Sunday, August 14, 2016

ECSTASY IS THE NATURAL HUMAN CONDITION

Talk for the newspaper Conjunction (Veznik) with Helena Petrovic from Gaia Collective, led by Daniela Knapic. 

While in the city  of Pula, Istria, Croatia, known mainly for classes of Tai Chi and Chi Kung, activities of Gaia Collective which operates on the 3rd floor of DC Rojc, Pula, since 1999 , are much more numerous and more diverse. About them and about the community more we learn of its initiator, Helena Petrovic ... 

- I would like to emphasize that the Gaia Collective is an informal community that crosses borders not only of Pula and Istria, but also Croatia. Our aim is the improvement of the life quality, the development of consciousness and creative potentials with an emphasis on precious roads such as Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, spiritual and therapeutic Dance methods, the Esoteric Art; then psycho-spiritual methods of self-development; Permaculture and Geomancy as creative co-creation of man and the Universe ... Our modes of action are diverse and on this issue we are flexible. We do not cling exclusively to one activity, we believe that if one does not work, it will work the other, there is always a solution. Currently, there is an accent on techniques that empower both individuals and groups and awaken in the people an awareness of their strengths and potentials. We are active since 1994 and the center Gaia Holistic since 2004. We are organized horizontally within circles that cooperate and interact: Gaia Holistic Center, Gaia Art Lab, Gaia Terra Viva and  Gnosis Viva. Since I was the moving spirit of the story, I appeare in public mostly, which does not mean that the contribution of all the other members is the less valuable. 

One of the most important goals is the developing of a support network in all areas and stages of human life, especially at the local community, and beyond ... 


Yes, and we realize it slowly but surely. Within the collective we already work with all age groups, ranging from creative workshops for children to the psychological and physical support for the people of the third age. Within Essential Shakti Yoga, we are also available as educated doula-support for mothers before, during and after childbirth. Gaia Terra Viva promotes the healthy products at prices much cheaper than usual and thus join the project of our colleagues, activists from other parts of Croatia, which aim is to cut a vicious cycle in which all the rich eat healthier, and the poor poorer . Also, the goal is to empower activist enterprises and mutual cooperation and exchange of products and services. In addition to the inefficient social system that has an end in itself and has lost the touch with the real needs of people, also the relationship with the life-giving processes, self-organization and mutual support, as well as the skills of cooperation and sharing, are becoming a necessity if we want to survive not as a nation, but as human kind.How did you come to that  what are you doing today, what have you dealt with until you decided to do Taijiquan or Tai Chi, (Helena Gaia is the founder of the Center Yuan Tong - Tai Chi Club Pula) and then for everything else you today do?


- I have always been dissatisfied with the civilization in which I was incarnated, I didn't fit into this world with mistake. I left Pula during the high school, first in Porec, then in the United States and then for years traveled or lived in different countries. I finished high school in Sacramento, California, as the most promising visual artist in generation, but instead of the art started my BA in journalism in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The circumstances have led me in a situations and among people with different skills than formal, that I spontaneously absorbed, but truly began to understand only many years later. After a deep physical and emotional crisis at the beginning of the war, I realized that for me the only way to stay on the Earth is creating the world in what I'd like to live and so it went, step by step. The process of co-creation is what fulfills me today and I enjoy it. In 1995 we established family Agency Gaia Travel, through which a lot of people pilgrimaged to India. At the same time I organized, in our house in Medulin, a Gnostic gatherings and numerous lectures and seminars. At these gatherings, we spontaneously shared the knowledge and experiences which, in the regular world, are very expensive. Basically, I was very confused, but the doors were opened one after another, and my only choice was either indefinitely experience convulsions on the doorstep or go into the unknown. Until the establishment of Tai Chi Club Pula, I was doing the esoteric art and this is something that is slowly coming back into my life again.

 
What attracted you to Taijiquan and Yoga? 

-Hatha Yoga I started practicing in 1989 in Ljubljana and a traditional yoga was, and still is, my refuge. Today I'm leading the yoga circles for women in all stages of life and behind me is a long time of practice impeded by youthful vigor, and restless spirit. On the other hand, Taijiquan and Chinese martial arts, that I started to practice in 1992 in Padua, Italy, became my fate immediately. As soon as I saw
Taijiquan form performed by my first teacher, suddenly I saw the whole future time, and the club that I founded seven years later and David Petrovic, who now runs the Center Yuan Tong - Tai Chi Pula, currently one of the strongest centers of Taijiquan in Croatia. David was the Croatian champion in Taijiquan, in the forms of bare hands and with weapons, and now we are focused on working with children. I can safely say that in the club already exercise several future champions. However, whether the children will chose the competitive aspects of skills is less important. What is worth is that Chinese martial arts can, not only develop the maximum of their ability, but also enrich the children's spirit, or at least, to some extent protect it from the general degradation in society. Chinese Wushu which includes a huge number of Chinese martial arts is a sport of the future and China is working that Taijiquan in the year 2024 becomes an Olympic sport. 

