This morning I did Tai Chi in a beautiful spot on a platform overlooking a garden. It’s a high platform, the third in a series of platforms placed above and slightly behind each other, at the very end of the path through the garden.
As I approached the platform, a hummingbird was sitting on a wire above the flagstone pathway. I paused and looked at it in acknowledgment, trying to be still and peaceful so as not to disturb it while I walked underneath toward the end of the path and up the steps to the third platform. And from there I could see all along the pathway back through the garden, with rows of trees on either side, and in the distance other trees, plants and flowers.
I bowed and then carefully, slowly, began the long Tai Chi form. I wanted—but you have to want gently, you have to be able to put the want aside and be empty—to allow the Tai Chi itself to perform the movements. Not you doing them, just Tai Chi doing each step, each movement. Today there was enough time to let go of time, and to do the form very slowly, very silently, reaching inside, feeling inside, yet letting awareness include and include and include, so that the surround could come in and so what is felt as inner could spread out out to join with it.
As I turned through the various directions of the form, proceeding across the platform from one side to the other and forward and back, at one point I turned back around toward the pathway and a bicycle was approaching. I wondered where it could be going, because the path stopped right there.
The bicycle stopped and a man got off. He didn’t say anything. He took off his helmet and jacket. He moved a small table and placed it directly in front of the lowest platform. Then he took a cello out of the case he’d been carrying on his back and sat down on the bottom platform, facing away from me and toward the garden. With his music set up on the table, he began to play.
And all through the Tai Chi form, he played the cello. And all through the Tai Chi form, the hummingbird appeared and disappeared and reappeared again, flew away and returned, and here and there made its hummingbird sounds, a small percussion accompaniment.
And all through the cello music, Tai Chi was happening and the hummingbird was flying and returning and flying again, and the branches of the trees were gently waving.
And all through the hummingbird’s flight and small quick sounds, the cello was happening and Tai Chi was happening, and the trees were happening.
And all through the trees happening, there was Tai Chi, and cello, and hummingbird.
And then the Tai Chi form ended, and the man put down his bow, and from behind him I bowed in the closing of the form and walked down the steps to the bottom. And we thanked each other and went our way.
Monday, June 5, 2022
© 2022 Shanti Natania Grace
Photo by Pete Nuij on Unsplash
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Music Is Playing
The music is playing
and we are the dancers.
We dance and dance,
and think that our dancing
is causing the music.
But really the music
is dancing in our bones,
in our blood,
in our breath,
in everything we see,
in everything we are.
The music dances,
and so do we.
– Shanti Natania Grace
© 2022 Shanti Natania Grace
