The Transformative Power of Yin

10/04/2024

A new podcast episode on "Yangsheng By and For Women" with Kristin González...

Quickly and easily listen to A Pebble in the Cosmic Pond for free!

14/02/2024

48 hours left on my online auction. Whether you want to support the expansion of Happy Goat Productions or just find great deals on anything from super fancy Pu-er tea to books to a wine tasting to Chinese medicine CEU opportunities to even a permaculture consultation or website or business card design help, it's not too late to check it out and get in on the fun.

My name is Sabine Wilms, I am the founder of a small publishing company called Happy Goat Productions, and you can find out more about my writing, publishing, and teaching work at my website HappyGoatProductions.com. This auction complements my crowdsourcing fundraiser, which you can read about at t...

11/05/2021

As the world is beginning to open back up and we are slowly and tentatively beginning to emerge from a year of pandemic seclusion, at least temporarily, at least in the US, here is a sentiment that may be worth considering…. or maybe it’s just an excuse for me to continue holding on to my hermit existence…

It is a passage from the Càigēntán 菜根譚 (“Chatting about Kale Stalks”) a little text published around 1590 by Hóng Zìchéng 洪自誠 that collects brief witty sayings about living the good life in one’s personal, social, and natural environment. It is a delightful synthesis of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist sentiments that has inspired readers for hundreds of years. Every once in a while, I open it up, just for fun, and I am never disappointed.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

交市人不如友山翁

謁朱門不如親白屋

聽街詼巷語不如聞樵歌牧詠

談今人失德過舉不如述古人嘉言懿行。

Interacting with people at the market does not compare to befriending the old hermit in the mountains.

A formal audience at a mansion does not compare to an intimate time spent with relatives in a mud hut.

Listening to jokes on the street and alley chitchat does not compare to enjoying the lumberjack’s tune and the shepherd’s song.

Bitching about the imperfections of our contemporaries does not compare to discussions about the eloquent sayings and noble deeds of the ancients.

11/05/2021

No path... no name... (3/21/21)

道可道也。非恆道也。

名可名也。非恆名也。

無名。 萬物之始也。

有名。萬物之母也。

Dao: Paths

Yes! There are paths that can be followed as paths

But! These are not the paths that last.

Ming: Names

Yes! There are names that can be employed as names

But! These are not the names that last.



Nameless -- Embryo of the Myriad Things

Named -- Mother of the Myriad Things

23/03/2021

A little bitter-sweet thing that came to me a couple of mornings ago, while I was cleaning out the bottom scrapings from the very last jar of honey produced by my bees on my farm in Taos and harvested maybe 10 years ago.

Practicing letting go...

In my world

Love has no expiration date

23/03/2021

Dao: Paths

Yes! There are paths that can be followed as paths

But! These are not the paths that last.

Ming: Names

Yes! There are names that can be employed as names

But! These are not the names that last.



Nameless -- Embryo of the Myriad Things

Named -- Mother of the Myriad Things

21/10/2020

The recording from last Friday's Tea Time Talk is now available for purchase on this page. https://www.happygoatproductions.com/teatimetalks/transformative-power-of-yin
(for members of my Imperial Tutor mentorship, you can find the link for free in the "Tea Time Talk Recordings page"

My dear dear friends Brenda Hood and Lillian Pearl Bridges and I were so looking forward to our annual “Transformative Power of Yin” retreat, featuring five days of going inward, celebrating Yin, contemplating receptivity, quietude, darkness, creativity and fertility (in the greatest sense of th...

17/10/2020

Insight from yesterday's Tea Time Talk on "The Transformative Power of Yin":
Yáng power is dominance.
Yīn power is presence.
(as in the presence of very young or very old humans, or wise ones on their "Golden Path" (Lillian), standing in the light of their truth, or the power of a mama able to navigate a melting-down toddler while juggling 4 bags of groceries)

15/10/2020

Instead of our retreat on Orcas Island, Lillian Bridges and Brenda Hood will meet me in a Tea Time Talk. Join us for some sweet company.

