Insights and Inspiration

The Sweetest September- Heart Centered Grounding & Gathering into Autumn

"Day and night meeting as equals, before the season tips toward shadows. A time to honor the turning of the wheel and the invitation to turn inward. The light has been long and generous. And now, the invitation is to listen. to gather. to begin the descent with care."
- Iris Verbass for Mabon and the Autumn Equinox

Hello sweet seekers,

As I come to share after a soft sunrise, crisp air, AM yoga and a midday nature walk with my furbaby, the pitta midday warmth and fuel have called me to the page.

No matter your day so far — the challenges ahead, the commitments or evening responsiblities, the unresolved griefs and hurts waiting for you to witness — let's take a moment to pause.

To return and remember.
To take in this moment.
To reconnect with yourself, your heart, and the life that is here.

Garden Music- Kevin McLeod's from our community circles and the Coming Home Playlist. Let it accompany your reading today — a moment of pause, presence, and homecoming.

For those new to these letters, this is where I share what's been on my head and heart as we move through the season. If you're here for offerings, schedule, seasonal images, or further resources, you'll find those waiting for you at the bottom.

With a hand on my heart, I want to express my gratitude for your time, your dedication to your healing, and the ways your practices ripple outward into your communities.

Om Shanti Shanti. Deep Peace.

Just past my solar return — my birthday — simplicity and potency showed up through friends and family in ways I hadn't anticipated. Communities I have cultivated reflected their care back to me. Nature, too, seemed to be saying: witness and receive in the depth of your garden.

I found myself receiving without grasping.

Perhaps this is part of abhyasa and vairagya — the devotion to showing up, alongside the willingness to loosen our grip on how we think things are supposed to unfold.

So too, aparigraha — the delicate practice of non-grasping. Enjoying life fully, and letting it go.

Like the breath, trusting the exhale for the next inbreath. The next phase. The next sunrise.

The sweetest September.

And so, wherever you find yourself as we cross this threshold, give yourself permission to own your next breath.

"You are enough, exactly as you are, exactly as you were, exactly as you will be. You are an integral part, of those you love, of those you've never met. Connected as you are, how could you ever be less? The abundance of your wholeness proves the illusion of scarcity, the delusion of paucity. You have what you seek within. You are everything you need." - Yoga Almanac

Rooted enough to open

I am always drawn to the language of the chakras — these maps that invite us to consider the many dimensions of being human.

At the root, Muladhara, we remember the right to be here. To belong. To have a body, a home, a place within the larger web of life.

At the heart, Anahata, we remember the right to love and be loved.

And at the crown, Sahasrara, we remember connection, integration, and our relationship with something larger than ourselves. The deepest purples.

Root. Heart. Crown.

Ground. Green. Purple.

There is something about the connection between these centers that feels especially alive to me this season: the ability to be rooted enough to remain open.

I have certainly felt the opposite — the pressures of the work week, the fires of responsibility, the to-do list that somehow keeps growing.

Fire fuels air.

As we move from the fiery, focused qualities of pitta toward the lighter, more mobile qualities of vata, autumn asks something different of us.

Not necessarily to do more.

But to retain our fire while returning to earth.

To nourish the roots.
To strengthen the heart.
To build ojas — that deep reserve of vitality, nourishment, immunity, and steadiness that allows us to meet life without continually running ourselves empty.

This is a season for practices that help us ground, gather, digest, and return.

Warmth. Slower rhythms. Nourishing food.
Consistent rest. Strength and mobility. Breath.
Community. Time in nature.

The season of letting go, loss & longing

Autumn is also a season of gathering — and of letting go.

The calendars fill. Responsibilities return. And yet nature begins asking us to slow down.

The other morning, listening to the rain and wind move through the trees, I was reminded how quickly things can change.

A friend's body broken in an unexpected fall.
Close family's unexpected loss of a beloved fur baby.
Disasters outside of our control that can turn us from joys, contentment, to pain and sorrow, to suffering in an instant. The ongoing struggles to stay above, one paycheck from instability, one moment can change our trajectory.
It can be hard to fathom we were made for this.
The waves of grief, tenderness, hurt, and longing that move through a human life.

And then I look at the trees. To the sunsets and rises. The Moon.

As the light changes, they begin drawing their nutrients inward. The green gives way to yellows, oranges, reds, rusts, and golds — shades that were there all along.

Personally, this season also brings the anniversary of my late father's solar return — another year of learning and loving through revisiting the life as it is reflected through my mind, my emotions, my body- his life so challenged and so beautiful.