It is an undeniable merit of your Centre in popularizing these Chinese skills in Pula and beyond, because when you started about them was known little or nothing 

...For over 17 years we lead in DC Rojc, Pula, Istria, Croatia beginner and advanced courses of Taijiquan for adults, bare hands and weapons forms, Taiji Qigong recreation. We work a lot with working people and the elderly,... last years with children, too. David and I are the only Croatian certified instructors within the three national Wushu Federations: Chinese, Italian and Croatian. We cooperate with the town of Pula, as well as with the Pula's Gerontology Center. Over the years we worked with a lot of different organizations, institutions and enterprises. The basics of Tai Chi Chuan are very applicable and useful in a variety of professions. Often, for example, I assist during the dance gatherings where I introduce the universal principles of Tai Chi Chuan in the preparatory dance exercises. I also started with OMMMotion Lab (Organic Medicine-Motion Method) which contains a synthesis of the key elements of Tai Chi Chuan, Yoga, Shamanic Dances and my entire life experience. 

Where in the beginning any difficulties, mistrust, as you waded through the initial resistance? 

Beginnig was difficult, but today these barriers I see it as a necessary process of empowerment. Despite all difficulties, people came and practiced, and some of them regularly exercise today. Thanks to their confidence and perseverance center has survived and to those first members I'm extremely grateful. Today, when China is working that traditional Taijiquan and knowledge of the Chen family comes under the protection of UNESCO as world intangible heritage, when the elementary knowledge in Taijiquan is a matter of general culture, today I know that all of difficulties made sense. 
Similarly repeats with shamanic dances and other activities that I just recently in Pula began to promote intensively, but today I am indifferent and less than ever I'm willing to compromise. The resistance will exist until we break the ice ... if we break .... but if not, I will continue to enjoy what I do as long as it fulfilles me. My responsibility is to clearly define myself, not to comfort with anybody's expectations and the selection is made. I'd rather work with five people who appreciate the transformative process through which we are going  together, then with 50 people coming for fashion.
 
Something that you lead in recent times are Trance Dance dance workshops, as well as workshops of family constellations ... 

-I do shamanic dances, including the Trance Dance, and they came seemingly simple to me - dancing
for years through various dance practices. Shamanism is not only the one of the pillars of Taoism, thus taijiquan, but is at the core of all traditions with whom I met, so this our, Balkan-Mediterranean. When stripped away layers of cultural diversity, the shamanic methods become very powerful tools for improving the quality of all areas of life, from individual psycho-spiritual transformation to team building. The movement of the Spirit and neoshamanism brought me to the family constellation method. I'm just finishing the third year of training, also assisted to one of my mentors in Slovenia and through all realized, as many times before, that the Western world only re-discovered traditional methods of  system balancing that were used to be practiced in every village . The knowledge did not dissapeared completely, in a peculiar way it was stored by the last krsniks in Istria and dragon people from the Balkans. Therefore, what I do is not a modern family constellation method, but for now I call it The Family Tree Healing and Dynamic Harmonization, and in my work is included all that was present once within a healthy community: image, movement, rhythm, voice, sound, etc. 

One thing that connects all the techniques offered by Gaia Collective is "ecstasy", in terms of the state of fulfillment and balance that every being strives ...

                                                              -Ecstasy is the natural human condition! Sometimes we can see how it is spontaneously present in children when they play in the now-here and traditional communities have always been aware of the importance of ecstasy. Deeply connected with nature, they have maintained the balance through stories, music, singing, dancing and taking care of all the members. A healthy human being or a community  deprived of possibility for natural ecstasy, has a pressing need to manifest itself, even through the dark ecstasy ... and this is a feature of modern civilization,... destructive ecstasy, which breaks away from the real life and destroyes it. One of the gateways of entering into the trance state are continuous, rhythmic repetitions and, at first glance, there is no difference between boring repetitive actions that people do every day (work, Supermarket, TV, FB ...) and repetitive actions while eg. practice Tai Chi Chuan, Yoga or shamanic dances ... the real difference is qualitative and substantive. While daily dark trans gradually and continuously sucks all the energy out of a human beings, depriving them even of their humanity, the methods of positive trance fullfill body with energy, awake hidden potentials, strengthen the heart and enrich the spirit. Regular practice of these and similar skills creates a cumulative effect, thus enabling the transition from the dark state to a state of natural ecstasy, in a completely different quality of life, in the life that naturally should be. Very often, spontaneous and abrupt transitions from dark to natural ecstasy, so-called moments of awakening, result in chaos, anxiety and depression, because awareness of the abyss between heaven and hell can be unbearably painful for untrained and unprepared mind. Facilitate the people's crossing the bridge of perception, in times when everything that they thought was important collapses, to help them discover and develop their true talents and resources and thereby improve their quality of life and contribute to the community, is my life's calling. From this perspective, it does not matter which method currently I use. I adapt my operations to the people, beings, communities and regions that I meet. I'm doing this because I strongly believe that the heaven on earth is possible now-and-here, only the fraction of a second is sometimes enough for a big turnaround. And vice versa, unfortunately. The choice and responsibility is the matter of individual decision of each conscious being.