Lest anyone be misled by my descriptions of the woods around me let me clearly state: No, I am not currently practicing TCC outdoors. It may appear as if I've plunked myself down in the middle of a snowbank and I'm softly moving through frigid temperatures. Sorry. If it sounds that way, it's because I feel so thoroughly embraced by the beauty of the trees, plants, creatures, and weather patterns that surround me.
I was tempted to try an outdoor practice today. The temp was up ... two to three degrees above zero. Total stillness all around. A new winter jacket my partner gave me last night--an early Christmas present--tempted me to test its warmth. But ... the sun was rapidly rising, a bright red cherry popping out of a pie. Instead, I immediately began my TCC practice looking through windows with the best view of nature's drama.
The frosting frenzy from yesterday was definitely over. In the still, calm, growing light I was captured first, in the heat of rosy pink. Soon a fire of golden light burned atop the waves of Lake Superior. Then that, too, morphed into a single, solitary ball of shining white light that rose into the sky, swept between the trees, passed through the windows, and shone over my face and body.
Notably, the energy during today's practice didn't feel as intense as yesterday. The winter storm was clearly over but the sensation of stillness and calm that followed in its path of turbulence was palpable.
Sunrise and sunset are favorite times of mine--I call them the In-Between Times--because it's an all-too-brief transition from darkness (yin) to light (yang) and lightness to dark. The shift from one to the other is short-lived but full of power ... magical.
Nature's switch from night to day and back again could be compared to that brief moment in every TCC movement when the weight shift from back to front and then from front to back (or side to side) rests in a single tiny pause. In that instant the body realizes that the weight moving forward and back or to the side needs to reverse or you'll end up face-down on the floor. During that momentary interval the weight completes its momentum in one direction and reverses back in the other. You can literally feel it in the bottoms of your feet.
What might it be like, I wonder, to imagine those transitory moments in a more visual way? Each time we shift our weight from one direction to the other we could re-experience those In-Between Times, literally feeling our bodies transition from light to darkness and back again.
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