Wintering Wellness: Tending Your Spirit in 2026
“Winter doesn’t rush us toward action. It restores the internal ground required for truth—so what comes next doesn’t cost us ourselves.”
— Tonyalynne, The Courage Practice
Soundscape for today’s letter: The Atlantean Frequency — Elements of Water & Air, reflecting the recent Wolf Full Moon in Cancer alongside January’s colder vata rhythm. (Explore more in the Coming Home Playlist)
New year blessings, sweet friends,
I’m writing to you midday Tuesday, after several days of cold symptoms and necessary restoration. I’ve just risen from a deep, supportive rest—three blankets, cushions, a bolster, an eye pillow, and a whole lot of patience. Constructive Rest, pranayama, and open-heart savasana became my medicine, nourishing body, mind, and spirit after a string of less restful nights.
Winter has been asking something very real of me: to slow down, to listen more carefully, to tend what’s fragile without judgment. Illness is named in the Yoga Sutras as one of the hindrances that can obscure clarity—and still, it offers humility and grace. A reminder to appreciate the moments of ease when they return, and to honor the body’s wisdom when it asks for care.
It is vata season after all—cold, dry, restless qualities that can be especially demanding as we learn how to winter well.
So I’ll ask you, gently:
How are you wintering?
Last year at this turning, I wrote about embracing and committing as anchors. This year, the inquiry feels quieter and more intimate and wholehearted:
How is your spirit?
How are you nourishing it?
Spirit has become my word for the year—or perhaps more honestly, my living question. Letting spirit guide capacity, priorities, and care. Trusting that when the spirit is tended, the rest can reorganize with more ease, more vitality, and more heart.
January invites us into Nourish & Restore. In nature, the season carries vata qualities—airy, spacious, restless, dry. Many of us feel this as scattered energy, tender immunity, disrupted sleep, or a low hum of anxiety. Winter invites us to meet these qualities with water and warmth—slowing down, circulating gently, and tending our reserves.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, winter supports the kidney and urinary bladder meridians, associated with deep vitality, will, and our capacity to meet life. Yin practices, pranayama, gentle flow, warmth, and steady presence help soothe what feels chilled or depleted, supporting the quiet, unseen work happening beneath the surface.
One of the teachings I continue to lean on to understand my nervous system and inner landscape is the wisdom of the gunas. In balance, they carry these qualities:
- Tamas — rest, stability, nourishment
- Rajas — movement, circulation, activation
- Sattva — clarity, harmony, balance
The gunas mirror the nervous system and offer accessible orientation. A way to listen more honestly.
So again, softly:
How is your spirit right now?
What would support it—more enlivening or more softening? Warmth? Simplicity? Rest? Space to simply be?
Perhaps it’s movement—dance, song, gentle strength.
Perhaps it’s stillness—longer exhales, quiet evenings, focused presence.
Perhaps it’s tending the fire of focus so that downtime truly restores.
The practices I’m offering in the coming weeks are shaped by this listening—working gently with stuck prana and lymph, easing vata tendencies, and nourishing vitality with more presence and less force. An invitation to surrender to the body’s wisdom and allow steadiness—and spirit—to shine naturally.
If you’d like to practice together, you’re warmly invited.
Upcoming Offerings
- Heart Spring Health (Sellwood)
Morning classes Mon, Tues & subbing + a 2-week unlimited class special - Wednesday Wellness
• Online Community Circle
• In-person Flow or Yin/Restore at HeartSpring - Friday Flow (Online)
A grounding, enlivening practice to support vitality and steady energy - Saturday @ Humberside Loft
Space is open — tea, treats, and connection always follow practice - New: Monday Free Accessible Classes
Beginner-friendly, in-person, and welcoming
@ Basecamp Providence St. Vincent
View the complete, updated schedule and register here:
www.mayalakeyoga.com/classes
As we ease into the new year, may tending your spirit be your compass.
May water and warmth support whatever is stirring, resting, or ready to move.
In radiance & rest,
with love & light,
Maya
