Deep thanks to Lisa for allowing me a little time to say a few words this morning, and for much more of course.
The last time I made a public appearance for Elizabeth I played the part of a Pig in the Tai Chi Center’s Chinese New Year puppet show. She coached me on how to snort and oink up to her high standards.
Elizabeth gave me the gorgeous jacket I am wearing as a gift a year and a half ago and I wear it in her honor this morning, but also to illustrate a little story. I thanked her profusely at the time, but since she had just given me a nice gift the week before, I told her I was confused about why I was getting another present. She looked me in the eye and said “I am buttering you up! I have big plans for you this year!” I am sure others here have similar stories. What she asked me to do was to work with her to realize the vision to make the Tai Chi Center a leader in environmental conservation and stewardship. This is the part of the school’s program called Sustainable Return.
E and Lisa were very intentional about doing their part to save the world and were positioning our School to be a leader in making the world greener and healthier. It is a grand and beautiful vision. Check out the website if you aren’t familiar with it. She believed that Tai chi students needed to do this as part of our practice—to develop a spiritual connection to the earth based on real work.
And it didn’t stop there. She also believed that our school could show other schools the way. She wanted to transform the way tai chi is taught by suffusing it with this important aspect of connecting to nature.
And of course Elizabeth and Lisa looked beyond at engaging only tai chi students. They worked unbelievably hard on the Greening of the North Center Neighborhood through such projects as the Montrose Green Garden and the Parkway Corners project where neighbors take care of native plants so that pollinators would have sources of nectar in the chemical-saturated urban landscape between the forest preserves and Montrose Bird Sanctuary.
And Elizabeth used her considerable talent for organizing people on larger scale projects like the amazing Bioneers Conference that she worked on two years in a row. She and Lisa have been key partners in the local organic food movement through their support of spectacularly successful Angelic Organics farm near Rockford. Many years ago before I knew either of them personally used to pick up my CSA box on that back porch.
I don’t know about you, but I would not feel right about letting the school’s greening efforts fall by the wayside because Elizabeth isn’t here to butter us up and tell us what to do. So some of us need to figure out ways to carry out these big plans. One event that we planned last winter, before this nightmare began, is coming up in two weeks. On June 21—the Summer Solstice--students from the School will meet at 9 am at the Montrose Bird Sanctuary on the Lakefront and work with Leslie Borns the volunteer steward there to remove invasive weeds and do whatever other stewardship is needed. Leslie will give us a tour of the gorgeous site and tell us about its fascinating history. Then we will do tai chi together on the beach. Join us if you can. Afterwards we will bow to Elizabeth and remember her fabulous smile.
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