Got Qi?

After my shower this morning, quite at random, I put on a t-shirt that I had got from a lady on the qigong course I attended in Texas back in 2008. It has on the front:

got Qi?

and on the back:

Qi (chee), n. Matter on the verge of becoming energy; energy at the point of materialising. The essential energy of the universe which maintains the vital activities of life.

The only reason I put it on was that it was the first one I put my hand on in the drawer, no special reason. But that was about to change.

I then decided to go out and water the front garden before the sunshine got too hot, particularly for the chamomile plants that I had planted out two days ago. We had got about 50 little seedling plants out of two small punnets that we had purchased from our local Bunnings store. I made a hole for each in the heavy clay soil that is our front garden and prepared this by placing in the hole a handful each of sugar cane mulch, potting mix and mushroom compost, topped up with more potting mix. The delicate little shoot was then carefully placed in a finger hole in the mix, firmed all around and more sugar cane mulch spread around the plant. It was demanding work for this old body, continually bending down and repeating this over and over for 50 odd plants. A good watering in and the job was done. At the end of the day and after a shower and into my pyjamas there wasn’t much more movement out of this old fella that day.

As I was watering the chamomiles this morning though, I reached down and gently tried to lift up the foliage to see how they might be doing. I was startled to notice the resistance, the strength these plants were showing. The delicate floppy little shoots that I had planted were now holding their own and on their life journey. I immediately thought, “Now that is qi personified”, that strength that I could sense against my fingers.

Got Qi? Our little chamomile plants definitely do.