Cleaning House

 I periodically try to go through the various spaces that I use, and clear out much of left over and no longer used residue and clutter that seems to accumulate over time.

 This includes many items that might detract from the efficient use of living, teaching and work spaces, as well as kitchen, yard, and the many storage areas that might be put to better use. This includes much that has become storage, although not originally planned as storage areas.

As I clean I believe that I am creating habits that might hopefully generalize into other, non-material areas of endeavor, and foster my “Cleaning up my act”, of no longer functional or useful thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs. 

This, in T’ai Chi terms can be seen as a process of eliminating the extra movements that disturb our balance and relaxation in so many subtle ways.

When I clean, whether it is going through the mail or clearing out a room or closet, the process is similar. 

The first division is to keep or to throw away, including taking out the trash. Next, the ‘keep’ pile might either be dealt with or condensed to deal with later. 

These easy first steps immediately shrink the size of the problem. 

On the surface these steps might seem obvious and not worth listing, but their application to our junk habits, thoughts and behaviors might not be so obvious.

It is of utmost importance to not just think or philosophize about this, but to practice and through this practice to change our habitual thoughts and behaviors, that may have led us to hold limiting beliefs as well. 

This is the real T’ai Chi. 

Practicing the form influences our everyday life and our everyday life influences our form. 

It’s a two way street!

Free Will

Meditation is traditionally used here to create a space between a thought and an automatic habitual re-action, and allows us the space to consciously decide what we might want to do. 

This is so important because this is where we have the option to exercise free will, instead of behaving in a predetermined, habitual manner. 

A meditation here is defined as anything that helps us to pay attention to what we are doing, and doesn’t necessarily require a particular posture or chant. 

T’ai Chi can be a meditation, or making music or exercising. 

A meditation can be anything that brings us more fully into the present moment.

Without our being present, how can we have choice, or Free Will?

Happy New Year to All,

Daniel

Economy of Movement

 Movement that doesn’t affect one’s state of balance does not require additional rebalancing movements, and immensely simplifies that which remains.

As this becomes evident through practice of the form, this simple principle may provide a greater understanding of how all the various and seemingly disparate parts of the form all work together to create a more advantageous path for our lives.

These various and disparate interwoven threads may then become parts of a tapestry or cloth that may extend far beyond our own lives. 

When we effect positive change that extends beyond the limits of our own reach, this may bring us a new strength, adding meaning and significance to our lives.

There is something special about having the ability to make the world even a little bit better. 

This might be as simple as being a little more relaxed and in balance, a little less polarized, or less up-tight.

Maybe some of that will rub off and help others. 

Again, we don’t have to be perfect. 

Sometimes just the attempt can be enough to be a powerful reminder, both for ourselves and for others.

For me, it’s. A kind of New Year’s Resolution!

Namaste,

Daniel

Learning/Teaching the Form

 In the beginning we demonstrate the form and explain the necessary precepts (Balance, shifting the weight, relaxation, moving from the center, etc.), and then have the students follow the instructor through the beginning of the form, including individual instruction, adding new parts as the student progresses. 

This is a lot for most beginners, and adding more to this regimen may risk driving some students away. 

Adding one somewhat challenging activity, which the Chows included almost from the beginning, greatly facilitates this learning process. 

This activity, although somewhat challenging, should not be overlooked by the serious student or instructor. 

In addition to presenting the precepts and the form and practicing the form, both by following it and by individual work with each student, having each student perform what they can of the form without help during the individual part of each student’s lesson greatly enhances this learning process. 

(“Now I want you to do as much of the form as you can on your own, without help.”)

If this part is left out, the student is sent home without practicing doing the form on their own, and then is expected to do this homework without having practiced it! 

This learning/ teaching technique makes the difference between storing the practice in short term memory or storing it in one’s long term memory. 

Without it, the lessons take much longer to be absorbed and internalized.

Accomplished musicians know this. When practicing a new piece, at some point they begin to play it without having a copy of it to follow. 

They then acquire the ability to play the piece without having a copy in front of them. 

Practicing the piece without using this aid is challenging, and might often require multiple attempts. 

I often remind students at this point that one doesn’t have to do the form perfectly in order to accrue benefits. 

No one (except perhaps Mr Data from Star Trek) achieves excellence without first making beginners’ mistakes. 

Einstein

No effort is ever wasted. This is known as Einstein’s law of the conservation of matter and energy, and means that our every effort can have a positive effect, even if it takes a while to manifest in our lives.

It just takes a little time.. With just a little patience much can be achieved. 

Changing Old Habits Takes Time

We are changing a lifetime of habits. 

These habits worked well for us.

They kept us from falling as far back as when we first learned to walk, so they may require a little time to change. 

