With Luscious Juices Overflowing

"Close to the Gates a spacious Garden lies,
From the Storms defended and inclement Skies;
Four Acres was the allotted Space of Ground,
Fenc'd with a green Enclosure all around.
Tall thriving Trees confessed the fruitful Mold:
The reddening Apple ripens here to Gold,
Here the blue Fig with luscious Juice overflows,
With deeper Red the full Pomegranate glows,
The Branch here bends beneath the weighty Pear,
and verdant Olives flourish round the Year."
-   Homer,  Odyssey, circa 850 B.C.
    Alexander Pope translation 1725

This is the time of the year for many figs to ripen in our home orchard.  We dry many of them for eating later in the year.  

"The fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
The grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken fig,
And quinces untouched,
I bring thee as offering."
-   Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961, Priapus: Keeper-of-Orchards


Fruits and Nuts 

Quotes for Gardeners

Taijiquan in a Summer Garden

The setting and scenery of this performance are very beautiful. Michael Vollero's performance of this lovely form is inspiring .

"Although it's called "13 Postures" generally, I believe "13 Principles" could be a more appropriate translation. The form is about the same length as the Wudang Sanfeng Pai Taijiquan 28 Postures, which is a short version of the 108 Movement long form. This form is thought to be a more modern creation, but dedicates a segment to each of the 13 principles of Taijiquan, and contains a unique energy and feeling from any other Taijiquan form I've come across. This is demonstrated is performed at Wudangshan's Ba Xian Guan (Eight Immortals Temple) by Michael A. Vollero. Filmed by Teake Chen & Georg Nagy."
- UTube Notes

Glomerulonephritis: Chronic Kidney Disease

My son, Michael Delmer Garofalo, has chronic kidney disease.  Thirteen years ago he was diagnosed with Glomerulonephritis, and underwent treatment with steroids to slow the autoimmune causes of his kidney disease.  He has bravely dealt with this progressive kidney disorder for many years.

On Monday of this past week, he began dialysis treatments in Portland, Oregon, at Providence Hospital.  His kidneys are barely functioning now (under 4%), and dialysis is his only hope for survival until a kidney transplant might give him renewed hope for another decade or so of life. 

Thankfully, Mick and April's employment provides them with Blue Shield Health insurance.  Also, U.S. Medicare helps people with kidney disease with medical insurance coverage.  The American National Kidney Foundation is also working to help people with this disease. 

We talk a couple of times each week, and I try to encourage him as best I can and provide other support.  This situation has been an ongoing cause for concern, worry, and sadness for my wife and I. 

  
April Scott and Michael D. Garofalo (Mick) were married 6 years ago. 

 

 Mick and I at Ft. Stevens State Park near Astoria, Oregon.   

Maybe even Sri Dhanvantari or St. Benedict of Nursa or White Tara might lend my son a helping hand?  

A Morning on Úytaahkoo or the "White Mountain"

Karen and I have been working at home all this week on home improvement and gardening projects.  Temperatures in the North Sacramento Valley have consistently been up to a high of 104F in the afternoon and down to a low of 65F in the early morning. 

I decided to go hiking today on the south facing slopes of Mt. Shasta.  I left early this morning a drove north on Interstate 5 up to Mt. Shasta City.  This is a lovely drive from about 300 feet above sea level in Red Bluff up thorough the Shasta-Trinity National Forest to 3,600 feet in Mt. Shasta City. It is about a 200 mile round trip drive from Red Bluff to Mt. Shasta City. 

I plan to hike from Bunny Flat (6,950 feet) up to Horse Camp Lodge (8,000 feet).  There is little snow left on Mt. Shasta this summer.  Mountain hiking is always a good physical challenge for my overall conditioning and for my feet. I do, however, intend just to sit many times in the shade and observe the mountain scenery.  

Afterwards, I will spend some time in the Mt. Shasta City for a late lunch and shopping at some New Age stores.  This is a popular tourist town in the summer months.  Then, I will spend some time in the shade along the Sacramento River near Dunsmir.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like falling leaves."
-  John Muir 

"My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing."
-  Aldous Huxley 

Mt. Shasta, California: Notes, Quotes, Photographs by Mike Garofalo.

