Month: March 2025

Luckily, our most recent trip to Theler Wetlands was more productive than our visit the week before. It started when we ran into the Thursday birding group and they were all looking into the river where they. had spotted a Beaver. I knew there was a beaver pond near the southern end of the refuge, but I had never actually seen one here before. Seeing one is actually way more exciting than looking at a photograph of one, but at the very least it’s a reminder that you will never see a live one unless you get out there.

I found it very challenging to get a decent picture because it kept diving and I was fighting the focus on my new lens, but I think I’ve only seen one other beaver in all the years I’ve been enjoy the outdoors.

Luckily, it’s easier to find Crossbills than it is to find Beavers. Leslie spotted a small flock of them not too far from where we saw the beaver. This time I got much better pictures of them then I got the last time I saw them at Theler, though still not quite up to the standards of Photoshop’s AI Search.

I’m really not sure if this is a male or female Crossbill, but I’m guessing it’s a male that hasn’t fully changed colors.

This is definitely a male, as indicated by his bright red colors.

And here’s a female and juvenile Crossbill.

While I was busy trying to get an unobstructed shot of the Crossbills, Leslie was preoccupied with trying to determine what the birds were that were foraging in the brush on the ground.

They blended in extremely well to the dried grass, making it hard for my camera to focus (as noted by the very crisp blades of grass and slightly blurry wing feathers). That’s a good thing because it’s probably just as hard for a predator to spot an immature Golden-Crowned Sparrow as it is for my camera to focus on it.

We were also greeted by our resident Marsh Wren, but it wasn’t up to posing quite as well as it did on our previous visit, so I’ll leave you with this shot of a Northern Flicker

We’ve actually had some sunny days between recent showers, so we finally managed to get back to Theler Wetlands on a relatively warm day. We got a little later start than usual, though, and the birding was relatively slow. We spotted a few ducks near the shore at the beginning of the walk. They were really too far away and there were too many shadows to get really good shots, but I thought this shot of a male Green-Winged Teal was worth showing.

I missed a spectacular shot of a Great Blue Heron flying right over my head and had to settle for this shot of him after he had landed a ways away.

Luckily, I got a really nice shot of our resident Marsh Wren,

the bird that made me miss the shot of the Heron because I was focused on getting a good shot of it when the heron flew overhead. I must admit that this little guy always reminds me of a favorite poem, Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush,” the first poem that really turned me on to poetry.

Liao puts a lot of emphasis on breath, which makes sense since he also puts a lot of emphasis on meditation.  Paying attention to your breathing is probably the commonest technique to use while learning to meditate.

After gently getting used to following your breath’s natural action, you can then use your clean and concentrated mind to give a gentle push or pull to make your breath longer, smoother, calmer, quieter, until the mind, the breath, and the life energy signal, the Chi, all seem to join together and are no longer separated.

One of the first electronic devices I ever bought did nothing more than teach me how to slow down my breathing. After 40 years of regular meditation, I find it nearly impossible to breathe “normally” when a doctor tells me to “breathe normally.”  If I think about breathing, I automatically take short, deep breaths through my nose and end with long exhales through my mouth.    

Liao emphasizes the importance of practicing with the proper mindset.

A small amount of good-quality practice is more fruitful than a lot of poor-quality practice. When the surroundings are calm, quiet, and you are under no pressure, and your mind is peaceful and in a happy mood, this is considered a “harvest practice.” This is the best time to make good gains in strengthening your Chi. Avoid being rushed, worried, or disturbed. If you are, you are better off refraining from doing any breathing exercise.

 Liao suggests starting with a number of simplified movements that are derived from the Tai Chi form rather than trying to learn longer forms.

These single meditative movements, done over and over again, are far more effective at teaching you to feel and flow your Chi than attempting to learn a more complicated long form right away. This is because the single form style of practice gives you a chance to learn the motion quickly and easily, thereby allowing you to focus better and relax. You can then refine the movement and listen closely for the subtle feeling of Chi.

This definitely isn’t the way I learned, but it makes sense to me if the most important thing is feeling your Chi.  When you are caught up in trying to perfect the form, you are constantly thinking, not feeling chi.

Whatever style of T’ai Chi you practice, whether you learn a traditional long form, a short form, a family style, or a single form style, the foundations of Chi awareness and Chi flow are crucial. Without these foundations, you simply cannot strengthen and grow your Chi. Without Chi awareness and Chi flow, T’ai Chi becomes a hollow shell of what it was originally designed to do. Don’t throw away your hard work during T’ai Chi practice, learn to feel and flow your Chi.

Most people I know that have taken Tai Chi are more concerned with the physical aspects of the form than the meditative aspects, but I tend to agree with Liao that the form offers much more than that. 

Being an INTP, I was bound to try to learn more about Chi than I could learn in my Tai Chi classes, but I do agree with Liao that the most important thing is to keep practicing.  

There are many resources at your disposal. However, books and information will not substitute for your own practice. It is the seconds, minutes, and hours that you spend “feeling” and “flowing” your life energy that will bring you to your goal. Your goal of reuniting with your true self can only be reached through the experience of feeling and flowing your Chi, not through any mental understanding of the philosophical or technical concepts involved.

I’m still  not sure what my “true self” is, but practicing Tai Chi for nearly seventeen years has been both physically and mentally rewarding, which is why I’ve stuck to it for so long.