Class 12: Winter Solstice Qigong in Everyday Life: Cross cultural Practices for Rebirthing your Life’s Energy

Description

The Winter Solstice is a time for rebirth and renewal, and Qigong practices all year long provide a pathway for renewal of energy and finding the light when you’re feeling in darkness. In this class we explore the significance of the Winter Solstice in various traditions and how Qigong adds to, and can be integrated with, the practices of those traditions— such as the Greek Mystery tradition, the Jewish mystical tradition, and the Celtic tradition. You’ll learn how the practices of these traditions can be applied to rebirthing the light in your life. For example, in the Celtic Yule Log celebration the community writes down personal issues and burns them in community log; in the Lung Qigong practice the student shoots an imaginary arrow with a problematic life issue written on it and imagines shooting the arrow out into space where it burns up. Practicing embodying imagination.

Some specifics of what you’ll learn:

• Practices for activating the heart’s compassion, joy, and light when you’re feeling low energy or stagnant.

• How to transform your inner critic into a helpful coach using such movements as the Tiger. Discover the wider psycho-spiritual purpose of common movements such as “Taming the Tiger.”

• The transcending/transmuting dialectic. Finding the light of your transcendent self and developing the ability to transmute psychological issues are both parts of transformative practices of rebirth.

As always, after a brief introductory lecture, the practices of Bodymind Healing Qigong* will be used to embody the topic of the day.