Tai Chi, Tai ME

Stand. Breathe. Relax. These are the words my tai chi teacher says to our class during the sixth lesson. Stand. Breathe. Relax. Even writing these words I can feel the tenseness in my body depart. So much noise and static that it is often hard to let the body be open to what is possible, to the divine. So, let me tell you a story.  In September of this year I signed up for twelve lessons of tai chi ch’uan. I wanted to add this spiritual practice to my chanting, prayer and yoga. Chi or qi in the Mandarin dialect of Chinese literally means “air” or “breath”. The art of tai chi is said to improve the flow of Chi (Qi), the traditional Chinese concept of energy or life force. Who wouldn’t want to do that?! 

Stand. Breathe. Relax.

Taking tai chi wasn’t a whim but something I had been thinking about for a long time. In 1985 during a visit with my friend Elisabeth Frolet at her parents home in Seillans, France I had my first glimpse of the practice. Her mom, Jacqueline, was taking tai chi lessons and asked me if I wanted to come along. My French wasn’t good enough to understand the instructor’s words but I could follow the movements. When I left Seillans it was with a book on tai chi and a desire to learn more. Much in life though is dependent not just on desire but on discipline and devotion. What path would this journey take?

Stand. Breathe. Relax.

Back home I searched but couldn’t find anyone teaching near me. Could it be I wasn’t ready yet? Years went by. As one of my sister-in-laws, a friend and an acquaintance began learning tai chi I was reminded it was still on my “things to do” list. In July 2011 my friend Debra Kolodny wrote about her tai chi practice on Facebook. There is something special about obtaining a teacher who has inspired someone you know. I asked who her teacher was and she told me about Mike Ward. There is an old adage, perhaps of Buddhist origin, that says “when the student is ready is the master will appear”. I felt I was getting closer.

Stand. Breathe. Relax.

It would take another year but at last I was on the path, enrolled and on my way to my first class. One last test. I thought I knew where the class was but when I showed up that turned out to not be the case. I called the instructor but got his answering machine. I emailed my friend in Portland on Facebook to no avail. I walked the streets asking anyone I saw but no luck. I decided to give up but still I kept walking. A car drove by and stopped. It was the mother of a student from six years ago and she wanted to say “hi” and wish me a happy Jewish new year. On a whim I asked if she knew where the class location of my class was. She drove me there. Luck? Fate? Kismet? In giving up had I relaxed and become open to the possible? Who can say.

 Stand. Breathe. Relax.

I am learning now with a formal once a week lesson and practice on my own. There are the principles of relax, body upright, separate the weight, flexible waist and fair lady’s wrist/beautiful lady’s hand to absorb. Each new posture taught builds on the previous one. I am learning just like the young children I work with. After the first lesson I wanted to run home and write a blog but I didn’t. I decided to wait. Now I have just finished lesson ten and it is right to post some words. For me I have found tai chi is prayer that moves the body, it is yoga dancing, it is a moving meditation and it is chanting without words. I am only beginning and yet that is enough. I have practiced at home and at my work. I have practiced in the midst of trees and leaves. I even practiced while waiting to vote in the presidential election. The week of Thanksgiving there was no class so no new posture. Instead we took a break to give thanks. Amen.

Elul Cleansing

The month of Elul has now passed and the new Jewish year is here. The time before a new year, a new job, or a new week is a perfect time to reflect, to search our soul, to look back and to cleanse. How have we strayed away from the path? What behaviors do we want to rid ourselves of? What are the positive things we want to nurture? One Jewish tradition is to really focus on this cleansing during the month of Elul. Here is a window on my journey.

Sun and Water

My Elul cleansing this year began in the swimming pool of a friend. I lay on my back in the waters and watched the sun go down. Back and forth, back and forth, the waters held and supported me as I asked myself the questions mentioned above and did a review. It felt right. It felt good. It was a beginning but I knew there was more. It was going to be a process. My job was just to let it happen.

Moon and Death

Then a young friend died. It was unexpected and a bit shocking. I discovered death too can assist in the cleansing process. At night I looked as the moon shone white in the sky. I saw the moon as life and the blackness around it as death. While the waters had been warm this felt sharp. While the waters had enveloped me safely this was piercing and lonely. If I was to die right now what would people say and remember about me? How was I using my gift of life? What did I need to change?

Clouds and Mountain

I needed to go where the land would hold me. I would go up into the mountains. I walked through the forest of trees examining their roots as well as my own. I saw turtle, deer and bear trying to decide if this too had some lesson for me. Some things seem like they can’t be changed. Perhaps, but other times it just takes more work. As I came to this conclusion after a hike and sitting on boulders overlooking a vast plain I was promptly surrounded by a cloud, a blanket of many tiny water droplets. Safe but still not finished.

Full Circle

Up to the mountains and now the strong pull was to go to the ocean. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I once more was laying on my back in the waters only instead of chlorine the were full of salt. I realized I had come full circle. In this place was the water, the land, the sun, the moon and the clouds. The assistance of the elements was complete. Dolphins swimming in the nearby waves and gulls flying overhead confirmed it was time to move on. The process wasn't over and never would be but now it was time to enter the new year. L'shanah tovah tikvatenu. Always the hope for a good year. 

Eating Vegan for the Nine Days

Tisha b'Av,  the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av,  is a day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples and other calamities in Jewish history. Tisha b'Av is one of the fast days in the Jewish calendar and the nine days that precede it are days of mourning and preparation. There are restrictions about activities of pleasure, laundering your clothes, and it is traditional to not eat meat nor drink wine. This year for the nine days leading up to Tisha b'Av I decided to go on a strictly vegan diet. 

