In this episode we meet East-West Psychology Phd student, Qi Ge, who recalls early hardships in her life and how through a spiritual crisis she left her roots in China to come to the West. Qi shares experiences of inner alchemical transformation, finding what she calls her spiritual homeland through, dream work, expressive art and ancestral remembrance. Qi shares how she came into embodied spiritual practices, such as 5 animal Tai-chi she learnt from her Grandmother, and how the Daoist practice of the tea ceremony has allowed her to cultivate sitting in forgetfulness. Qi speaks of the need to cultivate an internal sense of home, stating “I used to search for groundedness externally, but now I know I am deeply rooted from within,” and our conversation discusses her psycho-spiritual journey of coming to this realization for herself.

Qi Ge, also known as Brigitte, is a Spiritual Counselor and a PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies. She is also a teaching assistant in the EWP department, as well as a bilingual neuroscience-based coaching program teacher. Qi has been studying in East-West Psychology for three years and found out that this is the true path of her heart that bridges western psycho-spiritual healing theories to eastern ancestral and philosophical traditions of inner and outer life-cultivation. Inspired by the teachings from Daoist meditative sitting in forgetting—坐忘 (zuò-wàng), Chan-Buddhist equanimity and wisdom—定慧 (ding-huì), and the Chinese traditional tea ceremony of non-doing—無為 (wú-wèi), Qi’s research direction focuses initially on the healing manifestations by effortlessly emptying both the teacup and the heart of the ceremonial practitioner to be one with nature. Based on inquiries of cultural roots of liberation and today’s world issues, Qi’s Tea Ceremony of Sitting in Forgetting explores possibilities of an ancient tradition that is on its sacred Dao and unfolding life to be translated into a contemporary and future method of healing.

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Produced, Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay

Music at the end of the episode titled Eternal Tides, by Jonathan Kay, from Eternal Tides: A Musical Offering to the Oceans released on Monsoon-Music Record Label