Mercury Retrograde and Eclipse Season

It only seems fitting to re-post this during the once-in-a-lifetime astrology we've been experiencing! Thanks to Jen Doll for writing this and doing me the honor of being mentioned in the same article as Chani Nicholas and Susan Miller.

Enjoy!

https://theweek.com/articles/789954/everything-sucks-blame-mercury

Be Water, My Friend/ Body Astrology: Pisces

This is a Pisces season like no other so dive in and swim! The sun enters Pisces on Monday, February 18^th and joins Mercury and Neptune (Pisces’ co-ruling planet) in an exact conjunction in the sign. That’s a boatload of slippery unprocessed feeling and intuition that will be floating up to the surface, most likely wanting a hug. Most likely the feels will be formless and flowing; all encompassing one minute, nowhere to be found the next.

This will definitely be hard to control, channel and focus. But that’s the point. Pisces is asking you to surrender; not as weakness but as a decisive act. The act of surrender can be a proactive choice when coupled with clear intention. No one knew this better than martial artist and philosopher Bruce Lee:

“In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.”

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” –B.L.

We’re being asked to dissolve because we’re at an end. We’re being asked to let go of the rigid shapes and unnecessary armor that protects us from a new beginning.

This Pisces season is prolonged, due to a retrograde Mercury that doesn’t leave the sign until mid-April and 3 weeks of Venus sharing the same space (late March). Pisces wants us to do an incredibly thorough job of cleansing and releasing this coming spring. Even when our consciousness (the sun) moves on to Aries, our hearts (Venus) and minds (Mercury) will still be soaking in Pisces (this could be a very soggy spring).

Next week Body Astrology monthly workshop culminates with our study of Pisces. Margherita and I have spent the past year tracking the sun's journey through the ever-changing rhythms of individuation and coalescence. We've learned so much from each other and everyone we've worked with. I really appreciate Margherita's uncanny abilities to find just the right blends of somatic work, choreography, movement study, and music to animate what could so easily be just a concept. Join us on Wednesday February 20th at Juniper at 7PM for our final meditation on the radical inclusivity and merging principle that is Pisces. PLEASE SIGN UP BEFORE the 20th. And be on the lookout for other Body Astrology workshops that will engage astrology from the lunar and elemental perspectives... and more!

Here are some recommendations and strategies for flowing with the celestial weather of radical healing, gentleness, and imagination.

EMBODIED Pisces

Body parts: feet, lymphatic system, immune system (Vedic).

Key words: 

Permeable: sensitivity, sympathy, empathy, tenderness, dissolve, blend, merge, blur, soft, compassion, peace, confusion (with fusion), gentle, absorbent, osmosis, receptive, borderless, surrender, tolerant, vulnerability, supple

Movement: fluidity, flexibility, adaptability, mutability, formless, timeless, nebulous, slippery, circuitous, meander, elliptical, oblique, flow, dance, lyricism, musicality, tangents

The Unseen: the hidden, the sequestered, shadow, subconscious, imaginary, exiled, avoidant, escapist, evade, everywhere and nowhere, dreams, fog, illusion, delusion, deception, hallucination, intuition, spirit, soul, mystical, transcendent, vague, fantasy, the divine, the sublime, secluded, concealed, isolated, remote, retired

The Whole:  one with everything, alpha and omega, paradox, the “dustbin of the zodiac”, all-encompassing, selfless, sacrificial, healing, unconditional love, holistic, the culmination, the repository, perfection, idealism, romanticism, complete, union, flux, ebb and flow, inhale and exhale, totality, absolute, sickness and health, omnipresent, ubiquitous, infinite

Polarity: Yin.  Absorbent energy that allows things in.

Modality/Element: mutable/water. Pisces is feeling in constant motion. It takes the totality of experience from the last 11 signs and prepares for an absolutely new beginning by dissolving boundaries.

