Spring 2021 Living Tao Essential Tai Ji Series — Session Two
(June 2021)
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This session focuses on the ongoing studies of the Living Tao Core Essential curriculum to include Essential Tai Ji, Living Tao Philosophy, Form and Structures:
Tai Ji Ritual, 5 Moving Forces, and Tai Ji Circles to enlighten your practice with new insights
NUTURANCE—RECEPTIVITY
8 directions in the Tai Ji Ritual & Wu Xing*
Jīng 精 ” essence; ” Qì 氣 “vitality, energy, breath”; Shén 神 “spirit**
Chén Fú Tí Piāo Fēi Xiáng*
(Sink, Rebound, lift, float, fly, soar)
Kai Xin
Open Heart / Mind
NUTURANCE OF POETRY
Natural Music
The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers, …
(Winter has given them gold for silver
To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks)*
… From different throats intone one language.
So I believe if we were strong enough to listen without
Divisions of desire and terror
To the storm of the sick nations, the rage of the hunger-smitten cities,
Those voices also would be found
Clean as a child’s; or like some girl’s breathing who dances alone
By the ocean-shore, dreaming of love
.
~ Robinson Jeffers
*removed from reading
(photo: Bob Walter, Joseph Campbell Foundation)
Ithaca
When you embark upon your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the route is circuitous,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon—do not fear these figures:
You will never meet creatures such as these along your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if your body and spirit
are suffused with exalted emotions.
You will never encounter the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclops, the fierce Poseidon—
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your psyche does not set them up before you.
Pray that your journey is long,
that the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy,
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
you will stop at Phoenician markets and purchase
fine merchandise—mother-of-pearl and coral,
amber and ebony—and sensual perfumes of every kind,
as many sensual perfumes as you can find;
and you will visit many Egyptian cities,
lingering to learn from scholars.
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry your voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years,
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give to you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must have already understood what Ithacas mean.
~ Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
also known as Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis;
from Little Giddings
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~T.S. Eliot
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
~ William Butler Yeats
from Das Studenbuch [Book of Hours]
Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dinge ziehn.
Ich werde den letzten vielleicht nicht vollbringen, aber versuchen will ich ihn.
Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm oder ein großer Gesang.
I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke (1899-1903, published 1905)
[Translation by Robert Bly]The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~ Robert Frost
POETIC MEANING – SHĪ YÌ
HONORING WOMEN PAST…
…AND PRESENT
MUSIC REFERENCES
Air On A G String
Jacques Loussier: Plays Bach
Ithaca
Music by Alexandros Karozas:
“The Kavafis Project”—George Dalaras with the Wiener Kammer Orchester at Wiener Konzerhau
Gracias a la Vida
Joan Baez & Mercedes Sosa
Álbum: Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring Ano: 1988.
*SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES
The following material can be found in previous session study materials which have been posted on the Living Tao website on the “News from Chungliang” page.
September 2020 Study Materials:
- Wu Xing (Five Moving Forces)
- Jing/Qi/Shen (Essence/Breath/Spirit)
- Tai Ji Ritual Guide
- Tai Ji Chakras (Zhong/Yong/An/Ding/Ne/Guan/Yin)
March 2021 Study Materials
- Chén Fú Tí Piāo Fēi Xiáng