It’s not surprising that it takes time to learn a better way to move. It’s amazing that we can do this at all! 

We learned some of these habits since before we learned to talk. 

We can’t easily access them or change them with words. But we can reach and work with them by changing the way we move. 

It just takes a little bit longer!

It just takes a little time. And the benefits of moving without un-necessarily tensing up are immense! 

We have much better balance now than we did when we first learned to walk. 

We waste so much energy when we aren’t in balance!

Namaste, Daniel

Finding Happiness

                                         The Beginning, Finding Balance

First, take the weight off the foot you want to move. 

This entails an awareness of one’s current state, which may require one to first relax.

 If possible, slowing down can help one to become aware of any tensions, so that one might have opportunity to not attempt to move when still double-weighted. 

If slowing down is not an option, noticing things that disturb the balance might precede the necessary centering from which balanced movement can be achieved. 

Physically this allows relaxation and movement from a balanced condition. 

When we apply these parameters to our daily activities, our lives may benefit immensely and perhaps allow these activities to proceed more effectively.

This is the real T’ai Chi.

Thus, learning from our imbalances may be a key ingredient to our coming into a more relaxed and balanced state, not only physically, but also transactionally. This might occur as we interact with our world in whatever situations that our lives may bring us.

Two Examples:

1. A chess game: A blunder (an obviously bad move) might be just the thing to suggest that one should “Slow down and pay attention.”  As Mrs. Chow would put it, “Relax and concentrate.”
2. Difficulty finding inspiration: To begin writing this piece, I needed to “Unstick my brain from this somewhat common “Energy block.” This is similar to trying to lift a foot that still has weight on it. 

      As soon as I slowed down enough to see how I wasn’t in balance, I saw that I had everything I needed. 

The extra weight that disturbed my balance was not here and now, but was only one of many possible imagined futures.

I saw that I might use my imagination in a far more positive and creative way. 

I found my balance. 

Simply put, our challenges might become our Blessings. 

When Buddha first achieved enlightenment, it is said that all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that befell him on his way were turned into flowers decorating his path.

Not everything is that simple, but many of our difficulties might stem from our lack of balance!

Again, this is the real work, the real T’ai Chi. 

The physical form that we learn is only the beginning.

Namaste,

Daniel

Teaching Again

 8/29/2024 (6 am)

This past month, after discontinuing my classes at the college due to Covid three years ago, and almost six months now since my wife’s passing, I now have two new students and have resumed teaching T’ai Chi. 

It feels good.

8/30/2024 (2 pm)

Last night another student appeared at the open mike night that I have recently rejoined and performed at, also after a long break since Covid. 

Life has become very interesting, and at times seems almost surreal. The world sometimes presents interesting possibilities when they are least expected. 

At this point a sense of amazement touches my thoughts and my heart, just beyond the reach of my headlights, with perhaps the promise of new adventures that might await. 

In some mysterious way, a part of me feels young again. Even as I balance at the edge of a new future, I watch the waves splash on the shore that is the present moment. 

Perhaps I still may have something to give.

Namaste,

Daniel

Astronomy on the Fly

 Last night at the local astronomy club’s event at a local park, we set up three telescopes to offer the public the opportunity to get a closer look at the heavens. 

Two of the scopes were highly technical, with ‘Goto’ ability to find selected interesting objects in the sky automatically. 

My dinosaur refractor was totally manual, and to make things more interesting, my finder scope had a dead battery! I was back in the days of Galileo! 

The skies were not the clearest, partly cloudy, with Saharan dust in the air, and no close planets or Moon above the horizon for easy targets to look at. 

To make things even more challenging, we also had the usual light pollution from nearby Miami. 

Of the two software driven scopes, one of them was brought by a potential astronaut who was almost totally new to her scope’s software and features. Talk about on the job training! 

We all learned a lot about making do with what we had, and put on a Great example for the public of being resourceful and providing a nice show for interested and sometimes hands on parties from six to 89 years old.

Added to this mix, our third scope owner brought, in addition to his expertise, a set-up that he had created with starsense software, a metalwork tent that shielded his scope and the observer from extraneous light, and his excellent scope, in a unique combination that worked extremely well. 

Finally, another club member brought a very 21st century ZWO Seestar 50mm smart telescope. 

This remarkable device had a combination of optics, photography, and astronomy/photography software that could track and put together (called ‘Stacking’) hundreds of photos of the same deep sky objects and create detailed pictures of very faint objects, even through the light clouds and dusty conditions, and present them immediately on a screen! 

Everyone had a great time. 

We all learned some new things. 

Inspiring a passion for the world we live in was perhaps the most significant feature presented!

