It is getting late.
It’s close to midnight and the temperature is hovering around 20 degrees. The night has settled clear and heavy. It is a cold, hard, black that swallows up everything it touches, even the distant light of the stars.
It is warm inside.
I could just go to sleep.
Only I can’t sleep.
So I decide to go out into the night. I sat in the cold and let it surround me.
I lose the extra outer layers and linger in the dark under the twinkling stars watching my breath hang in the air.
I don’t rush into the cold and then out of it.
I sit with it. Embracing it to the best of my ability.
And then I start to work my tummo breathing.
Kind of slowly at first, easing into it.
Letting the transition happen sort of gradually.
And in that transition my thoughts lose their power over me.
I am not thinking about how cold I am. Or how tired.
I am not thinking at all.
I am simply in my body allowing my breath to help navigate me to a state of balance.
