You have to love the Chinese attempt at making the common sign more enlightening and multi-lingual. This makes me wonder what our signage translations look like to eye of the native speaker….Oh Wait!!!! We rarely put our signs in any other languages…what does that say about us?

The variety and color variations on the common insect here are incredible. Almost like being on another planet. Enjoy!

Here are some of my favorites from Kailin’s photo shot with Renato. It was a fun few hours….Renato you are the best!!!

This month began with both a high and a low. We both finished and fluffed our forms, but we were both sick. What started out as sore throats and sniffles turn into a full blown flu and cold combination. We don’t usually catch things but the whole school was sick: Chinese and Foreigners. I was treating everybody along with myself. Kailin recovered faster than I. It took 3 weeks for my cough to leave. This put a major dent in our ability to train. We ended up fulltime training only about 6 days in May, but this down time did offer other gifts. It was actually timed well, as Master Guan, our head teacher, left for 2 weeks in Germany. It was his first time teaching abroad.

Kailin used this time to catch up on school work and I started writing what will hopefully be the first of several books. It is time. I can only see so many clients in a life time, so this will be my way of sharing with a bigger audience. Our friend, Krishna, has been a great help with this, as he has experience in publishing. Also our friend, Cort came to visit. He and Remy have an international company that does business between the US and China. I saw him in Thailand, and it was good to have a few days together again in China. He inspired us to go do several things again on the mountain, including the Care Free Valley walk. This time we walked down from Chong Tai. I love this walk. I believe it is my favorite natural experience on Wudang. He speaks Chinese, so doing anything with him is more interesting. We went to Golden Top again. This time we had our own heart lock engraved. We couldn’t have done this without Cort’s help. It is a tradition. People leave blessing for the earth and get blessing in return from the Gods. We left planetary peace and love.

We also mastered cooking in our rooms. Being sick limited trips downtown but school food when sick was not an option. There are many wonders on Wudang, but good food at our school is not one of them. If it wasn’t for the fruit, we would really have struggled to survive. In general the food is overcooked, too oily, too salty and has MSG. Digestive issues are constant for most. Kailin and I were lucky most of time. We have strong guts. The core problem is that hygiene, maintenance, and public safety are not really concept at any level in China. I suppose they will eventually get to it, but at the moment they are infants in these areas. They overcook everything to make it safe to eat. This said, the Chinese diet in general is better than the western diet. Junk food, dairy products and white flour based foods are consumed less. They also eat less and live far more active lives.  Not to worry….their culture is rapidly accepting the western worlds short comings. Snacking is on the rise, Subway, McDonalds and other junk food chains are spreading like a plague, and it is the trend for young Chinese to move away to cities. There they take on sedentary jobs that required all the hours of their lives. Plus the Chinese have a long standing negative dance with alcohol and cigarettes. If they don’t balance these things their bid for world dominance many be cut short by disease. They might be able to heal with all their wonderful herbal knowledge, but the culture is moving away from those traditions too.

Even though this past month saw us hold up in our room resting and catching up on many things, we still maintained our own daily practices. We are getting really good at all our forms, though I’m sure another 20 years of practice will be necessary for mastery. All we have to do is watch the older students that have been at it for 8+ years, 9 hours a day to see what is possible with practice. Then on the rare occasions when Masters Guan performs with his 20 years of practice, our amateur standing is clear.

I must mention again how fantastic it is being here in the spring. These are mountains in a semi-rainforest climate, so spring bounces big. The smell of flowers is constant and ever changing. First, cherry blossoms then orange, then wild rose, and as the flowers bloom the butterflies and bees emerge. One day after a good rain, the sun came out and our hills were engulfed by butterflies….there were hundreds! Then there has been the blessing of Cina, the kitten Luca adopted. She has become friends with many, but especially with us. She got pregnant too young, as cats do on the mountain, and lost all the kittens. I helped her deliver and did my best, but in the end the babies just hadn’t developed right. I have helped Luca to get her fixed, not something often done here. We had to travel 2 hours to find an animal doctor and then the conditions were “very Chinese”. She is now fine and will have a wonderful life compared to most Chinese cats. One of my little gifts to life and all the students at the school….a great cat brings everyone more openness of heart. We will miss her and Luca.

