“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”           Martha Graham

There’s an old saying: you can’t step in the same river twice. This year I’m adding:, but you can be grateful for the river you did step in. 2016 passed like a swift current, it’s Thanksgiving already and I’m grateful for you!  

It’s been a very full year beginning with a glorious trip to Baja’s Sea of Cortez for the beginning of California Gray Whale calving season where I felt like a proud grandparent watching a wrinkled newborn’s first attempts to use its tail. Off the grid in the Sea of Cortez is an ideal place to reset your mindbody clock to RELAX amidst wild unspoiled nature. Fortunately I did manage to film “Week 2 – Qigong in Baja “ for my online Qigong Mind-Body Challenge series.  https://vimeo.com/cynthiabellniermann/vod_pages

After our first presentation for World TaiChi Qigong Day, WTCQD in April 2016,  we are super excited at prospect of celebrating WTCQD on April 29, 2017 with thousands of others on 6 contents around the globe!! Stay tuned for updates about this.

Family celebrations, reunions and visits as well as classes and filming kept me super busy and happy. Qigong really helps keep my energy fortified plus manage travel challenges and other stressors! I can do a quick routine almost anywhere , check out my YouTube Qigong 4 Travel videos for your next cruise or flight .  

My husband and I celebrated thirty years of marriage in Alaska with a side trip to Denali and heartily agreed with one of this great state’s slogans: “Beyond Your Dreams, Within Your Reach”.

A fall adventure to China took us almost beyond reach as we traveled four thousand miles by car, bus, boat, train, and plane

Dunhuang, shifting sands of the Gobi Desert  © C.B. Niermann

along the famous Silk Road from Beijing to Xi’an, Urumqi to Dunhaung, Langzou, Shanghai, Suzhou and back home. We walked miles and learned so much about this amazing country’s history, art, culture and contemporary challenges.  It was sweet news to read that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (gatesnotes.com) has been partnering with others  around the world to improve poor sanitation around the world. Being a Qigong practitioner helps me adjust to unexpected surprises, delays, detours as they unfold, like traveling in a bus on a two lane highway through the barren Taklamakan Desert looking for an oasis or walking through shifting sands in the Gobi. 

This year Qigong also continues to  teach me more about the discipline of cultivating internal and usable energy, in every facet of my multi-dimensional existence. So I am eternally grateful for everything, even those I / we suffer through but do not disclose. We may not step in the same river twice but I choose gratitude as an ever-changing tide of time to flow through, around and about me while surely guiding every moment.

“All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.”      ― Martha Graham

Learn more about mind-body healing exercises of Qigong and Tai Chi, join a class: Keep Fit, Stay Flexible & Feel Fabulous!!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!