Moving and breathing through it.

Dear readers,

Our Out of Body issue is finally in print! I’m still stunned by how beautiful both of the covers are. Go get a copy at Casa Magazines, which is so beloved and dear to the hearts of us at Byline. Thank you to our contributors, and thank you to our readers! And of course, kudos to Maddie who designed the hell out of it all.

And in case you missed it, read more about the breathwork class we hosted in partnership with Athleta and led by Mona Esser Pennock to celebrate our latest issue and the summer solstice.

This week, we’re trying to find some reprieve from the heat, scaling buildings, and embracing Crayola Casual. Plus, Woah Vicky read her poetry at a reading at le PERE, which our dear Ali Royals attended.

Read more below, and stay cool out there.

Yours,

Julia

Moving Through It With Athleta

Last week, we brought San Francisco’s very own Athleta to New York for a special evening. Just days after the summer solstice, we invited our community to join us on the Malin’s SoHo rooftop (our favorite venue in town, by the way) for a breathwork and movement class led by modern mystic and spiritual guide Mona Esser Pennock. Mona leads classes through her business Be Shen, where she specializes in feminine embodiment, intuitive guidance, and ceremonial magic. Our partnership with Athleta focuses on Moving Through It—it’s a story about the intersection of movement, energy, intuition, and how to navigate with forward motion. Mona was the perfect person to put those words into practice IRL. Here’s a look.

Culture Notes

• New York’s hottest days yet are here. Central Park reported a temperature of 100 degrees yesterday — the hottest our city has seen in fourteen years. There are fire hydrants open on the street, ice cream trucks abound, and we’ve been directed to set our AC’s at a tepid 78. There’s something surreal about the city during a heatwave. It almost reminds me of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. We’re all just waiting for the rain.

• Despite the heat, a couple scaled the Empire State Building for a marriage proposal and to hang a proclamation of love from its spire. This viral photo captured them moments after they were released from custody. I, like Gutes, have a fear of heights, so imagining climbing anything terrifies me.

• One of my favorite podcasts, Nymphet Alumni, recently covered what they call Crayola Chic—a style phenomenon characterized by dress that’s saturated in color, stripey, modern, and clean. Plus, with Gap bringing back its iconic, playful Happy Stripe, it’s safe to say that we’re all dumping out the box of crayons and trying on every color.

• Woah Vicky at a poetry reading. Two things that I never thought I’d see in combination. I think I’ve grown to respect her earnestness but remain wary of her inflammatory, mercurial nature. As Walt Whitman, quoted by Ali, once said, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” Read her dispatch here.

Latest From Us

“The Drug That Made Me Want Less” by Caroline Calloway. “Ozempic promised to make me skinny and delivered a quieter appetite for everything.”

“Staying Long After I’m Gone” by Swati Sudarsan. “A life spent leaving the body becomes a search for the self that stayed behind.”

Our Out of Body issue is available online and in print now.