Summer Break: A Week of Breath Practice

A Five-Day Summer Immersion in Breath, Heart & Seasonal Nourishment

July 20–24 · 9–10 am EST Live on Zoom

5 mornings · 60 minutes daily · recordings included

$50; free for PORTALS members
with Dages Juvelier Keates

We are at the apex of summer — the sun high and generous, the days long and ripe, the fruits of the season dripping their sweetness for us. Summer is the element of fire: the heart, the tongue, the climate of heat, the color red. It's the high-yang season of sociality, sensuality, and creative expansion. And like all things ripe and hot, too much will leave us burned out.

For five mornings, we gather for an hour to chill out, drop in, and practice our living material with techniques that are dynamic and subtle, practical and poetic, grounding and ecstatic. We'll learn to tend the fire and to cool down.

The Five Days

Day One — Landing in the Long Light Breath is autonomic — your body will breathe wherever it can find room, like the dandelion in the sidewalk crack. And yet we have this little loophole, this side door, where the conscious mind gets to go in and play. We orient to the deck and land the body with a long, even, coherent breath — the breath of the tides — before we touch the fire.

Day Two — Tending the Fire The body has three heat sources: the fire of Kundalini, the heart as the fiery organ of summer, and the fire of imagination. Today we pump the bellows — cleansing breath and bellows breath — with arm wraps that set up the skeletal drape like a beautiful summer jacket. Fire rises up the back; water pours down the front. You are always the one in the steamy middle.

Day Three — Cooling It Fire's gift turns to burnout if we don't know how to cool down. Today is the antidote: Fever Easer, Moon Breath, and cooling tongue breaths, plus the self-soothing breath with the long exhale held out double the inhale. Paired with Water Salutations — all the flow, none of the chaturanga — and juicy hip work, this is your toolkit for infernal subway platforms and overripe parties alike.

Day Four — The Social Heart Summer belongs to the heart, the most social of organs, whose tissue is congruent with the tongue. Today we sound: Bee Breath and humming for heart-brain coherence, opened by eagle wraps, hidden prayers, and shoulder flossing to reorient the sternum. A day for sensuality and connection — feeling the fire that nourishes us, and learning to share its warmth.

Day Five — Sneaky Magic & Real Nourishment We close in the invisible suit: the sneaky breaths you can do anywhere, all year, that nobody needs to know about — at a traffic light, on the subway, in the middle of an overheated room. We seal the week with a midsummer anointing oil to carry you through the year, and writing toward the authentic self — sometimes with the non-dominant hand, the one on the side of the heart — around the question at the center of it all: what is real nourishment for me, now?

Why Summer?

In Five Element Theory, summer belongs to fire — the heart, the tongue, the climate of heat. It's the season when the great ball of energy hovers longest in the sky, the season of radiance and connection. This is the perfect moment to go out, expand, and luxuriate in sensuality — while learning the pleasurable strategies that keep us hydrated, cool, and replenished, so we don't get fried.

What You'll Receive

• A digital download of the Breath Magic card guidebook — the full companion to the deck's 52 practices (plus wild cards)

• Five live morning practices (60 min each), with recordings if you can't attend live

• A guided journey through all four suits plus the wild cards — from kapalabhati and bhastrika to nadi shodhana, ujjayi, bhramari, and box breathing

• A Summer Break! manual: cooling breath techniques and heart-opening pranayama, Water Salutations and juicy asana, folk recipes for urban weeds (linden, mugwort, red clover, wild rose, yarrow, elderflower), and a midsummer anointing oil ritual

• A digital download of Radical Acts of Embodiment

Details

• Where: Online via Zoom — recordings available if you can't join live

• When: July 20–24 (Monday–Friday), 9–10 am EST · five mornings, one hour each

• Price: $50 | free for Portals members

• Led by: Dages Juvelier Keates

Join Us

This is not a workshop about "purging" or "fixing." It is an invitation to befriend yourself — all the yous you have ever been — to move toward pleasure, rest, connection, and joy, and to root into a summer practice of abundance and ease. May we play heartily this season and enjoy connections that will nourish us for seasons to come.

Reserve your place and step into the long, golden light of summer.