tissues. I felt my mother’s presence in my mingmen grow stronger and stronger with each cycle of the qigong ceremony. At the end, I felt a big shift, a deep sense of peace, like my mother had received the transmission from my Primordial Tai Chi ceremony, 3000 miles away. Afterwards, I felt compelled to keep meditating for some hours. Later that evening, while I was in meditation, I got a call from my sister in Oregon. She exclaimed how suddenly mom’s breathing had become calm – exactly at the same time I was doing the ceremony. A coincidence? Who knows? In any case, it left me with a feeling of being in deep spiritual sync with her. My mother passed into the Clear Light six hours after I did the Primordial Tai Chi ceremony. I did more Primordial ceremony with my Sister the next day, after I arrived in Oregon. We both felt the ceremony helped my mother integrate with the dying-rebirthing process. One of my favorite exchanges with my mother was while we were flying over the Sierra Nevadas in her little Cessna. She said to me, “Mike honey, you go flying around in your meditations. I fly around in my little plane. Somday, we’ll both land in the same place.” This week, I feel we landed in the same place. Taoist alchemical meditations regularly take me on journeys through the portal into the Great Beyond. Now I feel my mother has finally joined me. She is full time, I am still a part timer. This 2nd century Taoist Alchemical Treatise, called the Secret of Everlasting Life, trans. by Richard Bertschinger, put this notion of continuity between the living and the dead best: “The idea of Everlasting Life has nothing to do with hankering after life. The truth is that actually there is no death. It is because our desire for things assumes undue importance that we go astray and begin the separation of life and death. If we view them from this space of quiet and tranquillity we can see there has never been any life or any death. Evidently there is only this one single energy flowing and circulating about.” – “Triplex Unity” (Can Tong Qi), preface published in 1564 Contents:
» Super-Grounding Qigong Dec. 4-5: Internal Chi Breathing & Bone Rooting » Plan on Spring Fusion Workshops, Holland Kan & Li » Summer Retreat Schedule 2011 – TENTATIVE » Contact Information Super-Grounding Qigong Dec. 4-5: Internal Chi Breathing & Bone Rooting
If you cannot make this workshop in Asheville, I strongly recommend these practices as the best to do in winter time. Consider getting the homestudy DVD and audio course. These powerful qigong grounding practices I have gathered and refined from many different high level Taoists over the last 20 years – all designed to work the dantian (belly portal), deep arm & leg channels, the core channel, and the bones and joints. They are incredibly powerful for preventing and healing all kinds of chronic illness, because they clean your bone marrow and the ancestral blood line issues. They stabilize stillness for meditators, and develop root for all movement artists (dance or martial arts). Grounding is the #1 most important energetic skill to handle the planetary shifts that are happening. This Dec. 4-5 workshops is at Lighten Up Yoga in Asheville. It is my favorite qigong for practicing during the winter months when the chi goes deep into the ground. You’ll be able to go deep into the energetic ground of your physical body. You can attend Saturday only (9am-6 pm, $90). The cost for both days is only $144. Sunday is 9:30 -5:30pm). Extended payment plan possible. Email me or call Jan in my office to book a place: 828 505 1444. If you need housing info, reply to this email. Open to all, no prerequisites. Useful to have Fundamentals 1&2, but they can also be taken afterwards by homestudy DVDs and audio CDs. Counts as an Instructor Certification course. the short story:
