Falling Snow

"Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, the snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life." - Wu-men.

I drove home from yoga tonight enveloped in the most beautiful snow of winter. My little yoga clique and I left class and walked down the street for our post-yoga libation. The night air was cold. The tiny snow of bitter cold fell. We went inside and hugged the fire and chatted and laughed for an hour and then bundled up and braced ourselves for another dose of frigid air. But when we stepped outside, the extreme coldness had lifted. The wind had died, the streets slowly and silently filled with falling snow - the kind that falls as perfect crystals. The snow that proves each little drop of frozen water, on the winter's breeze, is truly unique. There is no setting I love more than the magic of a still main street in the falling snow.

Yoga night has become central to my life. In the class I attend, we practice yin yoga - a gentle form, but one that requires holding poses for several minutes, allowing the body to release. We "breathe into the stretch," which is supposed to encourage the body to release its hold and its tensions even more. And it works. But it also releases my mind. A minute into my class, lulled by the just perceptible southern accent of our soft spoken teacher, and I am present in the moment. My mind stops racing. Whatever craziness required to get to class is gone. And in the quiet, my thoughts soar. Although another goal of yoga is to stay focused in the present, my mind is writing. Words come into my mind and take shape and form and grow and begin to breathe. Sometimes they stay with me until I make it home and I get them down. Other times they are as fleeting as the breath on which they float. I leave class feeling fully alive.

I am not an athlete. I have never been. I don't experience the high of the sweaty exercise fiend. When sweaty, I just want to get home and shower. But in yoga, I have discovered the thrill of sticking with something, of seeing the improvements my body can make when I am dedicated. I feel the stretches deepening, my balance improving. And with those changes, my confidence grows. I can't help but carry those changes with me wherever my day goes.

I avoided yoga for years, fearful my lack of flexibility would make me a mockery. When I was about 15, my gym teacher told me I was the most inflexible person she had ever seen because I could not reach past my toes. Although I didn't realize it, I carried that criticism with me. I timidly began this yoga class only because it was called "Gentle Stretch" and only because I was forced by a friend. I apologized to the teacher before I even began for my lack of flexibility and half expected him to escort me to the door. Imagine my shock when a few weeks later, he commented on my flexibility. The 20 year-old remark dissolved in an instant and I suddenly had the courage to try more challenging classes.

I have bookmarked this experience as a reminder to let the criticism of others go. I am shocked, looking back at how I let this one careless remark form my own opinions of myself and my abilities. I wonder what other comments I have unknowingly filed away, allowing them to silently discourage me. I remind myself to carefully weigh the remarks I make to my children.

Over the years, I have had much encouragement to write - from teachers, my family, friends. But the voice I always hear is the one that reminds me how hard it is to be published, how hard it is to eek out a living, how very, very good you have to be. I have never believed I could be that good. But with my yoga experiences in tow, I have learned to keep practicing, to keep pushing forward, to release those unnecessary things that would keep me from living the best season of my life. And always - to keep breathing.