The Butterfly Who Dreamed They Were An Ant

When I became a superhero it was through the creation of my superhero identity, my costume and the cultivation of superhuman abilities that took me a lifetime to achieve, that is the story of how Warrior Monk became a legend. Well, I will tell you the tale of one individual that I know in the League of Superheroes who entered through another door.

This person was born superhuman like Superman; they did not need to cultivate the extraordinary like me. They did need to hide safely in society and fade into the background so they became like Clark Kent; so regular, so ordinary, maybe even a little bit boring. This was the part they had to cultivate, the common and the ordinary. It is hard indeed for a superhuman to disguise themselves as a common and ordinary person. Well, after time, this person like an agent who has been undercover for too long actually became their alter ego. This happened to me too! (Except that I forgot that I was just a man, just a boy, I thought I could fly and touch the sky and I became The Warrior Monk and my super powers became real.) This person actually forgot that they were secretly someone who had superpowers and abilities and responsibilities to use them. Yes, this person forgot that this was just their disguise not their real identity.

There was a moment when they noticed that I had found their secret. It was scary and exciting at the same time. I decided not to try to make them come back to the League of Superheroes but instead just decided to acknowledge their right to be wherever they wanted to be in life. That is when a curious thing happened. They did not want to be where they were. They felt lost and broken somehow and the feeling for them was like being saved. Of course I did not really save them, I was just the right person at the right time and I respected and honored where they were in their journey because it said a lot to me about my own journey and how hard this road is to travel.

In any Myth Quest there are always just a few who make it all the way and find the Hero’s Gold or The Secret of the Immortals and live to tell their tale. The most important thing in life is to notice if you meet one of these fellow travelers and from that know where you are in the journey. This is the beginning of knowing yourself and knowing the other, 100 battles won. This is the story of The Butterfly Who Dreamed They Were An Ant.

The Dao is a River

The Dao is a River; a river of stars, a river of dreams. Some can even cross this river. Usually we flow downstream with the current; the Dao has its own mind, its no-mind. Some people try to swim upstream against the Dao, this usually ends very badly! Sometimes you are headed for the rocks or over the waterfall and the smallest sideways motion lands you perfectly to safety. It is a good skill to be able to see ahead a little in the Dao to know what’s coming up and you can decide where to be; not what to do or how to react or how to do it but just where to be...

The Dao cannot be seen but like the wind its effects can be seen. We see the leaves all stand on end and rise into the air and swirl around in a big whirlwind, we know that this is the wind. Well, some times the Dao swirls in a Tai Chi spiral and picks up everything, all your feelings and beliefs and your whole life and it is all thrown into the air. Will it land neatly? I don’t think so. The Dao is Fate and your ability to move in the Dao is Free Will. The surrender to the Dao still allows for Free Will. This is the thing that cannot be spoken of, it is like an Ancient Story, a Myth.

Is there a future waiting for us? A best self, a better self? Is it the story that was written in the stars for us? A Myth is something that has two meanings. One is that a Myth is not true, it is a story that is made up to tell us something about who we are and where we came from. The second meaning is that a Myth is the more True reality. It is where we can rise above the ordinary and expect that Magic is real and does happen. It tells us of the most incredible potential allowed for us in this human existence. Do we have to let go of the first meaning to have the second? Does part of our Ego kill the Magic by saying this is not real, this can’t be happening, I can’t possibly rise above it all, science tells me that my reality should be limited to a regular and ordinary life.

But the Dao has other plans for you. It picks you up and shakes you and changes your life and makes you admit that you are extraordinary and that special things await you. You cannot control the Dao but now you look forward to what is next. You shoulder your load and put your back into your work and look forward to each day because you know that there is a Story and you want to see what happens. This has not happened for … well, I guess it has never happened before so it is Magic and Dreams are possible and Life is exciting!

The Dao is a river…………………..

