Sunday 1 July 2012

Poetry & Qi Gong accompanied by Bach

Ingredients:
Qigong demonstration by Mingtong accompanied by four movements of Bach's Flute Sonatas in E minor and E flat major playing in the background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wxdLG7CVmI


Directions:


Ann Taylor (1782-1866) — The Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.


~*~

Mary Oliver One


The mosquito is so small
it takes almost nothing to ruin it.
Each leaf, the same.
And the black ant, hurrying.
So many lives, so many fortunes!
Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.
Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour
before the slug creeps to the feast,
before the pine needles hustle down
under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

How many, how many, how many
make up a world!
And then I think of that old idea: the singular
and the eternal.
One cup, in which everything is swirled
back to the color of the sea and sky.
Imagine it!

A shining cup, surely!
In the moment in which there is no wind
over your shoulder,
you stare down into it,
and there you are,
your own darling face, your own eyes.
And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,
touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,
and you know what else!
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination.


~*~

Hadewijch (13th century) — All Things

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast.

In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated.

I have
touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide.

Everything else
is too narrow.

You know this well,
you who are also there.


~*~

Rabia al-Adawiyya (717-801)

I carry a torch in one hand
And a bucket of water in the other:
With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven
And put out the flames of Hell
So that voyagers to God can rip the veils
And see the real goal.


10 comments:

  1. I have a friend who's highly into Qi Gong, and I was funnily enough reading a book he lent me on it, a few minutes ago. A gentle, noble & healing art.

    I love the music & thoughtful verses, too.

    Sorry to look in on this late.

    Metta, my friend.

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  2. I only posted this today, but somehow didn't do it properly, so it didn't go into people's message boxes immediately and got hidden under more recent posts... never mind, I'm glad you enjoyed it! It's a practice I would very much like to develop, not necessarily in this particular form, but generally. The sense I get from this video is that he's really sensing how the energy feels like in different positions, different heights of the arms, to get to know it better. And it is very simple. :)

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  3. I'm hoping to get into it in my old age, if I live long enough. Right now I need something a bit more vigorous, to shed some kilos I've put on, over the years. I'm starting with walking. The weather's perfect for it, and I'm not as shy as I used to be (and have a few more friends, as an excuse to get out more).

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  4. Very nice ..... did you make the video ?

    and

    Is that Yoda on the table in front of the pictures ?

    Qi Gong is something else I know nothing about
    other than it looks like a very relaxing form of exercising meditation.

    ((♥))

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  5. That's great Arjuna. The problem with really vigorous exercise is the risk of injury, so it's good to have something like this, and like walking, or even simple yoga or stretching as something to fall back on and try to do regularly, not instead of but as well as anything more strenuous. And this can be serious stuff. Remember the Dante video I posted? This is both simple and also masterfully difficult.


    Then there's this which is just awesome... but way too complicated for me!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsQQXCopR1w

    Lin, I didn't take the video myself, but I put it together if you understand what I mean. Well observed by the way! Yoda's his mascot, lol.

    I know next to nothing about it either! But it's supposed to be linked to the I Ching, coincidentally... lol. Check out the video I embedded above. It is called "8 piece brocade" because there are essentially only 8 movements so much simpler than most forms of tai chi, and of course you don't have to do the 8 movements in the way demonstrated because this is too difficult for most people, but something simpler.

    It's basically a complicated form of standing meditation. :^)

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  6. Another Beauty. Thank you, Okei.

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  7. It's basically a complicated form of standing meditation. :^)

    cool ........ I had no idea.

    Thanks
    for all the info. ((Okie))

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  8. Fascinating fact..."Did you know Rumi, Francis of Assisi, Hadewijch, Dogen, and ibn Arabi were all contemporaries?" from Poetry Chaikhana

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