Mimi Kuo-Deemer – Heart Song: Qigong and Meditation for Fire and Summer

How can the song of our heart shine brightly, even when internal or external energies become chaotic, draining, or challenging?

How can we help our hearts feel more attuned to life’s rhythms and resonate more fully with our experiences?

These questions lie at the core of Daoist and Buddhist practice, and finding answers to them is a courageous commitment to turning inwards, listening and learning from the body’s deepest truths.

Join meditation, qigong, and internal martial arts teacher Mimi Kuo-Deemer for a month-long journey into nurturing and liberating the song of your heart.

Guided by Mimi, we will explore the heart and its three allies in Chinese medicine and qigong: the small intestine, pericardium (heart protector), and triple heater.

Each week, we will focus on one of the four organ and meridian systems associated with the Fire element and its corresponding season, summer.

Through insightful discussions, guided meditations, contemplative practices, and Fire-themed qigong, Mimi will help you cultivate a heart that meets life’s complexities with greater ease, openness, and resilience.

Together, we will harmonise the heart’s song, strengthening its capacity for insight, wisdom, and compassion – allowing it to sing freely and fully in the world.

Module 1 – Calm and Tranquil: Rebalancing Your Heart’s Fire

In Chinese medicine, the heart thrives in a state of calm and tranquility.

Yet, for many of us, modern life often feels anything but serene, leaving us navigating our days with mounting stress and anxiety.

This first module explores how to support the heart’s innate desire for steady peace. We’ll delve into practices that help rebalance and nourish the heart’s energy when it feels dysregulated or disturbed.

Through discussion, Heart-themed qigong practices, and time for reflection, we’ll begin to cultivate a deeper connection to this central organ of Fire.

Module 2 – Clear and Pure: Sorting Out Your Small Intestine

When clear judgment feels elusive, or your heart feels muddled and indecisive, Chinese medicine and qigong point to the small intestine as a key player. This organ helps the heart discern what is pure and impure – whether in food, thoughts, or experiences.

When this function weakens, the heart becomes overwhelmed by non-essential “junk,” clouding its clarity and vitality.

In this module, we’ll explore practices to strengthen the small intestine, supporting the heart in its role as a wise and loving ruler.

Together, we’ll cultivate clarity and insight, allowing the heart to govern with confidence and compassion.

Module 3 – Shielded and Safe: Reinforcing Your Heart Protector

In Chinese medicine and qigong, nervousness, anxiety, and fear arise not from direct blows to the heart, but from a weakened heart protector, or pericardium.

A strong pericardium shields the heart, allowing it to remain open and resilient even in the face of life’s challenges.

This week, we’ll focus on qigong and contemplative practices to nourish and fortify the heart protector.

By strengthening this vital shield, we’ll help the heart’s song resonate with courage and compassion, even in a world filled with fear.

Module 4 – Regulating and Relating: Tending to Your Triple Heater

In our final week, we’ll explore the Triple Heater, the most mysterious of the Fire element’s functions.

Though it has no physical form, the Triple Heater plays a crucial role in regulating both internal and external relationships. Internally, it harmonizes interactions between organs; externally, it governs how we connect—or disconnect—with others.

Through qigong practices and contemplative insights, we’ll tend to the Triple Heater, fostering balance and harmony within and around us. Mimi will also share how these practices can help our heart’s song remain steady and resonant, even during turbulent times.

About Mimi Kuo-Deemer

Mimi Kuo-Deemer is an author and teacher of meditation, qigong, and internal martial arts (6th generation Baguazhang). She champions a balance of playfulness and precision, and never underestimates the value of wise, goofy people. A long-time dharma student of Sangha Live’s founding teacher, Martin Aylward, she also co-leads retreats with him at the Moulin de Chaves.

Born in upstate New York, Mimi has lived most of her adult life overseas, in Beijing, London, and now Oxfordshire, where she lives with her husband and their dog, three cats, 8 chickens and 60,000 bees. She enjoys writing – her two books include Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis (2018), and Xiu Yang: The Ancient Chinese Art of Self-Cultivation for a Healthier, Happier, More Balanced Life (2019) – and creating online qigong practice videos and DVDs.

Her teachings draw inspiration from nature, the Dao, and the wisdom of Buddha Dharma. She particularly enjoys discovering and sharing ways we can nourish and support our vitality for our own welfare, and the welfare of all life. Click here to learn more about Mimi Kuo-Deemer.

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