Last week I started a class on zhan zhuang, or stance training, which is one of the most fundamental practices in internal martial arts and, more importantly to me, is a core practice designed to build energy in one’s root.

A number of things are beginning to come together for me at this point. I’ve been practicing qigong, as well as a form of pranayama, for a year and a half, and the qi is coming more under my mind’s control. It’s feeling more and more palpable and malleable. I could definitely see how it could be harnessed for martial purposes, for instance, or magical ends, if my inclinations lay in that direction. But thus far, I’ve been content with getting it flowing regularly in my body. That’s been my daily exercise.

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Speaking of people who see what others do not …

I used to be, what I thought, was a pretty decent chess player. I easily beat most people I played and could defeat most of those hand-held computers that were coming out in the 1980s.

Then, one day, a friend invited me over for a smoke and a drink. Seeing that he had a chess table set-up, I asked him if he fancied a game. He beat me quickly. Twice.

So I figured I would see how good he was. During the third game, we’re about 30 moves into the game, and he steps out of the room, so I moved one of his pieces to my advantage. My friend Mark comes back in, sits down, and immediately moves the piece back. Somewhat surprised, I ask if he saw me move it.

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This is some of what I’m beginning to glimpse, and would like to cultivate. From Richard Strozzi Heckler’s account of buying land and getting acquainted with it, in Holding the Center: Sanctuary in a Time of Confusion: Writings on Place, Community, and Body:

Mystery lived in the generosity of the obvious. When I told a neighboring rancher that scooping up that first handful of newly hatched soil from the compost was a religious experience, she unabashedly told me she saw an angel in hers. “Like God,” she said, “working even when we’re sleeping.” This wasn’t a back-to-the-land trip I was on, or maudlin nature symbolism, but a series of daily, almost insignificant events that sewed together a wildly alive relationship with the land.

For example: I have a routine of stopping at the spring to see if it’s running and, if not, clearing the spillway to keep the animals in water. Strictly business. Then one spring day, for no particular reason, I saw the spring. I truly saw it. I shouted, “The water is coming out of the ground!” This moment came after a year and a half of just mentally registering, “Yeah, sure, water.” WATER COMING OUT OF THE GROUND!! I felt like a man who had slept too long, groggy and surprised by how late it had become. True, it is only a skinny trickle, but it flows continually in these drought years. It summons the spirit of Zechariah when he shouted, “Who can despise the small things of life?” at the aristocrats for bemoaning their insignificant temple.

Sometimes I wish I were Christian. No, I don’t regret the direction that my spiritual path has taken me; but I see that if I were a Christian — or a Buddhist, or a Shriner — then I would have access to a community. It’s community that I sometimes desire.

A shaman of a northern European tradition, Raven Kaldera, wrote a funny and thoughtful little article called “Why My Aunt Judy Isn’t A Pagan (Or, How Far We Still Have To Go)”:

I remembered how hard I’d had to work the last time I tried to get a bunch of pagans to do a service project, First of all, just agreeing on something politically correct enough for all the members took months, and then, when we actually went to do the work at a local soup kitchen, half the people didn’t show up. I was almost ashamed of us. Leading pagans is like herding cats, they say.

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I was pondering this idea of human space recently when I picked up a book in my personal library, a textbook on Ericksonian hypnotherapy titled Therapeutic Trances, by Stephen Gilligan. I came upon a fascinating little section on “minimal cues,” which are

subtle but informative changes — “differences that make a difference.” For example, the therapist might notice that, upon introducing a particular topic, the client manifests restricted breathing, or increased muscle tension, or increased pupillary eye dilation, and so forth.

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Speaking of “human space,” I had an interesting experience yesterday while out walking in the neighborhood. My wife and I ran into a neighbor and stopped to chat with him, and he started talking about the Middle East and how our actions are bringing the “eternal war” that’s there over here.

I don’t know this neighbor very well, so all that was guiding me was my intuition. It’s hard to explain, but almost without thinking about it, I sensed the boundaries of the metaphorical “space” he occupied with his words and thinking, and I consciously stepped into it and began using his language. Not repeating words he said, but saying things that I intuitively felt would resonate with his worldspace.

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I’m becoming aware of a certain kind of energetic space that I think of as human space.

When I sit and talk with a patient in the clinic, much of what I’m trying to do is extend my senses and mind to a clear perception their being, in order to discern what they need and to determine how best I can meet those needs with what I have to offer. I suppose it could be thought of as a cold information-gathering process. Part of our training is to investigate and interrogate as thoroughly as we can, because the more information we have, the more clearly we can know someone.

But, there’s a more important process underlying this procedure, something deeper and more basic: creating a space for authenticity. Asking questions about a person’s health automatically induces a degree of self-reflection, and brings some self-awareness. The standard questions of Chinese medical diagnosis, regarding one’s digestion or urination or palpitations, do not go far enough in this regard, though. I feel that the work of a truly great physician involves the opening of a space in which people can experience themselves with greater awareness, depth, and acceptance. In other words, a human space.

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