MEDICAL & SPIRITUAL QIGONG FUNDAMENTALS 3 & 4: Learn the 3 types of Taoist breathing: natural, reverse, and counter-force. Powerful “empty” or neutral force breathing method can be done anywhere, standing, sitting, lying. Opens belly center/dantien, the key to good chi circulation and self-healing. Standing and moving postures to open core channels of body. My simplified version of Iron Shirt Qigong. We will also learn the Ocean, Sky, & Great Heart Breathing: Blissful Breathing Qigong. This form activates the Mystical Power of Three, that unites physical breath with subtle body breath in all three dantian. A short 5-minute form that packs a tremendous wallop. Day 2 focuses on bone marrow breathing, rooting power, and simple bone-to-bone tapping and compression. Excellent for grounding, preventing & healing chronic illness due to blood deficiency, osteoporosis, and many others. This bone work is the first step to completing bloodline ancestral issues. For longer list of benefits, see below: (from http://www.healingdao.com/ckf3.html): QIGONG FUNDAMENTALS 3 : INTERNAL CHI BREATHING The 9 Major Benefits of Internal Chi Breathing (#3): 1. Opens up our ability to breathe – not just air, but Life Force. This radically improves our ability to “breathe in our experience of life”. It gives us the strength to keep on living and trust in the flow of Life. 2. Quickly recharges our body-mind in just five short minutes. Internal breathing practices can be done 24/7 anywhere – in bed, sitting in office, during qigong. 3. Simple standing postures detoxify blocked energies and stressed emotions. Key to letting go, even if your monkey mind still wants to hold on. 4. Mixes our spinal fire and chest water energies to activate a completely safe, grounded kundalini feeling of inner warmth in our belly. It does this by capturing the flow of “empty force” (kong jing) or Original Breath (yuan chi) in deep energy channels & centers that are usually unconscious and cannot be touched by acupuncture or ordinary external qigong breathing methods (waidan gong). 5. Makes your body strong. Prevent & heal asthma and other respiratory conditions, plus many other chronic illness conditions made worse by poor breathing. 3500 scientific studies prove Qigong’s power to prevent & heal chronic illness. 6. Easy fast method to build grounding essential for energy healers, meditators, martial artists, dancers, yogis – everyone needs more grounding for comfortable flow of energy and to keep their sanity! 7. Get in touch with your power to breathe internally by relaxing into the pause between breaths. You literally reduce need for physical oxygen yet at the same time increase energy flow! 8. Creates a profound spiritual feeling of inner balance and harmony. How? Tao Mystical Power of Three cosmology is embodied in a simple qigong breathing form. It unites the Heaven, Earth, & Human Sage within us; 3 energy centers of body, 3 Treasures of Essence, Breath, & Spirit (jing, chi, shen), and the 3 phases of chi (yin, yang, yuan). 9. Put a Tiger in your meditation tank! Lay a solid foundation for deeper levels of meditation (neigong) & alchemical inner elixir cultivation (neidan). Even advanced practitioners of other qigong breathing systems will find it stimulating and filled with new insights. QIGONG FUNDAMENTALS 4: INTERNAL BONE BREATHING & ROOTING The 9 Major Benefits of Qigong Fundamentals 4: 1. Opens up our ability to expand the space inside and breathe inside our bones. Bone breathing moves the deep “jing” or sexual essence that shapes our body and health. A new sense of aliveness is born within our core self. When the bones are awake, the rest of you runs more effortlessly. You pump fresh hormones and life into your blood. 2. Five standing postures calm your monkey mind. The anxious thoughts and distractions are re-directed into your bones and the earth. Some ‘empty mind’ standing postures drive the monkey crazy. The dynamic nature of bone breathing keeps the monkey engaged in a positive process and gradually brought to stillness. 3. Allows healing of many chronic illnesses or alleviates their severity, including cancer. The deepest imbalances in our organs and tissues get gradually pushed down into our bone marrow. Releasing the trapped sickness from the bones can product swift (“miraculous”) healing beyond the comprehension of western doctors. 3500 scientific studies prove Qigong’s power to prevent & heal chronic illness. 4. Excellent for women seeking to avoid or heal osteoporosis. Bones waste away because we don’t live inside them. Women lose blood monthly, and this exhausts the jing (= stem cell) supply in the bones that converts itself into blood. Hormonal precursors are produced inside the bones. Learn to manufacture what you need for good health – supplements are not enough. Isometric pressure on bone muscle + chi flow is what works. 