Al Huang (Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain - a book about Tai Ji) is also the man who inspired Dancing Wu Li Masters - a book about quantum physics. Some great stuff about mind body. He was a young man when he was first at Esalen and he still teaches increasingly simply. There is a 2020 half hour Zoom conversation with Chuangling Al Huang talking with a yoga teacher from the Esalen institute - he talks all the time about the basic, basic tai ji forms, making them accessible to everyone. 
​youtu.be/MOkBhv__lnI?si=B0ZDvUldkMY4TEdm

‘In this culture, we rely so much on the mind that we become separated from other aspects of our living., An exercise, a discipline like tai ji immediately points out where you lack, where you go astray. Why do you find something that is so easy to understand intellectually so difficult to do? This division between thinking and doing is so clear; it takes so long to really find that yin/yang balance. 

"The yin/yang symbol is the interlocking, melting together of the flow of movement within a circle. The similar - and at the same time so obviously contrasting - energies are moving together. Within the black area there is a white dot and within the white fish shape, there is a black dot. The whole idea of a circle divided in this way is to show that within a unity there is duality and polarity and contrast. The only way to find real balance without losing the centring feeling of the circle is to think of the contrasting energies moving together, and in union, in harmony, interlocking. In a sense this is really like a white fish and a black fish mating. It’s a union and flowing interaction, It’s a kind of consummation between two forces, male and female, mind and body, good and bad. It’s a very important way of living. 

"… So don’t get stuck in a corner, because a circle has no corners. If you think in this way, you open up more and you don’t feel like you have to catch up with anything.’

If you click on the image below, you should be able to see an interesting animated graphic of yin yang rolling in three dimensions. 

Clare and I walked in some nearby woods. It's November. There are fungi - once you see one, you start to see them everywhere. Magic!

shapeshifting prompt from ‘writing with plants’, Feb 2023




​What a beautiful day. Sun shines on the twigs of the apple trees - our humble servants. In neat rows, they are still sleeping, but starting to waken, at our command and with the encouragement of the warmth we invite. 

My ancestors have been at home in this place for centuries. We belong here and rule kindly over this land, our territory. The trees connect us with the earth beneath. We do not need to soil our purity with such muddy matters. 

The sky above provides nourishment, water and light. 

We do not need to fly or travel like the winged creatures whose only purpose is to place seeds, enable the next generation to begin their lives in other places, to expand our reach. 

And the flying ones can sing the high notes, the vibrations that glorify our name, celebrate our existence.

The rooted ones vibrate more slowly in the earth but also celebrate our power and our glory, supporting us and nurturing future generations. 

Through our singular power, we have created complex beings who can move on earth between the trees. By our magical influence we have enabled them to develop tools they call ladders and loppers. At certain times of year, when darkness is long and cold, only they can, with our generous blessing, trim our proudest, most excellent leaves and berries to adorn their strange boxes then procreate by touching heads to ensure our eternal life, for the total benefit of all beings. 

Our mystery remains unsolved. Words such as medicine and poison will remain meaningless and unresolved until all beings merge with our consciousness. Only then will they - the flying ones, the rooted ones and the walking, talking ones realise their full, green-leaved white-berried potential. 

​
story of the story
Some months ago, a group of neighbours and I were discussing the idea, mooted on Radio 4, that it's possible to write a life story in 400 words (maybe more, maybe less - I'm not good with numbers). We agreed that we would each give it a try and come back to share. It's now October and we are meeting this afternoon to share our stories. I first wrote this in May and was surprised how much clearer - though not much shorter - I was able to make it after laying it aside for some time. 

the story - threads
My first breath was easy. Maybe my first decision was that LIFE should be easy. 

