My tai chi teacher keeps reminding me to “settle into your center.”  If I am anchored there, she says, I move with power.  If I move from my arms or legs instead of my waist, I am moving “empty”.  It is in the pause, the slow breathing and that infinite exquisite paradise between the breaths that is the true heart of my center.

Here I pause.  The maple tree next door is brilliant with orange, yellow, salmon, green and those combination of colors that are impossible to duplicate.  Then the sun flashes her spotlight on them and the colors change again.

We see this as a swan song celebration of the season.  Leaves just drop without any cheering; they don’t expect it and wouldn’t know what to do with it.  They are ultimately just being.

That is what refreshes in the pause.  That I crave nothing, move towards nothing, regret nothing, know nothing, and sit.  Just sit in the pause.  In comforting relief from the question “why”, I thoroughly and wholly AM.