Part of preparation this year was shopping for the 9 days on Rosh Chodesh Av.

The nine days are all about preparation and mine is to do research, read text and then meditate. Whatever day I am observing may be the same each year but I am not. I have changed and so each time I observe I need to see how it fits in with where I am now. One phrase that struck me this year in my reading was that Tisha b'Av is not known about nor observed by many Jews. I wondered if, for those who are aware and yet not observing, is it the mourning part that is not meaningful or interesting? Tisha b'Av comes in the summer after all and who wants to focus on sadness and destruction when for many it is their time for vacation, go to the beach or just relax.  Or maybe it is the destruction of the Temples that is hard to relate to either because it is seems so long ago and too far away? 

During the 9 days I learned how to make no vinegar lacto-fermented pickles.

I let all my info and thoughts just sit and mentally ferment. Tick, tock, I was awaiting a revelation or insight on another way to see the Temple. "Turn it, and turn it, for everything is in it. Reflect on it and grow old and gray with it" Rabbi Ben Bag Bag is quoted in Pirke Avot 5:22. That is just what I did here and then came the light. Of course I could balance the Temples built in Jerusalem of stone with my own personal temple of blood, muscle and bone. I would mourn the destruction of the Temple that has happened in the past with the destruction of my own personal temple happening in the present. Plus instead of just mourning my own temple's neglect I would use the nine days to cleanse it as in the Hanukkah story. Now where would I take my inspiration or direction for cleansing? 

Once during the nine days I was served a delicious vegan Indian style tofu at Kayam Farms.

I continued to channel Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag. What about if I used the very first chapter of the first book of the Torah where in B'reishet (Genesis) it says: 

²⁹ God said, "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food." And it was so. 

This text would be my kavanah, my intention or direction of the heart. For the nine days I would cleanse my body temple by not only eliminating meat and wine per tradition from my meals but also any animal products or food containing animal products. Yes for the nine days I would observe a strictly vegan diet as it seems to be what was originally intended at least according to the Torah. As I observed this diet and dealt with changes in meal planning, shopping and eating out I would use it as sparks to reflect on how I could better treat this body temple. 

I baked these vegan challah rolls using flax meal instead of eggs as a binder.

At the end of each day I reflected and wrote about the experience posting those thoughts on Facebook. I am not going to reproduce everything but here are a few observations. The experience seemed to be one of those where you think "why haven't I done this before. It seems so obvious?!" My usual diet is a lacto-ovo pesco vegetarian diet of dairy, eggs, fish etc. with some "happy" or free-range kosher meat thrown in here and there. Now it is clear how much I depend on dairy and eggs for the large part of my meals. I need to work on making each meal more about the vegetables. Those nine days were the hardest when I wasn't making my own meals. When I have traveled to Asian countries vegetables really take center stage even in the morning but that isn't true here. As with my own meals meatless meals may have veggies but most also have cheese, eggs or both as well.  I am going to try and be more diligent about providing vegetables for myself when I eat and getting veggies into the main ring for others too. 

The land of milk and honey? Here are some of the milk replacements I tried.

Eating vegan for the nine days didn't make me a vegan for life however it certainly gave me something to thing about. Who knows but that I may incorporate eating vegan if not totally then perhaps now and then. We shall see.

Transformations

(the early morning sky outside Union Station train station in Washington, DC)

Transformations. I have always loved the time of sunrise and sunset partly because of the way the sky gets transformed. It may be colors, or perhaps with clouds or just that the light seems unique and special. I am thinking about transformations in this moment for several reasons. One is that I called in a kitchen designer to help me transform my kitchen. It isn't  as though this just came to me. As with most of my decisions I think about them and hold them in my head, hands and heart until some inner voice says "go".The final deciding factor about the kitchen was that the dish washer stopped working a year ago and 3 of my 4 stove tops stopping working too. Kind of a fun challenge to have dinner parties and figure out the menu and cooking order with just a working oven and one stove cooker.

 (Clay pots formed but not finished at the Indians at Acoma, NM)

The second thing that has me focusing on transformations is my work. At the end of the school year our director announced that everyone would be moving to a new classroom. I started thinking of what I could get rid of just as one does in any move. I thought about what might I would want to do to the new space, change it, alter it and/or add to it. I even began sitting in the new space to get the feeling of it in my bones. Now it seems we may not move at all. We may just stay in the same classroom however I have all this great moving energy created and I don't want to waste it. So today I started moving that energy and eye back on my regular classroom asking the same questions that I asked about the new classroom. What would make being in the classroom better for others (the students and parents)? What would make being in the classroom better for my assistant and I?

(Two finished clay pieces from the Indians of Acoma, NM that I purchased)

The third thing that has me thinking about transformations is death. Seven years ago on Tuesday my good friend Lisa Kapin died at the age of 42 of cancer. My friend Sue Fendrick's brother Alan Fendrick just died of cancer at the age of 48. Sue has been writing of her experience of going on without her brother. As I read the her posts I reflect on my own experiences with death, of my father, of my cousin and of my friends. I think about my reactions to those deaths and what happened to me as a result. When I studied Jewish chant with Rabbi Shefa Gold she would tell us to notice how a chant had changed us. She would say to ask yourself this question in the silence after the chant,  to ask yourself what has changed from how you were before you began the chant and how has the chant changed you. It is good to ask yourself that question I think. Transformations.