17/05/2020

Seeking inspiration in Sun Simiao's writings, I came across this marvel (volume 27 on "Nurturing the Heavenly Nature"):
夫養性者，欲所習以成性，性自為善，不習無不利也。
Now, to nurture the Heavenly Nature, strive to fulfill this Heavenly Nature through daily practices, and thus the Heavenly Nature of its own accord becomes good. Then [even] the non-practiced actions do not include a single one that is unfavorable.

10/05/2020

With pain in my teeth

from the grind of a long night of counting 79,022 viral deaths,

I wake up to a vision of a gifted flower

with a corona of petals in dark wine-red

slowly unfurling and arranging themselves one by one

with the medicine of music in each one

in a perfect eternally deepening spiral of love and beauty.

And then… a few hours later, I remember that it’s Mother’s Day

(even though in my family we call it Hallmark Invention Day and insist on honoring mothers EVERY…SINGLE…DAY… of the year….)

27/04/2020

Promise me you will not pass

(for my daughter and my mother and all the other people I have loved)



April 27, 2020



Promise me you will not pass…

before having experienced a naked ocean swim

in the precious darkness of the new moon

wallowing in pillows of a million liquid star lights

exploding between your finger tips



Promise me you will not pass…

before letting me slip a salmonberry at its ripest

right off the stem into your mouth

with your eyes closed toward a sun-lit drizzly rain

and an invisible rainbow behind the trees



Promise me you will not pass…

before one last tango

in the closest of a stranger’s sinewy embrace

with the steamy passion of a hundred other dancers

heating up the music all around us



Promise me you will not pass…

before you have made love with yourself

on a mustang’s bare back

deep in the mountain

where no one can hear you howl



Promise me you will not pass…

before you have been blessed with a dream of whales

and learned to tune in to the trees

before we can plant the squash out and I have made you rhubarb pie and the old dog has stopped snoring



Promise me you will not pass…

before the fern has unfurled its leaves

before another baby’s milk-drunk ecstasy

before this season’s huckleberries

before the chicks have hatched and the bread has risen and the cheese is ready

before the rooster’s crow

before the clear-cut has grown in

before the full moon has set



Promise me you will not pass

before we have properly celebrated this feast that is your life



Promise me you will not pass

before we have truly forgiven each other

25/04/2020

Alma the cat is a wise one.

From her perch on my chest, she looks me straight in the eye at the first rooster crow this morning and reminds me firmly that I know nothing.

…

and then…

that nothing matters but the explosion of bird song in this eternal moment.

(photo courtesy of Angela Ramseyer)

25/04/2020

And still.... the yearly Great Unfolding is happening...
(sword fern, maidenhair fern, the world' biggest devil's club to be found right next to my house, huckleberry and salmonberry flowers, and, always the late comer, the young grape vine.

22/04/2020

Patience is a virtue...

20/04/2020

www.imperialtutor.com/cultivatingyinblog/2020/4/19/time-out

This is not a lock-down but a time-out, imposed by the universe on the world. And like children who have misbehaved, we are called on to sit still, calm down, stop throwing tantrums, and reflect on our trespasses. The sooner we calm down (hear that, protesting Michigan “Corona Cowboys,” as my fr...

08/04/2020

Here we are with the gift of another beautiful morning.

What are you going to do with this gift?

The full moon last night gave me images:

Floating in seaweed, letting go, being held, and surrounded and embraced by the Great Mother, the Sea of all Tears

Moving in an eternal dance of stimulus and response, ebb and flow, waxing and waning moon, like a skilled couple of tango dancers when we can no longer tell who leads and who follows under the spell of a melting violin

And free fall into the unknowing

the need to keep our legs down and spine soft ready for whatever angle and surface we land on

like a cat dropping out of a tree

or an eagle landing on a fish in the ocean

01/04/2020

I see a lot of people running from their gift of silence, notes my wise old man Nilson.