Spring Forest Qigong

I've learned a lot about about complimentary and alternative healing in the past few months, mostly through my visits to Pathways with my mom. We took a class in Spring Forest Qigong (chee kung) at Pathways, and I took an additional one day class with Master Chunyi Lin at Normandale in Bloomington.

Several things attracted me to this yoga-like tai chi exercise and meditation. I started out wanting to do qigong so that my mom would try it. Since then she has made it abundantly clear that she is not interested! So, now I've begun doing it for myself. I figure if it could help people with life-threatening illness, maybe it could help me with sanity-threatening stress? This also taught me an important life lesson - that my mom's illness belongs to her, and it is her business how she chooses to deal with it. Even if I'm completely sure that I know what is best for her(!), it doesn't matter because it is ultimately not my business what she does about her cancer. What follows from that, of course, is that my stress belongs to me and it is up to me to figure how to make it manageable.

Second, qigong is beautiful to watch, very graceful and flowing. When I practice it, especially the "breathing of the universe" exercise, I feel like I am graceful, beautiful and flowing. To be able to say this 6 months post-partum is a little miracle in itself! I also like the challenge of remembering the moves of the more complicated exercises, and trying to do them as beautifully as the Master does.

Also, I met two women whose cancer went into "spontaneous remission" after they began doing the exercise on a daily basis. These are just regular Minnesota ladies who hit the wall with conventional medicine, were told that they did not have long in this world, and felt desperate enough to try something kind of wacky. Both women have baffled their doctors by remaining cancer free for the past 3 years.

Doing qigong means getting up very early, or staying up very late because these are the only times when I can be quiet and alone. I love doing qigong, and I truly believe that it has helped me keep myself balanced emotionally and physically over the past few weeks of intensity and confusion.

I also recently discovered the Bill Moyers video set called "Healing and the Mind", which is available through the Hennepin County Library. Anyone interested should check out the episode called "The Mystery of Chi".