Leslie Lovlin - Inner Sage Ayurveda

Fall is beautiful around the cabin right now. The leaves are turning, the air is cooler, and I’m feeling that pull toward warmth and a slower pace. Fall has a certain smell to it.

This month I been back in the Shanti seeing clients and doing treatments. Yesterday was an Abhyanga and Shirodhara treatment using the herbalised oils I made last week. There is so much care that goes into making these oils, and I love bringing them into my treatments.

This is one of my favourite combinations for this time of year. Abhyanga is a full-body massage with warm herbalised oil, followed by Shirodhara, where a steady stream of warm oil flows gently over the forehead. Time to lie down, be cared for, and let yourself rest.

In Ayurveda, fall is Vata season, associated with qualities of cold, dryness and movement. We respond with warmth, nourishment and steady rhythms. These treatments are a beautiful way to bring that care into the season.

I’ve come to appreciate how much it matters to slow down and make time for my own care. Having a space where you can settle in, feel warm, and be looked after is something I love offering here at the cabin.

https://innersage.ca/collections/treatments

Where did September go!

I walked across the bridge this morning to the Shanti and stopped to look at the trees, listen to the waterfall and take in the smells of fall. The leaves have started to turn, the air is a little crisp, but the sun still felt warm on my face. By evening, I’m ready for a sweater, a fire and something warm for supper.

I love this part of the year. I also know I feel better when I pay attention to the change instead of carrying my summer pace straight into October.

So that’s what I’m making room for at Inner Sage.

Sacred Pause Sangha starts back up again and we gather online the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month starting in October. It’s time set aside to be present with ourselves and with each other.

On October 4, I’ll begin the Fall Nourishing Cleanse alongside the group. For three weeks, we’ll bring more warmth and simplicity to our meals and daily lives, with live Sunday calls and a final Q&A on October 25.

The Path to Ojas begins October 29. Over six weeks, we’ll take a closer look at nourishment, energy, and the rhythms that support us beyond one season.

There are treatment appointments available in the Shanti and the Inner Sage shop is open for the oils, teas, and other things you enjoy using at home. I’ll share dates for the next Ayurveda Bliss Therapy Training when they’re confirmed.

You may already know exactly what you want more of this fall. A place to gather. Time on the treatment table. Support to eat and live in a way that feels good. Whatever draws you in, I’d love to welcome you.

October details are here in the link.

www.innersage.ca

~ Leslie

I noticed it the other evening.

The day had been warm, but as soon as the sun started to go down, the temperature changed almost immediately, and I reached for a sweater.

The mornings are cooler now and the morning light is changing. The evenings are coming sooner and Mother Nature is already moving into the beautiful colors of fall.

And I can feel that same shift happening in my body.

I'm wanting warmer food and more routine, earlier evenings, less rushing and a little more grounding.

This is one of the things I love about Ayurveda. It reminds us that our bodies are not separate from the seasons around us.

Summer tends to bring more heat, activity, longer days and often less routine. Then fall arrives with cooler air, more dryness and more change.

This transition could have us feeling more tired, scattered, dry, bloated, constipated, restless, colder than usual, or simply feeling like our body is asking us to slow down.

In Ayurveda, this in-between time is called ritusandhi, the junction between two seasons. It is one of the most important times to pay attention, because our bodies are already doing the work of adjusting. The question is whether we support that process or push through it.

Here are a few simple ways to begin supporting yourself right now:

Take a few days to genuinely slow down.
Eat simple, warm, cooked vegetarian food.
Drink warm or hot water between meals throughout the day.
Take a bath or sauna and let your body soften.
Practice some gentle yoga, meditation, or pranayama each day.
Clear out clutter and excess from your home and workspace.
And take a quiet moment to consider what you want to release and what you want to grow.

These are small things. But they are not small in what they do.

That is why I do a fall cleanse. The fall does not want us to strip the body down. In fact it asks us for just the opposite. It is not to punish ourselves for what we ate over summer.

The purpose is to gently release some of the heat and intensity of the season we are leaving, while nourishing the body for the colder months ahead.

For three weeks, we simplify, eating warm, nourishing foods that support our digestion. We come back into rhythm, giving the body a little less to manage and a little more of what it needs.

I'll be doing it right alongside you.

Ayurveda Fall Nourishing Cleanse
October 4–18

Week One — Simplify & Prepare
Week Two — Nourish & Cleanse
Week Three — Rebuild & Integrate

Plus a Bonus Q&A + Integration Call on October 25.

Optional Fall Cleanse Kits are available if you'd like the convenience of having the supportive items gathered for you.

And if you would like more personalized support, private Ayurvedic consultations are also available.

If you can already feel your body asking for a change of pace, this may be the perfect time.

Read the full details and join here:
https://innersage.ca/pages/ayurveda-fall-nourishing-cleanse

~ Leslie

An herb does not earn a place in one of my formulas simply because it is Ayurvedic or because it has an impressive list of benefits.

As an herbalist and formulator I know every ingredient needs a reason for being there.

When I create an herbal product, I begin with its purpose.

Who am I creating it for?
What season will it be used in?
Which dosha and qualities am I supporting?
How do I want the skin and body to feel?
What kind of ritual am I creating?

For this Vata Body Oil, my intention was to create something deeply nourishing, warming and grounding for the cool, dry and mobile qualities of fall.

From there, each ingredient was considered through several different lenses: its traditional Ayurvedic qualities, its relationship with the skin, its safety and sustainability, and the role it plays within the complete formula.

The preparation method matters just as much as the ingredients.

This oil took three days to prepare.

The first stage was creating a strong, concentrated herbal tea, traditionally called a kwatha.

Whole ashwagandha and licorice were slowly simmered in water to draw out their water-soluble qualities. Tulsi was introduced later as it is more delicate. The liquid was then carefully strained, leaving behind a deeply concentrated herbal decoction.

The next stage involved preparing the kalka, which simply means an herbal paste.

Finely powdered brahmi, bala, shatavari, manjistha and spikenard were combined with the concentrated herbal liquid to create a thick paste.

The herbal decoction, paste and nourishing oils were then slowly cooked together. Over many hours, the water gradually evaporated while the qualities of the herbs were carried into the oils.

This stage cannot be rushed.

It requires gentle heat, continual stirring and close attention to changes in the aroma, sound and texture of the oil.

Once the water had evaporated, the herbal material was carefully strained away. After the oil cooled, the final ingredients including vitamin E, St. John’s wort-infused olive oil and the essential oils were added.

More herbs do not automatically make a better product.

A thoughtful formula is not simply a crowded ingredient list. It is a conversation between the plants, with each ingredient contributing something meaningful to the whole.

This is my what and my why.

It is not simply about putting herbs into oil. It is about understanding the plants, choosing the right preparation method and allowing every ingredient to serve the intention of the finished product.

These oils are part of how I bring Ayurveda into lived practice.

I use them in my Ayurvedic treatments, where warm herbal oil, intentional touch and the rhythm of the treatment come together to create a deeply nourishing experience.

They will also be available for people to use at home as part of a daily or seasonal self-care ritual, bringing the grounding practice of abhyanga into everyday life.

This batch is also being prepared for my upcoming Ayurvedic bodywork trainings, where students will learn not only how to use the oils, but how to understand what they are working with, why it was chosen and how it supports the intention of the treatment.

From the treatment room to the home ritual and into the hands of future practitioners, each oil is created with purpose.

This is the work behind the bottle. The part you may not always see, but that matters deeply to me.

Which are you most curious about? The treatments, creating a home ritual or the upcoming bodywork trainings?

The River has always been my place of calm.

I've been quiet all summer. Some of that was rest. Some of it was something heavier than rest has a word for. This summer held a kind of weight that didn't ask permission, it just arrived as I knew it would, and the only thing I knew to do was let myself be in it and move through however it showed up.

I wrote. spent time alone, spent time with family, I harvested my gardens. I napped in the middle of the afternoon because my body asked me to. I cleared out closets and the garage and cleaned the flower beds, walked my dog, all the quiet physical work that let my hands keep moving while the rest of me surrendered to catchup. All of it while grieving however I needed to on any given day.

I know the story that says we should be further along by now, that grief has a timeline, that stepping back means falling behind. I don't think there is a timeline.

Here is what I know now, standing at this water. The river doesn't apologize for the seasons when it runs quiet. It doesn't rush for anyone. It just moves at the pace the land allows, and everything downstream still gets fed.

I'm slowly opening my doors again. Ayurveda bodywork sessions are coming back, as well as client programs and workshops/trainings are taking shape and will be posted soon.

I’m also going to be doing my Fall Ayurveda 3 week nourishing cleanse that will prepare my body to release the summer and get ready for the colder months. If you’d like to join me send me a message and I’ll reach out with the exact date and info for it.

What if the pace you kept was exactly right?

~ Leslie

www.innersage.ca

This Summer, I'm Choosing a Sacred Pause

Over the past several months, many of you have walked alongside me through The Sacred Pause Sangha and The Path to Ojas.

Together we've explored what Ojas truly is, the deep well of nourishment within us that allows us to feel grounded, resilient, and fully alive.

We've talked about the importance of rest, nourishment, resilience, and listening to the quiet whispers of our bodies before they become louder calls for our attention.

As I've been guiding these programs, something beautiful has happened.

These teachings haven't simply been something I've shared with others. They've invited me to listen more deeply to my own life.

This past year has changed me in many ways. Through grief, growth, and the many unexpected turns life has brought, I've come to understand Ojas in a way that no book or classroom could ever teach.

It has reminded me that true healing isn't found in pushing through. It's found in honouring what we need, trusting the season we're in, and allowing ourselves to receive the same care we so freely offer to others.

That is what this summer is becoming for me.
I'll continue guiding The Path to Ojas through July (a new cohort begins in Sept/Oct)and my herbal products, teas, oils, and remedies will continue to be available with shipping and local pickup. But beyond that, I'm choosing a slower rhythm.

I don't have a busy summer planned, and for the first time in many years, that feels exactly right.

You'll likely find me in my gardens, harvesting herbs, spending time with my family, enjoying quiet days in the cabin, reading, creating, and tending to my home. I'll also be taking time to reflect on what still feels aligned in my life and what may be ready to be released before a new season begins.

As inspiration arises, I may also offer the occasional workshop or gathering. Rather than following a full schedule, I’m allowing this season to unfold more naturally.

August marks one year since the loss of our son. Rather than filling every moment, I want to create space to simply be with whatever that season brings. I no longer believe that healing comes from staying busy or pushing through. I believe it comes from listening, honouring what our hearts need, and allowing ourselves the grace to move at a different pace.

This Sacred Pause isn't separate from my work.

It is an expression of everything I've been teaching.

One of the traditions we share inside Sacred Pause Sangha is journeying each month with a plant ally and a goddess. Together they offer wisdom from nature and ancient traditions, helping us connect more deeply with ourselves and the seasons we are living.

For July, our plant ally is Tulsi (Holy Basil), one of Ayurveda's most beloved adaptogenic herbs. Tulsi teaches us that resilience isn't about doing more. It is about adapting with grace, restoring our reserves, and returning to our natural rhythm. She reminds us that slowing down can be one of the most powerful forms of healing.

Our goddess for July is Parvati, the goddess of devotion and inner strength. She reminds us that stepping back isn't stepping away. Sometimes our deepest transformation happens in the quiet moments when we reconnect with ourselves and remember what truly matters.

Together, Tulsi and Parvati remind us that restoration isn't separate from the path.
It is the path.

Perhaps this season is inviting you into your own Sacred Pause.
It doesn't have to be two months. It may simply be an afternoon in your garden, a walk in the woods, an evening with family, or a quiet cup of tea before the day begins.

Whatever it looks like, I hope you honour it.

Thank you for being part of this community and for allowing me the space to live the very teachings I believe in. I'll be here throughout the summer, just at a gentler pace, and I look forward to returning this fall with renewed inspiration, fresh energy, and an even deeper appreciation for this beautiful path we are all walking together.

With love,
~Leslie

You wake up tired and wonder how you will get through the day. You always do, which is exactly why no one sees how much it costs you.

The light reaches its longest this weekend, A day that refused to end, the sun holding the sky open long past the hour your body expected dark.

We are taught to read this as the peak, the height, the celebration of more. But even the sun does not hold this. By next week it begins, quietly, to give the light back. The longest day is also the first day of the slow return toward rest, because nothing in nature was designed to burn at full height without turning.
Neither were you.

You carry fire too, in every decade of your life. In Ayurveda we call it Pitta, the heat that digests food, effort and ambition, the force that gets things done. In your thirties it can feel endless, the way the solstice sun feels like it will never set. You pour it into the work, the children, the building of a life, and it seems there will always be more.

The truth is we were never designed to live in the full fire of life without resting to preserve our reserves. And if you are one of the women who is sleeping and still waking up depleted, still feeling that burnout in every cell, please hear this. This is your body telling you the reserve is running dry, and sleep alone cannot refill it.

The reserve has a name. In Ayurveda it is Ojas, the deep vital essence, the lamp oil of the body, the quiet ground of immunity and steadiness and the sense that you can meet your life without flinching. Fire poured out in every direction, never contained, never directed and burning straight through it.

We are not designed to be on all the time without a crash and burn waiting somewhere ahead. Wearing all the hats is not a badge of honor. It is a slow withdrawal from an account you stopped paying into years ago. And at some point depletion comes knocking, and the cost arrives in the body: the illness that finally lands, the joy that has gone flat, the years you cannot get back because you were too scorched to be inside them.

This is why it matters so much to truly understand yourself and your own life, your own fire, your own rhythm. We've been conditioned to do more.

The fire has never been the enemy.

Anyone who has kept a fire overnight knows you can burn every log you have in one magnificent blaze, or you can keep a little back and have warmth that lasts until the sun comes up. Most of us learn this about fires long before we learn it about ourselves.
So this is the question the longest day hands back to me, and now to you: what is your depletion trying to tell you, and what would it cost you not to listen?

I'm choosing to do it differently now for the time I've been given.
If you feel that turning in your own body as you read this, there is a path back. The Path to Ojas is a six week journey into restoring your reserves, learning your own fire, and keeping it rather than spending it.

It is not too late to join us, and every session is recorded, so nothing is lost if life keeps asking for your time the way it always does. Click the link below to find out more.

https://innersage.ca/pages/the-path-to-ojas

And if a woman came to mind as you read this, someone who has been running on empty longer than she would ever admit, perhaps this found its way to you so you could pass it gently to her.

Happy Solstice,

~ Leslie

Think of a river, and you are standing on the bank.

For many of us, most of our lives, we have been in the water. A worry rises and we are already downstream in it. Someone says the thing, and the current of our reaction has us before we can plant a foot. We are not watching the river. We become the river, churning.

This is not something I teach from the bank, dry and untouched. I learned it the way most of us do, by going under..

To become the witness. To find solid ground and stand on the bank.

The debris is there, going by in the current. The argument you did not finish. The diagnosis. The friend who is struggling. The old regret that surfaces every spring. Piece after piece floating past, and every one of them calling your name.

Here is what i invite you to start to notice. The moment you see the debris, every instinct says jump in. Save it. Pull it out. You have spent decades doing exactly that, in the water before you have thought, going under with the very thing you meant to rescue. You did not save it. The river just took you both.
So you learn to stand on the bank and look first.

Some debris you let go by. It is not yours to carry, and watching it pass is not the same as not caring. It is the hardest love there is.
Some things you do go in for. But you put the life jacket on first. You keep one foot on the ground. You reach for what you can actually reach, and you know the way back before you ever step off the bank.

That knowing is the whole practice. Discernment. The clear seeing before you move: Is this mine to pull from the water? Can I reach it without going under? What is the cost, to me and to everyone who needs me whole, if I drown trying?

And the things that keep you jumping in have names. Obligation, the voice that says it is your job, it has always been your job, who else will do it if you do not. Guilt, the one that arrives the moment you even think about staying on the bank, whispering that keeping your own feet dry is selfish. They always disguise themselves as love, which is why they are so hard to refuse. They are not small feelings. They are the current itself, pulling you off the bank before your clear seeing ever gets a word in.

You are not trying to dam the river. The water will always move. The debris will always come.

The practice is learning to stand beside the river, see what it carries, and choose with clear eyes which pieces to let pass and which to wade in for, life jacket on and feet on the ground, the way home already known before you ever step off the bank.
This is not always easy.

So I will leave you with this. Of everything moving through your water today, what is truly yours to pull out, and what have you been drowning for that was only ever meant to float past?

~ Leslie

Today was the first session of The Path to Ojas.

I want to thank the women who showed up and the ones who were not able to attend but will watch the recording.

You came tired. Some of you said it plainly. I feel alone. I feel hopeless. I want to find my way back to who I was.

What struck me most was how many of you said the same thing in different words.
That feeling good has become an effort. That even the things you love, the people and the work and the moments that are genuinely good, leave you flattened the moment they are over. You finish, and you crash. There is nothing held in reserve, not even for joy.

This is what depletion does that no one warns you about. It does not only take the hard things. It takes the cost out of the good ones too. You stop wanting to begin what you are not sure you can finish, because you have run out of the middle. There is a blah that settles over everything, and underneath it, often, a quiet sadness.

In Ayurveda this reserve has a name. Ojas, the deep vital essence that lets a woman meet her life without being emptied by it. When ojas is full, joy costs you nothing. When it is gone, even love becomes labour.

What you named today is not weakness, and it is not the end of who you are. It is a body that has been giving for a long time, telling the truth. That you can still feel the absence of your essence means it is not lost. It is waiting to be refilled.

So thank you for arriving honestly. For not pretending you were fine. That honesty is where the return begins.

There is still time to sign up. You will get this mornings recording.

https://innersage.ca/pages/the-path-to-ojas

I feel truly honoured to share this work and learn from all of you.

We continue next Tuesday.

~ Leslie

Right now the wild roses are everywhere. Full open, unguarded, and the moment her scent reaches you, something softens. If you live in the north you know the weeks of her presence arrives fast and she does not last long.

I stopped at one this morning along my morening walk with River. A raindrop caught my eye on a single petal. She reminded me of so many of the women in my practice, weathered and still holding her colour. And she is, quite literally, medicine.

We tend to think of restoration as something we take. The right supplement, the right food, the right protocol. And nourishment matters, deeply. But the older understanding of rasayana, the path of rasa, the deep nourishment the body is built from, has always known something the wellness world forgets.
You are not fed by food alone.

Ojas, your vital reserve, the deep and steady vitality that becomes your immunity and your luster and your capacity to meet your life, is built as much by how you live as by what you eat.

It is fed by joy. By love given and received. By contentment, the felt sense of enough. By devotion, by beauty, by rest that the heart can actually take in. And it is quietly drained by fear, by worry, by grief carried too long with nowhere to set it down.

This is why a woman can eat well and sleep enough and still feel hollow. She is nourished in body and starved in the places that also build her. The reserve does not come only through the mouth. It comes through the heart, which is where the texts say ojas lives. A few precious drops held there, so vital that life itself is said to depend on them.

So when I sit with a depleted woman, we do not begin with a list of foods. We begin with her life.

Where is the joy that went missing. What grief never got to move before another one layered it. Where did contentment get replaced by the endless reaching for more.

Because the way she lives is the medicine, every bit as much as the herbs are. This is the part of rasayana the supplements aisle cannot sell her.

Rasayana is the path of rasa, the deep nourishment the body is built from. It restores you at the source, but never through food alone. It feeds the body, quiets the mind, fills the heart with joy and love and contentment, and tends the spirit. It restores you on every level at once, because that is the only way the reserve truly comes back.

The wild rose does not bloom by effort. She is rooted in ground that feeds her, and she opens. Her fragrance is not striving. It is overflow, what a living thing releases when it finally has enough and more than enough.

That overflow has a name. Ojas. And it is built not only by what you take in, but by how much love and joy and rest you finally let reach you.

This is the heart of what I teach in The Path to Ojas. Six weeks, a small circle of women, restoring the reserve through the body and through the life both.

We begin June 16th, Tuesday mornings @ 10am online.

Here's the link of you'd like to learn more.
https://innersage.ca/pages/the-path-to-ojas

~ Leslie