Between Heaven and Earth

Between Heaven and Earth
Lift Chi Up, Pour Chi Down — between Heaven and Earth

This was written on a crowded airplane. It came to me to pass some of the time practicing. I began visualizing the opening sequence of Lift Chi Up Pour Chi Down, and the images that came to me were so vivid I pulled out some paper and it became a poem. After the opening sequence I simply dissolved, I could not even visualize the next movements, all was chi. If you don't know the form, imagine that you do …  Guma: Judy Tretheway 2008

I stand.  From inside, I find myself, humble, ready,
desiring communion, desiring wholeness,
desiring a dance with and within vitality itself.

(palms turning and pressing forward and back)
My desire, spiraling out from a simple turn of the wrist,
senses, from a place way below me, that I am of the earth
and all the earth beneath me supports me.
Drawing back into me, I sense my place,
one, two, three times greater than ever before.
This place here, this planet here, this galaxy here,
all swirling with me through space, space within me, space around me.

(arms lifting, fingers pointing to dantian, then around to the back)
From the swirling galaxies within the deep, dark depths of my being,
my desires rise to know myself, to offer myself.
From the vast reaches of the cosmos,
I turn and look at the radiant glow of my singular Dantian.
There can be no doubting the sun itself is within me.

Adjusting perspectives with a turn of my fingertips outward
I become bonded with the infinite expanse,
horizons of potential that surround me
in this special moment of practice.
Indeed in every moment — to the right and to the left
extending beyond, beyond beyond.

This glow inside me circles until it circles back in on itself —
knows its own radiance, knowing all radiance
from the outside in, from the inside out,
centered in the Dantian, grounded, embodied
home for the twinkling of my life.

(hands move up to under armpits, circling of fingers)
Lifting up to the heart of my own story
I shudder as the explosion of grace shatters my latest layer of defense.
Pay attention! I challenge myself:
Dissolve the walls around your heart.
Accept the vastness of this love.
You don't need to hide behind this personality any longer.
Shatter the story.
My fingers become flame throwers
quickening, igniting the engine of my true presence.
Spiraling the truth of love's welcome
deep into the tentacles of doubt still hiding in my heart,
then the swirl reverses and draws out all fears
of leading a truly compassionate life.

(from underarms, hands reach forward)
Grateful for the unending grace, I offer myself once again
to the cosmos swirling around my feeble gestures
from the center of my center, I reach out.
From the center of my loves' love, I reach out.

(middle fingers point toward the head)
Then in the simple curving of a fingertip I know.
I know I am all that I pray towards.
There in the middle of my head, the sun's own radiance,
burning out all doubt, removing all fears, resetting all systems
in brilliant balance.
Stunned, my mind stops.
Stops even its prayers, and simply glows in grace.
Receiving and releasing have disappeared
canceling each other out in their coming and going
becoming simple brilliance.

(hands and arms moving to sides and then lifting)
In expressing this glow I discover it is boundlessness.
The me that was encased in grace is now grace.
The inside and outside have lost all distinction.
The up and the down have lost all distinction.
The heavens surround me.
The earth is within me.
All manner of things are well.

(arms reaching heaven-ward, stretching up)
I have plugged myself into the great stream of God's grace,
the Tao where nothing is needed and all comes without asking.
Every cell, every fluid space in my body
sparkles shimmering with the glee of a giggling infant
alive and made new, eager to know itself, alive in the story of its life.

(arms pointing up, pull down into prayer hands in front of the heart)
A current flowing from a vision for my life
from beyond my ability to know, to sense or to feel
draws down into me piercing every cell.
Aligning my head, my heart, my belly and
through into my feet's love of the earth.
My core essence has come alive in its uniqueness,
alive in its union with all that is.

(turning of the prayer hands)
Then spiraling out like a galaxy of grace
generated from within my very heart,
my limitlessness radiates out on my singular song of love.
Then the universe's boundless symphony of love returns
along these very same pathways
spiraling into the infinite potential of all life,
and my life recognizes the sound of its own song
in harmony with the vitality of all life.