Ruled by: Jupiter and Neptune. The symbol is two fish swimming in two different directions. This represents the paradox of moving in two directions at once, constantly. I also think it represents the water the fish swim in; something so ubiquitous and all-encompassing that effects everything we do…yet we forget it’s there.

Embodied explorations:

Dance to music! Especially non-choreographed or improvisational dance. Pisces rules dance and music. Allow yourself to be guided by the feelings that rhythm and sound inspire!

Allow yourself to be emotionally moved by engaging with or making art. Pisces is about emotional flushing. Whether its (Pisces-ruled) poetry, photography, films or painting, surrender to emotionally powerful experiences to keep the feelings supple and circulating.

Volunteer, serve, and sacrifice. Practice putting yourself (ego) second to remind yourself that you’re part of something bigger. Pisces needs to dissolve the confines of the ego to feel like it can truly merge with something greater than itself. A lazy astrology trope for Pisces is “serve or suffer.” But I find it to be true.

Reflexology and foot care. Go barefoot (somewhere safe and comfortable). Many holistic practices assign the soul to the sole of the foot. Movement specialists have named the soles of the feet “the seat of the nervous system,” and reflexologists believe the entire body is represented there. Whatever you happen to believe, the feet are our foundation and where most of us come into relationship with the earth. Our feet need strengthening, massaging, stretching, cleaning, and love!

Manual therapy and self-massage is great for keeping the lymph moving.

Floatation therapy and hydrotherapy. Hydrate!

Yoga is wonderful for practicing the union of attention, sensation, movement, intention, and breath.

Psychic self-protection practice and building healthy boundaries.

Swimming, baths, or being near water.

Sleep and sacred napping. Keep a dream journal.

Spend time alone in reflection or working consciously with your imagination. Remove yourself from the mundane world.

Practice indirect or felt forms of communication with yourself and others. Intuitive exercises and practices, sound healing, deep listening, somatic practices, all forms of art, music and dance therapies, aromatherapy, vision boards, and collages.

Pisces season can be a magical, heart opening time. It can also be overwhelming and confusing. There are fewer boundaries between our unconscious and conscious selves. Please be mindful when using alcohol, hallucinogenic or psychotropic drugs. We are super sensitive right now.

The Paradox of Interdependence/ Body Astrology: Aquarius

Aquarius season is delivered within hours of a total lunar eclipse in Leo. Yes, we are in the throes of another eclipse season! This eclipse marks the close of a year and a half of eclipses on the Leo-Aquarius axis. It’s been a year and a half of exploring our authority and heart-felt creativity in concert with our responsibility to our communities and our ability to take one for the team. In our personal lives and on the world stage issues of recognition and ego were pit against humble service and our dedication to tradition was challenged by our need to innovate. This last eclipse wraps up these issues and lessons and asks, “how’s all that working for you?”

Wherever you are with it, and however it landed for you, it’s time to move on. Here’s a poem I wrote at the Aquarius eclipse a couple of years ago. I think it’s just as valid for our current eclipse.

Your Horoscope for The Partial Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius, August 2017

This full moon is where you find your line

break. Your page

break. Where you break

with something, someone, somewhere, some

idea from your past

inspired by a picture

you can’t get out

of your head.

You’ll know where needs

breaking.

It’s the place that pinches.

It’s the place that bulges and rips

your stitches.

This picture

that’s big

in all the ways

you cannot be

until it breaks

you.

Aquarius is a challenge to embody because it likes being out of body. It’s hard to bring it into the now because it likes the future. It’s about breaking with the material world and everything we think we know.

It’s about going beyond.

Aquarius is also about circulation and the continual need to swap out the old for the new. Nowhere is this more evident than the circulatory system: the movement of blood and oxygen to the many organizations and “communities” in the body.

The star of circulatory system is the heart but the for the heart to be of any use it needs to work with a complex system of arteries, vessels, and way stations: most importantly the calves. Commonly referred to as the second heart, the system of muscles, veins, and valves in the calf and foot work together to push deoxygenated blood back up to the heart and lungs.

