Are You Even Feeling Like Summer Yet?
Summer has officially started in the Northern Hemisphere on June 21st. But are you feeling light in your feet? Are you feeling open at heart and expansive?
I’ve realised that when summer starts I get this subtle pressure — a quiet angst — that I should be ready for it. Like we’ve made it all the way here. But for some reason I always feel like I’m still not there yet. At that peak point. That I’m not feeling all that expansive the way the summer solstice should be nudging me towards. I’m still not loud in its presence. Full. Ripe. Suspended.
I still carry my stresses and contractions around. My tightenings and fears. I want to expose and expand my belly floating face-up in the ocean and yet something keeps tugging my leg down.
I know that after moments of feeling expansive, contraction may knock at the door. All it takes is a phone call, a message, or a passing moment that can succesfully pull me out of the joie de vivre. That sudden drop from aliveness to fear, from fullness to freeze.
Fortunately, this month—guided by the Jivamukti Focus of the Month—I’m learning that it’s possible to feel supported even in the midst of a fall. Ease can coexist with discomfort, and expansion is possible even within contraction, as long as we bring one essential ingredient to the table: acceptance. In the face of difficulty, acceptance invites us to soften rather than tense up. And the beautiful part? When we relax, we create space for joy to rise.
Maybe that’s where many of us are — hovering between “I’ve come so far” and “What now?” Between ambition and rest. Between the brightness we’ve built and the quiet we secretly crave. The truth is: we’re not meant to grow endlessly.
We’re meant to pulse.
To rise and fall.
To build and empty.
To burn and cool.
To inhale and exhale, a beautiful dance of opposites.
I really like how it’s put in the Jivamukti June 2025 FOTM: “We can hold ourselves and others upright through difficult times. We can find the teachings in the fall as well. Yoga asks of us to plug into the life that is already around us, to be here now. To forgo escaping from struggle and suffering and instead to experience the fire; use the lifting element of heat to raise ourself out of overwhelm and contraction; from worry to trust, from anger to forgiveness, victimhood to sovereignty. Stepping out of a scarcity mentality into one of abundance and gratitude. It begins with us.”
You don’t have to do anything grand or cosmic to honor this season. Just be present with the life that’s already here and around you. The peak—the geological high point and the astrological zenith of summer—has arrived, and you are allowed to pause here. To feel the edge. To not rush the turn. To mark this moment not with urgency, but with attention.
Why doesn’t it feel like summer yet? Maybe because the whole concept of summer has shifted for me. The grand, sweeping idea I once held of summer—full of big plans and bright highlights—has quietly softened into something else: small, fleeting moments of presence and joy. I’ve come to find comfort in what the Sanskrit word “Anu” describes—the smallest particle, the subtlest presence, the essence of something barely perceptible yet deeply significant. And maybe this is my big summer: a season made of what’s smallest—but also most essential. The quiet, delicate shifts within. Nothing grandiose. Just presence.
Like coming home to find my partner and our two-year-old fast asleep together in bed. Like walking through the hot streets of Madrid and catching that perfect burst of cool air as I pass by a shop’s open door. Like the first moment my feet touch the sea after days of sweating in sandals on sun-scorched asphalt.
This, I’ve realized, is my big summer. A season made not of grandeur, but of presence. Of tiny, vivid Athas—from the Sanskrit “Atha” (अथ), meaning “now,” an auspicious beginning, or the sacred threshold of presence—moments that feel enormous simply because I’m truly here for them.
I live for these Anus—the smallest, most subtle shifts—that somehow feel so grandiose
Yours in the turning,
Fernanda & the Asana Groove team