Strange, unusual, and "other-worldly" events do happen on Mt. Shasta:

"I first met Chang San-Feng above the forest, 
near the clear spring,
when gathering clouds darkened the day,
and Mt. Shasta was silent.
His long beard was black as emptiness,
ear lobes to his shoulders,
holding obsidian in his hand,
pointing to the sun,
eyes staring into infinity,
his long body clothed in silence.
We exchanged "hellos"
smiled and bowed,
a barbarian and an Immortal,
both panting from the climb,
laughing,
ten-thousand echoes
between our rocky minds.
After billions upon billions of heartbeats past
(for he must have been 888 years old),
I was so bold
as to ask the ancient one
for the sacred mantra of yore.
He lifted his whisk,
and brushed my face,
I could not speak,
my lips were stone,
ideas stopped -
I was alone."
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Meetings with Master Chang San-Feng

 

 

Dao De Jing, Laozi, Chapter 54

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Chapter 54

"That which is firmly rooted,
is not easily torn from the ground;
just as that which is firmly grasped,
does not slip easily from the hand.
The virtue of the Tao is real,
if cultivated in oneself;
when loved in the family, it abounds;
when throughout the village, it will grow;
and in the nation, be abundant.
When it is real universally,
virtue is in all people.
All things are microcosms of the Tao;
the world a microcosmic universe,
the nation a microcosm of the world,
the village a microcosmic nation;
the family a village in microcosmic view,
and the body a microcosm of one's own family;
from single cell to galaxy."
-   Translated by Stan Rosenthal, Chapter 54 

"The well-rooted cannot be dislodged.
The tightly-held will not be lost.
Generation after generation
Worship their ancestors forever.
Cultivate it in yourself
Its virtue will be real.
Cultivate it in the family
Its virtue will overflow.
Cultivate it in the village
Its virtue will extend.
Cultivate it in the state
Its virtue will flourish.
Cultivate it in the realm
Its virtue will be all-pervasive.
Assess the self by considering yourself.
Assess the family by considering the family.
Assess the village by considering the village.
Assess the state by considering the state.
Assess the realm by considering the realm.
How do I know the realm is like that?
By means of this."
-   Translated by A. S. Kline, Chapter 54    

"The man who knows how to establish [virtue] never fears its being uprooted.
The man who knows how to maintain [virtue] never fears its escaping him.
The sons and grandsons of such never rest in offering sacrifices to them.
The virtue of him who cultivates Tao in his own person is genuine.
The virtue of him who cultivates it in his own home is superabundant [in that he has charity to spare for others].
The virtue of him who cultivates it in his village is enduring.
The virtue of him who cultivates it in his State is exuberant. 
The virtue of him who cultivates it in the Empire is universal.
Wherefore I judge the persons of others by my own person;
the families of others by my own family;
the villages of others by my own village;
the States of others by my own State;
the Empire [of the ancient kings] by the Empire I rule to-day.
How do I know the acquiescence of the world in the cultivation of Tao by this method."
-   Translated by Frederic Balfour, Chapter 54 

"When the foundation is laid well, and the mortar sound
The house will stand long
And your descendents will honor your memory
Cultivate virtue in yourself - see yourself - so it will be genuine
Cultivate it in your family - see your family - so it will spread
Cultivate it in your village - see your village - so it will have roots
Cultivate it in your nation - see your nation - so it will be abundant
Cultivate it in the world - see the world - so there will be nothingelse
How do I know the world works this way?
There is no how, I listen, and I know."
-   Translated by Ted Wrigley, Chapter 54  

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu: Introduction, Bibliography, Commentary, Chapter Index 

Chapter 55 of the Dao De Jing by Laozi: Text and Commentaries

Index of English Language Translators of the Tao Te Ching

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Chapter and Thematic Index to the Tao Te Ching

Quietly Sitting in the Garden

"Sit quietly
focus and forget
rest with the great achievement.
The ancient child asks
"what is the great achievement?"
It is beyond description in any language
it can only be felt intuitively
it can only be expressed intuitively. 
Engage a loose, alert, and aware
body, mind, and sound
then look into the formless
and perceive no thing.
See yourself as a sphere
small at first
growing to encompass
the vastness of infinite space. 
Sit quietly
focus and forget then
in a state of ease and rest
secure the truth of the great achievement.
Employing the truth will not exhaust its power
when it seems exhausted it is really abundant
and while human art will die at the hands of utility
the great achievement is beyond being useful.
Great straightness is curved and crooked
great intelligence is raw and silly
great words are simple and naturally awkward. 
Engaged movement drives out the frozen cold
mindful stillness subdues the frenzied heart.
Sit quietly
focusing
forgetting
summon order from the void
that guides the ordering of the universe."
-  Tao Te Ching, Chapter 45, Translated by John Bright-Fey, 2006

"You are sitting on the earth and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth.  You are there - fully, personally, genuinely."
-  Chogyam Trungpa 

"Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still."
-  T.S. Eliot 

"Sitting in your garden is a feat to be worked at with unflagging determination and single-mindedness - for what gardener worth his salt sits down.  I am deeply committed to sitting in the garden."
-  Mirabel Osler 

"The first level of stillness is about being with yourself in order to know yourself. This is accomplished by being wide awake and aware as you deliberately relax into yourself. The idea is to consciously enter into a state wherein you temporarily suspend everything you think you know about who you are, including anything you have ever been taught, and simply be attentive to what's going on right there where you are. You practice being quiet, both physically and mentally, as you pay attention to the sensations in your body, the various thoughts in your mind, and your current experience of being conscious and alive. You practice simple body-mind awareness, being conscious of the moment you are now in, and thereby experience with clarity the energy of you. You consciously experience yourself as you actually are. In this way you open yourself to a new, truer, less distorted experience of you and the world."
- Erich Schiffmann, Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness, 1996, p. 7. 

