BLISS...

I found bliss yesterday morning at the continuing tai chi class in town... Once a month there is an class for instructors to keep up their skills. I don't know what was different at this particular class - perhaps it was that the majority of the 30 or 40 people in attendance have all been practising tai chi for many years (I can imagine that combined it would amount to several hundred years!!), perhaps that they have such incredible focus and concentration from their many years of experience. My continuing instructor recently said that practising tai chi is about finding stillness and that peaceful place inside... that remark really resonated with me as yesterday morning I was able to really concentrate and get into that zone, and for the entire practise I was both energized and relaxed and once again really able to find amazing strength through relaxation (in our culture this seems like an oxymoron - how can you relax while being in positions that require strength from your muscles? (similar to yoga in this regard) but once your body's structure is lined up, your body can actually relax into it and the position will yield incredible strength) Anyways, tai chi class yesterday morning was pure bliss. I really REALLY enjoyed it and was very glad I made the trip into town for it.

Afterwards I went to a friends' and had lunch (a beautiful raw salad) and I'd picked up some raw chocolate treats at Cafe Bliss but I felt SO BAD as I unintentionally harmed my dear friend - she began to have an allergic reaction to something in the treats!! Yikes! Thankfully we had some allergy medication on hand, but it was QUITE sobering to say the least. Thank GOODNESS she was alright.

And later my dh & I were actually able to spend an evening out on the town together! We went to a pub for dinner (I had salad and water), to a lecture by author Richard Louv, who wrote Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit-Disorder and then to yet another pub (LOL) with friends of my husbands' (I had yet more water and a veggie tray)... (I wanted to balance my wish to go to a lecture on a saturday night with my dh's wish to spend the evening at the pub with friends, so this is what we agreed on. I think it worked very well - we both enjoyed the evening greatly, just being in each others' company).

On the subject of Last Child in the Woods: what a GREAT book, talking about how important access to nature is in our children's development (and our own!)... and how social pressures or our own fears are keeping us from spending more time in nature, and yet how natural and healing spending time in nature is.... I highly recommend you read this book) Anyways the lecture was really interesting, especially for dh who hadn't read the book, but grew up building tree forts on wide expanses of acreage. I am ever-so grateful our children have access, right outside the front door, to greenspace. I LOVE that our house looks out onto forest in virtually every direction. I LOVE that we have a creek running through our backyard. I LOVE that we have a forest right there. Perfect for tree forts and hide-and-seek and all kinds of imaginative and creative games. I LOVE that we are literally a 5 minute walk to the beautiful beach, that you can hear the waves crashing from inside our home. That really is something else; I still find that calming, even after more than 10 years!! The benefits of being surrounded by and so close to nature were definitely HUGE factors in us buying rural property.

In this moment, I am so grateful for yesterday and all its experiences. I am grateful for the wonderful tai chi class in the morning and sense of community from the other people in the club. I am grateful for Cafe Bliss and their delicious organic, raw, vegan foods. I am grateful for the wonderful friendships in my life. I am grateful for Richard Louv and his book, and the very important message in it. I am grateful for my dh, for our time together. I am grateful for my in-laws who enjoyed spending the evening with our children, who welcome us all into their home all the time. I am grateful for all the healing water I drank yesterday, and for choosing to nourish my body with raw vegan foods all day, even while out all day.

~namaste~