Spring 2021 Newsletter
(April 2021)
ANNOUNCING THE SPRING LIVING TAO ESSENTIAL TAI JI SERIES
Each session will focus on the ongoing studies of the Living Tao Core Essential curriculum to include: Essential Tai Ji, Living Tao Philosophy, Form and Structures: Tai Ji Rituals, 5 Moving Forces, and Tai Ji Circles. With this foundation Chungliang will spotlight a unique themed approach each month to enlighten your practice with new insights.
May 8th: Renewal—Creativity
June 12th: Nurturance—Receptivity
July 10th: Thriving—Gratefulness
Registration will open on April 24, 2021. Watch your email, the Living Tao website and Facebook page for registration information.
A SPRINGTIME LETTER FROM CHUNGLIANG
Dear Worldwide Living Tao friends: Happy Spring!
Even though deep down I still feel a sense of loss, not being able to be with you in person for our yearly seminars, and particularly for this most recent Easter week in Switzerland, I am grateful to be in virtual contact via Zoom. I feel a deep connection with you ALL. Thanks to the dedicated Teamwork of so many of our long-time organizers joining forces across the Atlantic to make these monthly sessions happen. It is even more comforting to know that so many of our worldwide friends have continued to plug in, ever so faithfully each month since we began resorting to these virtual alternatives. Somehow, despite all the drawbacks of Covid restrictions, our mutual goodwill and genuine wish to stay connected and to keep learning/sharing have transcended and triumphed!
With the gift of a nearby woods I have been able to take daily walks in nature, marveling a whole year’s seasonal changes since the lockdown. I have derived much delight with in-depth participation and observation of the wonders of the cyclical dynamics in Nature. Watching how nature revives and renews in the spring, after the seemingly “dead of winter”, has been a constant “AHA” for me, which continues to enliven my belief in the lifelong learning of our Tai Ji practice. Always a New Spring with New Life resurrects to surprise and delight our senses, ready once again to open new doors and embark on a New Journey, as perpetual students of LIFE with a wondrous new “Breath of Life” to begin our daily learning.
For our upcoming May-June-July Zoom sessions, I invite you to join me with this “SATORI”—sudden enlightenment of fresh awakening, as we re-visit, re-learn, and re-new.
We will re-invent and re-create our existing form structures to re-discover with the “Beginner’s Mind”, like intuitive kindergarteners, to marvel at the wonderment of the “Flowing Tao” process with our Tai Ji Explorations.
I look forward to sharing this experience with you All, once again on the 2nd Saturday of the months of May, June and July.
To inspire your Childlike awareness of Nature, here is the poem “Decoration Day” by the American poet laureate Ted Kooser from IOWA, on the wonderment of the peony blossom.
Decoration Day by Ted Kooser
It takes the hard work
Of a dozen ants
To open each bud
Of a peony.
For weeks, there they are,
Clickety-clack,
Biting the sutures
And licking the glue.
Then, one by one
On Decoration Day,
The blossoms explode,
Tossing the ants
All over the yard.
Early that morning,
We find these flowers
Opened, pink and white,
And in the wet grass,
Hundreds of ants
With the staggers, all
Watching the sky.
Till we meet in May to join together and experience the wonders of Tai Ji Tao Nature—Opening our bodies to the SKY to shout out “Tian Shang 天上”, ” Di Xia 地 下”…..
CHI-eers,