Circles

We move in Circles

Tracing shapes through Air

Marking paths into Earth

Wind and Time complete these figures

In

Empty

Space

Almost as soon as they are made

They

Are

Gone

These circles are not Lost to us

We take them in our Hearts

Into our worlds and our Lives

The way our bodies fit together

The way our paths come together

And

Move

Apart
Will be with us Forever

So is it in the doing

Or the undoing?

Is it in the taking in

Or the letting go?

We are Heavier

And Lighter

On our Path

To

Center

Plant Teachers

Many who have gotten anywhere in their study and understanding of Tai Chi have done so with the aid of Plant Teachers. Of those who did not have the perspective of plant teachers some just didn’t swing that way or it really would not have been a good idea but others were simply not up to it. As a side bar I might mention that Bill W, the founder of AA was a fan of LSD psychotherapy for addiction treatment and had dropped a dose while examining the full weight of his moral inventory more than once. His Brothers convinced him to discontinue that research as it might reflect badly upon AA as a group.

Of course Sativa is the most gracious Plant Teacher. There is a highly Somatic awareness that comes with being high that lets the student wander around inside the body feeling the machine like qualities of body mechanics as well as the energy of tension and release. Visualizations can be more transporting as well. The feeling of how good Tai Chi feels to the body can be magnified by the experience because the effect is primarily sensory. Of course there is a mental and psychological component to being stoned also. One of those components is a dramatic shift in the way the mind body stores and retrieves information. I remember Grinspoon saying in his book that he studied all his material in Med school both straight and stoned so he knew it on a much deeper level. After learning new forms and exercises when you get high you have to go through the whole thing relearning and reprogramming it. Beware though, I think that this should not comprise too much of your practice. Most of us know those who have a stoney form, lose their balance or forget where they are in the Slow Set due to an over-reliance on this Plant Teacher but I will tell you that many of the people that I respect the most and have the most beautiful and technically excellent forms have entered through this door.

Another Plant Teacher of course is Alcohol. A lot of folks don’t remember that of course John Barleycorn is one of the Plant Teachers that goes way back to Ancient times. Many times when practicing forms, drills and exercises it is possible to get to a level of abandon when a little drunk. Some of the biggest breakthroughs that I have ever made in Push Hands were made after having a few drinks with friends and letting the level of play get much looser and more unpredictable than what I had been able to do before. Of course it took me more than a year to own those techniques that I had discovered while tipsy in the clear mind state. This is an important point. Any insight gained with the aid of Plant Teachers must be able to be demonstrated in the Sober State.

The most venerable of Plant Teachers are the Entheogens or Psychedelics. I will tell you that many of the finest minds of my generation devoted themselves to the serious study of these Plant Allies. You can see the wisdom brought back in the writings of Schultes, Terrence McKenna, Dale Pendell, Rick Strassman, DM Turner, Jonathan Ott, Sasha Shulgin, Harner, Stolaroff, Weil et al who are among the most brilliant and insightful thinkers, writers and explorers of Inner Space. DMT, Ayahuasca, Pscilocybin, Peyote and LSD are substances that continue a heritage of Sacraments that since prehistoric times have been used ritually to access this Dimension of human perception. I will attest to the fact that there is a special gift germane to the Tai Chi experience offered by the Plant Teachers.

I certainly do not encourage this kind of thing. No seriously. Life is very serious now and I guess at this point in my life I’m not up to it. There is a birthright contained in the Psychedelic experience that perhaps is best saved for those coming of age. The weight of real responsibility has not been conferred upon them yet so they may walk more safely in that Garden of the Plant Teachers.

Emergent Properties

I have always had a hard time communicating the energetics of Martial training to many of my friends who are Energy Workers and Earth Mysteries Students and I came up with this; perhaps it will be useful to you.

