Welcome to a love letter, a monthly publication from artist, writer and yoga teacher Colby Mackenzie featuring stories of my loving practices and support for yours. Thanks for being here.
Hello loves!
It was a full moon this past Friday - a Harvest Super Moon!
It was a moon announcing the new season, a season of many things.
Fall can be a time of:
harvest
release/letting go/shedding like the trees shed their leaves
action/busyness/beginnings like the new school and federal fiscal years
It’s a time of reaping the summer crops we sowed and stashing away our tiny nuts to keep us safe over the winter.
For me, that looks like focusing on work projects I planted the seeds for in the spring and summer, prioritizing a daily routine that starts much earlier (a real challenge for me), and refilling my dusty coffers.
How does your autumnal season look?
I bet you there’s a million things to do. A billion things going on that require your attention.
But not all the time.
We must balance the busy, offset the doing of all our good, important work.
Remember, yoga is the union of opposites.
We unite autumn’s activity with its opposite: inactivity.
So, my seasonal challenge for us is:
to find pockets of rest amidst the doing.
For to rest is a rule of living, one we need to continue to prioritize in order to function.
And it can be continually challenging in our wild times to find adequate space (and permission) to get some.
But there’s a way.
And the way, as always, is practice.
aka the cat nap you never knew you needed.
I found the most lovely cat-nap-inducing Savasana practice for free on Insight Timer, a meditation app.
Savasana is Sanskrit for corpse pose in yoga and typically ends a class.
This particular guided savasana practice contains great lessons for the Fall season of letting go and how letting go can actually be a commitment to living.
It’s a good practice for those of us that need a little help letting go of control :).
The teacher’s voice is soothing and creates a safe container.
I hope you use the recording take the break you need or use this practice to help you find a more easeful way into sleep.
In the space between the doing, may you give yourself energy back.
Watching: the AMC show Discovery of Witches, available on HBO. It’s about an alchemy professor who learns she’s a witch. I am obsessed with the main character, Diana. Her professor style and non-nonsense attitude. I’ve been fantasizing about my dream boots-dark jeans-blazer matching my eye color-long hair carelessly yet chicly tossed about look. The actress who plays her, Teresa Palmer, also seems cool as hell (she’s an Aussie mom of 5, married to a fellow actor, and hosts a podcasts for mothers).
Eating: olive-oil-fried chickpeas and homemade chicken noodle soup sans the noods to heal my system after summer travel & partying.
Reading: The Torrents of Spring by Ernest Hemingway, a novella contained in this beautiful leather-bound collection of his works I picked up at Dolly’s Bookstore in Park City. Hemingway’s style reminds me of the writer’s role as observer, a discipline helping to shape my own latest work (stay tuned!).
If you are tired, watch tired from the place within you that is not tired.
That’s all for now folx!
Lots of love,
Colby
P.S.
The new banner design inspo comes from romcom writer Georgia Clark’s charming Substack newsletter, Heartbeat, and I’ve paused paid subscriptions for now.
In the meantime, if you’d like to support me/my work, feel free to donate anytime via my PayPal. Many, many thanks!
A HUGE thank you to the Love Letter Fans who have supported me and my work this past year! Your investment went towards keeping me afloat during a very challenging period.