Steven

>>>Reminds me of an amusing story where society is
>>>restructured so that very masculine women are
>>>paired with very masculine men–the logic being
>>>that extremely feminine women were needed to
>>>help create more pronounced masculinity in
>>>otherwise effeminate-seeming men. A very
>>>masculine woman with a very feminine man,…[Read more]

>>>The point is, different Taoist traditions
>>>have different views, surely, about sex,
>>>sexual orientation, and the nature of gender,
>>>among other topics.

Different traditions say different things.
Different traditions *within* the label of “Daoism” say different things.
Different PEOPLE within a given Daoist tradition say…[Read more]

Healing Tao model has each individual having an inner male and inner female. While this appears “binary”, it in no way defines the percent dominance of one over the other. It is a continuum, unique to each individual.

No need to see where you fit in; everyone fits in, regardless of their percentage mix.

S

>>>How does one tell the difference between male and female?
>>>Where would an intersex or genderqueer person fit
>>>into the binary? The Olympic Committee would love
>>>to know how to draw the line, biologically speaking,
>>>between the sexes. I don’t care much for labels
>>>and prefer just to spontaneously enjoy being myself,
>>>but…[Read more]

Warning to the reader: Forgive me if my words are too shocking, but I’d rather speak honestly, than shade my truth with metaphors.

>>>First comic: Afraid of being the real you? 😉
>>>Who isn’t?

I am not, at least for the most part.
I speak my mind, and don’t hide in the least bit.
I have no avatar. Steven is my real name, and people can…[Read more]

Let me answer your last question first:

>>>Is there a text where this is all explained with crystal clarity?!

No. Good luck with such a quest. 😉

This is the problem that I illustrated in our earlier discussions on the “Door of Life”, Mingmen, and Dantian. There is a lot of inconsistency in the literature on all of these things.

The…[Read more]

OK, NOW you are saying lead. Your original post said IRON.
“Tie small bags of coarse fabric with iron shot (treated in pig blood) to your arms and legs.”

S

It said balls made of iron, not balls made of lead.
Seems like a questionable explanation to me.

What’s with the pig blood?
Seems ridiculously ritualistic, if all you are trying to do is add objects that are heavy to the body.

S

Your reply was a little too “stream-of-consciousness” for me to follow, but glad you enjoyed the video. I felt the video to be very filled with qi. The color, sound, and scenery really resonated with me. I’ve actually watched it a couple of times over the past day while doing my IS2 practice.

Only comments I have on the items in your…[Read more]

>>>My little thought experiment here is simply
>>>to imagine a situation were one doesn’t have
>>>any models in the form of representation
>>>by some teacher or for example some book;
>>>so how one proceeds?

>>>It could be very different things one could
>>>be after, but if it would be neidan, qigong
>>>and tai chi chuan; how one…[Read more]

That’s correct.

1=Governor Channel (Du)
2=Conception Channel (Ren)
3=Thrusting Channel (Chong)
4=Belt Channel (Dai)
5=Yin Bridge Channel (Yin Qiao)
6=Yang Bridge Channel (Yang Qiao)
7=Yin Regulator Channel (Yin Wei)
8=Yang Regulator Channel (Yang Wei)

The left/right thrusting channels are not separate channels, but simply the part of…[Read more]

I didn’t believe you, so I checked.
Turns out that you are right that such a diagram is present.

HOWEVER, I contacted David, and it is a misprint.
The publisher inserted this picture from another source, and was not removed before the final printing. And, as you know, many get this wrong, so they sourced the picture from an incorrect…[Read more]

Looks like those stamps must have helped.
I see in the news that Finland’s parliament just legalized same-sex marriage.

Yeah, there is nothing wrong with including the arms for meditation purposes.
It’s part of the macrocosmic orbit, and it is good to include the whole body.
There are just no eight extra channels that go down the arms.

Plenty of acupuncture routes go down the arms . . . lung, large intestine, pericardium, triple warmer, heart, and small…[Read more]

Yes, this is why I said his book is wrong.

A lot of people who write up alchemy try to overlay a bunch of technical data (e.g. acupuncture routes) onto what they are doing, but the information they look up isn’t correct. Then this false info gets repeated by others who use them as a source, saying “XXX says so”.

The big problem is that even people who have heard that the Regulator…[Read more]

This is an area of BIG confusion.
Many HT instructors have gotten confused and put the Regulator channels (Yin Wei and Yang Wei) on the arms. This is a big misunderstanding. They have not–and never will–be on the arms.

Twicken’s pathways are correct and show the Regulator channels going down into the legs, just like the Bridge channels…[Read more]

>>>What are the differences between an over-active
>>>or under-active organ, in general? For instance,
>>>what if earth were over-active, Metal next most
>>>so, and fire were underactive?

You are likely referring to the five-element analysis “condition of the day stem” in a Chinese Astrology chart. However, that is not how you read such…[Read more]