And what joint do you think is responsible for the calf muscle’s ability to pump? Depending on the flexibility and stability of the (humble) ANKLE JOINT we can more or less successfully “talk back” to the heart with our lower leg muscles.

Aquarius wants to show us how the seemingly small or insignificant IS important to the whole. It wants us to know that the health of an entire organism (or group or country) is dependent on everyone doing their unique part.

It’s no coincidence that Leo rules the heart, which is Aquarius’ axial counterpart. Literally and metaphorically speaking, if the heart (the star, the king) and the rest of the body (the masses, the workers) aren’t talking to each other we’re dead. You can refresh your memory about Leo here.

Join Margherita Tisato and I as we prep for Aquarius season by circulating our own unique genius throughout our entire bodies…and beyond.

Body Astrology Aquarius takes place at Juniper at 7PM, Wednesday January 23^rd. Please sign up before the 23^rd to reserve your spot. We are no longer taking walk-ins.

EMBODIED Aquarius

Body parts: ankles, calves, shins, and circulatory system

Key words: 

The Group: the community, society, populace, humanity, democracy, egalitarian, collective, friends, dissemination, universal, fellowship, colleagues, allies, comrades, cooperatives, organizations, members, circulation

The Dissenter: the rebel, the revolutionary, the progressive, dismantle, the original, unique, unusual, non-traditional, eccentric, freedom, liberation, radicalism, alien, unconventional, disruption, breaking up, distinctive, upheaval, deviant

The Ideal: awakening, ideas, perspective, genius, brilliance, experimental, scientific, reform, non-personal, detached, invention, innovation, paradigms, vision, prototype, utopian, breaking through, the aha moment, epiphany, unorthodox, higher mind

The Future:  new, prescient, electric, technological, advancement, potential, harbinger, ahead of its time, pre-cognitive, extrasensory, science-fiction, predictive, divinatory, extra-terrestrial, seminal, frontrunner, game changer, tide turner, breaking with the past, unprecedented, ground breaking, novel, avant garde, the vanguard, unpredictable, change

Polarity: Yang. Energy that moves outward for the purpose of breaking the constraints of time and the material world.

Modality/Element: Fixed Air. In the northern hemisphere this is the dead of winter. This energy stabilizes and concentrates the mental and immaterial realm.

Ruled by: Saturn and Uranus. The symbol is the water bearer. Traditionally, a human pouring water from a vessel.

Embodied explorations:

Stretch, strengthen, and massage your calves and shins. I really enjoy deep squats for checking in with openness in the lower leg.

Open and stabilize the ankle joint. I enjoy balance exercises to reveal where the ankles might be unstable.

Feel how the leg muscles quickly increase heart rate and respiration and practice bringing the heart rate back down through breathing and softening.

Cardio!

Hot baths or saunas. Feel the heart pumping blood throughout the body and under the skin.

Self massage tools like foam rollers, massage balls or dry brushing to stimulate blood flow.

Identify all the things you have in common with the various people in your communities and also note what makes you unique. How can you use your unique abilities for the good of the group?

Explore impulses that encourage experimentation or deviate from the traditional or the expected. How well do you deal with surprise?

When you’re in a creative process, how clearly and with how much detail can you envision what you’d like to create? Can you put those details into words, sounds, movements, feelings or images?

How easy or difficult is it for you to connect with your intuition? Do you feel as if you have other ways of obtaining knowledge outside of your 5 senses? Improvisation games, tarot card practice, astrology exploration and automatic writing are all great ways to tap into other ways of knowing.

The Shape of Things to Come/ Body Astrology: Capricorn

The solar New Year always takes place in Capricorn season. This is “Father Time’s” domain. It’s usually a time to celebrate traditions and families as well as review the past, and plan for the future.

