December Newsletter

I teach yoga at a beautiful private studio - many of you have joined me there. It’s everything you’d expect from an ideal practice space - vaulted ceilings, wide-planked bamboo floors, an abundance of props, thoughtfully placed altar, soft lighting. Windows serve as a transparent boundary on three sides, offering views of a small pond and a parade of chickens and peacocks. 

The peacocks are of particular interest to many of us, and we spend large swaths of time devoted to peacock pondering before and after practice. They seem similarly intrigued by us, sometimes peering in an open door or looking down on us from their perch on a picnic table outside. Most of the peacocks are entirely white, though a few hint at the more traditional peacock colors, mottled blue and green feathers interspersed among the bright white. 

Life felt different a few weeks ago. There were changing leaves on the trees, a hint of autumn in the air. We cast our votes, hopeful and anxious. Then the air turned cold, and we found ourselves collectively thrown into winter. It’s colder outside as I write this, and a heavy weight descended prior to the external chill. I am drawn, as I often am this time of year, to the idea of wintering as an often uninvited shift. 

I am so grateful for the steadiness of the studio - for the container it creates for our feelings and for the stability it provides, for the community that continues to gather there. And yet. Picture savasana: bodies settled into supported rest, breath finding its natural rhythm, the last outside remnants of light fading and quiet settling. We create this careful cultivation of calm, this intentional practice. It provides us a semblance of control and a means of both connecting within and to community. 

Then it comes - that unmistakable cry. Not a gentle coo or soft chirp, but a full-throated peacock announcement that pierces the carefully cultivated stillness. It's almost prehistoric in its intensity, this sound that can't be ignored or politely incorporated into our planned meditation. Some students startle. A few nervous laughs ripple through the room. Others simply take a deeper breath, accepting this wild interruption into their peace.

This moment captures something essential about how we navigate our winters. We create our containers for healing - our yoga practices, our holiday traditions, our careful routines. Yet like the peacock's cry, transformation often announces itself in ways we neither expect nor can control. Sometimes it peers in quietly, like those white heads around the door frame. Other times it demands attention with unmistakable urgency.

The peacocks remind us that our winters - those periods of withdrawal, healing, or resistance - rarely follow the patterns we might choose for them. There's wisdom in this uncomfortable balance. 

Some winters demand active resistance, like the peacocks' spring declarations. Others call for the kind of quiet presence those same birds show when they peer curiously through the studio door. Our challenge, both personally and collectively, is discerning what each moment asks of us. Hunker down, or shout loud. Each of us can build our nests, and we need to, with full recognition that change is often uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and that there will be plenty of squawking along the way.