Against the trend in the late 40’s and against GP advice, my mum decided to practice natural childbirth: good breathing, relaxed pelvic floor, positive expectations. A good beginning, for me. 
I’ve learned, over the years, that there can be downsides to going with the flow, taking the path of least resistance, choosing NOT to make life a struggle. I’ve often been out of step with a culture that values success, measurable achievement and high performance. I can appear - and be - lazy - where activity, striving and hard evidence are what is expected. There have been knocks and tears along the way. 
Growing up, I loved the freedom of primary school, finding out, writing, reading - getting smart. But later, studying for exams felt pointless - writing what people already know rather than finding out new stuff. Somehow, I finished with A-levels good enough to get to university, but had already decided that teacher training would be better, against the advice of teachers. In the late 60s, it should have been easy to become the guitar-toting teacher who allowed children to follow their own curiosity, discover life for themselves and learn from it. I’d read the theories, lapped them up. 
But
My first placement was in a small village school. Children had to sit at desks in neat rows, guess the ‘right’ answer in the teacher’s head, and recite times tables by rote. None of this was an easy fit for me, or the new-fangled theories.  ‘Maybe you’re ahead of your time’, said my tutor, when I told him it wasn’t as easy to fit in as I’d expected. His advice? ‘Get married, have children of your own and come back with some authority.’ Maybe that needs a trigger warning, these days, but it was in keeping with the times. 
I just said to myself, ‘Perfect. I can appear to be compliant and have it easy.’  Found a man and got married within a year. It did surprise me that having babies wasn’t as easy for me as it had been for Mum. I had conveniently forgotten the commitment she made to exercise and practice. But we got by, harmoniously and relatively easily, for nearly 20 years. As the boys got older, I started a business that easily fitted around school hours and trained as a vegetarian cookery teacher in adult education. A PGDip needed more teaching hours and my students were hungry for more, so I invented courses in complementary health and, from there, started training in breathwork therapy. By now, I was wanting more - more writing, reading and thinking - more adventure. I applied and was offered a place at a University where I could use my experience and my curiosity to get a degree. It wasn’t all THAT easy, and it turned out to be the end of my marriage and the beginning of a busy life as a single parent of two teenagers. But I did get some qualifications, including professional breathworker, and enough authority to show lecturers, administrators and even medical consultants that learning and change can be easier than we think. Using the breath to stay calm, rather than struggle or fight, wasn’t ever part of the curriculum, but it definitely supported me.
Reflecting on my career since graduation, I can see that it wasn’t just EASIER to change jobs every few years, treating the promotions ladder as nothing more than another game in the playground of education. It was, for me, more sensible to move on when there was no more room for change or learning. It was a positive choice, risky and against the grain, to explore new ways of living, new people and new challenges. Not striving to win or succeed by other people’s standards has brought me to this place and, looking back, it was - mostly - easy.
Now, at 73, I’m expecting an easy death, still practising acceptance and breathing easy when change feels tough. I know there may not always be choices, but I can always choose to breathe through whatever life throws at me. 
​

image
The collage, above, was an experiment, prompted by a piece in an anthology of Warm Data (unpsychology Issue 8, summer 2022). It was about about script and improvisation, Aaron Seitz and Angelina Castellini (as I remember it) invite readers to try cutting up books (!?) and magazines to make a collage that tells something new. I used a National Geographic magazine and a story about pearl fishing in Australia. It was unusual for me to just use one part of a magazine - seemed a bit pedestrian. When I looked again, the next morning, there was a huge, universal story of life, its ups and downs, hopes and fears. Nora Bateson tells how your story changes my story, and mine changes yours. [I will add links to these materials, later]. 

This is a piece of fictional writing to a prompt - 'what I mean is ...' following a discussion concerning relationships that have become so 'comfortable' that there are things unsaid that need to be said. Maybe there is a message that goes beyond that context.

​What I mean is …

What is the thing I am not saying?
What needs to be spoken out?

I think you should have understood this about me by now. I’ve tried to tell you in so many different ways over the years. It’s exhausting, draining, debilitating. It sits like undigested food under my ribs. 
Sullen. 
Lumpen. 
Inert. 

I should not need to speak it out.
You should know by now.
But you never do. 
You never have. 

Here we are in the last stage of our lives, rubbing along. We’ve learned how to do that. We have practiced our routines so long that most of the petty resentments and minor irritations of sharing space have formed callouses. We don’t even notice the compromises we make. 

It’s easier this way.

By closing off our deepest choices - what we really want - are we slowly dying to ourselves as well as to each other? Is that what I mean to say? Do I mean to say that THIS is what I really want, what I really, really want, as the Spice Girls would have it? 

