Hello friends,

Summer in Seattle has big yang energy, almost excessive with options. There are festivals, concerts, neighborhood events, farmers markets, hikes, paddles, outdoor movies, and endless invitations to be out doing something. June kicks us off with Pride festivities, and this year the city was absolutely bursting with World Cup mania. I recently read a Seattle Times article about something called “sunshine guilt” – the pressure to make the most of our idyllic but fleeting PNW weather + everything happening this time of year.

Paradoxically, July and August are the months when I intentionally try to do less in the productive realm.

For someone who genuinely loves saying yes to life, that isn’t always easy. I love being engaged in things: learning, exploring, working, playing, and making the most of what a season has to offer. But I've come to realize that one of summer’s greatest gifts isn’t just abundance – it’s the opportunity to slow down enough to actually enjoy the thing you are choosing to embrace.

That’s (part of ) why I take a summer hiatus from my group classes each July and August. I don’t schedule workshops, series, or special events during these months. I do continue working with my private clients, but even so, summer naturally brings a different rhythm. Most clients travel, spend time with family, or simply have altered routines – and I wholeheartedly support that! Summer is a season for freedom, spaciousness, and embracing a different pace.

This month’s newsletter is simple: I’m sharing some photos from my own summer adventures, and a William Stafford poem I discovered displayed by a creek on one of those outings. It felt like a reminder of exactly the kind of life I’m hoping to cultivate – winter’s wisdom in the middle of summer’s glory, and vice versa.

Whatever your summer looks like, I hope there’s an abundance of joy, simplicity, and the spaciousness to truly savor it.

With summer blessings,
Nicole

Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
— William Stafford

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Summer Abundance

Nicole Bratt Yoga