A good time was had by all!

Blessings to All, 

Daniel

Being A Survivor - A Useful Tip

 I swim in a large pool, that in the afternoons sometimes has kids in it that might add some less than desirable ingredients to the water. 

Some friends have told me that they don’t use the pool for that reason. When I said even the ocean has fish pooping in it, their response was that they don’t swim there either.

Upon consideration, it occurs to me that this view might lack the idea that things don’t always just get worse, they can also get better. 

I usually swim in the morning, when the pool’s filters and chlorination have had all night to clean and give the pool a fresh start. 

Even more since covid, I usually shop in the mornings, when the air I breathe in the stores doesn’t have all of the days’ build up of lots of other people’s breath and perhaps germs, when the air circulation filters, and the clumping of dust and other particles has cleared the air for a fresh start to begin a new day. 

Similarly, if we let them, our bodies have the ability to heal themselves and add to our health and longevity, if we let them.

Entropy or Evolution

Some of us follow the tenets of entropy, and take the material view that things run down, decay, and fall apart like an old car. 

This might be an unnecessary and perhaps fear engendering outlook. There might be a more positive option available. 

When we allow for the concepts of evolution, growth, and healing, that we see in many instances in the world around us, we may create a far more positive outlook.

 Opportunities for actions arise by which life may extend itself and flourish, just as the plants grow back every spring.

The choice is there, but only for those who accept this possibility and maybe make it their own, through their actions and thoughts.

As in many endeavors, what we practice and attend to, even in small things, gains strength by our efforts. 

This works of course,  because, nothing is wasted. 

This should be self evident from a study of our physical world. It’s simply called the law of conservation of matter and energy, or Einstein’s E=MC squared.

Perhaps these musings might show us a way out of some very challenging issues presented to us by today’s worldview. 

I offer them to give us hope for a better tomorrow.

Very Best Wishes Always, 

Daniel

Susana, Part 2

 A little more of the story. 

These scribblings are my memory of the facts and events, and sometimes might not be totally accurate. I have tried to tell it all as best I can.

 It is all my true memory, as I recall it. I don’t have Susana here to proof and correct me if I perhaps have the details of her education or other things for which I wasn’t present, slightly off, but essentially what’s important is all there. 

This part of the story is about two parts. First, there is a little about her high school, college and work through our early days. Then I write about us and how our journey together began.

When we met, Susana was working at the Miami Herald. She was a columnist, writing a column called ‘Working wisdom”. I was studying for my Masters degree in mental health counseling, administering neuropsych exams, and teaching T’ai Chi. I came to the Herald to teach the employees T’ai Chi. Susana was my student. 

In 2008 she left the Herald and went to work at what was then the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC), and later became Americans For Immigrant Justice, where she was the Policy Director until 2013. She then went to work in the office of the president of Miami Dade Community College, which was and is the largest community college in the country, until about 2015. 

During all the time I knew her, she also volunteered and administered interviews for The Harvard Admissions program, and also did interviews for the Silver Knight Awards (Scholarship) program.

A small sample of some of the awards she received are, the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA)’s Opinion Award (1998), the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center’s Building Bridges Award (1999) at their first annual awards dinner, where she was one of the three Honorees, and the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children’s ‘Voices of Courage’ Award (2003).

In 1992, after Hurricane Andrew, She and her team won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the devastation and tragedy in South Dade County from the storm.

She has, over the years, written much that has helped in many ways to further the causes dear to her heart. Some examples of this long list include her many columns and editorials from her years at the Miami Herald, chapters in the books ‘Insights on Leadership’ (1998) and ‘What is True Wealth and How Do We Create It?’ (2004). 

Also included here are some of her many documents written to further the cause of immigrants, such as ‘Dying for Decent Care -Bad Medicine in Immigration Custody’ (2009), ‘Unleash the Dream - End the Colossal Waste of Young Immigrant Talent’ (2010), ‘After the Earthquake - Haitian Children Seeking Safety in the U. S.’ (2011), and ‘Broward Transitional Center - A ‘Model’ for Civil Detention’ (About the needless detention of Asylum Seekers and other noncriminal detainees) (2013).

The Trail of Dreams: 

In 2010, between January and May, four young Dreamers (undocumented immigrants and students), walked from Miami to Washington DC., to support their cause. Susana provided support and we flew up to DC and helped set up a press event for them at the National Press Club. In the years that followed we attended the weddings of three of them!

We also traveled and attended several rallies for Farm workers and other unjustly treated groups.

Chet Atkins was a guitar player, engineer and music producer that some people called the ‘Man with a thousand fingers’. When someone commented about his modesty, he replied “I’ve got a lot to be modest about.” As the story goes, he was playing with some friends in  a local bar, and a drunk came up and said to him, “Hey, you’re pretty good. You’re no Chet Atkins, but you’re pretty good.” 

