At Gwinganna, the day starts at 545 with a knock on the door by one of the glowing people.  She calls out your name. You have to respond. I don’t know if they actually burst in and rip your bedding off if you say nothing. I don’t want to find out. I sleep naked.

Qi-Gong is at 615 on the grass overlooking the valley and beyond to the sea and the Surfers Paradise apartments everyone is still sleeping in. Or doing drugs in, I don’t know which.

Here’s what Qi-Gong promises  me:

it will circulate my life force energy through my body and activate my cells. As I feel this, my life force energy will take my attention and bring it inward. As it grows, my mind will connect to the present moment into total relaxation and calmness.

For the girl whose cranial osteopath once declared Monkey Brains as she cradled my busy head in her hands, this really sounds like a spectacular result.

So there I am, today and yesterday and the day before, caressing some kind of imaginary bubble. Pretty sure last time the instructor called it a golden ball which I like the sound of better. I always assume bubbles will burst eventually, when I least expect them to, so it’s a less pleasing visualization.

I try to still my mind, I do. I succeed. Then I don’t. Then I do.

Then I don’t.

I have done some Buddhism classes over the last twelve months and there my teacher said “Celebrate a drop of change to your mind. Remember if you gather all those drops together pretty soon you’ll have a cup of change”.

I’d like a calmer mind, and I’ve been working on it for a while now. This monkey has been learning to rattle the cage less. It got quite deafening for  a while there.

I don’t know if I like the Qi-Gong, the environment,  just feeling the new daylight warm my face or all three. But I have been liking it.

I’m thinking the Vitamin D laiden warmth of a Queensland winter is a hell of a headstart though.