Faulk TaiChi

Learn the beautiful, flowing movements for health and relaxation.

What Gives you Joy?

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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.

about Tai Chi

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?

Winter Solstice

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Today we experience the most hours and minutes of darkness of any day in the year, a day when the sun is at its lowest point. From the Essene Book of Days — “The ancient people used this time of ‘longest night’ to focus on the power of darkness. Not the negative image of darkness, but the richness of that unknown, dark, fertile, deep part in each of us wherein our intuitive, creative forces abide. In modern times, it is a time for owning one’s shadow, so as to transform any negative energy associated with it into the energy of creation and psychic ability. We must accept and know our Darkness before we can fully know the Light.”

city lights
stars

This is a Yin time of year, a time for reflection, a time to look inward. Many spiritual and religious traditions acknowledge the darkness, asking followers to embrace the darkness, because in doing so, we will be ready for the light to come. The light WILL come. May we have confidence in knowing that this day, Winter Solstice teaches us that we need to follow the seasons and natural flow of nature. We need the yin of darkness and yang of light to create balance our lives.

For those of us embracing Tai Chi energy and movement, we follow the yin and yang of nature and work to create internal and external balance by embracing the light and darkness of our energies.

Winter Solstice 2020

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winter solstice

Here we are observing the day with the most hours of darkness. Winter Solstice comes every year, but I’ve been hearing more people talking about it this year. Maybe that’s due to a year marked with so much darkness in so many lives across the globe, from the ravages of COVID19 to unemployment to increasing levels of hunger to uncertainty about what’s to come.

With this  rhythm in nature, the dark hours will turn toward increasing light. At this time of year I like to turn to the Essenes, people who lived centuries ago and sought to live in accordance with nature. Their studies and views broaden my understanding of what this time means.

An excerpt from The Essene Book of Days – “The ancient peoples used this time of the ‘longest night’ to focus on the power of darkness. Not the negative image of darkness, but the richness of the unknown, dark, fertile, deep part in each of us wherein our intuitive, creative forces abide. In modern times, it is a time for owning one’s shadow, so as to transform any negative energy associated with it into energy of creation and psychic ability. We must accept and know our Darkness before we can fully know our Light.

For those of us embracing Tai Chi, this is a time to embrace our Yin side, to reflect and nourish this aspect of our beings through our practices. We seek to balance our Yin and Yang elements and strive to be in sync with nature.

autumnal equinox

From this day forward the hours of sunlight will start to increase. The darkness will turn into light. Let that give us hope for the days ahead.

Winter Solstice

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stars

Here we are in the day of shortest daylight of the year, winter solstice. In the northern hemisphere we are at the farthest point from the sun. Some of us celebrate this day, a time to reflect on the darkness, on our shadows waiting for the light to return. Some of us don’t like it at all and just say it won’t be long until we have more minutes of daylight.

sunset

I noticed this year, and we mentioned it in Tai Chi classes this week, that the publicity this year seems to be on this day being special, unusual, a day to really pay attention and look up into the sky. Why look up? Because this solstice is going to include a full moon and meteor shower. Both are worth looking into the sky to catch a glimpse. These phenomena are filled with light, a full, bright moon, a shower of light flashes from the meteor shower, the light we are longing for. Maybe it will be cloudy and I will look up to see darkness or outlines of clouds. Even if that is the case, I feel some excitement about the cycles of nature that cause me to be still, look up, get outside of myself.

So, if you live in a place where the sky is clear and the sun has set, look up. Note that the winter solstice is here and you might see something spectacular. Paying attention, attuning ourselves with nature rhythms may produce a few moments of “wonder”.