Our last week, the first week of June, found us giving and receiving. We have received lots of help with filming and photography. We have been very lucky in having 3 great photographers on the mountain. Kailin needed new head shots for school and other shots to update her website. Plus we wanted some great shots of us together. Renato (Norway) did her head shots and several fashion shots. Michelle (USA) and Pascal (Switzerland) helped us with filming our forms and taking shots of us in our traditional whites. The pictures are fantastic. We are so thankful to them. Michelle is only 19. She and Kailin have become friends. It has been great for Kailin to have someone near her age to hang out with.

Kailin and I have a deep, loving bond that transcends time and space. She is a huge blessing in my life.  We have been so blessed to have this time together. We have learned many things. We have both noticed while traveling and meeting people that proximity deepens relationship in a hurry. That travelers by need open their hearts with greater ease, and that once the heart is open a bond that transcend distance is created. Travelers are masters of letting go and then picking up a relationship where ever it left off when reunited. As we were leaving, Pascal said, “See you somewhere” and that says it all.

Today we travel by train for 20 hours to Beijing. We head out excited to see a bit more of China and happy to be starting our journey home. Our time at Wudang has ended but the ancient love of this place will live on in our hearts every day.

Beauty: thy name is Wudang: There is so much beauty here. I will let these flowers tell the story!!!

April began with snow melting and us finally making the climb (20,000+ steps) up to Golden Top from Nan Yan. We have wanted to do this since we arrived last August, but our knees and general fitness were not up to it. I am proud to report that we did the walk that Master Guan runs in 45 minutes, in 4 hours. We could have gone faster, but we wanted to enjoy ourselves and take pictures. Plus we did it  and had no soreness the next day….we were tired and hungry when we go to the top, but we were not knock out for days afterwards like many people. On this walk there are four gates that eventually lead you to Golden Top Temple. It is said that if you leave behind one human flaw at each gate, then Shen Wu will grant you one wish when you reach the top. I don’t know if this is true, but I figured I have plenty of flaws so I might as well leave some of them behind. When I got to the top I made my wish and thus far I am receiving it. I can’t say what I left behind or what my wish was as that would jinks the whole thing. This means you will just have to use your imagination. What would you leave behind? What would you wish for? All in all it was a fun day with friends.

We started practice the next day. It was really easy to move back into the routine of Wudang Mountain. We spent the first week reviewing the forms we had learned along with starting our new forms. Kailin is learning Fan and I am learning Tai Chi sword. I really didn’t know if sword would be for me, but as it turns out I love it and seem to have a real knack for it. Kailin is loving fan and it is perfect for her, as her long legs and arms make it even more beautiful.

The Masters have started taking us on walks one day per week which is fantastic. Spring has transformed the mountain in these four weeks. April began brown and cold and now at the end of the month it is lush green and covered in flowers. We have done the walk from our school to Care Free Valley, from our school to Nan Yan, and last week Master Guan took the group to Golden Top, but we opted out as we had just done it.  Watching the mountain change has been spectacular. I am so glad we are here at this time. I love spring everywhere, but here it is especially dramatic. I was riding back up the mountain on the bus and the smell of orange blossoms was overwhelming. Parts of the mountain are covered with mandarin orange orchards.

Of course with spring and warm weather come the tourists. They are back in force, so often we practice at school instead of at the temple. I like both, but being at the temple makes eating with the nuns easier and the food there is much better than our school food. Having a rice cooker has also really helped, as even just a little good food goes along way. We have been hanging with old friends: Krishna, Christy, Renato, Cabrine, Mike, Roseanna, Sabina, Niko and Luka and meeting many new friends: Michelle(USA), Jason and Lara(Canada), Daniel(UK), Pascal(Swiss), Hendric (Spain) and Sijlie(Norway). Plus Jurgen is back from Germany with a group of friends. We also saw Simon for about 2 seconds. His Mom’s Tai Chi school were touring China and they were on the Mountain for a very short while. We hope to visit them in Norway eventually. If one was going to come to Wudang only once, then spring would be the time to do it. It begins with odd spots of color as the cherries bloom and crescendo with azaleas as everything goes from varied browns to deep rich greens. Beautiful!

Other things have been going on too. Christy has been helping Kailin with Math, I have been treating everyone in need and playing my flute, we have seeing Master Du, Kailin has learned to do laundry Chinese style and we are all feeding each other whatever we fix in our rooms. Luka’s cat is pregnant. I have been helping him make cat food. There are no pet shops anywhere near. We only have the older Chinese students at the moment; the little ones are all down in the town. We miss them. They are good fun. Plus, people are leaving: Jason, Lara, Christy, Hendric and Sijlie have gone and soon more will go, but then we have gained Niko….This is life on the mountain. Only the true Daoists are stationary here.

