Balance. Trauma. Cleanse. Intentional. Self-care. Demure. Busy. The em-dash.
These are some of the casualties of the English language during the Digital Era, wherein social media algorithms and AI have all but denatured the meaning and usage of very excellent words, parts of speech, and punctuation marks. Each one listed here, and many others not listed, is worthy of a defense and reclamation (especially the latter), but there’s one word that just too perfectly encapsulates the sense-theme for my late-summer practices that I hesitated to use because of its hashtag status: abundance. Hence this defensive preface to our cyclical contemplation; I needed you to know, Jennifer, that I use this word with sincerity, and encourage you to disregard any negative, flippant, or superficial connotations you may have built up around it due to its overuse.
Moving into the heart of summer, we are a little more established in the yin, or building/nourishing, half of our yearly spiral. Perhaps we’ve scratched the summer travel itch and are looking forward to some lazy time at home (that’s me); perhaps the accumulation of heat and humidity has forced to finally lie down and surrender to the will of the gods (or accept the punishment of humanity’s egregious attempt to conquer Nature—tomato, tomahto; also me). Regardless, the depletion we may feel in our physical, mental, energetic, and/or social banks is an opportunity to open our eyes to the abundance around us. Not in the sense of excess or extraction—that’s what the algorithms want you to think “abundance” is about, so you’re constantly feeling insufficient and eager to like/click/buy, hoping that this will be the time you find what you’re looking for. Rather, the abundance of which I speak is more akin to “plenty”—an appropriate quality and quantity of need- and desire-satisfying things.
The festival marking our turn in focus, Lammas, is all about this kind of abundance. It honors the start of the harvest time—when the fruits of spring’s labors, especially grains, are ripe for picking and consumed with gratitude. Nature always provides what is right, but now we can really appreciate it in its many colorful, tasty, enlivening forms: the juicy, energizing fruits, zucchinis, cucumbers, and herbs and spices that align with our digestive capacity; the space and slowness to recuperate from earlier effort, while still feeling the deserved recognition, from the sun itself, of that very effort. Inside this abundance is another contradiction to the algorithm-version, which is all about acquisition and clinging. Abundance, as defined by Nature, is actually about letting go. The trees and vines release their energy for the present fueling of their neighbors, and future seeding of their progeny. We let go of the effort to begin and maintain projects in order to make space for something new. In the clarifying light of the later-setting sun, and the crisp azure of the sky that longs for our mirror-gaze every morning, we tap into a larger vision of ourselves in collaboration with nature, so that once autumn arrives we can focus our attention on details that help us fulfill our roles.
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One of the best examples of this practice and state of abundance, based in mutual flourishing, is the element guiding this season’s practice—water—its accompanying sense—taste—and the way we’ll dial into their lessons—the moon. All of these energies are both celebrated and resented for their inherent dynamism: water can quench or flood; taste can be refining or manipulating; the moon can be inspiring or maddening. Therein lies the essence of our misunderstanding of abundance. Shape-shifting, ebbing, and flowing, the energy of water asks us to trust in its presence regardless of its outer form. Like the air we breathe, all of the water that has ever been on earth—drank, washed with, flushed, contaminated—is still here, and yet we try to cling to it, possess it, profit from its feigned “scarcity.” Our egos readily and intelligently identify with the emotions that swell and recede, that make us explode and contract, under the light of the moon.
But we all know how it turns out when we try to hold onto water. We are the fire to its ice, and it either slips through the cracks or melts at our touch. The water is what holds us; and in holding us in impermanence makes the spirit that flows with it resilient and strong. We can be the entire ocean in a single drop, as Rumi said, when we let go.
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I’m not usually that up to date with cultural currents, but I’ve been swept up by the new film adaptation of The Odyssey (if you’ve seen it, let’s talk). Initially resistant to having my internal vision of the epic poem tampered with, I changed my tune when I realized it’s important and worthwhile to participate in the ongoing adaptations of our first and only hero’s journey; when you think about it, all stories are some version of Odysseus’s difficult voyage back home, so what made mine superior? Without revealing any spoilers, I think it’s safe to share here the two moments that stood out to me most, including for aligning with what was on my mind for my teachings this season. First, when Odysseus describes the Sirens’ song—that which drives men to suicide through its entracing beauty—he explains how it taps into our human misunderstandings around desire; the song is everything you could ever want, which then reminds you that you do not currently have those things and causes pain, and that pain worsens when you realize that what you want is not here because you had it once and let it go. Second, when Calypso releases Odysseus from her island, she gives him the instructions to stop resisting the gods; to surrender to his punishment; to be humbled by the sea and its power. To let go and be taken home.
Homecomings, despite their reputation for celebration and integration, are usually the most difficult journeys of all—as Homer captured in his/their immortal epic. They force a collision, a reckoning, of what was with what is, and a subsequent choice to hold onto the former or flow with the latter. Giving attention to the remembered state of home, or of anything or anyone—the theme of early summer with the sense of smell and earth element—is an enrichment of our Pranic bank. Clinging to that memory locks the vault and prevents any new transactions, withdrawals or deposits, from happening. Expecting home, or ourselves returning to it, to be what they were when they re-member each other chokes off our life force. It denies us access to the abundance we already have. Yes, we will have feelings—a tide of rasa—when the waters of prana shape-shift, recede, and swell; but if we are the water itself, we always have our Self.
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For the next six weeks of practice, we’ll channel our inner water—cycling back through the senses and elements from internal to external, from gross to subtle—by aligning practice with the phases of the moon, with special emphasis on pranayama and lymphatics/rasa. This will encourage us to have a fluid, flexible understanding of what yoga/movement looks and feels like in our bodies; and how Yoga, as a state of presence and practice of paying attention, helps us to make decisions based on what we observe, now, letting go of expectations (and, importantly, the strong waves of algorithmic trends). The light of the sun, rhythmic and predictable, gives us the strength of a warrior, teaching us through discipline and tapas; the light of the moon, enigmatic in its changing face, gives us the strength of the loom, teaches us through curiosity, patience, and reflectiveness. In addition, I’ll be testing the waters of an idea I have for our next cycle of practice in 2027, which seems far away but will be here before we know it: incorporating Jyotish (Indian/sidereal astrology) into our movement, the state of the macrocosm literally guiding our microcosms.
Off the mat, this season might be a time of sweet-bitter (two tastes that are most indicated for summer fare) reflection and pleasure. I recall clearly the clenching I’d start to feel in my stomach come August when we were closer to the horizon of a new school year—exciting, terrifying. Each day felt urgent and precious. At that time, I was using that urgency and preciousness like armor, to hold off (impossibly, delusionally) the inevitable tide; today, on the cusp of another August, there’s still urgency and preciousness, but it’s inviting. I know what will happen (autumn, leaves, winter, cold, death), and I still I allow myself to feel what is happening (life). It is the hole in the armor that reveals our vulnerability—and our strength.
Same water, different flavor. Same current, different direction. Same sky, different moon. Same home, different homecoming.
