An Addendum

Yesterday when sharing with my t’ai chi instructor about the previous day’s delightful encounter with the grasshopper I used a new word in the story: intention. “When the grasshopper centered himself and leapt with intention to my coat and to the blade of grass he was graceful and precise.” My instructor pointed out that the grasshopper had never been either place- not to my coat nor to the blade of grass- and yet he was able to make both of those leaps precisely and gracefully. Being centered and moving with intention focused his actions.

When the grasshopper was fleeing down the sidewalk his movements were frenetic and frantic. I had interrupted his early evening stroll with the possibility of, well, frankly, death and who wouldn’t be a little frenetic and frantic when faced with death? One clomp of my sturdy shoe and he wouldn’t have to wonder where he could get his lovely tweed suit pressed, it would be permanently pressed for him. His need for the moment was to propel himself out of harm’s way and indeed he did that but it distracted him from his original intent which may have been, like most of us, to find a little meal and a quiet place to rest for the evening.

While the flight or fight response is critical in emergencies- like a giant coming after you- it isn’t really required on a daily basis. For the most part we don’t have literal giants here in our world but, certainly, there are figurative ones that we encounter in our daily lives: work, commitments, time constraints, financial constraints, bills, health crisis, healthcare crisis, the economy, the housing collapse, the banking collapse, the elections, polar bears, the future of our country and of our world. There’s a lot to be frenetic about if you want to be.

I know for a fact that I have often moved in frenetic and frantic ways in my day-to-day life. When I’m busy I think “Hey, I’m important. My job is important. I am needed.” And while those things are true in and of themselves, they don’t define me as a person- many people can say those very same things- and they don’t express who I am as an individual. I’m discovering that by being driven only by external forces I’m not paying attention to my internal goals. I’m being sidetracked by a giant’s shoe.

In this past year I have had encounters with a real giant’s shoe, a really giant shoe: breast cancer that migrated into the lymph nodes. It’s not the kind of shoe you ever plan to take home with you but there it is. What I have learned is that with many things in life including an illness you may not get to choose the shoe but you certainly do get to choose the outfit to go with it. As Tim Gunn from ‘Project Runway’ says weekly “Make it work, people! Make it work!”

And so I am. In living with a diagnosis of cancer, rather than allowing it to move me in a frantic and frenetic way, it has given me the opportunity to center myself and move with intention. This is taking some focus, well actually re-focus, and practice. And just as with other things I’ve learned in my lifetime I’m getting guidance and support from a number of good teachers. When the student is ready the teachers will appear. And I am ready to live consciously and with intention.

So the grasshopper, that dear, dapper fellow, was much more than just a heralder of autumn. He was really a reminder and example to me to center myself and move with intention. The same opportunity is there for you, too. If it’s not something you’re already doing why not give it a try? You might just end up in a place you’ve never known but always knew you were meant to be…

With peace,
Karen

Autumn

I’ve just had a lovely chat with a grasshopper. He didn’t have much time to talk, what with his busy traveling schedule and all, but the few minutes we did share were quite delightful. He was wearing his best green tweed vest and pants with a beautiful iridescent shirt: very dapper and yet sensible. Tweed is just the thing for the changing weather in these early, beguiling days of autumn.

He had caught my eye as he hurriedly hopped down the sidewalk trying to flee me, the giant seemingly coming after him! Had I only had a chance to tell him not to worry. My intent was much more mundane than to stamp on a fellow traveler; I was just on my way to get the mail.

We headed down the walk a little further and he attempted to jump a small brick retaining wall which held back green grass offering the safety of camouflage. He tried twice then three times to propel himself up and over with those thin, powerful legs but with no success. It was the gold ring on the merry-go-round: enticingly close but just out of reach. So, there he sat on the cement awaiting his doom.

I squatted down beside him to get a better look at this heralder of fall and he took the moment to catch his breath. After a minute of rest where I got to see the finery of his suit up close, his breathing slowed. I wondered what I, and really, the rest of the world looked like to him through those multi-faceted dark eyes.

“In all the things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle

At this point a small black ant wandered unknowingly into our scene and marched toward the hind end of the grasshopper. I couldn’t see the particulars of the encounter but knew when the ant had found its way up to him because with one quick flick of a leg the ant was propelled in a new trajectory.

I thought I was the observer in this story until the grasshopper turned his head and looked up at me. Then, keeping his eyes fixed on me, he gently rocked to the left and then to the right. He repeated this process three more times… left then right, left then right. His meditative movements reminded me of t’ai chi, which I have just begun to learn, but what was he really doing? Ah ha! He was judging the distance to his next landing which, as it turns out, was the coat that I had draped over my arm!

Where his sidewalk performance was less than artful (really fringe) and very tumultuous (he hit his head no less than twice on the brick retaining wall seemingly without consequence!?), in the blink of an eye he alighted to my blue-green tweed coat. He paused for just a moment and then quietly and easily moved up my arm as if to say ‘Oh yes, I take this walk daily. It’s very nice- you’ll like it.’

When he got to the edge of the coat he surveyed the new horizon which included my sweater with its zigzag of blue stripes. Yeowza! Talk about your busy intersection! But he was unflappable: he’d been in the big city before and was used to the noise.

For a brief moment we rested there together, he and I. Then, as if he heard the conductor calling out his train’s departure, he fixed his eyes on the green horizon, gently rocked left then right to get his bearings and made a long, swift jump to a tall blade of grass. It was a perfect landing.

I bid my new friend a fond farewell, thanked him for his time and wished him safe journey wherever he was going. Then I left the long, low shadows of the late day and went in to get my mail.

Wishing you the beauty and abundance of the season,
Karen