By Beth Quist
"Outstretched Arm" by Asher Geist During my very first Qigong training class at AIMC in Berkeley, CA, our instructor had us do an exercise designed to help us connect and work with invisible energies. Suzanne, our instructor, had us each partner with a fellow student. One person would think of a color to send. The other student would receive the color and report what they saw. Through thought. In silence. And with no hints.
I personally thought "Good Grief. I'm going to leave and drop this class. This is just too weird." But I got up and participated because we needed an even number of participants.
Suzanne reviewed the process now that we were all standing with a partner. The sender would stand and silently choose a color, visualize the color in the mind, and when ready, lift her/his arm and mentally direct the color out the palm of the upright hand. The receiver would receive the color and determine what color it was, then announce the color he/she had received. No words would be spoken.
In silence, my partner sent a color out of her palm to me and I, being the receiver, said, "I see red!' She said "YES!"
We then changed partners to try the exercise with someone new, and we repeated the process.
"White!' I said, and the person sending me that color said "YES!" I thought, wow, this is strange. I got another one correct!
We changed partners again and again and again. I kept on getting them all correct. Finally I got combined with another student and reported to her that "I see pink''. "Yes" she exclaimed! But I then continued, "you need to go wash your hands because that rose perfume on your hands is overwhelming!"
She responded, "I don’t have anything on my hands. I was sending you PINK ROSES!”
My mouth dropped and I felt chills all over my body. I now knew this was something beyond guessing. I had received the thoughts she was sending.
Before this class I didn't even know what Qigong was. I had been groomed in Western Medicine where everything is about hard core data and lots of powerful equipment. But in this realm, we were focusing our minds to create and then send subtle, invisible energy to each other with our mind. We were also receiving and interpreting these nonverbal and invisible messages using no technology. This was pretty incredible and rather amazing.
The door of curiosity was now wide open and I was ready to begin learning about Qigong and the subtle energy of Qi. This was the start of a whole new adventure in the art of healing and health I hadn't even known existed before walking in the door of this Qigong classroom.
I personally thought "Good Grief. I'm going to leave and drop this class. This is just too weird." But I got up and participated because we needed an even number of participants.
Suzanne reviewed the process now that we were all standing with a partner. The sender would stand and silently choose a color, visualize the color in the mind, and when ready, lift her/his arm and mentally direct the color out the palm of the upright hand. The receiver would receive the color and determine what color it was, then announce the color he/she had received. No words would be spoken.
In silence, my partner sent a color out of her palm to me and I, being the receiver, said, "I see red!' She said "YES!"
We then changed partners to try the exercise with someone new, and we repeated the process.
"White!' I said, and the person sending me that color said "YES!" I thought, wow, this is strange. I got another one correct!
We changed partners again and again and again. I kept on getting them all correct. Finally I got combined with another student and reported to her that "I see pink''. "Yes" she exclaimed! But I then continued, "you need to go wash your hands because that rose perfume on your hands is overwhelming!"
She responded, "I don’t have anything on my hands. I was sending you PINK ROSES!”
My mouth dropped and I felt chills all over my body. I now knew this was something beyond guessing. I had received the thoughts she was sending.
Before this class I didn't even know what Qigong was. I had been groomed in Western Medicine where everything is about hard core data and lots of powerful equipment. But in this realm, we were focusing our minds to create and then send subtle, invisible energy to each other with our mind. We were also receiving and interpreting these nonverbal and invisible messages using no technology. This was pretty incredible and rather amazing.
The door of curiosity was now wide open and I was ready to begin learning about Qigong and the subtle energy of Qi. This was the start of a whole new adventure in the art of healing and health I hadn't even known existed before walking in the door of this Qigong classroom.
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