A Chi Travelogue: California, Santa Fe, New York City, Amsterdam, Dublin

 

Prior to my diagnosis with Parkinson’s, I had never attended a retreat. I’d never even been to sleep away camp, and was a commuter in college because of family obligations. So deciding to attend my first Wisdom Healing Qigong retreat, in China of all places, was a bit of a stretch. The decision challenged my comfort zone, and inherent in that was renewed vitality. I didn’t shrink away from something I wanted to do because of some “intimidating” logistics. Keeping my eyes on “the ends” allowed me to navigate “the means” successfully.

Since that wonderful experience, where I met amazing, loving teachers like Teacher Ma and Teacher Zhou, I have attended and spoken at a number of retreats here in California as well as presenting at one in Hawaii. Now it is retreat time again. I will be attending, as well as working with a group of participants. From May 14-27 an intensive healing retreat is offered at Earthrise Center, nestled in the lovely Sonoma Hills. There will be a focus on Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions. However, the retreat is open to all. The chi field is an equal opportunity sage and guide, and the practices, teachings, and experiences shared apply to all.

I look forward to this retreat for a number of reasons. First, it was almost exactly seven years ago that I attended that first retreat in China. At the time I had already begun major healing from Parkinson’s via qigong and was looking to expand my knowledge of this practice to further promote my own health. As mentioned earlier, I didn’t have some of the usual youthful “away from home” experiences, so this was indeed an odyssey for me. Yes, I’d travelled before, even travelled with Parkinson’s before, but never did I travel to such a far-off destination to explore a treasure so close to home: myself. Here is where the Camus quote applies: “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.” Much of the calm that engulfed me during my time at the Guelin retreat arose from a clear daily focus: my work on healing myself via qigong, and whatever was required of me to support this. There were no distractions with emails, texts, phone calls, calendars. No grocery shopping or decisions over what to have for dinner. Everything I could anticipate was provided. That allowed me time to explore inwardly, which is where I discovered the buried mother lode that gave me the audacity to refer to myself as a “treasure.” We are all treasures, and I have found qigong to be the tool that allows me to tap into that precious vein, to open up to the hidden cache, the one I forgot was part of me. This is now the part of me writing this blog, and traveling next month to New York, Amsterdam, and Dublin. More about all this later on in this post.