And, after all these years, do I know what it is that I really, really want? 

That lump of unspoken meaning sinks deeper into my belly, grows more solid with unmet needs and dreams ignored for too long. 

There is a part of me that watches over our relationship, keeps an eye on the balance, on whether you are happy, on any imminent storms or problems. That witness observes, wryly, that it might not be surprising that you don’t get my deepest wishes, since even I have no answer, no meaningful answer, to that question.

It’s something to do with the meaning of my life. 
How trite that sounds. 
As if my life could be so important that it has meaning beyond just carrying on carrying on. 
But there is something I need and want to hear. Whether or not you can hear it too might not be as important as I thought. It’s about carrying OUT rather than carrying on. Doing something different.

Oh, but what I want is for you to ask me. 
To wonder, to be even a little bit curious about what I want, 
even to ask whether there is just one thing that might make me happier
 - no, not more content - 
Joyful, ecstatic, deliriously happy, 
That childhood, Snoopy sense of dancing on air,
Being fully alive. 
Why don’t you ask me that? 
Why don’t we stop rubbing along, sometimes grating, occasionally meeting, and ask each other?Ask this crazy, eyes wide-open, question:
What gives us joy?
The lump in the centre of my body is softer now. 
Could we maybe go for a walk? A slow, familiar walk, one day, soon. 
Can I ask you what you want, for yourself, in these last years of your life?
Could you ask me?
And could we each listen quietly to whatever we say? 
Could we manage that? 
Could we hear ourselves without thinking that we should have, might have, known that already?
Could we not feel the need to fix the wishes, force them into reality?
And could we be so content with ourselves that we do not allow the other’s wishes to be any more important than our own? 

This blog is full of gaps in time. When i see that I first started it in 2013, I find it amazing  that I keep coming back and adding more. Consistency, if not commitment. 

​Another recurring theme in my creative life has been Julia Cameron, famously the author of The Artist's Way, a 12 step programme to reclaim creativity in all its forms. The first step she recommends is writing Morning Pages - a stream of consciousness hand-written download of your early morning ideas and questions. Julia Cameron has written a lot since that first success, and run workshops and so on. i came across her again in a republished version, sitting alongside another new book called The Listening Path. Click on the purple text to see more about it on her website. 

What has grabbed me about this new take on creativity, as far as I've read, is that she sets out the reasons for morning pages in the context of listening to ourselves, as a good thing in its own right, as well as a step to creativity. It's working well for me, after just three days back on the pages. She has conversations with users:
" 'Do you still do morning pages?', I asked a colleague [....]
''I do them whenever I get in trouble,' he replied.
'But if you did them regularly, you wouldn't get in trouble' I chided him. realising that I sounded like a bleeding deacon."
She goes on to describe how her 40 years of experience, how pages hint at difficulties on the horizon. For example,
"Your lover is growing distant and Pages mention this unsettling fact. Nudged by the pages, you instigate a difficult conversation. The risk pays off. intimacy is restored."

I stopped writing morning pages after several years, when I looked back on what I'd written and noticed that I was reporting on the same thing over and over. This seemed to be a waste of time so I stopped, except, like her colleague, when life was challenging me. What I learned from this new overview of the practice was a new understanding that the repetition was a hint, then a nudge then a shove to do things differently. Embarrassing, perhaps, that I didn't get this at the time, but it did make me decide to do the pages again. 

Another two extracts which probably influenced a piece of writing I did yesterday  - very different from morning pages - and will include in my next posting. 
​
"We puncture 'I feel okay about that' to reveal that we may not feel okay at all. As we discover our authentic feelings, we discover our authentic selves, and those selves are fascinating."
​
"Because self-knowledge is exciting, pages are addictive. the listening path that they inaugurate is never dull. People who start out declaring 'My life is dull' soon find these same lives riveting. The examined life becomes a rich resource."

