Steady, Fluid, Strong & Clear | Tending to the Heart of Autumn
“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.” – Mary Oliver
“To tend to yourself is to sit at the altar of your own becoming… to remain present with the slow unfolding… even when it feels endless. To tend to yourself is to choose roots over rushing.” – Mariel Witmond
Hello dear friends,
Welcome back. Thank you for returning to this space — your space — to tend to yourself.
Let’s take a moment to arrive.
A gentle hand to heart, the other grounded on a knee or on the low belly.
Take five slow, steady breaths — in through the nose, out through the mouth.
With each inhale, allow life to rise upward through you.
With each exhale, soften, release, and clear away.
🌕 Today’s Track for the Read: The Lumerian Frequency – Alana Fairchild
A soundscape for settling in — luminous, spacious, and grounding.
“Awareness is like the Sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
Tending to Ourselves in the Season of Change
Full moon blessings to you — our early October Harvest Moon, sometimes called the Blood Moon. The landscape here in Portland glows with vibrant transformation: red, orange, gold, and green leaves shimmering with prana — the life force of the sun, moving through all things.
I caught the sunrise before dawn, stepping outside with Koba just as the moon was setting in the west and the Libra sun was rising in the east — fire and air meeting, warmth and coolness, illumination and balance. These quiet intersections always remind me that being alive is both tender and profound.
Life has been full lately — weekends of beauty and challenge, travel and caregiving, the simple act of witnessing my aging dog’s joy and his moments of struggle. I hold space each week for the college students, for all those in service to others, for the collective weight we’re all moving through. It can feel like a lot — and yet, it’s also a privilege to feel it all.
To live wholeheartedly means to meet life as it is — the joys, the aches, the ordinary moments. Libra season, with its emphasis on relationship and harmony, invites us to notice how life moves through us and around us. To witness with compassion rather than to fix or force.
Returning to the Heart of Relationship
When emotion feels strong, I invite you to name it gently.
To sit beside it rather than in it.
To orient from the most loving part of yourself — toward yourself and toward the world.
In my classes and in my own life, gratitude has been the recent thread that anchors my practice. Not as a forced positivity, but as a quiet returning. Body, breath, moment, circumstance, sacred life continues its cycle. Gratitude is what happens when we stop doing and begin listening again.
We’ve been exploring the lower chakras over these past weeks — the grounding of the root (Muladhara), the fluidity of the sacral (Svadhisthana), the vitality of the solar plexus (Manipura), and the compassion of the heart (Anahata). These are mirrored in autumn’s landscape — red, orange, yellow, and green — each color a frequency of energy, a reminder of how we root, flow, transform, and love.
The full Aries moon, a fiery culmination, meets the steady Libra sun. Together they remind us of balance — action and rest, courage and grace, fire and breath.
Building Capacity, Not Just Calm
Your nervous system wasn’t designed for calm — it was designed for capacity. Loved this from a dear peer, reshaping messages.
This week, I’ve been returning again and again to that truth. The gunas within, the nervous system.
Through yoga, we exercise our capacity to stay present — with discomfort, with joy, with the full range of being alive. The Sanskrit word Tapas means “to heat” or “to glow,” often translated as self-discipline, but at its heart, it means tending to the fire that sustains us. Nourishing self discipline.
Tap into that warmth. Tap into heart.
Each time you come home to your mat, your breath, or your body, you are strengthening your roots — just as the trees do in autumn.
“Trees become their strongest in autumn. Because they aren’t bearing fruit or producing leaves, all their energy is pushed down into their roots. So what externally appears as death and shedding is actually the catalyst for new life.” – Nicole the Somatic Medium
This, to me, is the essence of wholehearted practice: the courage to slow down when the world demands rushing. To choose roots over speed, presence over performance, and depth over distraction.
Practice Themes This Week
Our mantra:
So Hum — “I am.”
I am steady.
I am fluid.
I am strong.
I am clear.
These four lines mirror the elements — earth, water, fire, and air — woven together in space, the ether of the fifth chakra. This week we’ll explore So Hum as both chant and meditation, opening space for expression and renewal.
On the mat, we’ll work with Virabhadrasana — the warrior poses — to cultivate both strength and softness, grounded courage and receptive heart. Through movement and stillness alike, we’re refining not just flexibility or calm, but capacity.
At Heart Spring Health, I’m deeply excited to begin a new class offering —
Yin–Restore | Wednesdays @ 6:15 PM
A 75-minute practice to unwind and ground, blending gentle movement, long-held Yin shapes, and restorative postures. It’s a space to transition from doing into being.
If your days have been full, if you’re longing for stillness with courage — this is for you.
→ View details & register
We’ll continue before that with Slow Flow Yoga | Wednesdays @ 4:45 PM, and of course our ongoing Friday Flow (Online, 8 AM) and Community Circle (Online, Wednesdays 11 AM) — places to reconnect, breathe, and reset midweek.
Bonus Track for Upliftment
To carry the rhythm forward, a second offering for your week —
“I Am (DJ Taz Rashid Rework)”
A vibrant, expansive soundscape to brighten your spirit and awaken prana through movement or meditation.
As you move through these autumn days, may your awareness — the radiant sun within — bring light to all that needs tending, all that’s ready for renewal.
May you stay steady, fluid, strong, and clear.
May you find the courage to deepen your roots as the trees do — turning inward, gathering strength for what’s next.
“It is courage to slow down when the world demands rushing. It is to choose roots over speed, presence over performance, depth over distraction.” – Mariel Witmond
Here with you in practice.
In radiance & rest, with love & light,
– Maya
Yoga This Week
✨ Community Circle (Online) — Wednesdays @ 11 AM PT
A 30-minute midweek pause for centering, nervous system reset, and heartfelt check-in.
➡ Join Us From Anywhere
Last Week's Centering:
✨ Friday Flow (Online) — Fridays @ 8 AM PT
A mindful, 45 min flow with pranayama and seasonal themes to ground and uplift.
➡ Flow @ Home
✨ Morning Yoga @ Humberside Farm — Saturdays @ 9 AM
All levels welcome. Cozy indoor space. Come for yoga, stay for the gardens, greenery, goats & gathering. Save your spot- full this week join for next!
➡ Details & Registration
✨ Heart Spring Health (SE Portland) — Small-group therapeutic yoga. Space limited, register in advance!
- Slow Flow Yoga | Wed @ 4:45–6 PM
- Ground & Release Yoga | Wed (begins Oct 8) @ 6:15–7:30 PM
✨ Yoga Therapy 1:1 Sessions — In person & virtual
Trauma-informed care for nervous system support and embodied healing.
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