“There is No Place like Home”

Editor’s Note: This article brings to mind a Zen parable Justin was fond of telling about a farmer whose horse runs away (“bad” news) and then returns with other wild horses (“good” news). When the farmer’s son rides the wild horse and gets thrown off and breaks a leg (“bad” news), he’s then not healthy enough to be conscripted (“good” news). When the villagers comment on each turn of events, the farmer always responds, “maybe.”

My story starts pre-COVID-19. I was feeling jumpy and my practice(s) — T’ai Chi Chih, meditation and chanting — weren’t offering the serenity that usually spills over into my everyday life. I think some of us pick up messages about shifts in the universe way before they become substantial. Because of this, I felt prepared when I got an early morning call from Michael, the husband of my teacher, Carolyn Perkins. He told me that Carolyn had just had a bad accident and I was needed to cover her two classes that day at the Quest bookstore.

I had taken to wearing a cool necklace gifted from a friend. It’s a mollusk from South America; it’s basically a spiral. Since every time I put it on I felt better, I wore it to teach those TCC classes. Afterward, Carolyn’s classes were cancelled until further notice, as she had broken her neck.

That was February 19th. The world spiraled for Carolyn and Michael who had to prepare for a challenging surgery to save Carolyn’s life. Carolyn had to wait almost a week as the team was put in place, and she was confined to being on her back in stillness.

By the time COVID-19 penetrated my consciousness and disrupted any normalcy, I had already been connected to the trauma and developments of Carolyn’s personal difficulties. I noticed feeling that “surge of Vital Force” and even sometimes that “pleasant tingling” Justin mentions when we practice TCC. The surgery was a success. Carolyn survived and wasn’t paralyzed; she was a fighter! I was encouraged when I saw her and when we spoke on the phone. Is it any surprise that during that first month of recovery she was practicing TCC mentally to keep herself centered and ready for anything? I kept wearing my necklace because life was getting wonky and I needed it.

Justin writes in the T’ai Chi Chih! Joy Thru Movement Photo Text (Epilogue): “the eminent teacher, Professor Huang Wen-Shan says: ‘We seem to realize that, in the universe, there is an ever-active, ever-creative life, and an inexhaustible source of energy-life and energy, which are made available to mankind when a fitting stage of development is achieved. It is particularly significant that it has a great reverence for life.’ So we discern a spiritual basis for this great Chi energy, which is not ours alone but belongs to the cosmos. (We manifest it individually when we do the necessary disciplines to develop and focus this great power.)”

When visiting Carolyn at the hospital one Sunday, Michael learned that their insurance wouldn’t cover the rehab facility affiliated with her hospital. Complications. She was to go home instead. Of course, over many years of TCC practice, Carolyn had been “building a silent and imperturbable center while active in the disappointments and triumphs of our busy lives — this is real fulfillment,” as Justin has also written. Carolyn had certainly been doing her ABC’s — activating, balancing and circulating Chi — for more years than I can remember. Nevertheless, we were angry and disappointed that she wasn’t going to rehab.

She went home the next week, about two weeks after her life-saving surgery and she immediately started doing everything possible to rehabilitate her hands, which seemed to have suffered the biggest impact from the accident.

After NYC went into major lock down, COVID-19 cases started infiltrating the hospital where Carolyn had wanted to do her rehab. She would have been a sitting duck for the virus. Like Lao-tzu, Carolyn, even with a broken neck, walked safely away from danger.

Be like the Tao.

It can’t be approached or withdrawn from,

benefited or harmed,

honored or brought into disgrace.

It gives itself up continually.

That is why it endures.

~~Tao Te Ching (as translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Carolyn’s years of practice and teaching TCC gave her a storehouse of energy and mental-emotional resilience to overcome the most excruciating unforeseen circumstances. She is a living representation that TCC works. She reminds us that it is up to us to practice if we want the benefits. Carolyn told me she resumed her daily, physical practice only one month after her accident.