Posts Tagged ‘Contemplative Gardens’

Practicing Tai Chi in the Garden

Tuesday, December 27th, 2016

Think: calm. Think: flexibility. Think: steady breathing. Think about energy flowing through you, around you, within you. Think about connecting your feet to the earth and your hands with the cosmos. Think about the ancient practice of Tai Chi. Now think about practicing Tai Chi in your contemplative garden space.

Tai Chi is a mainstay of class listings at many botanical gardens, but you don’t have to have a grand or professionally landscaped space to reap the benefits of this ancient Chinese contemplative practice.

Tai Chi is often called “meditation in motion.” The mind-body connection and flow of energy remains consistent throughout the practice. The energy is called “Qi,” (pronounced “chee”), and is made up of two different qualities: Yin (solid, dark, cold, passive) and Yang (light, warm, active). The concept of yin and yang—two opposites working together, or soft movements overcoming hard movements—is central to the practice of Tai Chi. Movements are geared toward absorbing and transferring energy. Tai Chi is a whole body spiritual practice that melds the two parts of Qi, the Yin and the Yang together.

The exchange of energy between internal and external forces is amplified when you practice Tai Chi in the garden, as opposed to doing so in an empty room. When you practice Tai Chi in the garden, you’re also adding another dimension—connecting with mother nature and the living beings that surround you. In the garden, the sights, smells, sounds, and gentle touches of a passing breeze or plant waving in the wind remind you that there are other energies coming into contact with your own. As you calmly proceed through the Tai Chi movements, you practice the art of responding to energy directed your way, and allowing it to flow around you. Sounds like a good skill for life, right?

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Find Balance by Taking a Time Out in the Garden

Thursday, June 30th, 2016

meditation garden image 2 for blog post

Let’s face it. Executives, business owners, managers and directors are busy, busy people. Some days life can be a blur of meetings, commitments and fires to put out. With email, voice mail and snail mail all vying for our attention, things can pile up quickly until we feel like our personal and work lives are out of control.

What can we do to get our lives under control again? To feel productive again? To feel less stressed and harried? Try taking a time out, also called meditation, during your day – every day. More people than ever are doing some form of this stress-busting meditation, and researchers are discovering it has some quite extraordinary effects on the brains of those who do it regularly. When taking a time out in a garden, in a park or in nature, people feel even more relaxed, grounded and connected to that which is beyond us.

Time outs can last as little as five minutes or as long as an hour. The focus of a time out is to quiet your breathing, relax and rejuvenate your overworked mind and body. I have been meditating regularly for over ten years with great results. I like to begin my day gently with an hour of meditation. The result that I’ve had with regular time to quiet my mind is that my days flow smoother, I am more creative and productive. I have found that if I do not make the time to meditate each day I feel frazzled, scattered and unorganized. I feel forgetful and distracted. Life presents speed bumps, not the open super highway.

Neuroscience has now proven that just a few hours of quiet reflection each week can lead to an intriguing range of mental and physical effects. Consider that meditation is now accepted as a useful therapy for anxiety and depression. It’s being explored by schools, pro sports teams and military units to enhance performance, and is showing promise as a way of helping sufferers of chronic pain, too.

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