Capricorn is all about time. It places great stake in lineage, origin, and precedent to dictate the way we succeed in the future. It likes to canonize and feel its gravity. It understands better than anything else that time is the key ingredient in fruition, maturation, and mastery. There’s simply no getting around it. Time is the architecture we hang our reality on. Ideas, feelings, and inspirations can be instantaneous but without time and effort nothing of concrete form can materialize.

Capricorn also represents our foundations. What are we building our more sophisticated structures on? Without a solid foundation our loftiest aspirations can result in unsustainable projects, relationships, and endeavors at best, or, at worst, work to our detriment. It’s the reality of needing to crawl before you can walk. It is not a step that can be skipped, and in the world of Capricorn there are demerits for cutting corners. The world of Capricorn is where all rewards and losses are earned. For a free ride go see Jupiter.

Saturn rules the sign of Capricorn and is often referred to as the “astrologers best friend.” When we follow Saturn’s cycle around the chart we can reliably see the manifestation of events and turning points that are unmistakable.

Saturn is really feelin’ itself right now and will for the next two years. It entered its home sign in Capricorn this time last year and will remain there until December 2020. The south node of the moon (an astrological point of over development and complacency) moved into Capricorn last month, and will move through it and host eclipses there until May 2020. Settle in to witness concrete examples of how well we’ve dealt with issues of social structures and organization, geographic and political boundaries, national securities, and sustainable agricultural and economic practices.

On a shorter cycle and more personal timeline, how was 2018 for you? What were the milestones or hardships? What passed muster and what fizzled?  Capricorn either delivers the goods or gives you a good butt kicking. It’s not always fun but it is always on your side. It’s always showing the way to make dreams reality…if you’re willing to put in the time.

Join Margherita Tisato and I as we explore our strength, test our endurance, and put thoughts and feeling into action at Body Astrology workshop. Wednesday, December 19^th at 7PM at Juniper. Please register early. We are no longer taking walk-ins.

Here are some ways to tap into this season’s abundant Capricorn energy.

EMBODIED Capricorn

Body parts: Saturn's job is to crystalize and harden. Skeletal system, bones, teeth, skin. Traditionally, the knees.

Key words: 

The Climb: The social climb, the ladder of success, to ascend, to rise to the top. Stratum. Rank. Ambition, goals, status. Achievement, mastery. Grades, levels, social STRUCTURES, hierarchies. The work it takes to achieve, accomplish, ascend.

The Boundary:  limitation, rules, earth-bound-3-D reality, consensus reality, constrict, conserve, definition, shape, form, contour, contrast, STRUCTURE, regulation, materiality, the six senses, the sensual, tests, barriers, responsibilities, obligations, commitments, containers.

The Foundation: the basics, the scaffolding, the architecture, the building blocks, the supports. The rudimentary. Tangible securities. STRUCTURE, format, the past, origins.

Father Time:  traditional, long-lasting, patience, time-tested, time-honored, reliability, routine, persistence, endurance, the ultimate STRUCTURE of time, the metronome, maturity, the past.

Polarity: Yin. Restricted, constricted, limited, conservative action. Restraint and reserve.

Modality/Element: Cardinal Earth. This is the start of winter and winter solstice. It is careful cautious initiation of all that is practical, material, and foundational.

Ruled by: Saturn. The symbol is the mountain goat or sea goat.

Embodied explorations:

Align and strengthen your bony architecture:

Activities such as Alexander Technique, dance, Pilates, Body Mind Centering, and Klein Technique help you understand the alignment of bones and joints to support conscious and considered movement habits.

Weight-bearing activity has been proven to strengthen bones and muscles and improve bone density. Develop and fortify your plank position. Pump some iron!

Vitamin D from sunshine, nuts and leafy greens have been proven to strengthen bones and teeth.

Climb a mountain or even some stairs! ASCEND through hard work and effort! Bike uphill.

