raindrops are falling on my head (more thoughts on form and the formless)

A true Seattlelite, I love everything (well, almost) about rain. The sound, the smell, the sensation of moisture on your skin. The fog, the moss, the infinity of greens. (Wet feet, not so much.) Embrace it! It will soon change. It may rain less for a while, for instance, before a new cloud bursts. The sun may even poke through!

“People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness, that is to say, dependent on form. They don’t realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly.

The joy of Being, which is truly the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event–through anything that happens. The joy cannot come to you–ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and this is one with who you are.”

–Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 213-214.

The photos below relay my voyage yesterday, down the hill to the dock at Seacrest Park, then across Elliott Bay to the waterfront. From there I walked up through Pioneer Square and Chinatown to the Seattle Kung Fu Club for class. (It was amazing, as always. T’ai chi is sublime!) The last photo, of the Port of Seattle cranes and harbor, was taken later in the day on the return journey–see how much “sunnier” it got, between 10am and 1:30pm?!

See the water taxi between the trees?

Water taxi coming our way

King County Water Taxi at Seacrest Park dock

Happy Sunday to all!

(p.s. It’s ok to be happy, even in the rain.)

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morning thoughts on form, and The Form (art and T’ai chi) and the WSEA Water taxi!

This misty grey morning, as I peer out at Elliott Bay and think about the voyage ahead–down the hill in the rain, onto the water taxi and across the bay, up through Pioneer Square to Chinatown where I’ll do T’ai chi at the Seattle Kung Fu Club studio, I feel energized and serene. Reading Peter Ralston lately has been inspiring, and to practice T’ai chi and make quilts at the same time seems somehow philosophically coherent.

As Ralston writes in Principles of Effortless Power, “Only the ‘form’ survives of anything created and then passed on in time, since creativity resides within what is formless and this formlessness cannot survive, having never existed. Therefore, only when the form is being consciously created in this moment is it truly useful and representative of its origin” (xx).

The form, message, and feel of a quilt become visible over time, as seen in the photos below, dated 11/20/21 and 11/26/21. Once created, it is. You can feel it with your hands and face, snuggle under its warmth, enjoy its bright colors and patterns. It may fade if left in the sun, or be stained by some accident, yet a quilt will usually survive a pretty long time.

The Form we practice in T’ai chi comes to life in time as well. Yet once created, it is gone, until next time.

So far, I’ve learned about 20 minutes of the Wu Form. When I practice, I feel like I’m inhabiting a timeless realm where themes and refrains repeat through space, spiraling and stepping to some unknown beat. Can’t wait for class!

P.S. These photos of the water taxi and Chinatown are from July 2018, when we had just moved here. They do not represent the world as it looks today, on 11/27/2021. the fog hangs heavy over the water this morning… making the world just a little more quiet.