I woke up to a winter wonderland this morning and almost ran to the park. I couldn’t wait to get there. I know it sounds a bit weird, but I can’t help thinking Mont Joly has rewarded me for writing about her yesterday. It’s like she’s decided to visit me here in London, sprinkling her frosted magic over roads, houses, trees and all of us.
The early morning park was almost empty when I got there. I loved having it to myself for a while and breathed in its winter beauty. By the time I left an hour later it was filling up with children, dog walkers and others drawn there by the snow.
I thought I was going to work on my screenplay today, but instead the walk in the park gave me a new task today: write about the joy of snow, finding your own path not just following someone else’s, write about yoga and how it helps you understand things better, try to capture ‘snow’ in words.
I intended to write as soon as I got home but the pull of yoga was too strong to resist. I’ve been practising yoga for just over a year now and whilst I love going to my regular classes, I enjoy creating my own practice at home even more. I don’t have a specific time or routine, I just practice whenever I feel like it. It might be an hour or it could be just five minutes while I let my mind and body wander where they will. Today, after a couple of sun salutations I was inspired by the trees in the park to move into tree pose.
I became a tree, my arms were branches reaching up to the sky, my lower body as the trunk anchored me to the ground. I found I could maintain the pose much more easily this way. I began to bend like a tree and it felt different. I imagined snow landing on my branches and wondered if I could take the form of a snowflake...
My arms straightened out from the prayer position I was holding above my head to reach out to the sides in a ‘V’ shape. I then slowly balanced on my right leg while allowing my right arm to drop to the floor and raising my left leg up to form a straight line, a kind of tilted ’X’. Yes, this was the shape.
When I later searched to see if this was an actual pose, I found it was very close to the Half Moon pose, the only difference being in the position of the standing foot (mine was pointing straight ahead and in Half Moon it point towards the right). I love discovering new poses this way, the ones my body wants to be in.
And now, it’s snowing again. Much heavier this time. It just keeps coming! Sitting here looking out of the window as if in a snow globe, an unseen hand gently rocking it to and fro. Snowflakes drift and mesmerise. They dance to unheard music and cover footsteps and car tracks. The world new again, ready for new paths to be forged.
I’m not sure where my labyrinthine path will lead me next but I’m looking forward to finding out.