Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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The Fine Art of Shoveling Snow

Snow Way! Safe Shoveling Tips ...

 

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.

Unless something else gets us first, the Posches tend to die of heart attacks. Chances are, I'll go that way myself some fine Winter's day. I'll be out there one snowy morning with a shovel in my hands and then—crrrck!—dead before I hit the sidewalk.

Chances are, I'll be smiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tagged in: snow yoga
Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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