cheya

What a GREAT post! Thank you Spotless! I remember the first time I noticed my mind developing a strategy of techniques to work on the person, and MY HANDS piped up (or so it seemed to me): "We KNOW what we're doing here! Would you puh-leeze butt out!" Still makes me laugh. And it still happens. Spotless, I wish you could write a book on this stuff. It could be short, but I bet it would be a best seller in the healing community. We bodyworkers/healers need to keep hearing and working this perspective again and again until we no longer need reminding to shift perspectives, it's just part of us. You speak it better than anyone I've read.

Hi Phoenixrising, I've pondered this very question for years! Don't have an answer, but do notice that my chi energy improves the more days I don't do any bodywork, and that I'm really "tanked" when I get back to it. But it does seem that just doing it, intent or not, does tend to drain the batteries. Eager to hear what others have to say about this!

It was last published in 1982, so finding the author could be a challenge. Don't know if there is a free use clause after 34 years. Anybody know about that stuff? Best to try contacting the publisher. Good luck!

Hi there, That old link wasn't working, but I fished around in the site and found the doc. It gives you the author's name, and maybe you can find him with that. http://www.duversity.org/PDF/Elixir.pdf Good luck!

In neuromuscular therapy training, we learned to do gentle hair traction to loosen the cranial fascia. Some of the guys found that their thinning areas started to fill in when they did this, and their hair improved, although that was not the point of the work. Releasing tight fascia probably improved the blood supply dramatically, nourishing the hair. Here's how. Where your hair is long enough to get a grip, run your fingers into your hair and gently close your fist to create the traction (pulling). Just hold the grip at a comfortable tension until the fascia relaxes, then tighten the grip some more. When that gets comfortable, tighten again. You can lift the hair away from the head or pull it in different directions. Then you can start to rotate your hand clockwise or CCW, torquing the fascia, a whole different sensation. When you do finally release the grip, pay close attention to feel the blood rush back in to the area. Way cool. Do this all over your scalp (waiting at stoplights is my favorite time…) especially around the hairline and in the areas you find tighter, like the temples and behind the ears. Done properly, this feels really good. Where you don't have enough hair to grip, you can loosen the fascia by pressing your thumbs or two fingers into your head and moving them slowly in opposite directions right past each other. So your thumbs are parallel, moving slowly past each other in opposite directions. That twists the fascia as the thumbs pass. Then switch so each thumb is presses in the opposite direction, twisting the fascia in the other way. Curious how it goes if you try it!

Lookin' around for a good piece on what we might expect from the Year of the Fire Monkey. Here's my pick: http://www.mysticmamma.com/2016-year-of-the-fire-monkey-begins-february-8th-2016/ Excerpts: “Fire is erratic and difficult to control. It can flicker precariously, burst into a dangerous conflagration, or settle into a nice steady hearth fire depending on how it’s managed." and Monkey? “…Key words are: erratic, irrepressible, ingenious, clever, unpredictable, resourceful, adventurous, selfish, magical, quixotic, amoral. In other words, keep your wits about you because anything, absolutely anything, can happen." Put those two together, and this looks like this is gonna be a zinger of a year!

Uh… this isn't necessarily a path-associated phenomenon…. This electric flashing light experience is familiar to people who get migraines (and many who don't) and is called an aura. It often precedes a migraine. I've been getting these occasionally for decades (sans migraine), starting long before I ever heard of chi or energy paths. But I am curious. TT, could you summarize what Charles Luk has to say about the experience?

Such a wonderful blessing for all of us. Thank you AGAIN, ShaktiMama!

Back when I used to try to run ("push" probably better describes it) energy into clients in bodywork sessions, I would sometimes get these humongous grotesque yawns! Fortunately their eyes were always closed, so I could just laugh and wonder at it. Now energy runs as it will, and I no longer push it, so seldom get into that yawning. Also just regular chi kung practice used to make me yawn (just regular-sized yawns there), but doesn't anymore. As I think back on it , it feels like trying to put too much energy through too small a channel/pipe, and yawning was the pressure release valve. Interesting to think about…

Not a practitioner of any of these arts, but I love this quote, first run across in Scott Meredith's blogs: "Therefore when learning how to practice the boxing, it starts from emptiness and returns to emptiness. When you reach this point, the notions of Xingyi, Bagua, or Taiji all disappear into nothing but waves and ripples, a vagueness of oneness in which there can no longer be a “Taiji” or a “Xingyi” or a “Bagua”. Therefore the practice of the boxing arts does not lie in the postures, only in the spirit and energy being fully rounded and without gaps." from taiji classics, Sun Fuquan (Lutang): The Voices of Sun Lutang’s Teachers (Che Yizhai), 1924 (transl. Paul Brennan, 2013) (Lifted from http://www.taiji-zlatipetelin.si/en/category/library/quotes/ )

You might check into rolfing… at least have her alignment evaluated... Good luck to you in finding a solution for you both!

Taking calcium supps ended cramps for me. If she has strong chocolate craving/addiction, I would also recommend magnesium and B6. She doesn't need to give up the chocolate, but may find she loses interest in it when she gets enough magnesium on board. Good luck!

Welcome Rachel!

Can't seem to get the youtube URL to copy and paste over here, but go see James French's "Animal Communication with Lions in South Africa" on you tube, and then watch some of his vids on working with horses and dogs. Fascinating and totally inspiring!