Take care of your knees. Take some time to understand how they work and strengthen the muscles that support them. Show them some TLC.

Go slow. Move incrementally. Slowly build in intensity. We learn more about our bodies and build strength when we slow down.

Master the basics of an art form, practice or activity.

Give physical shape and form to an idea, feeling or intuition. Manifest!

Structure your time in a way that helps support your ambitions. How can you structure your morning, week, season, or year to give tangible form to your aspirations?

What is your relationship to time? Do you honor its passage? Do you squander? Do you adhere to a strict schedule? Are time, tempo, cycles and rhythms part of your consciousness?  How are your time management skills? 

Commit to a routine, project or schedule for a limited amount of time. How long can you keep this up? Test yourself. Build endurance. Measure your growth.

Check your mental, physical and emotional foundations.  Are your relationships, projects, finances, health routines built on supports that are sturdy, sustainable, and well constructed?  If not, take the time to fortify the structures and foundations that hold you up.

Take the time to cleanse, feed, and condition your skin. It’s our largest organ and the barrier/interface between what’s inside and what’s outside. Like all boundaries, skin works best when its flexible and can breathe. Boundaries are different than walls.

Saturn rewards all efforts made and all time taken to build something solid that has integrity. No short cuts.

To Wax UNabashed about a distant TRUTH!!!! /Body Astrology: Sagittarius

JUMBO ROCKS Joshua Tree

I tried to cram everything Sagittarius in that there title. I think I got it. This is what Sagittarius does, it tries to get everything in there. Go ahead, ask them a question. They may or may not give you an answer but they’ll give you a lot of something with bonus features.

Join Margherita Tisato and I at Juniper on November 14^th at 7PM as we prep for the all-encompassing action in Sagittarius! By mid- month Sagittarius will be host to the Sun, Jupiter (Sadge’s home planet), and retrograde Mercury. Talk about a shift in energy! Look forward to very, ahem, spirited family get-togethers!

Sadge season promises indulgence and cutting loose for sure, but the fun and games can get turn into some over-blown scenes of self-righteous zeal if we’re not careful (which it will be incredibly hard to be). Jupiter expands everything it touches and is blind to boundaries. On its own, holiday time can be socially sensitive, but mixed with the current socio-political climate things could get very inflated.

Mercury’s retrograde on the 16th makes communication sloppy and charged with bias. A worldview is not a fact. A belief is not knowledge. Sagittarius is Mercury’s least favorite place to be, never mind the drunken backspin. Mercury (the planet of objective reason and clear cognition) gets distracted by the roaming nature of Jupiter, its enthusiasm and ideologies.

Perhaps we can lean on some of Sadge's virtues like mercy, lenience, and faith in higher goodness to soften and forgive some cringe worthy moments. Maybe we can band together in the name of optimism and inspiration as we begin to set our aims for 2019.

EMBODIED Sagittarius

Body parts: Hips and thighs. All that ambulates. Especially up and out and covering a large distance. A lot of astrologers include the liver because of the indulgence aspect of Sagittarius.

Key words: 

The “Ex” Factor: Explore, expand, exaggerate, extra, expound, exotic, experience, exuberance, extrapolate, extravagance, excitement, exploitation, exult, export, excess, exclamation points!!!!!

Covering Ground: travel, traverse, adventure, trek, spread, dissipate, scatter, scattershot, disseminate, disperse, publish, updraft, aim and trajectory.

Good Time Charlie: hope, faith, belief, luck, laughter, fun, buoyant, boisterous, party, indulgence, loud, optimism, careless, tactless, freedom, wild, brazen, naked, abundance, sports, games, jokes, run-on sentences, and stories that go nowhere. TMI!

The Higher Mind: learn, teach, study, religion, philosophy, law, the quest, the inspiration, dogma, the abstract mind, academia, xenophilia, international business & culture, the journey, the truth. Belief.