In the course of learning to read people's "intentions" in a Martial scenario we practice with our peers who are studying this same body of knowledge. When practicing with a generous and helpful partner one lets down their barriers and can blend and harmonize with the incoming energy and return the volley. As the ability to have more extended exchanges emerges one finds that this is an intimate conversation not an argument. There can be some of the most meaningful dialogues that we can have in which we find ourselves, discover and reveal truths and find how much of real importance we have to share with others. Before we can have this conversation we have to develop a common vocabulary in a symbolic language that uses the Mind Body interface not the syntax of transformational grammar. Very Metaphysical indeed to understand and communicate with this Archetypal library of symbols that which is ineffable in words. It is both healing and transformational.

Punching and kicking indeed!

Another of the Emergent Properties we encounter on this Path is that while one is learning Martial Arts or coming up in a given school or system there is the emergence of a group dynamic. As the relationships develop within this group it becomes evident that this is important not only to the process of learning the Art but also to our evolution as human beings. In New Age parlance this is a Soul Group, a group brought together beyond Space and Time to share evolutionary and Karmic exchanges.

Back to Punching and kicking; are we developing real Martial abilities? – If you mean by that a complex combination of skills and knowledge then we are of course zeroing in on it. If you mean by that the ability to fight effectively we are still miles away from being able to effortlessly control an attacker at full strength and speed at combat realities by this method. That is why we work both ends toward the middle and at the other end of the spectrum we study moves and techniques. But beware! Scuffling obscures energy work so if you really want to get the energy part then you have to dare to suck. Let down your defenses, let the other guy get you, make you flinch, hit you, throw you and for now you just take the ride. That is how you will learn. You can of course not look so bad if you use force, intercept the attacks, force your techniques and try to win but… it is highly unlikely that you will enter the Promised Land by that method so invest in loss. Desire to become one with the incoming energy, to accept it, receive it, welcome it and not “block it out”.

Sometimes I feel that this state we enter is more akin to Shamanism than Martial Arts. The components of Shamanism are:

1) The creation of Altered Space
2) The ability to bring others into that space
3) The ability to perceive, work with and transmute Energy in that space
4) The ability to bring back Knowledge or Skills from that space

There are many mind techniques like NLP, Hypnosis, Lenair and the like that are tools to explore the Semiotics of human communication and the dynamics of behavior. Perhaps by Hypnosis or Mutual Hypnosis one can be aided in entering the expanded state necessary to do this work. Perhaps we should employ Sacramental Plant substances. The practice of Shamanism that does not involve movement brings us closer to our goal but does not bridge the gap of being able to translate this ability into Psycho-Neural flow of movement and control. We are still left with the Mind Body Bridge and how to enter the Flow to have effortless control of ourselves and others. We will have to invent and discover some exercises to begin bridging this gap. In the meantime we have our Daily Practice, our Group and this Altered Space which seems to be the very source of these Emergent Properties.

Bio-aesthetics

I have found a completely different area of the mountain that has nothing to do with Martial Arts as I had understood that term. Actually, I found more Fine Arts in Tai Chi than I had imagined. Perhaps this is just Bio-Aesthetics, the way that high level behavior that is potentially beneficial to the organism is perceived as pleasing or beautiful because there is a biological imperative to it. Maybe…

The deep Artistic Engagement with Tai Chi is a varied and personal thing. I remember having endless conversations with one friend over what is art and what is not. I’m not going there I promise you but I am thinking about what characteristics might transform movement into this danse macabre. Oh oh, I feel a list coming on.

• Listening, performing and composing with movement
• Showing aesthetic resonance through energy and facial expressions
• Being intensely absorbed for extended periods of time
• Revealing a quality of concentration not apparent elsewhere
• Beginning to discover, explore, give expression to and communicate the inner world
• Making significant physical responses - movements and gestures which hitherto have not been seen, or have not previously been made independently
• Listening to the effects of moving or standing still
• Exploring a hypothesis - If I move this way I feel unbalance so if this then…??
• Specific spatial concepts such as high, low, fast, slow, variation; the concepts of linkage – thought with movement, feeling with quality of movement
• Which part of my body will I move? Where will I move? How will I move?
• Self reflection - How did I feel about what I just invented? What could I have done differently? What did it remind me of? Why do I suck so bad?
• Memory skills - Can I remember what I discovered last time? Do I want to use it again?
• Where am I in the Slow Set??
• Spatial orientation – Where am I?

