Holiday Hindsight

Carmen Brocklehurst, Albuquerque, NM

Another year new. What a great time to reflect on what has brought us to this point. It isn’t hard to do this with T’ai Chi Chih because of the wealth that is stored inside each movement and with the movements as a whole. Many of us weren’t asking for any great truth to be revealed, or trying to dive into any great depth when we started our practice. All we wanted was the simple: peace of mind, to be able to get up in the morning without pain, to be able to walk from one side of the room to the other, to be more patient and understanding with our children and our spouses, to be able to breathe. For some, these are the very things we take for granted, but they were not that for some of us. Because of practice, these simple things have become part of the treasure we have found.

Recently someone said that releasing stress through T’ai Chi Chih was nothing compared with learning about who you are. However, until that stress is gone, there is no chance to go any further, no chance to even contemplate that possibility of knowing. In the middle of a stressful situation, as it seems with all the above aspirations, we are caught in a whirl, or simply stuck.

During the Christmas holiday (or was it frenzy?), some of us knew that the only way to hang on to our sanity was through our practice. What a blessing! Best of all it was not just a momentary fix. So many other things fell into place because of these simple movements. The keys that were lost, under the couch. How did our eyes spot them out of all the possible places they could have been? The knowing that the new baby was crying because it was cold: how did we acquire this wisdom? The panic of cooking the whole meal for several families was very gracefully taken care of, by someone else, and all that was asked of us was to make one item instead of ten. Where did this grace come from, and why did it bless us?

This is but a slight show of the chi on the outer. How much more is going on inside of us? “Does all this have something to do with T’ai Chi Chih? Who cares, as long as it is happening!” And that is the best demonstration of the chi: the power of action, not only in our lives, but in the lives of everyone with whom we come into contact. What a New Year’s gift this is to family and friends.