The Heart of Change

by Richard Farmer

What is it that I want to say to you?

Is there anything I have to say that will make a difference?

Does anyone listen?

If you listen, do you understand?

If you understand will you check to see if it applies to you?

If it does, will you have the courage to do something different, something new?

In times of change we are being asked to do something different and yet in times of change there is a real tendency to hold on to what is past. To keep the old order. And yet, if we are to take seriously what is there in front of our eyes, we are living in a time of change and thus we have this dilemma: do we hold on or do we let go?

Witness the climate conference in Copenhagen - time for change, time for something different, but through fear the old order would not let go.

Witness politics and how we are disenchanted with it. And yet those who are in politics continue to believe that if they do the same old thing - in a new way - we will not notice.

Can we save our economy, which crashed because of a credit crisis, by applying more credit?

In our communities, social laws and accepted codes of behaviour are no longer guaranteed and it is through fear of the unknown that we walk away, turn our heads or do not confront.

On and on.

If you look around you all is in change and flux. And yet is this not a natural law? Does not everything change? Change is a part of life.

When a baby is born, when it feels the pressure of the womb pushing, does it say, “Ah yes, Life!” or does it feel the end of its world is coming?

As we age, as the flush of youth obviously fades, do we move with it and evolve or do we hang on? As the children fly the nest, or we no longer have a job through retirement, where is our place? When we have worked all our lives for a pension that just disappears to dust, what then?

If we can be with it, if we can let go, something new emerges. We can become someone who is old trying to be young or we can become an elder, at least in ourselves if not in our outer community.

As each stage of life comes to its fullness, there is a change. If we deny this change we go against the current.

And yet I hear you say, does that mean we just abandon ourselves and give up on core beliefs? Where is the boundary between giving up and letting go?

What is the essential dialogue between the old and the new?

Whether you are a Tai Chi student or a Soul Moves student, is not this conversation the heart of the matter?

When we come to the moment when we know we need to touch an energy of a Principle instead of reactivity, is this not where old and new meet?

If this moment of meeting is unconscious there will be no dialogue, no communication. Just the old routine or an imposition, a new law to follow which discards everything in its path.

So in a time of change how can I live it? Listen. Listen for what is true rather than what is habit. Take a breath. Take a deep breath and let go and then listen. What is true here?

This is not easy. There is no easy answer to times of change. Times of change by their nature are uncertain, but what can ground them is our integrity. Is our listening. Is the depth of our hearts’ knowing.

In terms of your Tai Chi movement, it means not following a form but really feeling each new move. In terms of meeting change within ourselves, it means taking a moment to be present and feel what is true.

To do this takes real heart. It asks of us to embrace the truth of change, that change is inevitable. In this case, all that is important is this: can we bring the truth of ourselves from the old to the new? I believe this is the best way to bring the truth of the past life and let it meet the truth of the new life. One does not destroy the other, but builds on it, becomes a partner.

Of course what we would all like is to have the new just like the old, a new version of the old. But real change, the kind of change I believe we are in, requires something else, something new.

What to do?

In order for this kind of change to happen space is required. How to do this? Let go. Soften. Relax.

In order for change to happen we need to be part of this change. How do we do that? We become present.

In order for change to happen for the best, it requires us to open our hearts. To be present to the quality that is the heart of us.

Some of you are students of Tai Chi and for Tai Chi to work on you, to move you, to transform you, it requires you to do it differently. This takes heart. Allow this and Tai Chi itself will teach you.

Some of you are Soul Moves students and as such are not so interested in a “practice” but more a way of Being. For Being to replace habit, for presence to replace history and respect to replace blame, real heart is required.

So in this year of the Tiger, the Tai Chi saying - Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain says it all. To embrace means to open your heart and in so doing you return to the source, the mountain. From this source, all things flow. Thus change from here is sacred change, part of the pattern, as are all of us.

So Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain and be the change.

Richard Farmer

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newsletters index page: Winter 2010