Two Homers

I love Rob Brezny’s horoscopes, and this week, in his uncanny, timely way, he brought to my attention the words of two Homers: “the thoughtful wisdom of the ancient Greek poet Homer and the silly wisdom of the cartoon character Homer Simpson. First, the poet: “As we learn, we must daily unlearn something which it has cost us no small labor and anxiety to acquire.” Now here’s Homer Simpson: “Every time I learn something new, it pushes out something old.”

Amazing to me how accurately this describes the odyssey of learning taiji. First we struggle to memorize the positions, the sequence of movements, the proper alignment. But already we have to give up so much of what we thought we knew about how to stand, how to walk. So much tension to release. We go on to learn more about the inner structure, the 13 powers, yin and yang….the knowledge builds up, and still we peel away what we thought we knew. Paring down to the basics of authentic, conscious movement, we find our way back to ourselves.

Taiji is truly an odyssey of self-discovery.