At the Foot of the Mountain

With the holiday season beginning, I can’t help but let my thoughts fall to the age-old family tradition of praying before we eat. Growing up in a Christian family, every meal was preceded with a prayer. Although I am no longer Christian, this one has really stuck with me. Why, of all things, do I still pray before meals? I do it because I believe it's important, regardless of religion. Thinking About Food Our lives are very, very busy, and so we often don't even think about the food that we're eating. Not only are we always rushing about, but we are also removed from the process of acquiring the food we eat. This leads to us not giving thought to where it comes from and to exactly what sacrifices had to be made for it to become our meals. How many plants and animals died to put food on your plate? There were those killed for the actual food, those killed in the process of making land to grow the food, etc. Also, how much energy did it take to get you your meals? There'...

A little over three years ago, I wrote a post about Prayer and Selfishness . In that post, I discussed how traditional Christian prayer could sound selfish because one is typically telling, or even outright commanding, their deity to do something for them. I also suggested some alternate ways of prayer. I thought I should revisit the topic and approach it from a different perspective. In the "big three" Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), God is seen as all-powerful, omniscient, omnipotent, and demanding of worship. Even the various aspects of God, such as Jesus or the Holy Spirit, mostly fit these qualifications. And it is those same qualifications which make the concept of selfish prayer so ridiculous. However, not all belief systems view their deities in the same manner. There are many spiritual and occult systems that view deities as not something to worship, but rather something to build a relationship with. In these traditions, a prayer where you ask...

NOTE:  The examples of the postures given in this article will be from the Wu Family Taijiquan Long Form, as taught in conjunction with the systems of won hop loong chuan and pyong hwa do.  Where applicable, the corresponding postures from the more commonly known Yang Taijiquan Long Form will also be given for reference.  However, not every movement has a counterpart in the Yang form.  It is also worth mentioning that the Wu form has many postures with names that are similar to postures in the Yang form.  Aside from a few exceptions, though, these do not usually refer to same motions.  For example, both forms have a posture called “Repulse the Monkey”, but they are each referring to a completely different set of movements. Introduction   The basis for taijiquan , regardless of style, are the thirteen postures.  In fact, the thirteen postures are what defines a martial art as being taijiquan or not.  If an art contains all thirteen postures, ...