Here I am, returning to a blog that I left a year ago to put my energy into visionary artist. 
The quantum story I made at the end of that course - Particles and Waves - continues to intrigue and inspire my reading and, probably, my creativity, in due course. I will write more here when I have digested a bit more reading from The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav. The link (in purple) will take you to a summary - not nearly as good as the whole book. 

shapeshifting prompt from ‘writing with plants’, Feb 2023

What a beautiful day. Sun shines on the twigs of the apple trees - our humble servants. In neat rows, they are still sleeping, but starting to waken, at our command and with the encouragement of the warmth we invite. 

My ancestors have been at home in this place for centuries. We belong here and rule kindly over this land, our territory. The trees connect us with the earth beneath. We do not need to soil our purity with such muddy matters. 

The sky above provides nourishment, water and light. 

We do not need to fly or travel like the winged creatures whose only purpose is to place seeds, enable the next generation to begin their lives in other places, to expand our reach. 

And the flying ones can sing the high notes, the vibrations that glorify our name, celebrate our existence. The rooted ones vibrate more slowly in the earth but also celebrate our power and our glory, supporting us and nurturing future generations. 

Through our singular power, we have created complex beings who can move on earth between the trees. By our magical influence we have enabled them to develop tools they call ladders and loppers. At certain times of year, when darkness is long and cold, only they can, with our generous blessing, trim our proudest, most excellent leaves and berries to adorn their strange boxes then procreate by touching heads to ensure our eternal life, for the total benefit of all beings. 

Our mystery remains unsolved. Words such as medicine and poison will remain meaningless and unresolved until all beings merge with our consciousness. Only then will they - the flying ones, the rooted ones and the walking, talking ones realise their full, green-leaved white-berried potential. 
to edit.

Here's where the Blog moves over to Visionary Artist.
This is the transitional post which allows you to go back to May 1993 - see where I've come from; look at a few digital stories (for example, Olives) to find out what they are; or just jump straight across to the new, current blog - Visionary Artist - click the button above or go direct to the earliest post: Stages, which links with  the story, below, in my mind.

Over a year since I wrote anything for this site. Do I need to start again or shall I just carry on as if time is only as real as anything else.

'We're all still here
No one has gone away
Waiting, acting much too 
Well and procrastinating'

Incredible String Band song - Job's Tears

I've been giving myself a bit of a hard time ('so what's new!', chorus my friends!).

I'm feeling ashamed of retracing my steps, going back to old stories when the new ones are bound to be more exciting and interesting - to me and to anyone who happens to find and read these pages.

Earlier this year, I began an online course / programme / journey with Carol Day which she is calling The Visionary Artist. I had to get over a few 'not good enoughs' and 'pretentiousness' hurdles to even apply for such a course, but that was only part of the challenge. I do love a challenge!

As part of our settling into the work, we were invited to write our artist's story. This probably set me off looking backwards as a way to vision forwards. Since then, so much from my past has come into play, including links to digital stories and earlier writing, which I was glad to find in the archives of this site. Sometimes, on a good day, I can actually see myself as an artist - as if I have always been creative and expressive. The story I had been telling, before all this started bubbling up, was that I was a creative child who was crippled by education: I could tell a good story about my commitment to creative learning in all the places I've worked simply being a way to try and fix that damage 'out there' in the world for the next generation. 

Yesterday, I was looking for my birth certificate, rifling through archives and 'safe places' where such things should be. I found something I wrote in 1992, maybe. I say 'something' but it's actually a poem within a letter to a short term boyfriend. Maybe I will open the archives of this blog further back so that I'll be able to find it again. It's not bad. And alongside it is a letter from my mother at around the same time, partly explaining why a poem about 'protection' felt necessary. Another story, another time. But today, still on the hunt for that birth certificate (to prove I am who I say I am to a solicitor in Rugby) I found the final submission that I made for my Independent Studies degree in Lancaster in 1993. How the spiral goes round! All the doubts I'm having now - about truth and authenticity, whether I deserve to be judged and how I will be found wanting. All there, in 1993, written by me for me to find again, now. If you are curious, see how I wrote about judgement, children and Joan of Arc, amongst other characters, in May 1993. (and, reader, I somehow got a first class degree!) 

'Stranger than that we're alive'.
Another quote from Job's Tears - worth listening to the song, clicking on the link, above,.