Happy Winter Solstice!

The sky, when I woke up this morning, was a blurry white all over, not of snow, just a layer of cloud with the light of the sun behind it. It was a dreamy look, nothing like the blue sky, bright sun, and streets and houses covered in snow that we have had recently. I was tempted to stay in bed. I remembered, however, that there is a Saturday morning yoga class just up the road at 9 o'clock. "Should I go, or shouldn't I?" went back and forth in my head. I realized that exercising first thing in the morning would be better than staying in bed, and I would feel energized probably for most of the day afterwards. So, I threw on(1) some comfortable clothes, brushed my teeth, poured my tea into a flask, and off I went. 

There was friendly chatter in the yoga room when I walked in. It was already quite full. Some people were stretching on their mats, others talked in pairs, and some typed on their smart phones. Soon we were moving, breathing, and stretching obediently as the teacher instructed us: downward dog, tree pose, sun salutation, and warrior one. The names of the poses are so interesting; they paint a picture, which actually really helps you when you are trying, perhaps wobbling and straining, to get a pose right. As the session drew to an end(2), we were doing our shavasana, or the quiet, mindful state that we finish in, and our teacher said, "Happy Winter Solstice!" "Oh yes!" I thought to myself. "Now, that is good news!" Her words seemed to excite the whole class. What a great thing to be reminded of first thing in the morning. Being late December, of course, it gets dark early, about 4:30pm. That's rough for most of us. But from today, the days will get longer and longer; the sunset will be later. This happens because today, December 21st, the northern hemisphere is tilted the furthest away from the sun that it will be all year. Because of that, the day is the shortest. So, from now on, we can look forward to a few more rays of sunshine to help us through the rest of winter.

Grammar Points.

• 1. 'To throw on clothes'. I know its a bit odd to think of throwing something at yourself' usually we throw away from ourselves. But I think the sense of 'throw' here is that we dress so quickly, it is as if our hands are just throwing the clothes at our bodies.

   a.  Just before I left for work, I threw on my coat. I could sense that it would rain soon.

   b. She never looks smart; she just throws anything on before she goes to work.

• 2. 'To draw to an end' is a wonderful, quite poetic way of saying that something is slowly ending, closing, finishing. This comes from a marvelous Old English word 'dragan' which means to pull or drag. So you can see an image of something slowly dragging on the ground to reach a certain end point.

    a. As winter draws to an end, many people feel like thoroughly cleaning their homes.

   b. As his speech drew to an end, people came up to get his autograph.