Beltane Waning Last Frost Moon
An afternoon of thunder, swirling clouds, torrential rains. Another episode in the missing spring of 2011. We sat huddled in the basement amongst our workout equipment, watching the downstairs tvs with green rectangles and red rectangles. Occasionally, the EAS, Emergency Alert System, would blare its attention getting noise giving us notice that the national weather service had released a tornado warning for our area.
As we sat down here, I reconsidered my smug comments about those people that live near: the ocean (sea level rise), in earthquake zones, beneath volcanoes, where hurricanes play. Someone out there, watching the TV and pictures of damage in north Minneapolis, just said, “God. How can those people live there when they know tornadoes come along all summer?” Good question.
The first 12 Tai Chi classes have ended. Next time, starting June 5th, I can go to the 6:00 pm class and practice the first few moves, then move on to the 7:00 pm class and learn the next moves in the form. My learning curve here remains steep though I have seen progress. I read it in Monkey’s Journey to the West, and our Tai Chi instructors have said many times, “Be patient with yourself while training.” Very useful to me. Very.
On Monkey’s Journey to the West. This is a delightful story. I’m a bit over 30% through it, I imagine it will be June before I’m done, maybe into July. It’s so different from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Romance is a military and political epic; Journey is part fantasy, part religious and cultural instruction manual, part adventure. I see Ai Weiwei as a Monkey King figure.