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Standing Meditation

Quiet in the Garden

Sitting in the Garden

Ba Duan Jin Qigong

I frequently teach the Chinese Eight Section Brocade Chi Kung exercise and fitness routine in my Taijiquan class and my Yoga class.  Naturally, I include many comments about Shaolin and Daoist fitness and healthy living concepts. 

This Eight Treasures exercise and fitness routine has a varied and long history with ancient roots back to the Animal Frolics Dao-yin exercises of 300 CE.  Some of Eight Treasures involve toughening, courage, and fighting and were used in military exercise and conditioning drills. 
 
Back in 2002, I created the webpage titled:  The Eight Section Brocade Chi Kung or the "Ba Duan Jin Qigong."
  

The Ba Duan Jin Qigong form includes eight basic exercises to help you keep limber, become stronger, improve your balance, and increase your stamina.  There are opportunities for squatting movements and postures to strengthen the legs. 

The entire Eight Beautiful Tapestries Chi Kung form is done while standing. 

There are numerous versions of this popular Chi Kung form.  There are many good books, instructional DVDs, and UTube videos to choose from on this topic.  My webpage includes a long bibliography on the Eight Section Brocade Chi Kung with citations for resources, links, videos, books, DVDs on the subject.  

I make a number of comments about the movement variations, physical training targets, muscles worked, attitude, benefits, options, comparisons with yoga asanas, and breathing patterns.  

I offer my own version with fairly detailed comments on each of the eight movements.  Here is my one page class handout for the Eight Section Brocade Chi Kung class. 

Posted

Walking - The First Meditation

"The mere thought of walking outdoors on a brilliant golden-blue day causes fire-works of delight to go off in most people’s psyche.  It gives one an instant feeling of happiness and that is meditation!  We are not only in touch, at that moment, with the physical splendor of nature, but also with the beauty of merging our own spiritual nature with it." 
-  Karen Zebroff 

“The subject of walking is, in some sense, about how we invest universal acts with particular meanings. Like eating or breathing, it can be invested with wildly different cultural meanings, from the erotic to the spiritual, from the revolutionary to the artistic.”
-  Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

“Walking in the morning takes you to beautiful places where light and shade make love.”
-  Mohamed Shareef 

The Ways of Walking Website  

Walking Quotations 1 
Walking Quotations 2  
Walking Quotations 3  
Walking Quotations 4  
Walking Quotations 5  

Walking Meditation  

"Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind.  Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility." 
-  Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild

“Walking shares with making and working that crucial element of engagement of the body and the mind with the world, of knowing the world through the body and the body through the world.”
-  Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Pulling Onions Again

Here are some excerpts from a collection of 754 one-liners from Pulling Onions by Mike Garofalo:

Mother Nature is always pregnant. 
Time creeps, walks, runs and flies - it is all about moving things. 
Chaos breaks its own rules to allow Order to play. 
Dogmatists are less useful than dogs. 
Take life with a grain of salt, and a icy margarita. 
The best things in life are more expensive than you think. 
Rather than "love mankind," I'd rather admire a few good people. 
Some flourish when crowded together, others don't. 
Garbage In, Compost Out. 
It is more about You and Now, rather than Them and Back Then. 
Hunting for tomato worms- no mercy. 
A pocket knife will be its dullest at just the right time. 
While gardening the borders between work and play become blurred.
When gardening, look up more often.
Just the right words can be worth more than a thousand pictures. 
Death's door is always unlocked. 
A flower needs roots; beauty a society of minds. 
A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb. 
A working hypothesis is far better than a belief. 
Only two percent of all insects are harmful.  Why are they all in my garden? 
Create your own garden, the god's certainly won't. 
That something is eternal is unverifiable. 
Most laws of Gardening are merely local ordinances. 
Failures, disorder and death are the Grim Reaper of Entropy at work. 
Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday. 
The meaning is lost in the saying - a nature mystic's dilemma. 
Vigorous gardening might help more than a psychiatrist's couch. 
A gardener is no farmer, he is much too impractical. 
No garden lasts for long - neither will you. 
Shade, in the summer, is as precious as a glass of water. 
A wise gardener knows when to stop. 
Gardens are demanding pets. 
Unclench your fist to give a hand. 
The little choices day after day are the biggest issue. 
Gardening is but one battle against Chaos. 
When life gives you onions, you ain't making lemonade. 
Many friendships are sustained by a mutual hatred of another person or group.
Read until you go to seed. 
Death's door is always unlocked. 
Autumn Yellow, the mirror image of Spring Green. 
What you see depends on when you look. 
Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener her slave. 
One's "true self" is changing and elusive. 
A little of this and a little of that, and some exceptions - these are the facts. 
Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature?  Whack! 

