Today I did a qi gong form, eight pieces of silk. And 20 push-ups. And two tai chi forms. It’s not much. It’s maintenance and nothing else; and it’s not deepening my practice. But it’s keeping the practice going for another day.
Yesterday, I was teaching the first class of a seven-week workshop on knitting and weaving. We were doing step one, which was to make some knitting needles using the tools in the design lab. One (very young) child didn’t have the physical strength to cut the dowels, so I did that. Then we needed to drill some small wooden spheres for the end-caps. While I was drilling these, the kid snapped the two dowels into kindling, and asked for more doweling — not to make knitting needles, but to make more kindling. While I was cutting more dowels for his knitting needles…. the child lost the beads on the floor.
Some days, your practice is like that. And some days, your practice serves to keep you in good spirits so that things like this don’t drive you out of your mind.
