Day 108: Different Rooms

I have a bunch of house guests today, and my usual spaces for doing taiji are all occupied.  So I did my five golden coins and my eight pieces of silk, and my form in the kitchen.

The kitchen is totally not conducive to tai chi work of any kind. There’s a lot of objects filling the space.  There’s the refrigerator, for one, and a big box or two that are stuff for my yard sale later this summer. There’s the kitchen table that was my grandmother’s (yay, ancestor work!), and the four chairs around it.  There’s two countertops, one loaded with dried dishes and glassware, the other filled with jars of herbs and oils for cooking. Then there’s the stove, and the rolling butcher-block thing next to it, which isn’t really very useful for anything.  Yeah. So not a great space for doing taiji.

And yet.

And yet there’s value in working within a space governed by limitations.  I worked my shoulders more during Five Golden Coins than I usually do, because during one of the maneuvers I swing my arms around, and I had to change postures to avoid banging my fists on the refrigerator door.  During the tai chi form, I had to swing my leg more firmly, to get it up over the table.  And during Snake Creeps Down, I actually got the chance to see to it that the space under the table was actually clean, and not just the typical mess.

Also, on Tuesdays in particular, I always seem to notice that there’s all sorts of ways to attack and defend yourself with tai chi. Even if there’s lots of people who think it’s not very good at being a martial art.  Maybe it’s not.  But doing my form in the kitchen, maneuvering around the kitchen table and avoiding getting caught on the fridge or the kitchen sink, I was conscious of the Jackie-Chan-style possibilities that my kitchen afforded.  “Break grip on wrist followed by Turn on burner… interesting.” So tai chi — or any practice, really, that’s designed to change your consciousness — when performed in a different room or a different space, actually causes you to see the world differently and consider other possibilities.

So. Do your practice from time to time in crowded rooms that aren’t really suited for it.  See what you learn of your practice from doing it in the places that aren’t quite right, and learn what power there is in fully owning your household in all the ways you can.

Cleaning for Solstice

I mentioned in my recent post on ancestor work that it’s the season of Vesta.  According to something like Livy’s History of Ancient Rome, the second Roman king after Romulus, a guy by the name of Numa Pompilius, put it into the Sacred Calendar that there were three feasts of Vesta in the first half of June.  At the first festival, the sacred fire was put out (June 7), and the ashes of the fire were gathered up.  At the second festival, Vesta’s Cleansing (June 9), the ashes were carried down to the Tiber river, and the ashes of the old year were dumped, and the vessels washed.  In this way, the detritus of the old year was cleaned away.  On the third day of the festival, Vesta’s Opening —  last Friday, in fact (June 15) — the new fire was laid, and kindled.  The Vestal Virgins would then go through the collections of last wills and testaments, and carry out the instructions of anyone who had died while they had been attending to their annual festivals.

I’ve been busy with the ‘end of the school year’ for literally months. Basically, I came back from DC and never stopped running the whole rest of the year.  The house has gradually fallen into more and more dishevelment (have you ever known a person or place to be in a state of hevelment? Even spell-check thinks it’s wrong), and I’ve finally had enough.  I can’t say that I followed the Roman sacred calendar this year, or even the poetic ‘tradition’ I created for myself a while back, indicated in the links above.  But I did clean the whole house room by room yesterday, after a very busy and very long few weeks.  It feels great to be in a newly-clean house, and the area around the household altar feels especially nice.  I’m looking forward to doing work again very soon.

In particular, it felt great to honor the tradition of Vesta again in my house, and do a thorough cleaning.  Today I’ll light the lamps, and celebrate this festival of light — Saint John’s Day as a freemason and Christian, Summer Solstice as a pagan-friend, and count myself happy to live in a clean house again, with the detritus of the old year swept away.