What Story Needs Healing in Your Life?

We are all creatures of story. Stories are the building blocks of our identity. Our individual stories, family stories, and communal stories compose the way we see ourselves, relate to one another, and engage in public life.

This waning Half Moon in Gemini, associated with storytelling, communication, and conversation, reflects the light of the Sun in Virgo; embodying the Inner Healer, which we are exploring from different angles this Celestial Cycle.

There is perhaps nothing more important to personal evolution than considering the implications of the stories that underpin our reality. Taking responsibly for the role we are playing in perpetuating the storylines that give rise to the circumstances in our lives is the key to empowerment.

Our stories shape our thought and emotional patterns which drive our choices: what and how we eat; how we look at and care for our bodies; how we relate in love (toward ourselves and others); our style of communication.

Take some time in the light of this Half Moon to inquire which of the stories that you tell about yourself, your family, and your relationships that need the attention of the Inner Healer. Pay attention to the stories you are literally telling friends, peers, colleagues, your therapist, and family about your life today.

Observe yourself for a few days.

Notice how you are positioning yourself in the stories you tell. What role are you playing: victim, aggressor, helper, enabler, accomplice, critic, betrayer, betrayed, heroine, hero?

What are the themes: lover, unlovable, unworthy, hubris, money (abundance vs. scarcity), injustice, anger, fear, jealousy.

Take one story that holds emotional energy that binds you in a undesirable pattern and ask:

Where can your perspective shift to learn the lesson this story holds?

What kind of support might you need to tend to the hurt or shift the patterns?

What can you do today to begin to shift the storyline?

I specialize in supporting people in identifying patterns in their stories, unwinding limiting beliefs, and shifting the storyline to create the lives they envision in their hearts.

Please join us in exploring practices of mindful evolution by participating in one of our upcoming events:

Join us for a special Self-Mastery Session on September 28th as we explore how comparison impacts our ability to self-authorize and exercise sovereignty in our lives.

One of the most direct ways to reconnect with your instinctual nature, intuitive rhythm and your authentic expression is your body.

Tending Your Connection with Your Inner Healer

Pisces embodies the emotional, mystical, and intuitive nature. It’s symbol is two fish swimming in opposite directions. The sensitivity embodied in Pisces is both a portal to intuitive knowing as well as temptation toward escapism.

The conditions required to hear the guidance of our Inner Healer are not highly valued in mainstream culture; which orients us outside of ourselves and bombards us with emotional content that can fuel the tendency to want to numb ourselves rather than feel.

Being aware of how and when we are choosing to lose ourselves rather than find ourselves is key to healing of any kind. Coming into balance with our sensitivity as embodied in Pisces and learning to unplug and turn within is key to coming into the right relationship with our Inner Healer; which is the archetype that we are exploring this Celestial Cycle.

When we combine the power of our intuition with practical knowledge and a commitment to our wellbeing, we are truly empowered to tend to our mental, emotional, and physical health.

Take time while the Moon is full in Pisces, reflecting on the sun in Virgo, to ask whether you are dropping in or checking out, and tune into what you need to do boost your own overall health and wellbeing.  

1. Choose to make one evening entirely screen free.

2. Make yourself a home cooked meal using fresh ingredients you choose by getting quiet within and asking what would be most nourishing to your body.

3. Put on some music that relaxes and soothes your mind.

4. Take some time after your meal to sit with a cup of tea and a piece of paper and free on whichever set of questions holds the most charge for you.

What am doing regularly in my life that I know is not supporting my well-being; when did this become a habit; how do I feel about this; what would I like to do differently and what am I willing to do to make this change?

What areas of my life am I trying to escape from or avoid dealing with? Why am I avoiding this or trying to escape? How long have I been doing this? What are the consequences of doing this?

What would it mean to turn toward the issue rather than away from it?

What support might I need to engage rather than continue to avoid?

5. When you are finished take a moment to offer yourself a pat on the back for taking this time to unplug, drop-in, and engage honestly in self-inquiry. Offer yourself a hug and tuck yourself into bed in a spirit of kindness, compassion and love.

In the processes and programs I facilitate, much of the work is in helping people learn to withdraw their attention from things outside of themselves and to orient within for the answers.

I support people in gaining compassionate self-awareness and engage in processes and practices to connect them to their Inner Healer and support them in tuning into their own intuitive guidance. 

If you use this exploration please share your feedback in the comments section.

