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Call it a moral failing if you like, but I actually enjoy shoveling snow.

My next-door neighbor once asked his yoga teacher, “Which is the best yoga?”

Dr. Arya smiled. “Putting-on-your-shoes yoga,” he replied.

Indeed. The best exercise of all is the exercise that you get in the course of everyday life.

Up here in the Land of the Northern Star, thanks to Winter and the Mother, we have our own exercise program, ours to us. Call it Snow Yoga. Who needs the gym?

The idea is to move as much snow as you can while doing as little work as possible. Done well, it's a lean, spare choreography, consisting—counter-intuitively, maybe—mostly of pushing.

The snow is your partner. Push, push, push: then lift. Lift with your legs, though, not with your back. If you're a true snow artist, your butt will hurt by the time that the driveway is clear. Welcome to the North Country, land of toned and shapely butts.

Done properly, a good shoveling-out will take you to the place of No-Mind, where mind and body, stillness and motion, are one. The Zen of snow-shoveling.

The fine art of shoveling snow even has its own philosophy. No matter how daunting the amount of snow to be moved, you'll get there eventually, one shovelful at a time.

One shovelful at a time will move a mountain of snow.

We only got an inch of snow this time, but fortunately that still counts—as we say hereabouts—as a “shovel-able” amount.

First thing after breakfast, I put on my boots and hit the walks. I shovel myself out, then the neighbors on both sides, including Dr. Arya's chela. Hey, it's the neighborly thing to do, and they're both old, past their shoveling days.

I'm an old guy too, of course, but I'm a young old guy. Young enough to shovel, anyway.

The first snow of the season is magical the way it transforms the world. Bare trees suddenly wear a soft white mantle that sparkles in the light. Empty gardens and city parks are transformed into an enchanted fairyland. As snow covers the ground new shapes seem to emerge — is that a gnome I see beside the bench?
     But this is just a prelude to the arrival of the Cailleach. In Scotland, she is Cailleach Bheur the crone goddess and personified spirit of winter who brings the snow and storms. She heralds the fierceness of the season, the howling winds and drifts of snow. Winter will turn from gentle to harsh, and yet, the deep-frozen landscape has a stark beauty all its own. 
     Call to the Cailleach and she will be there to guide you through the season. Listen for her voice in the wind. Her message of winter: Face into the storm, see what is coming, and know that you can hold your own against anything.
     When the snow falls and the wind rises, light a white candle in her honor. Close your eyes and feel the special magic that can be gained through winter’s lesson.

Anyone that lives in Minnesota knows that it's less work—a lot less work—to shovel two inches of snow six times than it is to shovel 12 inches of snow once. 6 x 2 ≠ 12 x 1.

Call it Minnesota arithmetic.

It's our first big snow of the Winter. They're saying 8 to 12. Yikes.

All day, the city has been in battening mode, preparing. The grocery stores looked like the day before Thanksgiving, as everyone stocked up.

It's an annual ritual, and everyone's invited. For one brief moment, partisanship and denominationalism are laid aside; for now, we're all in this together, a Blizzard Fellowship. Neighbors help each other shovel out, and strangers push strangers out of snowbanks.

I go out to shovel the first two inches. It's really coming down hard. That's fine with me: call me crazy, but I actually enjoy shoveling snow. I'll take a good blizzard over your hurricane or lava flow any day of the lunar month, thanks very much. No wonder I live here.

I clear the driveway and front sidewalk, then the sidewalks of the neighbors on both sides, just for good measure. "Why do we live here again?" a woman asks, walking past. It's the traditional question.

I give her the ritual answer: "Because we're all clinically insane."

She laughs. "I keep forgetting," she says, trudging on into the wind.

Broom in hand, my neighbor stands looking mournfully at his snow-mounded car.

"Another lovely day in sunny Minneapolis," I deadpan.

(This is irony: we haven't seen the Sun for days.)

Steve shakes his head. "I just got home from ten days in Jamaica, and this is what I come back to."

"Welcome home," I say, wryly, then add: "More coming, I hear."

He begins to sweep the snow off of the car.

I’m no great fan of snow, I admit. It’s one of the things to celebrate where my first port of call is to absolutely hold up your right not to celebrate. For many of us, snow is hard work. Snow days can make getting to work a nightmare, and missed work isn’t fun if you can’t afford it.  Ice means isolation. Slippery surfaces mean real risk of injury. Cold weather kills people – usually the old and frail who cannot afford to heat their homes, and those who have no homes and are rough sleeping. Being able to enjoy the snow is a sign of privilege, and any celebration of it has to include recognition of that. It is not ok to shame or harass anyone who doesn’t enjoy it.

There is one particularly magical aspect of snow that is often overlooked by people who go out to play in it – and that’s footprints. Snow reveals who else has passed through, and if you can be out before human feet have obliterated all signs, snow can tell you stories about who was there and what they did.

Skritch! Skritch! Skriiiiitch!

It's been a dry winter here in Paganistan, so it's almost with a sense of relief that I shoulder the snow shovel and go out to clear the walk.

Minnesota being the Land of Common Sense, there's a logic to shoveling snow. You want to get to it early, before the feet of passers-by tramp it down. The sooner you get to it, the easier the job will be.

On our block, Fatima two houses down is always first. No matter how early I go out to shovel, her walk will already be clear.

Then comes Nick across the street, who shovels snow as a hummingbird hovers: you know that it's happening, but it's too quick to see.

Me, I settle for third.

Minnesota being also the Land of Polite, there are thews (customs, laws) governing how you shovel.

(That you do shovel, of course, is an unstated premise. Not to shovel one's sidewalk is tantamount to a declaration of indifference, unneighborliness, if not of downright sociopathy.)

You always, for instance, shovel your own walk and a little bit of your neighbor's. To shovel only your own walk is regarded as stingy, niggardly. But of course, you've got to be careful. Shovel too much of your neighbor's walk and you're making, as it were, a territorial claim. All things in moderation.

Because of how we see the world, witches, of course, have added incentives for shoveling our walks. Some would call it paranoia, but to us it just seems like common sense.

Why?

The snow has finally arrived here in NW PA. 

It's a mixed blessing for me. I worry about my young drivers, I worry about my husband who drives for a living, I worry about me driving. Icy snowy roads make me nervous, and here I am, living on top of a hill that I have to descend to get anywhere. As well, to get anywhere in this town, you either have to go up or down a hill.