Coping with the Crisis with Chloe Conger

Montecito yoga-meditation-QiGong teacher Chloe Conger has added a new online class, Qigong and Meditation, taking place every Saturday at 10 am, with admission by donation. Conger’s class is a moving meditation (like Tai Chi) that connects us to the effortless flow and pulse of energy that runs throughout the body, she explains on her website. The sacred art tonifies the nervous system, cleanses and vitalizes the energy body, and opens and stills the mind to slip naturally into a deep state of peace and stillness. “The ultimate purpose of our time together is not self-improvement, or getting it ‘right’; rather, it is to cultivate an open intimacy with all aspects of ourselves and our experience – to know reality directly without the distorting lenses of preference, story and agenda.” The weekly workshop consists of a 15-20-minute sitting session following a standing practice, and those in financial stress are invited to attend as her guest and pay the love forward. Visit www.chloeconger.com/qigong-meditation-class-saturdays for more info and to access the Zoom room.

Conger says that practice is more vital than ever in this time, noting that “The Great Pause” has been a valuable and rich opportunity to reflect on our patterns, individually and collectively. This is an incredible opportunity to change the unconscious, destructive course we have been on, and ask ourselves: What do we most value? Where are we going? What are the externalities – the costs – of our fevered consumption? How can we remake the economy and our way of life to reflect universal care for all beings and the planet?

Conger, who also leads a Qigong, Yoga & Meditation class at 8:30 am Mondays through Yoga Soup’s Zoom portal, recommends reading Charles Eisenstein’s provocative essay, “The Coronation” – accessible online at https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation – to get a deeper perspective of the pandemic’s possibilities as we continue to marinate in the wonder-space COVID-19 has created.