Monday, August 30, 2010

My Crimson Child

It's been a hot, busy day ... a busy, HOT day. Yes, the heat is challenging but the expectation for a long, dark, cold winter is equally so.

I chose to practice TCC today within my air-conditioned house rather than venture into the heat and humidity. In the semi-heat--with a fan blowing directly upon me--I mixed TCC with Seijaku and focused on how the softness and hardness of each movement felt within my body. It felt wonderfully delicious to note the differences between yin and yang, receptive and active, soft and hard.

Today's reading of 365 Tao: "Heart"
Imagine your heart as an opening lotus.
From its center comes a crimson child,
Pure, virginal, and innocent....

Bring this child out of your body and imagine him or her floating above your head....

Sometimes, you may even doubt that you have a pure and innocent self to bring out anymore. But each of us does. Each of us must find that crimson child within us and bring him or her out. For this child represents the time when our energies were whole and our hearts were untroubled by the duplicity of the world and ourselves.
I'm aware of my child self today because tomorrow would have been my mother's 84th birthday (she died five years ago). As I think of her and reflect on our life together I imagine both of us as pure, innocent children. We battled, yes, but as I grow older and see the ways in which her genes, habits, and personality influenced and live on in me I realize that, if I can feel young and innocent in middle-age, then my mother's crimson child was also there within her until the day she died.

My child came out to play today as she does on many occasions when I'm engaged in my TCC practice. And, while I'm experiencing joy thru movement, my heart is untroubled by the duplicity of the world and myself....

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