The other day, Pam said to me that we all want a tail.  That in our heart of hearts, at some point in life, we want a tail.  I thought back to my fifth grade Halloween costume.  I was a skinny black cat with pink ears and a delicious, heavy , very long tail.  I can remember wagging it, waving it, dancing it.

One of the things I teach in movement classes is how to feel the connection between the head and the tail.  How to feel it in all dimensions, how to initiate from the tail, how to let the tail talk, the head respond, and how to have a lively, unpredictable conversation between head and tail.

Try this:  Sitting at your computer, move from your tail.  Small, slow, playful.  Don’t think about it.  Just let it move.  Can you feel that movement going up your spine?  How far up your spine?  Now move from your head, as if you were answering your tail.  Don’t stop the movement at your neck, but let it spill down the column of your spine.  Now try moving them simultaneously.  Just little movements, subtle, slow.  See what happens.  Let me know!

This is the color of light in today’s early morning in the Northwest corner.  The light is the call for me this morning, the thing that tossed me out into the day to capture what it is doing to the cows, the grass, the fence, the trees.

I am grasping at the remains of the summer’s warmth.   Mamacita, the feral cat we feed, the mother of Precious and Obadiah who live with us, is starting to huddle on cold mornings.  I’m with her.

So the question becomes how to stay open in the cold?   The cold of dullness, of lack of inspiration, of frigid air, of fear.  Of course there are warm clothes, hot tea, a blazing fire, meditation, yoga, all of the usual amenities.

What I found in moving here is that when the snow really comes, it stays, and the mountains and the fields become crystalline.  Ecstatically white.  The skeletal outlines of the trees are revealed – each one a distinct anatomy, forming spines along the ridgelines.  Winter here for me is a time of creative winnowing, stripping to the bone, and digging into the essence.

Today, though, it is warm, almost balmy, with the undertone of cool in the late afternoon.  I am swimming, but can feel that my body is not fully extending, that I can’t quite lengthen into my most luxuriant strokes.  My breath comes shorter.  I am holding back.  I feel the chill.

So my question today is:  How do you stay open in the cold?