Immortals

There’s an expression in Wudang:

晴天观山景，雨天观仙景

Qíngtiān guān shānjǐng, yǔtiān guān xiānjǐng.

“On a clear day, you see the mountains.

On a rainy day, you see the immortals.”

We practiced for nearly two hours in the rain, covering our taiji fu with long blue raincoats made of plastic. My socks and shoes were soaked, and every movement sent water flying—sometimes onto ourselves, sometimes onto each other.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t loving it.

During our practice, Master Gu spoke about the movements in our forms being like a pendulum, shifting from one side to the other while always passing through center.

Our circumstances move us in a similar way. We’re not meant to be completely unaffected by them. We sway. We shift. We react. Sometimes we’re comfortable. Sometimes we’re standing on a mountain in soaking-wet socks, wondering how much longer we’re going to be out there.

The pendulum continues to move, sometimes in unpleasant directions, but the lesson isn’t to stop the pendulum.

It’s to never travel so far from center that we lose our way back.

I thought about that as we continued practicing.

The rainy weather transformed the mountains that day. Mist rose from the valleys and drifted among the trees, appearing and disappearing like ghostly figures.

On a clear day, you see the mountains.

On a rainy day, you see the immortals.

And to think I'd been so caught up in my own discomfort that I'd nearly missed it.

--Rhiannon