Lozen

Sorry, I guess I should qualify that statement since I was the one who brought up karma in the first place. The theory of karma as I understand it is that you create your own situations based on actions you have taken in the past, and what I see over and over again is slightly different--it seems that you create your own situations based on HOW YOU VIEW THE WORLD, and HOW YOU VIEW YOURSELF, and that's what I'm really interested in recreating... I think the choice is very much in the present, in this realm, on this planet and in this body... A negative memory may have the ability to sort of color the way someone sees the world and themselves, but I don't think this has anything to do with something they did in a past life. Also, i think the idea of moving through this world in a positive way, wanting to make a genuine positive impact on one's self and one's surroundings, should be done out of a sense of cosmic love, overflowing, not in order to get spiritual pancakes in some future moment. I am interested in the e-book... But I wonder...you said you have to address the memory, but isn't that something that happens through chi kung? It seems to for me... I have moments when I'm doing different excercises where it just washes over me...different emotions, and also I am HOPING that cleaning out the stagnation will help one in the ability to delve deeper and actually address those root issues? Also I particularly object to the idea that karma is "these memories on our soul that cause our current conditions or actions..." WE cause our current conditions or actions...in the moment... in THIS body. My $.02, anyway.

Hmmm, maybe I understood *him* wrong, because I've been trying to bike with my knee behind my toes on full extension, and I can't for the life of me figure out how. I asked him how and he said, "very carefully." I can play with where I put my foot on the pedal etc. but it seems I always revered to knee right above (not past) the toe... Okay, one more question to ask him.

I don't believe in karma.

Wait, he said my knees SHOULDN'T be over my toes at any time...

My qi gong teacher always warned against weightlifting, one time I got asked why can't you do both? he said they worked at cross purposes, that you can either work to strengthen the tendons and ligaments and relax your muscles, or work to tense your muscles. Also he's really anti-running or jogging, says it messes up your heart meridian... I have bugged him about this after class a coupla times, told him that we are not meant to be weak and frail and unable to lift things or jump... and he said you won't get any of that from weight training, it'll teach you how to use your muscles in a way you will never have to... So I asked him how the hell I'm supposed to get rid of excess moisture (heh, aka fat) and he said through breathing properly...right... Eventually he said it's okay to get cardio as long as you're getting it from swimming, hiking or biking (oh, but you have to bike without getting your knees out over your toe, which I *still* can't figure out how to do, and not for lack of trying). So it's good to know his isn't the only opinion out there... Still trying to figure out what I feel comfortable with myself. I try to get SOME form of excercise every day for at least 15 minutes in addition to the qi gong and stretching and all that... usu. hop on my beloved bicycle or go for a walk.

To answer the questions... I practice some basic qi gong warmups every morning (except for when I don't) and chen-style taiji along with some stretching and Japanese wall yoga and standing med (again except when I don't). My teacher (well, one of my teachers) studied with Myung Chill Kim in Boston, you know the guy who wrote "Oriental Medicine and Cancer." Sometimes I throw in some stuff from the Ken Cohen books, too. Also I do qi gong bathing every day, and I soak my hands and feet in warm water every day, and I write in my journal every day and I meditate at night. Been doing that every day for... oh, maybe a year? In addition I try to eat with the seasons and religiously study books like Staying Healthy With the Seasons and Staying Healthy With Nutrition (by Elson Haas, www.elsonhaas.com I think it is) and Healing With Whole Foods. Been doing that since the fall. Also in the fall, I learned a bunch of acupressure points that I use regularly... I use a lot of Western herbs... etc. The issues that come up for me repeatedly, to be as vague as possible are liver, kidney and heart issues. But I guess part of it is that I got acupuncture for about a year and when I stopped going they all came back... And I feel them more intensely when I'm doing a lot a lot of qi gong it seems. So I wonder, if I am doing more qi gong and have more qi, wouldn't my imbalances manifest more strongly? Also I'm pretty unclear about the whole way I was taught this in my TCM class that I took--when you ask if your environment creates your imbalances or vice versa, they say both, so am I trying to recreate my environment or my response to the environment? I will probably be confused about this forever. Also I'm wondering if maybe it's a bad idea to jump around from style to style as much as I do... Like for example I almost bought the Winn fundamentals DVD+tapes (but i forgot to budget for postage, doh!!) but then I thought, how is that going to address things that what I'm doing isn't addressing? Also I noticed the same sort of energy and auras around people I know who do ninjutsu, so I thought that might be a better choice than qi gong (or maybe in addition) b/c they meet more often, but I feel like there's this whole energy field of mine which I can't even really grasp or understand and maybe it's a bad idea to keep tweaking it in different ways instead of just going deeper...

p.s. mugwort tea is good for parasites? i have mugwort at home, i find it a bit bitter taste for tea and often just smoke it instead. do you sweeten it with honey? 2790[/snapback] No, I don't sweeten it... bitter is good for liver. I suppose you could, though. You can also use the tincture... What species artemisia do you have? Again, though, you really only need to do this once a year.

