Winter Greetings!
I wanted to offer a timely question to consider:
How do you connect with Winter?
Especially the type of Winter we experience in the Northern latitudes. Freezing temperatures, biting wind, low light, snow, ice.
One set of answers could be:
“I don’t connect with Winter! I insulate myself from it. I travel away from it. I ignore, endure it, suffer through it. I yearn for Spring.”
I understand that perspective. Winter can be hard! Dark, dreary, cold, slippery, sloppy, uncomfortable, difficult to get around.
I also understand another perspective, beautifully described by the master poet Robert Frost:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though:
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow…
Between the woods and the frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year…
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. . .
From Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
Frost’s poem describes a person connecting to Winter, its darkness, its quiet, its cold, its softness. And even immersing himself in Winter, at least for a short while.
In our Winter Tai Chi and Qigong classes, I encourage students to experiment with connecting to Winter in their practice. This involves extending our feeling awareness to our surroundings, feeling whatever we feel.
What you might feel is a sense of your surroundings drawing inward, slowing down, and becoming more dark, cold, and quiet. You can feel it. In Taoist philosophy, these are qualities of Yin energy, and Winter is the most Yin season.
Taoist philosophy suggests the better we align ourselves with what is occurring in the natural world, the better for our health. So from that perspective, tuning in to the seasonal energy of our surroundings can be beneficial.
I recently enjoyed a powerful experience of connecting to Winter.
Over the holidays, I “retreated” to a home in the woods by a frozen lake. No phone, no Internet. Precious days of meditation, practicing, reading, and relaxing as the “woods filled up with snow.”
The time included some outdoor Qigong practice. It was wonderful! The sense of quiet, stillness, and drawing in of the earth was strong and nourishing.
Here is a video I could call Qigong in Woods on a Snowy Evening (due credit to Robert Frost!). The set is called “Gods Playing in the Clouds,” one of sets I teach at Chicago Tai Chi, a more advanced practice from the Energy Arts System.
Hope you enjoy it! And if it motivates you to bundle up and connect with Winter, all the better.
All the best,
Chris Cinnamon, JD, MS
Head Instructor
ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist
Energy Arts Certified
chris@chicagotaichi.org
visit our website www.chicagotaichi.org