Polarity: Yang. Sagittarius sprawls. It takes up space. It grows outward and floats upward. It’s extraverted.

Modality/Element: Mutable fire. The course of a wildfire can change with the wind, the fuel that’s available, and the landscape. It’ll go wherever. It’s wild and will spread its warmth, destruction, glory, knowledge…anything it picks up along the way. It literally knows no bounds. It destabilizes the fall season so we can move into winter.

Ruled by Jupiter: Jupiter rules both Sagittarius and Pisces. It’s the largest planet in the solar system. Sadge's symbol is the centaur or archer, or centaur as archer with an eye on the prize that’s off into the future or off in the distance. It’s Sadge’s nature to traverse that distance in search of….

The mythology of the centaur comes into play as well. The half-beast-half-human represents the journey from the “low” bestial expression of Sadge,  (drunken, carousing, sloppy, wasteful, squandering of time, resources and gifts, revelry and raucous behavior, indiscriminate, and debauched) to the “high” human expression of Sadge (education, law &order, religion, moralistic virtue, and all other abstract notions of human(e) existence, and the higher mind).

Embodied explorations:

Propulsion and all locomotor movement. Jump for joy. Travel through space.

Moving through and taking up space (external size and space)

Finding space in the body and in the mind (internal size and space)

Strengthening, stretching and stabilizing the hips and thighs so we can cover a lot of territory, have a long journey

Laugh

Supersize it! (a gesture, an idea, a feeling, a thought) make it a big deal.

Stabilize it! (Can you tell when you go too far, over indulge, lose your sense of direction?)

What are you learning on your journey? Are you too invested in your destination? Have you forgotten where you’re going?

Walk, run, gallop, prance. Use your legs.

Climb that mountain, run that race, see what you’re made of. Internal and external adventures and explorations!

What uplifts, inspires, creates buoyancy? Think trampolines, hot air balloons, getting out in wide-open spaces. Skydiving anyone?

Go beyond a limit or threshold. Go into uncharted territory. Make a discovery.

Target practice: Archery, darts, shooting hoops. Practice your aim so you know when you’re traveling toward your vision or if you’re scattering energy. Follow a trajectory.

Expose yourself to the language, art, food, music, traditions of another culture.

Expand your mind. Study the many embodiments of truth from around the world and throughout time.

---

Sagittarius poem #2

Brick-red lispstick

stained leaves. These aren't trees

they're overgrown flowers. I've written four thousand

poems walking

along Glen Street. Gleaming copper pennies

in the sun, chocolate coins wrapped in gold

foil shimmering their sweet fake money and falling

to the ground like a

cracked

open

piggy

bank. I wanna harvest these treasures, stomp ‘em

with a smash-crackle-crunch.

This is everything! To wonder

what's what. What's real? What's too fucking fuchsia

to be true?

To be challenged by a fathomless beauty

that gives

birth to all possibilities by crushing rust-hued

assumptions like,

This is how things are.

This is who I am.

This is what I know.

The senseless fluorescents and kaleidoscopes on Glen Street make me scream.

And the trees scream back in neon:

YOU! KNOW! NOTHING!

The Delicious Ick / Body Astrology: Scorpio

Autumn 2018 belongs to Venus. Yes. The whole damn thing. Not only is Libra season always ruled by Venus, this year the planet of love, art, beauty and relationship goes retrograde in Scorpio and Libra October 5-November 16. October also hosts two lunations ruled by this back-spinning planet: a new moon in Libra on October 8 and a full moon in Taurus (also ruled by Venus) on October 24. When Venus goes direct it will take the rest of the season to clear its shadow (go over the territory it covered while retrograde). So, settle in for 2 more months of the Retrograde Venus Show.

