Take your time. You are making progress.
Lesson from a Turtle
One World. . .One Breath
Join us, breathe and connect your energy with others you know and don’t know across the world. Yes, connect with a stranger on another continent thousands of miles away! On the last Saturday in April we celebrate World Tai Chi and QiGong Day. We can participate with others at an indoor event, outside in a park moving through gentle Tai Chi movements or at home in our living room.
Join me on Saturday, April 25, 10am in your time zone. Stop. pay attention and breathe. Imagine and feel the connection with others who are stopping to breathe and connect with you. This wave of breathing and connecting our energy starts at 10am in New Zealand and Australia, then travels across the world in every time zone on earth. What a positive way to spread good will, spread our good energy and connect with others, a positive gesture of giving of our best selves and sharing a positive moment with no agenda and no personal gain.
Thousands, maybe millions will be joining us. Just to share energy and connect.
Join me and if you are outside, take time to enjoy the trees, the grass, the flowers, the birds.
New Book Underway!
Signs of spring abound — flowering bushes, new shimmering green leaves popping out on trees, longer hours of daylight and hints of warmer temperatures filling our days. Out my door walking down my lovely city block, I snapped pictures of nature displaying its magic rebirth in Chicago after a long winter.
I love this time of year because it brings new energy, new possibilities, new ideas. We feel it in our bones. In Tai Chi classes we root our legs and feet into the ground, connect with the rich nutrients and energy of the soil and bring up that energy to nourish our bodies. Like the trees. Our arms are like the branches and our hands and fingers resemble the flowering, the new leaves that are the result of moving earth energy throughout the our entire body. It is refreshing, calming, and energizing at the same time.
This new energy resonates with me in a big way right now. I just submitted a completed manuscript to my publisher and had a first meeting with my project manager to discuss the process, the steps ahead to publish my new book. My new book!! How exciting to be at this point, about to make my words, my ideas come alive and go out into the world.
Details to unfold. I’ll keep you posted and share my progress. Spring — the perfect time of year to have a new project spring forth and flower!
What Gives you Joy?
With many hours of darkness in our winter days, it’s the time of year that many focus on light that will be coming in the weeks ahead. Whether or not you are part of a religious tradition that celebrates light that will come in the darkness, a common topic of conversation of many right now is counting the days until winter Solstice, knowing that point marks the day that dark and light balance and then slowly the light in our days will increase.
In these days of grey skies, cold temperatures and snow for those of us in northern U.S. climates , and for you in climates with sun and warmth, what gives you joy? Many of the non-political stories, music, ads, movies right now are light and play to our desire for cheer, friendship, traditions, baking seasonal treats, loving and feeling loved.
Hopefully, we are not so busy with our to-do lists that we miss the moments — twinkling lights, a grandchild’s performance, big, beautiful snowflakes, coffee with a friend, a colorful bird, working to provide meals for others.
Joy is often spontaneous, unexpected. We need to be open. If our minds are filled with lists, thinking about a past event that upset us, worrying how we will get everything done before company comes in a few days, we may miss our moment of joy. We need to take time to notice what is around us right now. Pay attention. Go look at the holiday lights. Be intentional.
In my Tai Chi classes, I ask students to try to keep their attention in the room as much as possible. Why? Our minds wander; chatter fills our heads and can take us miles away from the classroom we are standing in. I focus our gentle Tai Chi moves on relaxing and focusing on the moment, paying attention to where we are standing, how we are standing, feeling our body alignment come to a center point. When our minds wander, we miss the paying attention and likely can miss a wonderful moment of calmness and relaxation. I think those moments of joy come when we stop, focus on the moment and take in the wonderful feeling of joy. Volunteering our time to help others, with transportation to a medical appointment, feeding those in need, visiting a homebound friend, all allow us to focus on the moment when we forget ourselves in order to help others.
I feel joy in the midst of moving my energy with my students through Tai Chi. We are freely sharing with each other bringing calm to the moment and each other. A gift for which I am grateful.
What gives us joy cannot be bought, bartered or manufactured. It comes to us, often unexpected. It’s an emotion and a gift that is part of the best of being human.
What has brought you joy recently?
Why Tai Chi – Why Now?
Why not? Kids are returning to school. Summer outside activities are in full-swing but it won’t be long until we shift into an autumn mode and in many climates, more inside activities will predominate. Although decades have passed since I was that child looking forward to a new school year, so excited to shop for my school supplies, including paper, pencils, eraser and ruler (showing my age!), I still feel that anticipation of looking forward to starting the school year.
I hope as adults we can generate that excitement for ourselves, for new activities and new learning. It should never get old.
NOW is a good time. A good time to commit to new learning. A good time to bring nourishment to our bodies and clear out all the clutter and chatter in our heads. I’m partial to saying “now” to Tai Chi because I know first-hand how beneficial it is for relaxing, managing anxiety, chronic health conditions and improving balance.
Why Tai Chi now? Because putting off, saying ‘maybe later’ could easily lead to doing nothing at all. Gear up and say ‘yes’. You don’t need any equipment nor special clothing, just youself and an open mind. I have classes you can join now, or, if you aren’t physically close, look for a class or start with a YouTube video.
You can join these students who have said already said ‘yes’. Recommend a class to a friend or come together. I’d like to hear from you.
I’m making my plea for action because I’m in my 26th year of teaching Tai Chi and I’m passionate about Tai Chi. As a teacher I know the distance can be very long from saying you want to take a Tai Chi class and getting out the door to go to a class. So many people say they are interested in learning how to relax, do something positive for their health, take a class and don’t because something else comes up. Don’t let that be you.
Tai Chi – NOW is your time. NOW is our time.
Summer Light
What is special about summer for you? Many of us are eager to be outside, go for long walks by a lake or in a park, enjoy a picnic with our family, stroll through our neighborhood farmer’s market, attend an outdoor concert or a movie night on our lawn chair at a community gathering, watch boats glide along Lake Superior.
What do you like the most? The freedom of walking out the door in shorts and sandals, taking binoculars and camera to watch and listen to the birds, relaxing outside with friends over a glass of wine. All good possibilities. We think mostly about “doing”, being active because we have a sense of freedom to move around and go places when we know it will be light well into the evening.
We are in the season of Yang energy – activity, blossoming trees and flowers, bright colors, heat, light. While we are out “doing” we want to pay attention, enjoy the moment. Take it all in.
Recently my sister and I went to Starved Rock State Park in northern Illinois. It’s amazing to drive across flat terrain, rich farmland filled with corn and soybeans and then. . . huge trees, winding roads going up, up, up to a natural filled park. Looking out over a panorama of green trees as far as our eyes could see, we listened to a variety of singing birds, felt a summer breeze, marveled at small red berries we happened to see because we were still and paying attention to everything around us.
The sun shining brightly highlighted the various shades of green on the thousands of leaves surrounding us. It was mesmerizing, the stillness and calm of those moments. The light outside and how nature took it in, made it beautiful and we, in our stillness took it all in and thoroughly enjoyed the moments.
What moments of summer have made you feel this way?
