D ear Readers,

And just like that, we move into the season of back to school, football games and campfires as my oldest son moves out of the house and onto his next adventure—college. While he won’t be too far away (just an hour), life as we’ve known it for the past 18 years will be different. Our regular family dinners of four will now be three, a bedroom will sit empty until school breaks and holidays and my younger son will have full-time kitty litter, dinner time and lawn-mowing duties—as much as he will miss his brother, I know he’s not crazy about the extra chores or attention he’ll get from mom and dad!

       Change can be both stressful and exciting; I’m trying to focus on being excited because I know deep down that this is a good, important time in our lives. When I do feel stressed I turn to yoga and meditation, which is why this issue is always one of my favorites—our annual yoga issue. In it, you will find yoga profiles of local teachers and studios committed to the well-being of our community, an article about strategies yoga teachers use to maintain their practice on and off the mat and a spotlight on kundalini yoga, a type of yoga that always elevates my energy and mood in such a positive way.

       In addition to meditation and yoga, walking helps me find my calm—especially when I’m listening to a podcast that can distract, teach and inspire me. Lately, I have been enjoying local empowerment coach and spiritual feminist, Joni Advent Maher’s podcast, Trust Your Sacred Feminine Flow. With each episode, I learn about something I want to explore further or implement in my life.

       We all need ways to take ourselves out of the minutiae of our lives and see the bigger picture—what are some ways that you bring calm and clarity into your lives?

       A friend of mine recently shared this poem by Seth Godin and I feel it touches on the very heart of accepting change and purposefully enjoying what is. Life is about the journey. Life is change. It really makes you think…

You’ve arrived.

It’s easy to fall in love with the GPS version of the universe.

There, just ahead, after that curve. Drive a little further, your destination is almost here.

Done. You’ve arrived. Of course, that’s not how it works.
Not our careers, not our relationships, not our lives.

You’ve always arrived. You’ve never arrived.

Wherever you go, there you are. You’re never going to arrive
because you’re already there.

There’s no division between the painful going and the joyous arriving.
If we let it, the going can be the joyful part.

It turns out that arrival isn’t the point, it can’t be,
because we spend all our time on the journey.

Happy Reading!

Jessica