Dear friends,

Since Stuart’s passing, many of you have been wondering: What will happen to the Sanctuary of Tao?

The good news is that this is exactly why the Sanctuary of Tao was created: to preserve the teachings Stuart sought to transmit so they could live on beyond him. None of us expected tha...

Stuart Alve Olson—beloved Taoist teacher, translator, author, and lifelong practitioner—passed peacefully from cancer on August 14, 2025, in Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by the love and care of his closest students and caretakers, Patrick Gross and Suzanne Nosko. Even through all he endured, his att...

I met Stuart in 1992—more than thirty years ago. Like a lot of people, I wanted to learn Tai Chi. I had started studying with Jim Lodal, a student of Master Liang’s and Stuart’s in Duluth, MN.

Jim told me that Stuart, newly married to Lian Hua and with his son Lee, on the way, had just moved back t...

When someone like Stuart, who devoted his life to the Taoist arts of vitality, passes in his 75th year, it can raise questions. How could a teacher of health and longevity die “relatively young”?

Stuart himself would have wanted us to look at this openly, without denial. For him, life as it is was ...

By Stuart Alve Olson

In Taoist Internal Alchemy texts, Xing (性) and Ming (命) are very important concepts. These two terms have varying definitions within Taoist texts, causing some confusion for those studying Internal Alchemy. In the simplest definition, Xing is a reference to our Nature, our mind...

Taoists believe that we suffer the effects of old age because we don’t incorporate the laws of nature. If we want to feel good, we need to nourish the nature within us.

When it comes to working with the body, Taoism is all about going back—re-storing, re-generating, re-vitalizing. Taoism teaches us...

March 22–April 19th, 2023

By Suzanne Nosko

As this new moon on March 22nd will be an intercalary month (or moon), the Yin Water Rabbit influence will be with us longer. This happens approximately every three years and is done in order to keep up the lunar year with the solar year.

Since the solar...

Please see the Book of Sun and Moon by Stuart Alve Olson for more details of the advice and correlations given in this piece for the present month (moon).

Great Strength, #34, Da Zhuang

This hexagram holds influence over the period of the Yin Wood Rabbit Moon (including the intercalary moon period...

 用 肉 饺 子 打 狗

yòng ròu jiǎo zi dǎ gǒu

The idiom is indicating things that can never be returned. No dog would ever return a piece of meat thrown to it.

Master Liang would usually blurt out this statement any time he heard talk of someone loaning or borrowing money, a book, sword, or music tape. Us...

By Stuart Alve Olson

In the Zhuang Zi, a parable tells about how after a visit to Tiaoling Park one day, Zhuang Zi felt as though he had lost himself completely. The events leading up to this started when he first encountered a very large bird, with a seven foot wingspan, and very large eyes.

The bi...

Copyright © 2023 by Stuart Alve Olson

This ongoing series presents the origin and more traditional meanings of Taijiquan posture names, movements, and applications. Each installment provides Master Xu Yusheng’s original text (1919), original photographs of Master Yang Chengfu, Master Chen Weiming (...