I felt off center for much of this week, restless and uneasy, grumpy and off-balance. I have been working on it, I went out to the Pole Barn in this cold and windy rainstorm to do my Tai-Chi by the pasture, looking out at the wind and the moving leaves all around me, watching the nervous barn swallow mom buzz me to try and get me away from her next. The sheep were lying in the Pole Barn watching the storm, the donkeys, curious, gathered around me. I thought of the many wonderful old paintings of donkeys during the Renaissance and in ancient times, portraits of donkeys and men, partners, engaged together in the Theater of Chance that is life.

Out in the wind and the rain, seeking my center and grounded place I took up the Tai-Chi position, sought to connect my mind, heart and body with the world around me, and the donkeys gathered around me, they seemed to know what I was doing, and I kept my eyes open to focus on the apple tree in the pasture, it was rocking back and forth in the wind, and the rain was beating down on the roof of the pole barn, and the frogs were giving their sermons out in the march, and the swallow was sailing back and forth over my head and the geese in the pond were calling to one another and I felt the donkey’s warm breath on my neck and face and I saw the sheep lying down next to us, chewing their cuds, and the world seemed to fuse together in one thing, all around me, I was dancing in the center of it as I did my movements with these wonderful creatures, all of whom have lived around men and women for many centuries.

And what, I thought, is the Theater Of Chance, but the dance of life, the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, love lost and found, our hopes and dreams, our inner spirits struggling to come out, to be free, to live, even for just a little while. And I felt my center, my place of peace, the cup of my aspirations and wishes for my life, and then I closed my eyes and listened to the animals breathing, the wind howling through the pasture, the leaves whispering in the rain.

We all live in the Theater Of Chance, never knowing how our life will play out. What a thing of wonder. Tai-Chi is working for me, it is already important to me, I am building my practice, strengthening my center for the Theater Of Chance.