“If you see a host of dragons with no leader, this is auspicious”
The twisting and turning body of the dragon is a materialisation of the alternating positive and negative, fast and slow dynamics of yin and yang; dragons share the space between heaven and earth where humans find their home: they have a special affinity with the courses of the winds and waters that determine the quality and generatively of human life, when the dragons dance they play – with a flaming pearl, with each other.
Embodied life is not just flesh and effort is also high spirits and simple pleasures . A life well nurtured might turn the everyday into the flight of the dragon.
The multitude of leaderless dragons, appearing with their ever-changing lines of flight also invites you into an enhanced space.
How do we move smoothly though our life’s phases : the emergence ,development , retreating and storing?
How are they all in order?
Is this the secret to healthy longevity?
Does it rest on whether ones emotions and the qi and blood of the circulation tracks are running smoothly?
Why yangshen?
Nurturing life – in cultured , deliberate ,and creative ways
“Yangshen”– an activity that participates in the natural power and virtue of giving life to life. We cannot delimit or objectivity life, but we can generate it, feed it, train it, make it flourish
Explore the myriad forms of life – these are the“10 thousand things” an ancient Chinese parlance that names everything and anything that life is and is becoming.
Yin/Yang qi generates space in the form of heaven and earth and then time emerged into form of the 4 seasons.
Living with these seasons is even more about having “good seasons” Attending to the proper rhythms of rising and resting a way of “modulating ones spirits ” (diao shen) .
The yangshen of timing is not about denying desires or limiting pleasures, but balancing them, finding the right mix.
Our 3 treasures of the human body – jing – essence, qi – energy , shen – spirit
We can all be yangshen practitioners in some way or another if we wish.
Singing , Dancing, Swimming, Jogging , walking backwards…..hobbies writing, painting, poetry …..forms of connoisseurship such as appreciation of tea, wine and medicinal cuisine and many forms of “spiritual” self cultivation from meditation to learning another language.
Qi is not hard to experience , once you start attending to it.
Source “Ten Thousand Things” Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing- Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang