The Autumn Equinox is less than a month away in the UK – the perfect time to take up a seasonal approach to yoga.
As a queer trans non-binary person, observing the seasons helps me with mental well-being on a few levels:
- The turning of the seasons is a reminder that ‘this too shall pass’ when times are tough.
- Leaning into the joy of the present season asks us to celebrate what is here right now, without being too future focused.
- It encourages exploration of our own personal seasons on our queer journey.
If you’d like to start working with the seasons, my top recommendation is to get Jilly Shipway’s book Yoga Through the Year: A Seasonal Approach to your Practice. I can also recommend Jilly’s online seasonal courses. Read on for more details of the courses – and how you might be able to attend for free!
Studying Seasonal Yoga Online
Yoga Through the Year is one of my most well-thumbed yoga books, coming off the bookshelf every equinox, solstice, and cross-quarter day. So I was thrilled recently when I nabbed a free spot on one of Jilly’s seasonal online courses.
You can sign up for her newsletter to be in with a chance of winning one of her discount codes.
I completed the Lammas course, which is also known as the first harvest, and takes place in the first week of August in the Northern Hemisphere. It was really helpful to get daily reminders to focus my attention on the turning of the seasons.
I particularly enjoyed:
- working with the same affirmation every day, taken from the Yoga Sutras, and matching it to movements
- seeing how my relationship with the affirmation changed over the week as I changed with the course
- the journal questions, and observing how they made a real-world difference to my everyday life.
The course was a good reminder that discipline really does pay off – and that discipline can be fun! But like many people, I found it’s easier to reconnect with that discipline whilst being part of a course.
Queering Yoga: A Seasonal Approach
For me, the hardest journal question during the 7 days of Lammas was this:
“Am I able to acknowledge suffering in both my own life and other people’s lives while at the same time still appreciate and enjoy the beauty of life?”
Oof, this is tricky! But it also speaks to the essence of yoga, especially Queer Yoga. Our practice is not about denying the value and power of anger, or any other emotion which might feel challenging, such as grief or loneliness. Yoga is about making space for it all.
The amount of depressing news for queer people can be overwhelming at times. Earlier this year, the UK dropped to 22nd out of 49 countries for LGBTQIA+ rights on the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map. We were 1st place in 2015 and 22nd in 2025 represents an all-time low.
Although the fight for equal rights can be heavy, we have to simultaneously look for ways to enjoy the present. After all, how can the younger generation have hope for their own future if they can’t see queer adults also enjoying life?
Queer rage can be useful. There are so many movements for positive change that have come about as a result of anger. But the question is whether we can harness our anger and use it at appropriate moments in constructive ways, rather than being controlled by our emotions.
Can we still feel the queer rage *and* experience queer joy?
The answer must be yes, because otherwise what is the point in equal rights if there is no joy to be had in queerness? But Jilly’s journal questions stayed with me, long after the course had finished. It helped me re-examine my relationship with suffering, which ultimately felt like exploring my relationship with yoga and queerness.
How to Start Making your Yoga Practice More Seasonal:
- Sign up for Jilly’s Autumn Equinox workbook online and / or 7 day Samhain course.
- Sign up for her newsletter to look out for discount codes and news of the next courses.
- Buy Jilly’s book Yoga Through the Year.
- Pre-order your copy of Queer Yoga (out April 2026).
A Note on Allyship
Queer Yoga, my first book coming out in April 2026, takes a month by month approach to yoga, working through the calendar year. This was heavily inspired by Jilly’s book mentioned above.
I took her fabulous course about yoga writing, and in a great act of allyship, she suggested I send off a submission for my Queer Yoga book idea to her publisher, Llewellyn Worldwide, which they accepted!
In a transphobic and homophobic world, it meant a lot that Jilly straight away saw the value in creating a whole book specifically for LGBTQIA+ yogis – and she’s championed the project all the way towards publication. Cheers Jilly!
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