This all means Venus is the star of Scorpio season as well. We’ll be reviewing all the material in the “discard pile” when it comes to partnerships, creative projects, and our finances. Yep, Venus rules our values, which include our material possessions and assets. Scorpio represents that “discard pile”; all the issues we consider dead and buried, undesirable, or even poisonous. It’s all the stuff we put in our psychological, physical, emotional and literal sewers.

We all have sewer. That’s where the waste goes, whether it’s actual waste or useful stuff that feels too gross and scary to deal with. But that stuff never goes away. It just moves to our cesspool. We need to acknowledge what’s in there and include it as a necessary part of our lives. We don’t need to live there, but to avoid it is to invite stagnation and toxicity. This is why we need Scorpio. Scorpio sees in the dark, talks to the dead, and isn’t afraid to dumpster dive. Scorpio intrinsically understands that death feeds life and our most powerful medicine resides in our most lethal poison.

When Venus visits the underworld we visit our darker sides and redefine, if only temporarily, what sweetness means. Venus wants us to understand the value of a little pain in our pleasure, and that being elbow deep in shit today is the promise of rose petals and perfume tomorrow…if we work with it. It’s time for Venus to visit all the places that are off limits and retrieve what it needs to evolve. It’s time to get in there.

Join MargheritaTisato and I on Wednesday October 24^th at 7PM at Juniper as we call in all that is regenerative, transforming and true into our bodies. It should be an especially deep dive this evening due to the full moon! Enjoy all the fall festivities and here is a guide for all your Scorpio season meditations. XOC

EMBODIED SCORPIO

Body parts: reproductive system, sexual organs, bowels, bladder, excretory system and rectum

Key words:  It’s all about sex, death, taxes. But seriously: depth, transformation, birth and rebirth, renewal, merging, intensity, power, secrecy, taboo, mystery, loyalty, betrayal, extremes, vengeance, toxins, medicine, healing, intuition, absolutes, truth, compost, magnetism, resources, obsession, psychology, persistence, piercing, occult, desire, passion, control, debt, recycling, purge, digging

Polarity: Yin. Scorpio magnetizes resources to itself from sources outside itself. It pulls in.

Modality/Element: Fixed Water. The deepening of fall. Emotional security, solidifying resources, finalizing experiences, laying to rest dead matter, allowing the spiritual, intuitive, psychic to emerge. Finding the nutrients in what’s decomposed.

Ruled by Mars and Pluto: Mars rules both Aries and Scorpio. We can think of Scorpio as the feminine manifestation of Martial principals. In place of war, division, individuality, frank action, physical surgery, and animal sex we have strategy, power, merging, subterfuge, psychological surgery, sex as emotional bonding. Pluto is the modern ruler of Scorpio lending the archetypal energies of transformation, alchemy, and the “underworld.” The symbols are the scorpion, the eagle, the serpent and the phoenix.

Embodied explorations:

Kundalini yoga

Somatic or breath meditation on the pelvic floor or sphincter.

Noticing the breath when its engaged or released. Strengthening and relaxing pelvic floor and sphincter.

Skinner Release work

Examining the places in breath, movement or thought where one thing transforms into another, i.e. the inhale turns into the exhale, a beginning turns into an end turns into a beginning…

Corpse pose. Commit to letting go. Surrender.

Feeling the intensity of “loading” muscles and letting them go. Imposing the will onto the body, then receiving.

Sending attention and breath to the intimate body parts (the sex parts and bathroom parts).

The study or practice of tantra and butoh.

Exploring taboo movement. Are there movements that our society or our families have told us are off limits?

Talk, physical, or somatic therapy.

Emotionally safe and intimate sex.

Learning movement sequences from others and making your personal contribution to create something new.

Creating new movement out of discarded movement.

Review financial investments. Pay off debts.

Great time for a space or body cleanse. Exfoliate!

The Art of Partnership/ Body Astrology: Libra

Photo by Helen Levitte

Libra is the seventh sign of the zodiac and it’s the place in the chart where we come into contact with others. Up until Libra we’re pretty self-involved: learning about ourselves and amazed by what we can do. By the time we reach Libra we’ve developed a curiosity and craving for what is “not me.”