Let your Inner Healer Guide you into a Balanced Relationship with Indulgence

This Half Moon in Sagittarius is an opportune time to inquire into our relationship with indulgence, play, travel, and adventure. During this Celestial Cycle, as we reflect upon how tuned into our own Inner Healer we are, it is key to be honest with ourselves regarding our relationship with food, rest, play, exercise, stimulants (caffeine and sugar) and alcohol.

We all desire pleasure and we all have tendencies with respect to when and how we indulge. Some of us lean into indulgence while others are too duty bound to allow ourselves to enjoy the pleasures of life. Both of these tendencies are supported by different sides of our culture.

On the one hand the marketplace encourages us to consume consume consume, while the message of the workplace is that if you are not working yourself to the bone, your advancement and your career is at risk. While for parents, the message is that if you are not hyper vigilant with respect to the development of your children, they are at risk.

This context often leads to a relationship with pleasure and indulgence that swings like a pendulum, rather than one that is in balance. If we are not conscious of our own tendencies and the way they interact with cultural messages, we can swing ways that undermine our well-being.

Take time on this Half Moon to consider your relationship with indulgence.

1. Set aside an hour and take a walk in the woods, go to a park, or find a cozy spot at home to sit with a journal or a way to record your reflections.

2. Take 10 deep breaths and tune into your surroundings. Look around and see what you see. Feel and smell the quality of the air. Listen to the sounds around you.

3. Look over the last few months and ask yourself:

What is my relationship with the things that bring me pleasure?

Do I have a tendency to overindulge or be self-denying?

Free write a bit about how your tendency, whichever way you lean, impacts your sense of wellbeing.

Do I swing from one extreme to another?

What are the messages or beliefs that underpin the way I tend to engage with indulgence?

How do I feel about my relationship with indulgence?

4. Take these insights and consider what would support you in finding balance?

5. Make a plan to take one action step that would bring you more toward balance in the next week.

Our relationship with pleasure and indulgence is so central to our well-being that calling ourselves to a more conscious level of engagement and taking steps to find balance not only improves our health, but supports a healthy self-esteem.

I would be delighted, through an Astral Insight Session, to provide you support in diving into a deeper relationship with your Inner Healer. Through compassionate self-awareness we can make shifts to be healthier in mind, body, and spirit. If you are interested in exploring these themes further and working with me to learn tools, practices and strategies, visit the "Astral Insight" tab on my website. 

Take Time During the Power of this Eclipse in Leo and the New Moon to Consider your Relationship with your Wild Woman

To align ourselves with our instinctual nature means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as possible.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estés

This eclipse in Leo is an energetic boon and the perfect time to claim dominion over your own energy, will, and freedom to self-express and determine the direction of your life.

During this Celestial Cycle, we have been exploring the archetype of The Sovereign. As we come full circle, returning to a new moon in Leo, it is an opportune time to ask yourself what would it take to truly establish dominion over yourself.

In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés brilliantly traces the relationship of women with their inner sovereignty through an enlightening presentation and discussion of myths from numerous cultures.

These myths present various aspects of the female psyche in the context of the inner and outer landscapes of a life journey through metaphor and symbolism. She identifies and calls the aspect within women that holds the key to our sovereignty the “Wild Women”.

There is perhaps no archetype that is judged more harshly or more culturally sanctioned than the truly self-possessed, self-authorized, authentically expressive women as articulated by Estés’ as the “Wild Women”.

While exploring the concept of sovereignty and the embodiment of willpower, energy, self-possession and expression associated within this Leo cycle, I have noticed many women (including myself) have or do feel deep-seated ambivalence about embodying the the qualities associated with the “Wild Women”

Self-authorization is not something that comes easy for many women. Most women I have sat in circle with, shared Astrological Interpretations with, and worked with in other ways share that they are out of balance with respect to their relationship with their Wild Women.

We can work on the level of mental awareness, emotional release, and expression through our bodies in ways to access our Wild Women; freeing ourselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually and with respect to our bodies.

Take some time in the power of this eclipse in Leo and the New Moon to consider your relationship with your Wild Woman.

What was/is the response of your family and peer group when your express free spiritedness and own unique way of seeing and approaching life?

What were the messages of your upbringing in response to you wanting to be seen, voicing your preferences, desires or opinions?

Was it okay to question the assumptions accepted by your family or peer group?

