sun solar summer
June 2024 (Issue #47)
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!
We made it! Summer is soon upon us.
Mary Oliver calls it the season of “luminous gifts.”
Luminous means “full of or shedding light; bright or shining, especially in the dark.”
The sun shines upon the world and fills it with energy, the energy necessary to grow.
In yoga, we think of this solar energy as “sthira”, which is a sanskrit word meaning steadiness or strength.
And in yoga, we are always aiming to unify opposites, and what opposes the sthira energy is “sukkha”, or ease.
So may you find both your sthira and your sukkha this summer, the energy to be active in the world and the permission to take it easy. If we do these things in roughly the same quantities, we reach balance or equilibrium. Homeostasis.
This is very difficult in our society where the solar/masculine/sthira forces seem to dictate most of our days regardless of season. Always needing to do more! Work harder! Keep working! Harder!!!!!
But if we do that all day every day, just like if the sun ruled us day and night, we would burn up to a crisp.
Remember the lunar/feminine/sukkha force too. Incorporate it in equal measure.
And not only will you sustain yourself this summer season, but each season to come.
May you enjoy that childlike excitement for summer and all the luminous gifts the season brings.
Get that vitamin D. Work harder outside in your garden than you do on your computer. Steal naps in a hammock. Lay around like a seal on the beach. Pretend you’re a European living on the Mediterranean without a care in the world. Then take all those cares and do something with them. Then rest again.
As always, it is a practice.
As always, I send love and light your way.
Colby
PS. It’s Father’s Day on June 16th! Happy Father’s Day to my own, Michael Geary Sheffer, and to my mama’s father Grampy. Shoutout to all the loving dads out there who are making the world a better place simply by loving their children. We love you we need you.
PPS. I’d love to know what you’re most excited about this coming summer! Bubsy and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary (!) in Greece and Croatia in July - I CANNOT EFFING WAIT. Tell us what you’ve got cookin!