-   Pulling Onions by Mike Garofalo  (754 One Line Quips)  

 

Tai Chi Standard 24 Form

The first Taijiquan form I learned in 1986 was the Standard 24 Movement T'ai Chi Ch'uan Form in the Yang Style of T'ai Chi Ch'uan.  At that time there were no books or instructional videotapes on this popular form.  Since that time, nearly 25 years have past.  Now there are dozens of books and instructional DVDs and webpages on the subject of the 24 Form. 

Snake Creeps Down on Left Side

 

My webpage on the Standard 24 Taijiquan Form has been the most popular webpage on the Cloud Hands Website for many years. In the sidebar of this blog, you will find a quick index to this webpage.

Standard Simplified Taijiquan 24 Form.  Research by Michael P. Garofalo, M.S. This webpage includes a detailed bibliography of books, media, links, online videos, articles, and resources.  It provides a list of the 24 movement names in English, Chinese, French, German and Spanish, with citations for sources of the movement names.  It provides detailed descriptions of each movement with black and white line illustrations and  photographs.  It includes relevant quotations, notes, performance times, section breakdowns, basic Tai Chi principles, and strategies for learning the form.  The Peking (Bejing) Chinese National orthodox standard simplified 24 movement T'ai Chi Ch'uan form, created in 1956, is the most popular form practiced all around the world.  This form uses the Yang Style of Taijiquan.  Published by Green Way Research, Valley Spirit Taijiquan, Red Bluff, California:  Webpage URL:  http://www.egreenway.com/taichichuan/short.htm.  File size: 269 Kb. 

This webpage provides many good suggestions for a person learning this form on their own if there is no Tai Chi class in their area. 

The most detailed book that I have seen on the subject of the 24 Form is:

The Yang Taiji 24 Step Short Form: A Step by Step Guide for All Levels
By James Drewe
London, Singing Dragon Press, 2011.
382 pages, black and white photographs, charts, detailed descriptions, training tips.

I give information on many other fine books by other good authors on the 24 Form in my webpage: Cheng Zhao, Foen Tjoeng Lie, Eric Chaline, Le Deyin, etc.. 

My students tell me that their favorite instructional DVD on the 24 Form is:

Tai Chi - The 24 Forms
By Dr. Paul Lam


I have taught this lovely Tai Chi form to hundreds of people since 2000.  Everyone tells me how much they enjoy learning and practicing this gentle form.

I also teach and enjoy playing the Chen Style Taijiquan 18 Movement Form created by Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei. Actually, in the last year, I prefer practicing the Chen 18 Form more. 

Central Washington State Travels

April and Michael Garofalo, Karen and I drove from our campground at Whidbey Island, south to Seattle, east to Yakima, and then south on U.S Highway 97 to the Columbia River near The Dalles.  Then, the next day, Karen and I drove south on U.S. 97 to Bend, Oregon.  On the next day we drove to Weed, California, and then home to Red Bluff.  

Wheat fields in the Yakima Valley and Mt. Adams west of Yakima and Toppenish, Washington.  This area is mostly part of the Yakama Nation of Native American Indians.

Olympic National Park

Kalloch Beach in Olympic National Park.

 

Alicia, Sean, Makenna, and Katelyn Flin at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park.   

Katelyn, Alicia, Karen and Makenna at Crescent Lake.  

Olympic National Park, Washington

Janet Garofalo, Karen Garofalo, Paul Garofalo, Mike Garofalo at the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park

Karen Garofalo at Olympic National Park in the State of Washington.

April and Mick, Mike, Paul, and Janet Garofalo at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon. Paul and Mike are brothers. 

We all met in Portland and enjoyed sight seeing and socializing.  We all then drove up I5 to Tacoma, Washington, west to the coast, and then north into the Olympic National Park. 

The Month of August

Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores Compiled by Mike Garofalo
Winter	Spring	Summer	Fall
January	April	July	October
February	May	August	November
March	June	September	December

  
Lughnasadh, Lammas, Midsummer Feast, August 1st   

August: Quotes, Poems, Lore, Garden Chores

We have been busy with gardening and watering plants during the hottest days of the year in Red Bluff.  Evenings are for watching the Olympic Games in London on DishTV.  

We just got back from a vacation trip to the Olympic National Park in Washington.  

 

Cane Weapon Practice

Hsing I Cane Form by Master Huang Su Chun  UTube Demonstrations.  List of the movement names for this form are provided in English and Chinese from Poetry in Motion Tai Chi Chuan website by Jeff.  

Cane Weapon Practices, Forms, Lore