June’s daisy sway gives way to July’s big skies as the season takes hold. The exhale on the other side of all our longing and anticipation for the light and its freedoms. Sweet, sweet summer.
Long unstructured days, kids underfoot, looking to see what the tide’s brought in… Summer is a timely reminder of our innate fluidity. An invitation to be available and responsive to what washes up. So much is missed amid our daily rhythms — doing so much, so hard, so fast, that we blow right past the ladybird on our sleeve and inklings of deep fatigue. But summertime isn’t business as usual. An enforced slowdown of sorts, no need to plan or solve or fix (as ever). Notice if you’re swimming against the current. These weeks of stasis open us up to new ways of seeing what’s there and interpreting our moments as they are. A return to our fluidity.
How will you respond?
I’ve been circling the reality that Practice isn’t routine — It’s living. A truth for writing, creativity, yoga, any kind of practice… This came up in my solstice yoga + creative writing workshop (free for members to watch anytime) and in the summer manifesto I penned last month. I find myself leaving calendar pages blank, a practice in itself, creating more space from which inclination and discernment rise like the next set of incoming waves. Maybe this is summer’s greatest gift — time and space to see what’s there. It’s more granular. We can feel our moments like the distinct grains of sand that they are, marveling at each as they pour through our fingers and land onto the beach of our experiences.
How can you be more fluid as you move through these days?
Turn off the alarm and sleep in because you are tired and that’s okay.
Pause, often.
Let your gaze linger on the palette of your landscape.
Collect cowrie shells, get the kids involved.
Exhale completely — keep going…
Some gentle stretches to cool down a hot day.
Meetings, rescheduled because they can wait (they can).
Close the laptop, head outside with a notebook.
Take a brief inventory of what comes up.
Everything is practice, really (thanks
for crystallising this for me recently). Never is this more apparent than when routine shifts as it inevitably does during these mid-year months. We don’t need a schedule to tether ourselves to ourselves, instead the simple gestures that we make to pay attention, in the moment, are the practice.Can you feel the fluidity in that?
With that in mind, I’ve been creating a new set of practices that go where you go this season and beyond — 5-minute resets that address all the key areas of the body, as well as pre- and post-travel recalibrations, and a few more timely treats. Subscribers receive a new yoga video every Friday along with one more Sunday letter this month (a slight revision from the weekly essay cadence for the rest of the summer).
I hope these practices connect you to the undercurrent of balance and ease that’s always there — see you on the mat and page, with thanks for being here and for your practice.
Sweet, sweet summer
A Summer Stretch
Your seasonal yoga + creative writing workshop with Alice Vincent + me — 45 minutes to find more ease this season.
Seasonal Rest
Oh yes, I have travelled a great distance these last 6 months. We all have. It’s no surprise that we’re tired. And so we might remember even as we breathe into summer action and adventures, Rest is always in season.