The joys and the hurt continue to dance in complexity in my heart.

To what is unjust.
To the fun, laughter, adventure.
To trying to do our best.
To struggle and adversity.
To indulgence, pain, deterioration, and the embracing through action the values that bring out the best versions of ourselves.

The price of love is loss. And loss is longing. Longing met through connection, through compassion. Through your heart in action.

It is tender, and it is also part of what fuels us to keep showing up — to live and love better.

For those that are in a time of embodied distress.

This is where I find myself returning to the Brahmaviharas: loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity.

Qualities we can practice remembering.

When things are difficult, can we meet ourselves with compassion?

When life is uncertain, can we practice upeksha — staying present without needing everything to resolve immediately?

For those of you moving through embodied distress, grief, transition, or simply a particularly full season:

May there be gentleness here.

May you not have to rush your way through.

Full moon Sept 26th. Libra season, Aries- closer to your spark.

"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear." — Rumi

Listening for the spark

The full moon on September 26th arrived within Libra season, bringing me back to the relationship between balance and spark.

Libra asks us to consider harmony, relationship, reciprocity, and the ways we show up for others alongside ourselves.

And just beyond that balance lives Aries: the spark, the instinct, the part of us that knows:

I am here. I want this. I am alive.

Perhaps the invitation is simply to listen more closely.

What brings you closer to your spark?

Which conversations leave you clearer?

Which choices make you feel more present in your own life?

Can you orient from a place of balance and compassion while still listening for what wants to come alive?

What is the spark within the ordinary moments?

The season of shadow doesn't mean we lay dormant. It means we refine. Tend. Allow the gifts of your year's fire horse, the sparks, to remaining steadfast to deepen and align. To allow such that whatis meant for you will unfold.

Day by day, practice by practice, little death by little death.

The abundance is already here. You are everything you need.

Seasonal recommendations

Tend your vata. Build your ojas. Come home.

This season, I'm inviting you toward practices that support balance in the windy season of vata, while tending the fire cultivated through summer's pitta.

Warmth.
Warm beverages, nourishing meals, layers, blankets, candlelight.

Rhythm.
Consistent sleep, regular meals, slower mornings, practices that help the body know what to expect.

Connection.
Gathering with people who nourish you. Sharing a meal. Calling someone you love. Letting yourself be part of a community.

Grounding.
Walking. Resting. Feeling your feet. Spending time outside. Returning to the body when the mind has traveled too far ahead.

Less, but more intentionally.
Fewer practices, perhaps — but ones that are more potent.

Yoga Focus this month: Practices that Ground. Strengthen Immunity & Support Harmony & Heart.

Reflections: What has this year given you? What is worth carrying forward in the Autumn season of harvest?

How do you honor your own wants while you show up for the people you love?

Where in your life are you being invited to restore balance?

What if you embraced the conditions and choices that allow you to orient from a place of equanimity?

Listen long enough to recognize the abundance that is already here.

Thank you for continuing to show up — for yourself, for your community, for this precious and sometimes tender life.

Keep going.
Keep gathering.
Keep returning home.

May the balance of the season bring peace, gratitude, and a bountiful harvest to you and your home. Here with you in practice.

In radiance & rest,
with love & light,
Maya

Feel free to leave comments or reflections below.

Weekly Yoga with Maya

🌿 Providence St. Vincent | SW Portland (Free + Accessible)
Mondays | • 9:00 AM Rise • 10:00 AM Stability @Basecamp

🌿 HeartSpring Health | SE Portland - Now in MindBody
Small-group therapeutic wellness, community, and movement.
• Embodied Yoga Therapy (Small Group) — Tues 10:00 AM
(Through Sept: Moves to Wed @ 6:15pm beginning October)
• Slow Flow — Wed 4:45 PM

Final Days of Founders Rates through September.
Radiant Health $89/month & Mind/Body Bundles $79/month.
Prices increase over $100 per month. Class passes available.
Email membershipmanager@heartspringhealth.com to take advance of low rates.

🏡 Practice From Anywhere — via Zoom
Seasonal, Ayurvedic-inspired practices
• Community Circle (Free) — Wed 11:00 AM
30 min centering, nervous system support & connection.
• Friday Flow (Pay What You Can) — Fri 8:00 AM
45 min full body mat based yoga.
• Yoga Therapy & Individualized Support available year-round

View the full schedule, details, subbing and offerings on my Classes page.

My Seasonal Sites in the Autumnal Transitions