I enjoyed resuming my weekly Tai-Chi lessons with Scott Carrino at the Pompanuck Farm Institute. Scott is a good teacher, patient and careful, he is, I suspect, struggling to figure out how I learn. I had trouble all throughout school and never made it through college – got booted out of two – and the more I read about autism, the more convinced I am that I have mild and creative forms of it. I don’t consider it a disease, but a creative opportunity. Every day someone asks me how I write a l lot, take photos, help run a farm, teach, and I always think the same thing – my mind handles multiple tasks and imaging with great energy and focus, but struggles with linear information, a hallmark symptom of autism.

I told Scott today that for me to learn Tai Chi, he has to show me one thing each lesson, and only one, once I get the concept, it starts to work for me. Scott is getting it, I think, he loves it when I bring Red, the two of them are very powerfully connected in ways I don’t quite understand. We worked on the fifth movement of Tai Chi, a celebration of life and earth. Tai Chi, says Scott is about softening our lives.

This struck home with me. Our lives are hard, fast, filled with edges – bills, bad news, technological problems, worries about work, a bombardment of too much edgy information, things we have to answer, react to. Spiritual work is, to me, about softening those edges, softening my life. This is required every day, several times a day in our fragmented world, so filled with argument and sharp points, the left and the right, anger and judgment. Tai Chi is about moving easily, in a fluid way, conscious of the earth and sky and elements. It is soft motion, surprisingly tiring. It grounds me, though, as meditation does, prepare me for the bombardment of things that is life in our time. Silence is not built into our lives, there is always something to do, check, fix, respond to, absorb.

When I am angry, I soften my heart, when I am anxious, I soften my fear, when I am distracted, I soften my mind. The world could use some softening, I think, my life is in search of softening. Maria is a soft person, a soft love, so is Red, the donkeys the farm. It adds up in a way.

Given my problems with learning, Tai Chi is hard for me, it will take me some time, I love the idea of softening life, I have a good teacher, I am opening to it, I feel it, and I appreciate Red as a companion. He comes and lies by me, stays still while I move, is a softening himself, a witness to my life.