lifetimes. purpose.
this being surprised me two summers ago on the grape vine. there was only one. and s(he) very efficiently ate most all of the leaves, but left the grapes untouched.
some lives of some beings are very focused and in my terms, short. i am thinking about my own life. all of it so far and what i imagine might be remaining of it.
i think it is going to change quite a bit. interesting...how some things have SOME meaning for so long and then all of a sudden, because of seemingly unrelated events, acquire so much more meaning that we did not notice, or, did not really see before???? fully apprehend...i like that word, apprehend.
the Tai Chi is working. it's working way more and way better than i had imagined it could. which has caused me to think about why this might be. some of you might remember me writing about one of my most loved friends Dora who, in my early 30's, i would watch do her Tai Chi forms while we waited in a very large empty room together. i talked about her small figure in her black uniform. her white hair with a silver hair clasp. the numbers tattooed on her arm from her girlhood in Dachau. how i would often find myself with a thread of saliva dangling from my chin because i would be so mesmerized by her, her movements, her etherial beauty that i would forget to swallow. she was old then. in her 80's.
in the past, i tried to learn Tai Chi. but i am akward and i found it very hard to coordinate the movements and i was embarassed. i quit. This particular class i am involved in now, is taught by a woman i have known in a very superficial way for a while. she does a few things...fitness training, and hypnotherapy are two. she works out of the new to this little town of Socorro Wellness Center. I'd read in our little newspaper how she had gotten funding through some federal grant to teach Tai Chi to women of "a certain age" as part of a study of the benefits of Tai Chi with balance, osteoporosis, general well being, etc. at the time i didn't pay much attention, really. Well, here i am.
and i have the feeling that a LOT is going to change. not only will the thing with the sciatic nerve be healed, but many things that i don't even know might be healed. it is a group of sometimes up to 10 women, all kinds, and i find that the Ego that caused me to quit before has since been dropped as useless baggage and i just do the best i can. i am still akward. but i don't care. each time i go, i fine tune some little thing and i am learning. getting some small thing right. today, as i stitched the daughter cloth, those endless invisible baste stitches, i realized how similar this was to the Tai Chi, how similar learning Tai Chi is to stitching. it is a deep inner attention for the well being of the Whole. somehow. Chi. LifeForce. the buddhists have always told me that i need to be so grateful to have born as a human being. born to a circumstance where you can contemplate these things. for some months now, i have been reading Mind of Clear Light Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
somehow, all these things are slowly swirling into somekind of constellation. just the Time in my life, the sudden injury to my body that changed everything for a while, the more than usual concern with the changes in North Africa, the Middle East as a whole, the great grief for the devastation in Japan and whether or not it can be seen for all that it means to the planet as a whole. and what is my place in all this? is it important at all? i am looking, feeling.