The animals James works with have been terribly abused. They are not just any wild animals that he chooses to pacify. Maybe watching him work with the abused horses would give you a better idea of what he is doing. He sits with the animals in what he calls "mindful regard," joining them, drawing them into a trusting space, totally beautiful, from my perspective. They become totally relaxed, both funny and awesome to watch. To me this is amazing respect for the animals and a beginning to heal the trials they have been through. Their responses to the work are beyond amazing. If you want to understand more what he is doing, look for "I Have a Dream- -- the interview" on youtube.

What does TCM/CCM say about donating blood? Anybody here donate and want to comment on their experience?

Oneironaut, Curious what appeals to you in the soda. I have a minor addiction to Cokes... preferably those 8 oz glass bottles on ice. :-) It's partly caffeine and sugar, but I honestly think it's the phosphoric acid that's the kicker for me. Years ago I went to a metabolic balance doc, and he gave me phosphoric acid drops to take daily! I never keep Coke in the house, only have it at work, and usually only once or twice a week... so it is an addiction, but under some control. If there's only pepsi available, I'll drink it if there are lemon slices available, otherwise forget it.. So if the caffeine/sugar seems to be driving the addiction, maybe address your adrenals, stress, your sleep, and sugar/carbs in the rest of your diet, as recommended above, in order to support getting off it. Tonic herbs might help.... If it's the acid, or the carbonation, it may actually be a metabolic issue. When I needed that phosphoric acid, I was unconsciously breathing REALLY slow, apparently conserving carbon dioxide to maintain effective pH balance.

How developing peripheral vision affects consciousness. This is HUGE! Here is one of the most fascinating reads I've recently come across. (Thank you, bojole!) You could skip the eye physiology and just scroll down to where he starts talking about the Japanese master Musashi and how his writing inspired the "nightwalking" practice they developed. From there on it gets REALLY interesting! Shades of Castaneda! http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/nwalk.html

Hi SriChi, I'll have to have another look at Anatomy Trains to try to answer your question, but in the meantime, can I suggest you start a new thread, specifically focused on Dan Harden, to flesh out his approach, and where folks will come specifically for that topic, and not hide it back here in the Juice thread. :-) Since I am a bodyworker, hard to say what a non-bodyworker would find most helpful here...

Years ago, listening to a friend dithering over some decision or other, I blurted out "Just Feed Delight!" She liked that so much, she made a clay wall plaque with "Feed Delight!" inscribed in front of a lovely rising sun. Much later, when I saw Nelson Zink's book title,"The Structure of Delight", I was intrigued. This is a totally lovely book of teaching stories about mind, consciousness, attention, and how to cultivate delight. I don't mean the light shallow stuff, I mean those deep currents of delight that can guide and transform your life. It's sort of Castaneda-esque, but definitely not an imitation. Check out this article by Zink to see if he's heading somewhere that appeals to you. http://thedaobums.com/topic/38425-night-walking-peripheral-vision-and-consciousness/

Riding the Phoenix to Penglai Poetry by Taoist Adept Sun Bu-Er by Jill Gonet Inspirational Instructions on Internal Cultivation from Sun Bu-Er Here's an intriguing excerpt: http://yang-sheng.com/?p=10773 and a review: http://yang-sheng.com/?p=11076 Has anybody read the book? Comments?

In this book Meech mostly describes his experience with the energy as quite pleasant. But at one point in his training, the circulation of the chi becomes painful, especially at the sites of old injuries. Dr. Chow explains that the energy is working through blocks and systemic damage. When asked how long that might continue, Dr. Chow replies that it depends on how blocked Peter is, depends on his body. The painful circulation goes on for some time, until one day, it just stops, and the energy then spreads "ravenously" to every cell in his body. Peter has achieved the macrocosmic orbit. Has anybody else had the experience that circulating the chi, which has otherwise been wonderfully pleasant, suddenly becomes consistently painful?

In his books, Teeguarden reports he had debilitating chronic fatigue as an undergraduate, had lost 50 lbs, and wasn't able to find any medical help from doctors. This must have been in the late 60's. A friend gave him a bottle of the herbal tonic Shou Wu Chih and Teeguarden immediately realized it was helping him, started consuming large quantities of it, really begin to recover, and then devoted his life to the study of tonic herbs. Has anybody had experience with Shou wu chih using it long term? It's widely available in asian stores and is pretty inexpensive.

It's taking me awhile to understand and appreciate the tonic herbalism approach, as it is different from western herbal approaches I'm familiar with. I found this Bodhi Tree interview with Ron Teeguarden really helpful: http://www.bodhitree.com/lectures/teeguarden.html In addition to finishing up the herbs I got from Rehmannia, I'm now reading and slowly digesting Teeguarden's two books on Taoist herbs, and contemplating my next course of jing/chi/shen supporting herbs. The progression in my energy practice this last month has been phenomenal. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but I'm sticking with the program! Anybody else using this approach, noticing results?

One workshop participant who has had long-term health challenges including a recurring flu-ish sort of illness that comes and goes, asked Rehmannia about using the taoist tonic herbs in his situation, because his acupuncturists don't want him to use the tonic herbs until he is well. But Rehmannia said that it was fine to use these herbs at any time. At least that's what he seemed to say. Now, delving into Teeguarden's book on Chinese Tonic Herbs, I read that we are not to use the tonic herbs until generally well. Teeguarden was Rehmannia's teacher, so now I am confused. Any experienced herbalists want to weigh in on this?