The other big event was Kailin’s birthday on the 24^th. She turned 15. We measured her so Grandma and Grandpa can put a mark on their wall…She is 5’8” tall. The school celebrated by bringing her flowers, oranges, a wonderful card done by Cabrine, and a silly hat. As she was in bed with a bad cold everyone came to our room and sang Happy Birthday to her. A few days later we celebrated with a trip to near-by Shiyan. We went shopping with her birthday money from Daddy and had Hot Pot, a famous local meal. Hot Pot is a do-it-yourself meal. They bring you a pot of simmering stock over a sterno candles. Then you order all the things you would like to cook in that stock: meat, veges, etc. plus sauces to dip your food in once it is cooked. It is good fun and Shiyan see so few foreigners that the staff is as much fun as the meal!

As the month draws to a close, Kailin has finished her form and I would be done, but I have been in bed with a bad cold for the past 3 days. I will definitely finish this next week. We had it coming with the colds, as Thailand saw us eating way too much ice cream and chocolate. We were in good junk food starvation after being on the mountain. Now we are back and our bodies are cleaning up. The good news is, at the end of a month of training, Kailin has no knee pain, I have very little and we can run the steps up to temple!!!! We can even do multiple steps at a time! We are so much tougher and fitter than we were. This training and Muay Thai are a good combination. Also the 30^th was National Tai Chi Day, so we all did Tai chi walk together in celebration!

We arrived late and spent the night at a hotel near Wudang Gate. No one is allowed up after around 6pm. The next morning was spectacularly beautiful, and not as cold as we expected. We did a bit of shopping: bought a rice cooker, as it will be nice to have more food options, and headed up the mountain to school. It is great to see everyone. Many of the same people are here. Some have stayed the whole winter (super tough!) and some are arriving back like us. Plus there are wonderful new faces.

The mountain is so peaceful, esp at the moment, as the tourist flow is at a minimum. I just sat around the first day breathing in nature. We also watched practice. Wow! Our friends have made so much progress. They all have my respect. We were very lucky and caught Maukine before he left. He has really learned a lot since we left. Plus he has started to play the Taoist flute. He introduced me to the sweet nun that teaches him, so maybe I will be able to learn too.

The nice weather only lasted that one day. I think I bring rain where ever I go. Scorpio…water sign…born on the Taoist water goddess birthday. When we arrive here in August, we had one nice day and then 7 days of rain. When we arrived in Thailand (during the dry season) we had one nice day and then rain for 7 days, and now that we have return here, we had one nice day and 7 days of rain/snow/sleet. Maybe I’m just imagining it! I’m certainly not imagining that my toes may never be warm again! Anyway the mountain really needed the rain and the snow was beautiful. We got around 6” that lasted for maybe a day and a half. Along with the weather came rolling black outs and our water was off too. The power issue is getting old quick, as even what little heat we have doesn’t work without electricity and I can’t see client when power is down…no internet. Though we are cold we are still glad to be back. We are taking the first 2 weeks to rest, catch up on things and review. This choice has been a good call as staying in bed is the only warm place. We are missing the Thai sun! It took us a whole day to unpack the 5 suitcases of stuff we left here. Ugg! I am clear we have way too much stuff. True, we didn’t know exactly what we would need and what would be available here, but still too much.  Life in general is full of too much stuff. I am a minimalist; still I have managed to accumulate too much stuff.

This said, we did go back down town to do more shopping (only food) and we are now cooking regularly in our room. It is making being here more enjoyable. Also I went with Krishna and Christy to observe while he saw an herbalist. That was interesting. This man is a surgeon and an herbalist…won’t find that combo in the west! We will see Master Du soon to get all sorted before we begin to practice hard. The herbalist is his uncle.

Last night we ate at Tian Lu, good food. Imagine, I was looking forward to the little fried fishy with their heads still on! I also love the mountain tea, not just like it is interesting, but I now love it. Something in me has changed. When I came this time I was mainly aware of the beauty and the stillness behind daily life. Even down town the noise, smell, and clutter was less abrasive to my system. At first I thought everything had been improved, but then I realized that my focus has just altered. I am getting use to the song that is Asia. We both feel comfortable here. It almost feels like we have come home.

Today it is finally beautiful again, so we washed hair, cloths, our room, etc. Hopefully everything will get dry. Life is back to normal.