Maybe Artistic expression is always related to Bio-Aesthetics. We always talk about Naturalness. It is an ideal to have Natural Movement and when you see it you understand that the efficiency, functionality, the beauty and the effortless quality of movement are an emergent property of Natural Movement. You have to remember though, there are other kinds of natural movement such as awkwardness, self-consciousness, flinching, getting startled, being fearful and tentative in your movement that are less desirable. So we are clearly talking about a Sub-set of Natural Movement and that is Relaxed Natural Movement. Even animals have to learn to transform awkwardness into ability, look at tiger cubs or fauns playing. They take clumsy behavior and transform it into agile movement. Yes, it seems that play and pretend hunting and pretend fighting are the principle ways of learning this elsewhere in the Natural World. Oh yeah. This is juicy stuff here, we are hunter gatherers drawn to the distant horizon by pattern and meaning guided by this compass called Bio-Aesthetics.

Exit: Stage Left

I’ve said else where that the life long path of studying Martial Arts is analogous to growing up again. We bring all the same variables that we played out in a less conscious role the first time around to a more robust symbolic redux. Actually, think of it as acting. It gets you past thinking of these moments where we “act up” or “act out” as the inequities, failures and the horrible missteps that they were and puts them in the more useful language of our role and the part we are playing in The Play. Remember, we have secured a limited engagement here so we will have many more performances of this drama to find and demonstrate our character.

In the future I will write my own play or even leave the theater but for now at least I write my own dialogue. Everyone has a role; the teachers, the students, the actors and the audience. If we are brave enough we will dare to make the kind of mistakes that will torture us inside for weeks. If the teacher is up to it they will call us out in this moment so we feel the importance and probably the long sorry history that has led to this single moment and it is excruciating. There are moments to hold your ground, those to change course a little and there is a time to change everything down to our DNA. Well some people require a disaster to create the tipping point.

The beautiful thing about the play is we care enough to make it real to ourselves but in the end it is not the central experience of our lives. If we don’t demonstrate our evolution in our ”real life” by being more connected to our families and loved ones and being more patient and caring in action rather than in just rhetoric we have not gotten to the part of the play when the Fourth Wall comes down and we connect all the dots. Beyond that there is a piece of mind that comes inside with the comfort of being in the right place in that process of playing a role, learning your part and coming into your own.

But back to the beautiful disaster – It is amazing that within the context of The Play we can make the kind of mistakes that in real life end in broken relationships or even broken arms! The difference here is that the teacher is just playing a role, actually one that you hired them for; the role of Antagonist or Deuteragonist. If the teacher is up to it they will not be constrained by wanting to be liked or worried that they might come off as being harsh and judgmental. In my role as a teacher I was always too likable and responsive. The next time around I am going to be idiosyncratic and go off on my students in a highly erratic and scary ass way whenever they ask me to. That’s the way I want to play that part next.

I was raised by Tai Chi Mormons, fundamentalists you know. We used to hate on External Martial Artists and ranks and belt tests. Well I have infiltrated an external sect and have learned their secret ways and found that they actually have merit. The Belt Test is not an achievement test it is a ritual or a ceremony. The teacher has seen you in multiple situations against multiple opponents in class so they already know your level. If the teacher can put you under duress or hopefully intimidate you then you get to see how your current Mind Body programming behaves during (simulated) extreme stress. It is not pretty. Whatever is in RAM will fail you, whatever is in ROM will be magnified, very edifying indeed, thank you.

I have played my part and I have mis-played my part, I have become confused by the Play immersing myself within it at the expense of my other life. As the curtain falls I resolve to reinvent my approach to the craft and to the theater. Exit: Stage Left.