Winding Path

08/27/2026

I knew as soon as I walked in the door at an open house more than 10 years ago I had found a welcoming and dedicated group. I have been to many of our tai chi locations around the world and the feeling is the same, even after these years and no matter where I am.

I remember my first Taoist Tai Chi® session:
People were smiling at me and that was really important to help me feel at ease and feel accepted. Coming from a place where I was in pain, the smiles really made me think, Yeah! I can do this. It felt impactful.
Barbara

08/25/2026

https://www.windingpathguide.com/blog/the-bodys-quiet-turn-toward-autumn

We are nearing the end of late summer. In much of the world this is when the air first loosens its grip. In Florida, the thermometer does not read the memo, and the humidity lingers well into September. But something does change, and the body feels it even when the weather does not: the sun sits low

08/24/2026

I have been filming the changes I see around me this week, the small and the sudden. And the more I pay attention, the more I understand: there is no beginning or end.

In Taoist thought, life and death were never framed as discrete opposites. They are one continuous motion, yin folding into yang and back to yin, the way night folds into day. Zhuangzi wrote that life is the working of Heaven, and death is the transformation of things. I reflecting on this idea of perpetual, continuous change. It doesn’t remove the grief of watching something end, but because it widens my perspective of wholeness.

We are all changing every day…our thoughts, our feelings, our bodies. happening at the same time, in the same body, and I am starting to trust that both are exactly where they need to be. Something is coming into being, something is releasing. Always.

08/21/2026

Breakouts, rashes, weird itchy patches every summer? It is not just sweat.
In Chinese medicine, a lot of summer skin trouble is heat plus damp showing up on the surface. Heat makes things red, inflamed, and angry. Damp makes them weepy, greasy, sticky, and slow to heal. Together they are the classic stubborn summer flare.
Work from the inside first. Cut way back on the big damp and heat producers for two weeks, that means fried food, sugar, and alcohol, and add cooling foods like cucumber, mung beans, and watermelon. Skin is often the last place to change, so give it the full two weeks before you judge results.🌿

08/21/2026

Open house in Dunedin, FL September 13.

https://www.taoist.org/find-a-location/

08/19/2026

If your legs feel like they are dragging through mud lately, and your head feels stuffed with cotton even though you slept fine, you are not lazy. You are damp.
In Chinese medicine, damp is exactly what it sounds like, a heavy, sticky, waterlogged quality that settles into the body. The result is that specific kind of tired that a nap does not fix, plus puffiness, brain fog, and a body that feels weighted down and tired.
The good news is damp responds to movement. It is a stagnant quality by nature, so anything that gets circulation going works against it directly. A brisk walk, even ten minutes. Tai Chi or stretching to get the fluids moving instead of pooling. Shaking out your arms and legs for sixty seconds if that is all you have time for. The point is not intensity, it is consistency. 👟

08/18/2026

https://www.windingpathguide.com/blog/k5gcexznn7kmy8kztw2wldvlvbfrng

We are in the heart of late summer now, the peak of the Earth element and the season that belongs to the Spleen and Stomach. In Chinese medicine these two organs are the engine room of the body. They take in everything you eat and drink and transform it into qi and blood, the energy you actually liv

08/18/2026

Buddhist tradition describes a being with a giant empty belly and a throat as thin as a needle. It might be the most accurate image of craving ever created.
Hungry ghosts are not just spirits from folklore. They are what happens when wanting never rests. In the Taoist view, suffering grows from attachment, from grasping at things, outcomes, and identities we think we cannot live without. The hungry ghost is that grasping taken to its most literal form. Always reaching. Never full. Because the fullness was never going to come from outside in the first place.
Lao Tzu put it simply in the Tao Te Ching. “The sage puts away excessive effort, extravagance, and easy indulgence.”
Ghost Month asks something different of us. Instead of feeding the craving, we are invited to notice it, name it, and let it pass through rather than clinging to it.
This month, try releasing one attachment. Not by force, just by loosening your grip. A need to control an outcome. A craving you keep feeding without asking why. A story about yourself you no longer need to carry.

08/17/2026

There is a humble little grain that shows up again and again in Chinese medicine every summer, and most people walk right past it in the store without knowing what it does.
It is called Yi Yi Ren, or Job’s tears, sometimes sold as Chinese pearl barley. In a humid climate, it is one of the most useful foods in the pantry, because it specifically transforms damp and supports the Spleen. That heavy, waterlogged, foggy feeling that shows up in Florida summers, the swollen fingers, the sluggish digestion, the brain fog by afternoon, that is what damp feels like in the body, and Yi Yi Ren is one of the gentlest ways to move it along.
It is easy to use. Add a handful to your rice pot, simmer it into congee, or toss it into soup the way you would barley. No special preparation required, just consistency.
Save this so you remember to grab it next time you are at the Asian market or health food store. 🌾

08/16/2026