I woke up this morning thinking I was starting to get a cold. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I had that foggy barely conscious feeling of a sore throat, and my brain was just…well moosh.
I got up two hours later than I normally do with an awareness of soreness all over my body and a lingering of sweat from last night’s sleep still on my skin. Something is definitely afoot.
A thought occurred to me as I zombied around the house trying to figure out what was up. I realized that I had spent an unusual amount of energy the other day being fierce and full. An amazing amount of focus and drive was pushing through each move… And I had done nothing to recoup that energy since then.
My head drifted to our Sunday morning primordial(Hunyuan) qigong exercises. This practice is mostly focused on energy gathering, and cleansing the energy body… So I thought… Ok, let’s give this a shot and see if this woo woo stuff kicks in.
So after I enjoyed a smoothie with banana, spinach, blueberries, almond milk….. Aaaaaannnddd that last mint chocolate ghiradelli square… You know… For good measure. (Absolutely Heavenly BTW….highly recommend) I decided to mix up my morning routine a bit.
I started with some meditation. I chose a different pose today than the one I normally do. I chose a t-pose with my palms pointing towards the ceiling. In my head I imagined energy being absorbed through my arms like a radar dish and sinking in to my Dantian. I stayed like this for about 10 minutes. It was surprising how easy it was to hold the position. I could feel my arms relax in to it and was vaguely aware of a sensation of energy ACTUALLY flowing through me. Imagined or not… It felt really good and was making me feel considerably more charged up.
After that, I did 20 minutes of some of the energy gathering Hunyuan sequences. I don’t know the names of them yet… But I kept my intention light and my awareness gently on gathering external energy and bringing it to my center.
After that I was charged up. Not fully but considerably more than I was! I felt like doing the form again! So …. I did! Man it felt really good, this time I was just trying to be “full” and focused on each movement instead of fierce. It was different than a couple days ago, instead of feeling like energy was being pushed out…it was more like I was just filled up like a balloon… But I still started to break a sweat. I was less acutely focused, but there was a feeling of my body being full. I only did it once this morning I did want to risk losing energy.
This experience made me kind of start to understand how all these different practices and energy cultivation can play off each other. I am going to start to think about and pay attention to my energy levels and start utilizing some of these new tools to redirect… And even invigorate my energy levels… I will need to talk with my teacher more about how to mix these up properly so that I can try to achieve some balance.
Very exciting stuff over all though. I love discovering these new applications and awareness of my body….
Ok, woo woo land… I think there may be something to you worth exploring more.
Today’s Today’s practice
took it pretty easy today. Need to recoup my energy.
10 min meditation
20 min Hunyuan Qigong
1 24 form easy intent
The Restless Raven 