A Qigong Teacher Explains How to Cook via the P.C.T.P. Method
by Raven Cohan
You all know things from deep within and have had the Power, Commitment, Trust and ability to Project your inborn knowledge into your activities. If you don’t know you have Power, it’s because it has been SCARED out of you because your culture is built on taking everything in steps. The left brained way of starting with A. and then moving through each successively lettered step, in my opinion is limiting you. That’s how most recipes in cook books are written.
To be a creative being, you must act like one! Let the art of life awaken. Use this acronym: P. C. T. P. These are the best initials in the alphabet that guide me and yes, I need to start and end with ‘P’! Just don’t pee your pants doing it! The method itself will instill confidence.
Improvising dinner, I realize is a skill that I have sort of been born with, but it got more developed by being a trained improvisational actor-singer-dancer and eventually a teacher of Chinese alchemy. Alchemy is a science of formulas for living well. The P.C.T.P. formula is behind all three skills I mention here which include cooking. Notice, they are all Arts. Science and math are important but most people who depend fully upon exact sciences in their life-skill building times, often wind up pretty up-tight. Can you become a person who improvises anything in your life with practice? Do you measure everything to the letter? I Trust in you. Think about trusting yourself! Put aside that exactness and laugh!
The cooking example is really a simple idea: The finished dinner is waiting behind the curtain. While in the wings I have no worries whirring about. Planning what the heck is going to wind up on the dinner table is not my modus-operandi. I have bought my veggies and staples which await me in the fridge and pantry. My hand reaches in and a bit of considering which veggies are less fresh and need to be cooked first comes into play! The veggies tell me how I will cook them and what sauces and spices I will add and what pasta or grains will set them off. (It’s the same with the salad and dressings!) A hologram of creation is whirling into reality. (This analogy centers around my vegetarian lifestyle, but apply it to your own food choices and life interests in general.)
Do you know what is TRULY needed to be cooking well in ALL areas of your life? A Power source, Commitment enough to Trust and to finally Project out the finished product. (An improvisa tional actor must go onstage without a script. If the other actors have each their own different script, the result will be a disaster.)A student of developing your life force energy via cooking healthy meals, or thinking and speaking healthy thoughts, must absolutely trust and commit to using the ONE power and then projecting it into the result which you commit to and trust. This approach will be helping you to heal every area that needs improvement. All arts require much practice.
Do I ever have flops? Sure! What part of life is there that doesn’t wind up with less success than others, at times? My job as a human is to eat up some of those less delicious meals and not rub my face in the sour, spilled milk of ‘failure.’ (My husband has to buck up and eat it, too. We might at times have to throw some disasters away. C’est la vie! It means eating more taco chips that night for a snack… but it is quite better than crying over the spilled rice milk.)
After years of teaching my students of Tai Chi and Qigong that with every step, you must call on the Power of gravity that plays on you and not the other way around. It took me a while to realize I had learned to Trust the vegetables to communicate clearly like the actors on stage. Stop over-thinking and start drinking in the formula! Don’t be trite and follow others. Be original. Do things for yourself. Study many different arts. Get out of a rat race that you allowed to pressure you! Whether you are cooking, balancing, writing your novel, communicating with your boss… Get out of your own head. Be with nature. Once again! P.C.T.P!
Raven Cohan is a Senior Certified Teacher of Universal Healing Tao of MasterMantak Chia since 1983 and conducts classes and workshops to help a student deepen their study of Taoist movement and meditation practices. She resides in the greater Fort Lauderdale, Fl. area. (954)-92-RAVEN or see www.taoTLC.com