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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.

“What is the best yoga?”

My next-door neighbor studied yoga with the Himalayan Institute's Dr. Arya for decades. I'm not sure what answer he was expecting when he asked him this question, but—not for the first time in a relationship of more than 40 years—Dr. Arya surprised him.

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

What is the best kind of exercise regimen? It's the exercise that you get in the course of everyday life. It's arranging your life in such a way that living it gives you the exercise that you need to stay in health.

Think of the different parts of your body that you exercise when putting on your shoes standing. Pretty much the entire body, and balance to boot.

Yes, it's easier to put your shoes on while sitting down.

That's precisely the point.

Yoga is a discipline to train both body and spirit.

The word is cognate to English “yoke.” Consider the metaphor.

A yoga/yoke is a burden that you voluntarily undertake for larger ends.

People don't want to hear it, but the Craft is a discipline.

You may have the gifts, all the talent in the world, but you'll never be a great athlete, or a great musician, without practice. It's the same with the Craft.

If you don't have the discipline to practice, to exercise, to keep yourself limber, you'll never go anywhere with the Craft. Yes, it's hard. You'll have to do things that you don't want to do, learn things that you're not interested in learning, for the Craft to take you anywhere.

Is it easy? No. You want easy, look elsewhere.

There's more. The Craft isn't just what you do in the circle at full Moon. The Craft is every day: every moment of every day of your life.

The Craft is how you live. The Craft is how you think. Hell, the Craft is how you shit.

What is the best kind of Craft?

I grew up steeped in a Christian idea of worship: as humble devotion paid to a perfect, all-powerful God. Such devotion could feel inspiring, promising a kind of ultimate consummation.

But it depended on a level of belief I could not sustain, and dogmas I could not accept. I needed God to be perfect, but reading the Bible put that deeply in question. In the end Christianity seemed to limit my experience rather than complete it.

I left God behind, but not the need to worship, to taste the exaltation of reverence. As a refugee from mainstream religion, to whom could I bow?

“…I believe that ‘slowness’ is a power that we can and must bring to our magic because the modern need for speed has invaded this practice too. A while back, I picked up a book [of swift spells]. I was struck by the word associations – to be modern is to be speedy, swift and efficient. I am very keen to represent a counter idea – of slow magic: easeful rituals, gentle enchantment and leisurely spells, as well as magic to be found within the process of slowing down and being still. Not as a ‘better’ option, but merely a different one, something that maybe we can embrace, so that we can have options to take things slowly when the mood takes us, or seek it out in our practice. This is the heart of yin magic.”

—Sarah Robinson, Yin Magic

Are you afraid of being still? This is the question that kept arising for me as I made my way slowly through Yin Magic, by Sarah Robinson and published by Womancraft Publishing. Sometimes the most meaningful books are those that take me the longest to read. Yin Magic is a companion book to Yoga for Witches (previously reviewed here), but it also beautifully stands alone. In the book, Sarah invites you to, “dare to inquire: what could stillness look like for me? What does stillness from the busyness of my life look like?”

“Now it seemed like everyone suffered from some trauma; they just didn’t know it yet.” (1) 

Trauma awareness does indeed seem to be everywhere these days, spurring the use of trigger warnings and encouraging the adoption of various practices, from analysis to hallucinogenic journeys, meant to help uncover and heal it.

“In yoga class, I often remind my students that we can be peaceful and powerful, calm yet strong—all in the same breath. I think there is a peace to be found in the acceptance of all of these contradictory powers within us. Finding a way to stand within this unknown and unknowable. We are gloriously complex and contradictory in a world that loves boxes, snap judgments and 100% certainty. People may find this inability to define you uncomfortable, but this is a reminder that you do not owe anyone an explanation. Your rich inner world needn’t mean anything to anyone but yourself. A person can be called a witch for merely knowing, and for owning her knowledge. And to some, for strange reasons that may include fear, power, jealousy, a woman who ‘knows’ is dangerous indeed…Communicating *I am knowledgeable, powerful, and I can make choices about how I use these strengths…can be a real challenge to the status quo!”

—Sarah Robinson, Yoga for Witches (p. 93)

*10 minutes a day is all you need to do these techno-spirituality movements, to strengthen your brain and bones!

1. THE LUNGE: With fingers entwined, shoved downward, then with thumbs and forefingers connected make a triangle, then bring hands to forehead, pressing lightly on the third eye, then flip hands up on top of the head, stretching upward; at the same time lunging to the right with right leg, then bring arms down to your side and bring right leg in; repeat this finger entwined motion, and lunge to the left with left leg.