It would be nice if I could sum up today’s practice in a nice, neat bow, and say, well, that’s it. A year of tai chi taught me everything I need to know, and we’re done here.
It rarely works that way, of course. I’ve been having thoughts like that all through these last few days (pretty much since I reached Day 350 if you must know). And entering the Thoth Days was particularly hard: each day offered up some deep insight which was ultimately pretty shallow. I fell back on old habits this week. I could have pushed myself to have some big finish. I didn’t. I guess that’s sort of the point. You do the work, you hit a milestone… and you keep going. Maybe after a rest, maybe not. The view from here is splendid — let’s go climb that higher peak over there!
And the milestone is kind of arbitrary. I could do another 365 days from here on out; I probably will. But it may not be as interesting, or as inspiring. It can’t be. After this, it will be a guy deepening his practice… not one making a commitment to deepen his practice. The commitment has been made, and delivered upon. Anything beyond this is continuation, not commencement.
That said.
That said, if there’s one insight I can offer you today, it’s that I couldn’t have done it without the readers. I can’t tell you how often a comment or a “like” or a sudden spike in visits to the site helped me keep going. There was encouragement almost every time I linked to Facebook; Twitter, not so much, but I understand that — it’s a zoo in there.
And that perhaps leads to a larger insight: that even though I’m living alone most of the time, I am in fact wholly interdependent on all other beings. The few hundred breaths I take every morning during the forms are wholly reliant upon the existence of what Hildegard of Bingen called Viriditas, the sacred greenness; and so are all the other breaths that I take every moment. I depend on chickens for my eggs and my meat; I depend on plants for my vegetables; and I depend on the farmers and the truckers and the grocery baggers who deliver them; and the miners and drillers and pumpers who bring me gas so that I can have the time to do tai chi every morning instead of worrying about basic survival matters more urgently. I am dependent on Peregrin’s communications from the opposite side of the world — and the apparently large number of Aussies who’ve started reading alongside him; I am dependent on Gordon’s insights into Sigil Work from London — for a tai chi form is a sigil written in space-time, too; I am dependent on Deb’s insights into glamour from New Jersey. To my mother and father, aunts and uncles; grandparents and great grandparents, cousins and second cousins, and so on — so great a cloud of witnesses. I’m dependent upon my lady too. And to my teacher, Laddie Sacharko, who taught me the three forms I used during this year of commitment (although as of this writing, it looks like he needs to lean on his web designer quite a bit). And to three of my magical teachers, though I’ve yet to meet any of them in the flesh: Rufus Opus, Jason Miller, John Michael Greer. So many more, too: an unnamable cloud of witnesses, friends and family, interested observers. I’m wholly interconnected with all of them, even people who don’t know that I did this, and wouldn’t care if I told them.
It was the American astronomer and scientific explicator Neil DeGrasse Tyson who said:
We are all connected:
to each other, biologically;
to the Earth, chemically;
to the rest of the universe, atomically.
And I think there’s another level of interconnection he doesn’t mention: we’re all part of a single whole. From the farthest reaches of space to the photographs on the mantlepiece in the room where I do tai chi, to the dirt under my fingernails… it’s all One Thing. We’re connected intimately.
Thank you. Thank you all for being here, and being part of it.
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Well done. I feel like I have achieved a milestone just reading this last year of posts.
Congratulations!
I was beginning to wonder if anyone from the old days when this was primarily a teaching blog still read this.
It’s good to hear from you.
This rocks. You rock.
Thanks!
The journey has only begun. I’ve found that that deeper and more subtly I look into something, the deeper and more subtly it goes. There is an infinity to discover in a millimeter of movement or a moment of time, and it’s wonderful.
Even so, congratulations! Achievement unlocked. 🙂
Congrats! Your posts have been an inspiration. Thank you for allowing me to come along. I hope you will continue to post about your ongoing Tai Chi practice in the future, I find your posts very valuable not only to see what someone else is doing but also to fuel my motivation for my own various Practices. Congrats again!
Thanks muchly. I’ve always appreciate the insights you’ve dropped off along this journey.
I cannot easily think of words to write, Andrew. Congrats and all that will just not cut it. And I am short of time anyway.
It has been an honour and a pleasure to witness your potent spiritual commitment and sharing with the world. Your discipline and steady forwarding of your unfoldment is incredible. Even in this milestone of a post you show the maturity and depth that makes this blog something special. Thank you 🙂
Thank you for swinging by on the big day. It’s appreciated.