Raven Cohan

The Beach Does the TeachingBy Raven Cohan It was fortunate for me when my husband Gene and I moved to Hollywood Beach, FL. Until then, I’d been in South Florida for over five years and hardly got to the beach. I had taught Healing Tao classes mostly indoors, and with a few exceptions in parks up until relocating. Now here was this wonderful stretch of beach only 150 paces from my door. It seemed so natural to begin teaching Tai Chi-Chi Kung classes there. It’s going on our 14^h year at this beautiful spot within protected parkland, that has permitted me a ‘no overhead’ paradise that offers it’s daily teachings to my students and me. Every day the sky and sea play host to us. The students and I are amazed by completely different energies that are spilling out of nature’s cornucopia on a daily basis. The expression, ‘The best things in life are FREE’, comes to my mind when I describe them. Here follows some examples which we tap into in order to replenish our Chi: The 5 elements certainly come out to play! The shore is constantly gifting us with a surprise of fresh deposits that spilled to it from the oceans depths. (Some of the coral and shells are millions of years old.) Each day, the sun rises in an original choreography and the wind is so extremely crafty in sculpting the sand and sometimes pelting us with her gusts. It is true, that the hurricanes are here to teach us to not take anything for granted. (Of course, I do take class indoors when extreme conditions challenge the benefits, but we wear windbreakers up until I determine we are better off inside. We don’t give up too easily. All the more incentive it is to empower our chi fields by spiraling mind-eye forces around our Chi Belts!) The last example, but certainly not least is the ocean herself, who dresses in colors that vary enormously and textures which are smooth as silk to choppy, wavy and beyond. Such strong waves make me realize why the Healing Sound for water can be “Chhhhhuuuuuuiiiiiiiii”. I conduct my class facing north. We can look up the beach to quite some miles ahead. It’s not so difficult to visualize the east coast of our United States and the continuing coast up in Canada heading straight to the North Pole. With practice we can easily connect with the North Star and envision the Big Dipper whirling around that star. How much more easy it is to bring that powerful light into our Tai Chi poles and get centered through our training to deepen our roots into Mother Earth’s core. To our East is the Ocean herself and just a block away at our West we can feel the intra-coastal waterway with its everglades, that makes our area the barrier reef that it is. To our South we can energetically travel the coasts downwardly to South America. The South Pole and Southern Cross offer their powers to us with an openness that grows to be truly tangible despite how many thousands of miles away they are in actuality. Tuesday evenings when I conduct class at Sunset, the autumn and winter seasons last year of 2005/6, have offered us a star-filled vista. Due to the phenomenon of having views of Mars and Venus which are the largest we have seen in a while or will be privileged to see for only one more time in most of our life times, it seems really easier to hook up with their energies. The proximity of the planets have offered us this illusion and it has been truly quite a show. Doing our meditations and various gongs that help us to root, align and connect with more vital forces, seem to me to be more easily felt than when enclosed in a community center room such as that where I taught for ten years in the evening. I unconsciously knew I was receiving a more stilted energy by teaching indoors, yet it took me to last January ‘05 to finally quit the Center for all my classes. Now I teach only one indoor class in a kung fu dojo. There are many who believe it is safer to teach indoors and I say more power to those that either have no choice or prefer the protection. My challenge is to bring my newer students my experience that will energetically transmit in helping them to bolster their Chi fields so the colder winds don’t enter. I feel thankful to have easy access to our greatest Power Spot in all of South Florida. We have no grand mountains. In fact we have no mountains at all. Upstate in Florida there exist some forests. Our skimpy forests here in south Florida, however, are mostly sea-grape trees, which rarely grow much beyond one-story in height. We have some beautiful parks with or without lakes that envy any other of the world’s towns and cities. However, I have a slogan etched into a rock that was sent as a gift from my step-daughter. It says, “If you’re Lucky Enough to be at the Beach you are Lucky Enough”…. And I gratefully say, YES to that!!!

Raven Cohan

TLC Tai Chi-Qigong/Healing Tao of S. FL.

314 Oak St.

Hollywood, FL. 33019

954-92R-aven

Please Look at my own Web site:

WWW.taoTLC.com

Look at www.cdbaby.com/RavenCohan2 to hear samples of 'Jazz-Up Chi- Songs to Inspire and Tickle Ya'

These songs cover the good intentions we need when we are on our path, and presents honest obstacles that can come up, and teases us to move through our challenges.