5. Increase your flexibility and stretch-ability with tendon and joint qigong. You never grow old if you stay limber. Spine, arm & legs & finger and toe joints all get a beautiful and quick tune-up. 6. Prevent and heal arthritis – the bane of old age (and young age for some). Joints are like spark plugs between the bones – they need cleaning regularly to keep your “spark” in life. My top joint qigong exercises, collected over 20 years search. 7. Learn to clear up and access ancestral issues. This is just beginning level of this work, being able to witness how many emotional and health issues are really blood – ancestral – genetic. But they can be changed by vibrating the bone marrow and “washing” it. Higher level marrow washing method is Lesser and Greater Water & Fire alchemy (Kan & Li). 8. Standing practice and bone breathing is the very best method to build grounding. Grounding is essential for anyone stuck in their head or not quite living “in their body”. It benefits energy healers, meditators, martial artists, dancers, yogis, psychologists, all health care workers, business people. Everyone needs more grounding for comfortable flow of energy and to keep their sanity! 9. Open up deeper level of internal chi breathing, between 1) bones and the dantian, 2) dantian and mingmen (gate of life) where you convert formless chi into your body & mind, and 3) internal counterforce breathing between crown of head (bai hui) and perineum (hui yin). This is deep, blissful experience of core self. ———————– Email me or call Jan in my office to book a place: 828 505 1444. If you need housing info, reply to this email. Plan on Spring Fusion Workshops, Holland Kan & Li
SPRING 2011 in HOLLAND: 1.March 11-14, Advanced Basics and Fusion in Amersfoort SPACE AVAILABLE FOR FOREIGNERS. 2. March 16-18, Review Lesser, Greater and Greatest KanLi in Amsterdam 3. March 20-24, Star Alchemy, in Mennorode SPACE AVAILABLE FOR FOREIGNERS. Note this course is NOT being taught at Heavenly Lake in USA in 2011. contact: Inge maasen imaassen@hetnet.nl
in USA: 4. April 2-3 FUSION 1. Cultvate True Feelings & Transform Negative Emotion 5. April 30 – May 1 FUSION 2 & 3:Open Macro-Cosmic Orbit & 8 Psychic Forces Contact: winn@healingdao.com
in CHINA: 6. May 13 – 27, 2011 CHINA DREAM TRIP Contact: winn@healingdao.com
Summer Retreat Schedule 2011 – TENTATIVE
This is the final schedule, More is coming on location and costs shortly, but prices should be very similar to last year – $495. standard tuition, about the same for week’s room and board. The website is not yet updated. We’ll be near Asheville, North Carolina (within half hour of its airpot). Easy to commute for locals.HealingTaoRetreats.com 888-750-1773 retreats@HealingTaoUSA.com
May 13-27 China Dream Trip 2011 – Michael Winn June 13-15 Mantak Chia workshops in Asheville
Week 1 June 18 – 23 (Sat-Thurs) + Summer Solstice Ceremony June 21
1a. Medical & Spiritual Qigong: Fundamentals 1-4 – Michael Winn 1b. Earth Beauty Qigong – Kazzrie Jaxen 1c. Chi Nei Tsang 1: Deep Organ Massage – Karin Sorvik
Week 2 June 24 – 29 (Fri-Wed) 2a. Healing Love: Taoist Sexual Secrets – Michael Winn & Minke deVos 2b. Fusion of Five Elements 1 & 2 + Iron Shirt 1 – Marie Favorito 2c. Chi Nei Tsang 2: Opening the Wind Gates – Karin Sorvik 2d. Calligraphy: China’s Shamanic Healing Art– Zhongxian Wu
Week 3 June 30 – July 5 (Thurs-Tues)
3a. Chinese Yoga/Tao-Yin, Dream Practice & Star Gazing–Karin Sorvik 3b. Iron Shirt 2 + Bone Marrow Neigong 3 + Fusion 3 – Marie Favorito 3c. Medical Qigong Intensive– Minke de Vos 3d. #1: Bagua Zhang as Moving I Ching Meditation – Frank Allen 3e. Shamanic 8 Trigram Taiji Qigong + Yijing Prediction – Zhongxian Wu 3f. Inner Sexual Alchemy: Lesser Kan & Li– Michael Winn
Week 4 July 6 – 11 (Wed-Mon)
4a. Tao Basics & Sexual Energy Yoga –Minke de Vos 4b. Energy Medicine &EnergyPsychology #1– Judith Poole 4c. Three TreasuresMedical Qigong – Tina Zhang 4d. #2: Classical Cheng Style Ba Gua Zhang – Frank Allen 4e. Planetary & Soul Alchemy: Greatest Kan & Li – Michael Winn
Week 5 July 12 -17 (Tues-Sun)
5a. Magic of Qi Gong: Stretch & Flow into Inner Peace – Lee Holden 5b. Energy Medicine &EnergyPsychology #2– Judith Poole 5c. Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Chi – Tina Zhang 5d. #3 Xing Yi Quan: Applying Five Elements Power – Frank Allen 5e. Sex and the Sacred Girl – Lisa Sarasohn 5f. Congress of Heaven & Earth Alchemy – Michael Winn
Contact Information
love, chi, blessings from the Great Beyond, Michael Winn “Who takes Heaven as his ancestor, Virtue as his home, “The Tao is very close, but everyone looks far away. |