Susana was like that. She wasted no effort on self promotion or advancement. These weren’t her concern. She always put everything she had into fighting the Good fight and making the world a better place.

She graduated from Harvard in 1979 with Honors, and from Harvard Business School in 1983. 

At Miami High one of her best friends was the Valedictorian. She graduated third in her class. When some teachers there gave her a hard time (She was often smarter than them), she filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to find out about their blackballing her from the National Honor Society.

Her high school English teacher, Ellen Kempler, (Also a Harvard grad), who won the ‘Teacher of the Year Award’ a few years ago, and was a good friend since those days, had her kids write a ‘letter to the Editor’ of the Miami Herald. Later Susana wound up on that Editorial board for many years. She started out on the business side of the paper, and one day Dave Lawrence, the publisher, asked her if she would like to write. The rest is History.

When I met Susana in the later 1990’s, she was a writer at the Herald. She wrote a column called Working Wisdom, where she stood up for the working people. I was her T’ai Chi Instructor at the Herald. It was my second job. I was doing Neuropsych testing, and working on my Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling. She would invite me over for lunch after my Saturday T’ai Chi classes at the Coral Gables Congregational Church.

As dense as I was, after a while, I got the idea she might like me. As the story goes, I chased her and I chased her and she caught me.

I’ve been in love with her ever since.

Once she told me that the books on my shelf, and the fact that I had read them, impressed her. Also, that although I sometimes appeared not to be listening to her, sometimes much later I would remind her of things she had said that had impressed me, that she thought I hadn’t heard. Also, the physical part was great.

We were married in the last century, in December of 1999, by Barrett Eagle-Bear, an Elder and Holy woman and Pipe carrier of the Lakota Nation. We did a Sweat Lodge Ceremony a few days before our wedding. We were married at the Sheridan Hotel at the mouth of the Miami River, near the Indian circle ruins that had recently been discovered there. 

That day the weather was calm, then a big storm rose and blew through around the time of the Ceremony. Then it was calm again. When the vows were exchanged, I said “I do.”, and when it was Susana’s turn, she said “Of Course!”

It was a Good Match!

Blessings to all,

Daniel

As Above, So Below

Work on what is in front of us often provides the focus that fosters growth. 

When I clear the clutter from even a small part of a room, this helps ‘clear the air’ in my head as well.

Mudra

Know that no sincere effort is ever wasted energy. 

The Tibetan concept of Mudra, or Gesture, can thereby be very powerful in its’ effect. 

As we attend to the simple, everyday details of our lives, each such ‘Gesture’ then points and gives direction to that which needs such direction in our lives. 

This may be just the medicine needed to begin movement toward a better place in which our consciousness may reside.

Lao Tsu said that “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” 

If a big step seems overwhelming, a small step may give us some motion in the right direction. Again, no effort is wasted. 

Each thing that we do can serve to foster the larger growth.

I hope that this may engender the beginnings of Hope, Faith, and Encouragement in each of us.

I hope that each small movement in a positive direction may provide each of us with support and positive feedback for other endeavors that might be deemed more challenging on our paths.

Be of Good Cheer! 

There is always something that we can do! 

The ultimate answer to our quest may be obscured. 

And Yet, if we look, that next step might be more obvious. 

It may be just the medicine we need.

Namaste, 

Daniel

Susana

 How do I write about the last twenty-six years of my life, which have been dedicated to the love of my life, Susana Barciela. 

December would be 25 years that we were married, and we were together and shared our lives for about two years before that.

Susana passed last Saturday, early in the morning of March 23rd, 2024, after dealing with the progressive effects of Alzheimers, which became evident in 2015. She lasted about nine years. 

She went peacefully at home when her body no longer functioned to support her life.

She was still cognizant of who we were, still full of love, and was not in pain or much discomfort until the last day. 

It has been a shock, to say the least. 

I knew that this would happen some day, but I hoped that she would stay for a while yet. 

I didn’t know that she had gone until the 911 paramedics arrived. 

I thought that she had perhaps experienced a stroke, and that she was just very peaceful, and that life would go on.

I miss her dearly, and every single day we had was precious. 

We had twenty-six years together with no regrets. 

I know that for the rest of us life goes on, but my heart aches dearly with each passing day. 

There are times that I move forward and remember all the good, and also some times that I feel intense grief and loss. 

I know that I carry her with me now, and that I still share her dedication to helping make the world a better place as we pass through it, and that no sincere effort is ever wasted. 

Rest In Peace My Love,   

Daniel