Mythopoetic Qigong
About Mythopoetic Qigong
The forms of Mythopoetic Qigong that I practice and teach are the foundational forms of the MogaDao Institute created and taught by Zhenevere Sophia Dao: Morning Medical Qigong; the Essential Yin Form and the Essential Yang Form; the four transitional Yijing Forms; and the Sexuality Forms. These forms are the most profound and instructive qigong forms I have ever encountered. They blend the teachings of traditional qigong, based as as they are upon Yin Yang theory, Five Element Theory, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and observations of the more-than-human world, with a deep embodiment of western archetypal psychology, an appreciation for art and literature, and an understanding of our place in collective society. Combining all of these facets of what it is to be human with movements of the body and concentration of the mind offers the opportunity to reach simultaneously into the depths of our individuality and the collective unconscious.
About the Qigong Forms
Morning Medical Qigong
The eleven forms of Morning Medical Qigong cover the entire zangfu organ system of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Five Element theory. In addition to this energetic reality, the forms engage a vast array of archetypes or mythopoetics within the human condition and consciousness. It is the combination of these two aspects that makes this particular form of qigong so special and so useful, both medically and spiritually. The forms are strung together in one graceful and seamless whole, in such a way that, when practiced precisely and with focus and discipline, holding the mind upon the mythopoetic metaphors that indicate the various shadings and transformations of the qi throughout the form, the energy or qi that one builds is never lost or drained.
The Essential Yin and Yang Forms
The Essential Yin and Essential Yang forms are Five Element forms, each comprised of five distinct forms relating in turn to the Five Elements - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water - and strengthening the Yin or Yang qualities within each of those Elements.
The understanding and expression of Yin and Yang is foundational to the practice of qigong. Mythopoetic Qigong deepens the classical understanding of Yin and Yang to include the realities and subtleties we experience in our daily lives. Yin is both the formless source and the return of all manifestation. It is Earth, it is quiet, it is endlessly receptive. And it is also the power that resides in stillness and can erupt when necessary. Yang is movement and action, it is strong, courageous, and direct. And it is also beauty, expression, vulnerability, risk, and even the tenderness that accompanies risk.
The four transitional Yijing Forms
The four Yijing forms are each made up of six individual qigong forms, that through the architecture and movement of the body embody, represent, and anticipate the harmonious transition of one season into the next:
· Yijing 1: Spring to Summer
· Yijing 2: Summer to Fall
· Yijing 3: Fall to Winter
· Yijing 4: Winter to Spring
These seasons can be understood literally, according to the annual calendar, and can also be understood according to phases of our lives, whether covering the span of our whole lives, or any part of our lives – for example, a relationship, our education, or our career. These seasons can also be applied to any psychological process within the course of our lives – the emergence of an idea, its development and then full expression, letting go of that expression when it has run its course, the quiet reflection and satisfaction that ensues, and finally a period of deep emptiness that in turn provides the fertile ground from which a new idea might emerge. Each of the Yijing forms help us understand and navigate the appropriate transition.
The Sexuality Forms
These are qigong forms designed specifically for the cultivation and refinement of masculine and feminine energies within us and for the exploration of how those energies intertwine and transform.
Daoist sexual techniques have existed for millennia. They consist primarily of the understanding of qi as a constant creative and healing power in one’s life, and the methods therefore of drawing forth, conserving, sharing, and embodying these primary and powerful energies. These forms are not only concerned with technical understanding and practices, but with a transformational culture, both internal and externally in relationship, that is founded upon an understanding of the essential goodness of Being, and a belief in the body as an instrument of, and a location for, spiritual life, and a more fluid, and experience-based understanding of gender.
These forms serve to sensitize the human body, mind, heart and spirit and transform our actions in the world, both in the privacy of our own embodied relationships with ourselves and our intimates, and in the quotidian world of our life and work.
Classes, Workshops, and other resources
I offer weekly in-person classes on Wednesdays at 7.30am mountain time at the Soma Collective in Santa Fe (906 St Francis Drive, Unit B). I am hoping that these classes will soon also be available to online students. These classes are designed to allow seasoned practitioners to deepen and refine their practice and to allow beginners to experience the beauty and power of these qigong forms. The classes are offered on a drop-in basis. From time to time I also offer workshops or a series of classes in which students can deepen their practice and understanding of the forms. Please contact me if you would like to join a workshop or class or if you would like to organize one. I also have a number of detailed instruction manuals for sale. There are separate manuals for Morning Medical Qigong and the Sexuality Forms. I am working to compete manuals for all of the Yijing Forms and for the Essential Yin and Essential Yang Forms. The manuals are available for purchase to committed students. Please contact me for details.
About me, my teachers, my studies
In 1994, at the age of 24, I was in Dharamsala, India, when I saw a sign advertizing shiatsu bodywork. I had no idea what shiatsu was, but in that moment I knew that I wanted to study it. I continued my travels in India for almost a year before returning to England and spending the summer hitchhiking around my homeland. One day I was picked up by someone who was themselves a shiatsu practitioner, and as we spoke he told me of a shiatsu teacher in my home town of Derby, a man called Mike Craske.
A few months later I began studying shiatsu and Traditional Chinese Medicine with Mike. His classes and the experience of both giving and receiving shiatsu was transformative for me - I experienced the connection between my body and my psyche more profoundly than ever before. And in doing so I began to understand the embodiment of spirituality. So, it was only natural that I also began studying qigong and taijijuan with Mike. I studied with him and his partner intensely from 1995 until 1997 and then again in 1998. From 1999 to 2001 I studied taijijuan in the Rising Dragon School, founded by Richard Farmer.
Through Mike and his partner, I met the spiritual teacher, Michael Barnett, who taught his own unique form of energy work. I was deeply immersed in Michael's teaching and work from 1996 until 2004.
In 2004 I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and essentially paused my studies of qigong, taijijuan and Traditional Chinese Medicine until I met Zhenevere in spring 2012. I studied with her continuously under the auspices of the MogaDao Institute until it ceased to exist in 2021. I gained my first certification from the MogaDao Institute in 2014 and have been teaching ever since. In 2020 I was named a Daoshen (meaning lineage carrier) of the MogaDao tradition.
Upon the dissolution of the MogaDao Institute in fall 2021, I made the decision to continue to practice and to teach what I had learned in the hope that the practices, theories, and philosophies may be of help and value to others, as they have been to me.