Courage under....ice?

This winter is brutal...rugged...challenging...fun. Really I love winter. I can't complain when the snow piles high, the wind snaps my cheeks, and each trek out of doors is an mini-adventure of survival, testing my will to endure. How can I not laugh with maniacal glee when a trip to the grocery store feels like a tundra expedition to the arctic? When I have to muster up the courage to step out of my toasty vehicle to procure my sustenance? 

I am done with the chapped lips, the cracking knuckles, the sore nostrils, and the hang nails. The parts of winter that beleaguer the body are trials I could live without. Though, if I can't have the adventure without the hardship, I'll take the hardship.  It makes me feel fierce and it makes me appreciate warm days and yoga.

​In fact, I just finished a yoga practice focused on building courage and fierceness of heart. It was filled with heat-building heart and throat openers, grounding hip-flexor movement, and strength-building stillness.  It made me feel so warm and so good. And, at first, I didn't want to do it.

Just how winter makes me not want to step out of my house, makes me not want to brave the biting wind to get groceries and order in for a cozy dinner, how it makes me want to opt out of the ice skating or snowboarding I love and retreat to the warm fireside couch, it makes me want to curl up with a book instead of getting on my mat. It's those moments I need my practice most. I need to have the courage to face the first cold moments. I need to have the courage to do what I say I'll do. 

This week, I'll teach that same class to the tenants of the 701 building in downtown Minneapolis and I think we'll get good and warm. In the meantime, I wrote a poem inspired by this long, long winter.