Sei Chu To
Leopards lazing in trees do it. Cats, lions, snakes, dogs, wolves, bats and hawks. Frogs do it. Do we? I think we’ve forgotten how. Sei chu to is a Japanese expression for a form of preparedness and action. It doesn’t really translate into English, but is important to mention here. Yes, you can go spontaneously into a conflict because someone is off their face on ice. But who needs that? How can a body defend and respond while in a rage?
A green tree frog takes up a position on the edge of my kitchen kettle (back in the days when I ate bread), not far above the toaster. The whole top half of frog-person is suspended in mid-air. Frog-person remains like that for countless hours. Frog-person displays no discomfort, no exhaustion, no exasperation, no impatience. They simply are. That’s the chu part of the equation. The sei is the action of climbing onto the kettle and settling into chu…(some frogs can chu for years, a meter underground, if there is no rain) until the cockroaches come out of the woodwork for the toast crumbs.
SEI CHU TO – FROG-SKILLED
And then the Froginator is gone until another night, leaving me the shiny, iridescent brown defecations as gifts to their fellow-residents. That to occurs when insight strikes.
As sure as anything can be, however, that chu process has been active at least once in your life because at least once in your life you required vigilance, perhaps even secrecy to maintain safety or success. Sei has been your life since deciding to live beyond birth. To? We train. In a situation of fight, flight or freeze to is the moment of action. Without this practice you could falter, you could hope when hope is futile. You might never need this training in your lifetime, but… what are you risking?
