A New Connexion Magazine Article on Penal Rehabilitation and T'ai Chi, by World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day Founder, Bill Douglas |
A Glimpse of Global Liberation at Folsom Prison
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Bill Douglas
Last Monday I had the opportunity to do a Qigong workshop with inmates
at the California State Maximum Security Prison known as "Folsom" (made
famous by Johnny Cash's song). Thanks to the work of T'ai Chi Chih
teacher Judy Tretheway. I
arrived with some trepidation, even though I had spent the weekend
preparing by doing my own intensive energy work. My internal preparation
came in handy when I arrived, for Folsom is an ancient foreboding
looking structure, with endless iron gates and rows of tiny cramped
cells, and upon entering I was asked to sign a release stating that "if
I became a hostage, the warden would not negotiate for my release." As
prepared as I was internally, the endless corridors and heavy steel bars
became increasingly disconcerting.
HOWEVER, once I entered into the sanctum of the chapel, which was where,
with the help of Judy and several inmate Qigong instructors, a two-year
program of Qigong and T'ai Chi Chih had been taking place. This place,
in the midst of a yard made of razor wire and gun towers surrounded by
massive stone walls, these Qigong students had created a place of calm
and safety. Upon entering, four African American Inmates silently flowed
through their forms as white, Hispanic, and Indian inmates watched
quietly and respectfully. We
began the meditation workshop I had come there to do, and the result was
powerful and moving. This group of men in this "intense" situation had
created for themselves a real "center" within the chaos. They had found
a pathway to peace even through the barbed twisting tunnels of their own
pasts and their current lives.
Afterward we discussed the power of energy medicine for healing the pain
of pasts that can pull our strings as if we were puppets on a marionette
string. We discussed how these tools can provide us a "newness," a
possibility for opening to becoming more than we ever were before, to
become less an affliction to those around us and more and more to find
our flow as a healing force within our world, even when that world is
within the iron and stone walls of a life sentence with no parole. I
was moved by the way Qigong can help to empower and transform, enabling
these men to find a lifeline to their higher nature, creating men who
were determined to heal, to become, and to grow into a manifestation of
the life force. I was also moved by how this Qigong project had brought
together men of many races and religions, and in fact, had been the only
program to bring men of opposing gangs together in Folsom. This Qigong
project has shown me the power of what these tools have to offer. The
inmate leader of the project informed me that the records show that
there has been a dramatic reduction of violent incidents in Folsom since
this program began 2 years ago ... for some inmates a 70% reduction in
"incidents." If
it has brought mortal enemies together in peace and mutual healing,
"What can it do for the world?" In
many of the places where World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day was held this year,
little more than 40 years ago, there was a thunderous destruction
occurring in the form of the Second World War. I identified with the
early tempestuous lives of some of the men I met at Folsom because I too
used T'ai Chi & Qigong to heal from the pain of the past. My Father
served in 3 years of almost continuous combat, returning home with
shattered nerves and a rage that still affects me deeply even though I'm
a grown man and he has been dead for many years. The gaping wounds of
that war affected us all around the world, through our fathers and
grandfathers. We inherited remnants of that absolute violence, and in
many ways the world is still trying to heal from that aberration.
Therefore it is a powerful act and statement for our future, as in April
of each year the sons and daughters of that past world of pain launch a
new campaign, a campaign of collective healing unlike the world has ever
seen. We, the participants in World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day, are
liberators of the world, as we heal ourselves one nervous system at a
time worldwide. And just as the trauma of our fathers affected us, our
healing will resonate out endlessly through the concurrent waves of
humanity's future. This act of healing we are embarking upon is the
highest honor we can pay to our parents. We honor our fathers and
mothers sacrifices and pain by our act of deliberate and relentless
healing.
Folsom Prison's powerful testament to releasing the past and healing
into the future was a microcosmic model to the entire world's need to
move past the past and into our limitless future. In that room in Folsom
Prison, there were no gangs and no offenders, as they released the grip
of their past violence and pain, they self-created a collection of new
people who had "redefined themselves" into an event of healing. I was
humbled by it, and I was excited by the tremendous possibility that
World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day offers us to bring this transformational
empowerment to the world at large. I
have invited the Folsom Prison Qigong group to organize a World T'ai Chi
& Qigong Day Event within the heavy walls of Folsom Prison on April 8th,
2000 at 10 am. On this one day, men who will never be outside those
walls will, in some very real yet indefinable way, be in Hong Kong,
Pretoria, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Paris, London, Boston, San Juan, and
everywhere that the world is joining together to heal itself.
Bill Douglas is Founder of World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day
(www.worldtaichiday. org), and Director of Smartaichi
(www.smartaichi.com) dedicated to incorporating the healing tools of
T'ai Chi & Qigong into society at all levels through business,
education, health care, and penal rehabilitation. Douglas asserts that
going to the core of human limitation and possibility, or the central
human nervous system, we can heal from the past and limitlessly expand
into a future only limited by the expansion of our dreams.
Bill Douglas' groundbreaking book, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to T'ai
Chi & Qigong," is world renowned and used by T'ai Chi & Qigong teachers
worldwide as a resource and primer. It has been described as "visionary"
by top experts in the field. You can contact Bill through www.smartaichi.com or World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day. |