By exploring what we consider to be “not me,” we actually find out a whole hell of a lot about ourselves…to our delight or dismay. It’s these apparent differences that are Libra’s siren song. Immediately, Libra gets to work harmonizing the discord, smoothing out the rough edges, and greasing the wheels with beauty, intelligence, and diplomacy.

Sounds lovely doesn't it? When Libra doesn’t get the balance right, this ability can turn into the kind of denial that actually allows differences to grow. So sensitive is the Libran instrument to conflict, it can disrupt the very balance it so longs for with little white lies, superficial ornamentation, and sacrificing the selfhood it developed in those first 6 signs.

When Libra has a clear sense of self they can negotiate with the best of them in the name of authentic fairness. Libra is tougher than it thinks. Conflict can be seen as the best opportunity to work their symbiotic magic, and through the art of partnership show people how to be at peace with each other.

Being at peace with each other doesn’t necessarily mean liking each other.  The things we will go through to be liked, or “liked”!!!  The contortions we will put ourselves in for opinions we don’t even respect, or in an effort to not "rock the boat"! I’m not condemning anyone for this because we ALL do it…yes even you. When we experience social rejection it registers in the same pain centers of our brains that register physical pain. Humans are wired to get along…but that still doesn’t mean liking each other. But, when we’re not liked it tips off our nervous system to the possibility that we are not getting along.  This causes fear on a primal level. Hence the power of social media: a Libra dream and nightmare.

This Libra season go for the real deal. Let’s practice appreciating and even valuing difference. Let’s work our Libra out by having the hard conversations we need to with more respect and test our ability to leave our egos at the door but not our personal convictions. Let’s develop an inner peace and personal balance that’s so right with itself, no amount of external conflict can disturb it.

Join Margherita Tisato and I on September 19^th at 7PM at Juniper for a centering and balancing practice that primes us to partner up.

Embodied Libra Cheat Sheet:

Body parts: Kidneys, skin, lower back, buttocks, outer hips, endocrine system (therefore homeostasis and equilibrium).

Key words: Balance, diplomacy, grace, sociability, justice, fairness, beauty, elegance, refined sensibilities, mirroring, partnership, relationship, conversation, aesthetics, union, coalesce, harmonize, blend, homogenize, cooperation, symmetry, complimentary

Polarity: Yang. Libra reaches outward toward “other.” Whether that’s other people, the other side, it’s almost aggressive in its attempts to be in relationship with, make beautiful, make smooth.

Modality/Element: Cardinal Air. The initiation of fall. The initiation of thought, ideations, logic, abstraction, a breath of fresh air, a cool breeze

Ruled by Venus: Where Taurus is Venusian in terms of natural pleasures, sensuality, earthly delights, ground under our feet, money in the bank, and the things we can touch, Venusian Libra is the abstract idea of beauty, grace, and equality. It wants to give you or your house a makeover, find a more pleasing way to say it, make sure everyone got their fair share, and rise above vulgar “corporealites.” It wants to elevate (yang), where Taurus wants to sink in (yin).

Ballet vs. Martha Graham

Embodied explorations:

Physical and mental Balances

Breathing that balances

Identifying what we think of as pleasing

Synchronizing or mirroring the movement of others

Partnering with others in tasks or choreography

Social dancing

Dance or theater improvisation games

The practice of oppositional energy

Lower back and hip stabilization/mobilization

Kidney tapping or other qigong type practice to balance energy

Create an outfit, house décor, poem, painting, piece of music, social event or movement that expresses your idea beauty.

Come to an agreement with someone, collaborate, negotiate, or draw up a contract that creates fairness and equality where there currently isn't as much as you like. Be considerate of others needs and your own.

When Libra yields or submits for the sake of outer balance the sacrifice is usually inner balance.