Breath, Movement & Visioning: Elemental Qigong & Ritual in Portugal with Miranda Maher

I’ve been an artist in New York City for 30 years and believe that learning and creativity nurture our core and our spirit. I use the power of imagery and metaphor in my art, meditation and teaching practices… It’s the visual imagery of Qigong that continues to inspire me after 25 years.

I poked around Yoga and Buddhism through the 1970s and 80s—without much consistency or discipline—but I would always return to it. Then, in the mid-1990s I fell in love with a rigorous martial art from Japan and trained in it for 18 years: Amagure no Sato Ryu Ninjutsu. I retired in 2013, but still depend on the discipline, clarity and focus it distilled in me. In 1999 I expanded my martial training with the Qigong, Neigong and Taiji of Universal Healing Tao (UHT) and was elevated to a Senior Instructor in 2019. I’m also the only American instructor of TaoZen, a Zen influenced version of UHT.

The practices of UHT are transformative: They healed my chronic back pain and balanced my hormones; They strengthened and rooted my physical body; They grounded my emotional life and allowed me to shed patterns that had burdened me for years. Most of all, they offered a lens through which I could view my life and the universe in a way that embraces nature, spirit and my human heart.

After many years learning these methods for myself, I expanded my practice to others. First with teaching, then with energy healing and medical qigong. I hold a Masters of Medical Qigong Degree, a Master Teacher Certification in Usui Reiki and a Clinical Certification in the Meridian Tapping of EFT.

My personal practice, mentoring and teaching are always evolving. About 4 years ago, I found that I desired more outward connection to the Earth and a deeper connection to my ancestors and ritual. All were so important to the original Tao path yet have been minimized in the western version. Since then, I’ve embraced training in Animism, Ritual and Ancestral Lineage Healing and it has vibrated through all my other work. It has provided a path to turn outward from the inner world of body and mind healing and reach backward through time to connect and heal those that came before us.