When I traveled across country on September 15th, 2021, Hurricane Nicholas was giving my cross-country airplane quite a bit of turbulence.
To pass time (and not be afraid) I put myself through all 37 positions of our tai chi rounds without moving a muscle (or at least I don’t think I moved a muscle).
Here is the playful drama I created.
I am going on a journey through the jungle, which should be fun.
Over the summer I have enjoyed watching several sports in the Olympics. The Netherlands did very well, and we saw many TV interviews with the athletes. What struck me most was that when they gave an account of what it takes to perform their sport on the highest level, most said that it was largely in the mind! Surprising!
Are you a caretaker finding yourself stretched to your limits? It’s not only the kindest thing we can do but also the most practical, to nurture our own well-being and mental health in the midst of so many overwhelming pressures and stresses like the raging Covid pandemic. Self-care and staying centered need to be recognized as essential life skills. After all, If we are falling apart and crumbling from undue stress, how can we be of service to others?
The tai chi self is an extraordinary experiment in living. It perceives mind and body as one. It recognizes that we are solid stuff and also immaterial. To say it in tai chi terms, we are substantial and insubstantial. These are not dualities but complements, and you can play with them in a tai chi way. That is, you can let them interact and interlace, and allow them to set you in motion, as we say. Sometimes I am so enchanted by the workings of tai chi in my very bones that I become taller and lighter, and a sense of childlike happiness often fills me up.
“Why should I learn tai chi?” It’s a question I’m often asked.
I answer, “For me, there’s nothing like a few minutes of tai chi to help me slow down, relax, center myself, and let go of worries and random thoughts.”
Relax and breathe. While this guidance would make sense in most of life’s moments, it was particularly valuable to me as I took my first steps in tai chi last April. The world had completely shut down from COVID; I had just left my secure job in corporate brand management, and my savings were crumbling as the stock market was tumbling. Relax and breathe.
Morning light awakening to stillness.
It’s a moment of perpetual grace. We’ll be forever inside it for the rest of our lives.
The dantian grounds me, stabilizes me,
a keeper of expressions I never knew I possessed.
Relax. Breathe. Connect to heaven and earth. Move from my center. Breathe. Relax.
My friend likes tai chi because it is exercise that doesn’t hurt.
Single whip sinks down stretches my back, bringing my dantian closer to the earth.
On 13 October 2020, I finished walking the South West Coast Path (SWCP), a journey of 630 miles that I’d started on 4 May 2016. The SWCP is the longest and finest of Britain’s National Trails, starting at Minehead in Somerset, going along the north coast of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, around Lands End and along the south coast of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, finishing at Poole. It took me 67 walking days, which averaged out at 9.4 miles per day. Not long distances, but quite enough for that sort of terrain where you are continually going up and down.
Spring is the season of the wood element, a season of birth, new growth and hope. The lavender crocuses and ruffled edges of daffodils are opening their delicate lips to the light; the slender, furry poppy stems and buds are emerging, preparing to explode into crepe papery reds and oranges. You may be graced by the bluebirds, wrens, yellow-breasted songbirds, woodpeckers, or ruby-throated hummingbirds depending upon your locale.
I have been on the path as an actor-singer all my life, and my field of interest and investigation has been singing. Singing demands a highly attuned and developed listening ability, without which you cannot reach the level of a virtuoso, someone who has mastery over her voice, especially when performing for a live audience or under stress. I have found that listening, a more advanced skill than hearing, must be developed with one’s relaxed will or awareness.
