Meditations with Nature
A moment of connectedness in the inner and outer dimensions
I’m spending four months at a martial arts ashram called Koom outside Marrakech, Morocco training in Shaolin Kung Fu, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Mixed Martial Arts, Sufi and Taoist meditation practices and healthy life balance practices. The gift of being in a stylized environment to go deep into one’s self is beyond measure. In the hectic version of collective life at the moment, to have the opportunity to gain perspective on inner and outer life is so very precious.
For me this is all engagement in Rematriation - returning this body to land and to nature to heal wounds of separation and become whole. You are welcome to join me here in April & May. I’m offering a specially held space for deep transformative healing work with intensive shiatsu, health consultation and the Koom retreat magic. Soulful Strength Retreat awaits you!
I sat in meditation the other day somewhere in the morning after a mixed martial arts training session. The physical training is helpful for pacifying the excess energies I often wake up with, geared up for the day rearing to go. I am quite a morning lark.
The day before, we enjoyed (and I really should put that in quotes) a Quinna session with Master Khalid which is a specialized Chinese martial arts technique of seizing, locking, and controlling an opponent’s joints, muscles, or tendons to immobilize them. You would think total brutality, which it is, but when Master Khalid pulled back the curtain it was something else entirely.
What he described was an internal engagement of a matrix of connections in the pelvic bowl from sacral bone to the front of hara (abdomen) connecting the conception vessel and governing vessel channels in activation with the breath in the action of locks and controls. First naming the internal cosmology, then he spoke of engagement with nature itself.
He illustrated that the movement is like the wind, swirling from dantien (abdomen) and expressing the immobilization of the opponent in the arm and hand lock. He went on to say that what we are doing is a Japanese technique that culminates in sword techniques and moves with the seasons.
Moves with the seasons………what looks like brutality is actually subtlety. What feels like fumbling in practice is meditation in mastery. He’s not moving with the wind, he is the wind. His final instruction was to practice more deep breathing into my belly.
My meditations of late have been engaging and revealing. The next day after this training session, I sat in a meditative spacious openness observing the elements within and without. In that relaxation I heard what sounded like roaring in the distance, like the roaring of a big wave or freight train. I moved my hearing from close to far to very distant to try to pinpoint how far this sound was coming from. It was very far, like way too far for me to hear with normal ears.
It was wind coming down from the mountains in the distance. That day a weather pattern came down the Atlantic Coast of Morocco and at its spiral edges it gathered up sand from the Sahara Desert, on the other side of the High Atlas Mountains in my purview, and what I heard was the roaring of wind and sand bellowing down the mountainsides.
It was several minutes later that I felt the wind arrive in my room. Spirals swirling in all directions, a fine taste of grit on my lips. As I emerged from my meditative state, I was kind of baffled. I’ve never sensed anything like that before. Sand continued to cover the outdoors for the rest of the day as I took shelter inside, remaining in wonder of the magic of nature.
Any amount that you allow yourself time to connect in Nature is one of the most powerful actions for your capacity and wellbeing. Nature connection is your birthright. You are of the interconnected web of existence, living and breathing in an Earth-body. Honor this body with the best care possible and one day your bones will be returned to the land.
An Invitation:
There is space here at Koom for you, your family, your youth (ages 13+ is best), your comrades to join us during the months of April and May to center, strengthen and heal. I’m holding a Koom-enhanced retreat experience with shiatsu, health consultation and meaningful practices for you to have a truly revolutionary week-long all-inclusive retreat. Marhaba, you are welcome.
