I love snow storms.  There’s something so cozy and relaxing about totally surrendering to Mother Nature.  Everyone does it—they have to.  They have no choice.  And that’s nice sometimes.  There’s a feeling of unity as we all hunker down.  Yoga means “union,” and so a big snow storm is, in a way, everyone practicing yoga together.

During the big snow storm last weekend, we were like everyone else—hunkering down, sledding, building fires, roasting marshmallows, making s-mores, reading by the fire, getting caught up on a few things while the baby napped and our other children fell fast asleep on the couch next to the tree, exhausted from 27 runs up and down the big snowy hill on Lowell Street.

We had been slated to drive to New York City on Friday morning—the morning of “the big storm”–to teach at our Prana Power Yoga studio in the city, but Mother Nature had other plans.  As my husband and I spent three hours of our three hour “date night” Thursday night in traffic to and from Toys R US in Framingham (a trip that should take 40 minutes round trip) to get our 11-year-old daughter the thing she most wanted for Christmas and which had been sold out online for 2 months, I was amused and pleased to notice that I did not get angry or frustrated as the woman at Toys R Us shook her head no, explaining that she’s not sure why they said they had it when I called—the truck had never delivered it.  Instead of feeling angry or frustrated, I found myself asking the Universe “What’s the lesson here?  What do I have to learn?  What do I have to do differently?”

The answer came quickly.  At home that same night while nursing our 23 month-old son to sleep, my Blackberry buzzed and I noticed a text from our Prana NYC manager warning me to be careful driving to the city—the storm was going to be bad and was going to revisit us on Sunday. 

I continued nursing and meditating and my Blackberry buzzed again—one of the Prana Power Yoga teachers whose class I was going to take on Friday to give feedback was not going to be able to teach…her flight was going to be delayed from Florida. 

And again, my blackberry buzzed—a reminder for our 11-year-old daughter’s 5^th grade breakfast Friday morning, taking place at the time we were supposed to be driving to the city.

And on it went…sign after sign, signal after signal—to the point of humor.  Sometimes (most of the time) the Universe is not at all subtle—if we are open to the messages.

Point well taken.  One of the many things years of daily yoga practice has taught me is to listen when my intuition/the Universe makes a point.  No matter what the plans are.  No matter what’s “supposed” to happen.  No matter how “inconvenient.”

We postponed the trip.  Went to Madison’s 5^th grade breakfast.  Hunkered down, and waited for the snow.

“A major advantage of age is learning to accept people without passing judgment.”
-Liz Carpenter

“It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a proper judge of it.”
-Oscar Wilde

“If you are pained by external things, it is not that they disturb you, but your own judgment of them.  And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.”
-Marcus Aurelius

“We do not judge the people we love.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre

“The more once judges, the less one loves.”
-Honore de Balzac

“Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.”
-Wayne Dyer