I just haven't had bad experiences with grains... I feel pretty good after I eat them... They really satisfy my hunger and I like the taste... I feel more energy after I eat them, sleep better and feel calmer and clearer... For parasite infestations I'll do a parasite prevention cleanse a couple times a year... usually i just eat a handful of raw brown rice for breakfast, eat a couple cloves of garlic and some lightly roasted pumpkin seeds between meals, and then after dinner I'll have a cup of mugwort tea. That kills them, I do it for ten days, stop for a week and then ten more days... Cravings for refined food...hmmmm, I'm on day 14 of a purification diet right now, which basically I am just avoiding sugar, caffeine, refined or processed food (esp. fatty or sugared), drugs (incl. tylenol, etc.), alcohol (incl. tinctures), meat, etc. and I did crave food a lot esp. for the first few days, but now I'm just not craving it at all anymore. In fact they had this bake sale at a workshop I went to yesterday, and the chocolate (which I'm addicted to, btw) just smelled gross and gave me a headache. Anyways, I am okay with tweaking my diet and trying to figure out what I need to eat or not eat, but I'd rather not obsess on purging my body of impurities, or parasites, or dirty water, or whatnot. If there's any guilt or shame involved with a diet, that's when I stop. Our cells replace themselves--every single one of them--and of course the stories of the monks who could inhale poison in caves and still live...it's all just qi, right?

My rule for myself is that I can only buy and cook whole grains when I'm grocery shopping, etc. but if there's other grains around, I take what I can get, and I eat whatever I want between meals... But the more I eat whole grains, the less I crave the junk food. Of course I eat lots of oatmeal and brown rice, but I'm absolutely in love with quinoa... especially quinoa salad, mmm! Amaranth, buckwheat and millet I can do without... I like cooking with barley and to bake with cornmeal. If anybody's trying to find grains appropriate to their condition(s), here's some notes I took, probably from Healing With Whole Foods, or some workshop or other...of course to judge against your own experience, take these with some grains of salt (haha pun intended). Grains for excess: amaranth, rye, whole barley and wild rice Grains for deficiency: rice, wheat, barley (pan roasted before cooking), spelt, well-cooked oats Cooling grains: millet, wheat, amaranth, wild rice, blue corn, whole barley Warming grains: oats, spelt, sweet rice, quinoa, basmati rice Neutral grains: rice, rye, corn and buckwheat Drying grains: amaranth, buckwheat, unrefined barley, corn, rye, wild rice, basmati rice (in small amounts), dry roasted oats Moistening grains: wheat, rice, sweet rice, quinoa, millet, barley (pan roasted before cooking), spelt and well-cooked oats Grains that calm wind: quinoa, cooked oats and wheat (avoid buckwheat) Grains that quell summer heat: roasted barley tea or drinks, long-grain brown rice

I have a lot of tinctures and teas all over my house, but I don't take all of them all the time... Lessee... I like to keep nervines around, just harvested some milky oats today for that, but I also love pedicularis, verbena, California poppy, lemon balm, chamomile...whatever is around. I keep some pulsatilla around in case I have a nervous breakdown (or to give to other suicidal or manic people). I take red root (ceanothus) sometimes because I have some lymph issues...though I'll use ocotillo if I don't have enough root--it's a bitch to harvest... I have spirulina and Cell food (oxygen and some trace minerals) around but don't use them unless I feel called to... I usually drink some kind of herbal tea for calcium and minerals and all that (nettles, raspberry leaf, horsetail, red clover, you name it) and in the spring I try to do a lot of burdock, nettles, dandelion root, cleavers, etc...or my creosote/milk thistle tincture. When I get sick I usu. do osha (for throat stuff), usnea (to kill the infection) and olive leaf... I keep ginger around because I get cold real easy (blood yin deficient). Also my boyfriend made me a blood tonic (yellow dock in blackstrap molasses syrup) and some panther piss (don't remember what the hell he put in there). Oh, and I have some fire cider which will kill off any cold or flu (it's got cayenne pepper, parsley, garlic, onion, ginger and I forget what else which was steeped in apple cider vinegar for a while) but also always excacerbates my excess fire *sigh*.... and then the garlic/thyme honey... And then there's the cramp bark and angelica for my occasional liver blood stagnation liver chi stagnation, though I want to experiment with some mugwort infused oil I am making next time... Well, you wouldn't be able to tell from this huge list, but I actually try to do food first before I go to herbs... Green leafy bitters and root vegetables for the liver, calming foods like oatmeal or miso or whatnot as nervines, seaweed etc. for minerals, etc. etc.

Most vitamin supplements just give you really expensive urine.