Do you feel or sense that there is a part of you that has been squelched or neglected?

When was the last time you let yourself dance, play and move with freedom of expression?

Feel into and free right about what it would take to reconnect or come into right relationship with your Wild Women within?

Some have subdued the qualities associated with personal sovereignty and self-authorized living in order to fit in and avoid pushback from others (women can be the harshest critics of a self-possessed women).

Women tend to gauge what they will risk in terms of self-expression from other women. We compare ourselves to others and take cues about how much it is safe to express.

Wholesome Self-Love is an Earthy Embodied Endeavor

Unconscious comparison either fuels insecurity or arrogance. It is the basis of a fickle sense of self that can easily inflate or deflate our confidence. It keeps us spinning in an effort to measure up to a standard presented by the marketplace or our peers, that ultimately does not reflect our personal preferences, authentic gifts, or natural attributes.

Most of us unconsciously look around and assess ourselves from moment to moment. Depending on who is next to us in our professional context, what show we are watching, who's popping into our social media feed or who we are mingling with at a social gathering.

I have personally experienced and observed in peers how our relationship with comparison can make or break us, which is why I am passionate about supporting as many people as possible to consciously turn comparison into a source of affirmation and inspiration.

On Thursday August 31st at noon I will be hosting a FREE Self-Mastery Session to share tools to support you in developing sense of confidence and identity that reflects your authentic beauty and unique gifts. You will deepen your understanding of how comparison is impacting the way you see yourself and relate to others.

This Waning Half Moon in Taurus is a perfect time to pull your attention back from an external orientation. Take some time to ground into yourself by creating space for wholesome wholehearted care of you. Taurus balances the extroverted, passionate expressive energy of Leo and brings us into grounded connection.

Taurus embodies the archetype of The Lover and is associated with Venus and Aphrodite. As an Earth sign, it leads us back to what is essential to our wellbeing. Taurus reflects the Truth; that the path to authentic expression and wholehearted wholesome pleasure, in the beauty of life, is the path of LOVE. While this may seem self-evident, it can be proven challenging to apply, especially with respect to self-love.

Tender care of our bodies, talking pleasure in the beauty around us and creating nourishing meals are simple and sure fire ways to cultivate self-love. These acts reflect genuine care, which is the foremost expression of love. In turn, they support genuine and sustained confidence.

Take a moment right now. Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly, Inhale and exhale long and deeply into your belly ten times. Ask yourself: what is something I could do in the next 48 hours that would be deeply nourishing and nurturing?

Would hitting the farmers market, gathering a bit of the earth’s bounty and cooking a meal that supports your wellbeing, nourish you?

Would taking a long soak in salty water by candlelight and fragrance sooth your aching heart?

Would a meander through the woods to slow down and counter a hectic week relieve your stress?

Would turning on some inspiring music and dancing around your house light your fire?

Make a date with yourself to give yourself what your body tells you you need.

If you would like to shift out of the cycle of comparison, that keeps you externally oriented, and into a path of internal affirmation that supports sustained confidence and authentic expression

If you cannot make the webinar, continue to link to register, and a recording will be provided to you via email.

Break the Cycle of Comparison to Free Yourself to Be Yourself

This Full Moon, the Sun in Leo illuminates the Moon in Aquarius. Leo embodies self-sovereignty: one who expresses in full authenticity and authority. Generosity, an optimistic outlook, magnetism, willpower, fortitude, enthusiasm, affection are attributes exalted in this Sun Cycle.

Aquarius is associated with the archetype of the Visionary: one who is free-spirited, inventive, and spontaneous; embodying the impetus to seek the truth beyond our limited perspectives. It is this energy that questions conventional thinking, seeking deeper understanding of expanded ways of being, and drives us out of patterns of the past toward a personally transformed future.

Aquarian attributes are essential to realizing our sovereignty for authentic self-expression in a society where pressure to conform to conventions of all forms carry heavy cultural and social weight. Allowing ourselves to be who we are with nothing to prove or to hide, takes a bit of healthy defiance, which the Aquarian energy holds.

One of the deadliest killers to personal sovereignty and authentic self-expression is comparing ourselves to others. While comparing is a natural way that we process information and make sense of our experience, when we compare ourselves to others we can undermine our own sense of self and deny others their unique selfhood as well.

Becoming mindful of the ways we conform and how comparison functions in the way we relate to others and ourselves is mutually liberating.

Essential Self-Inquiry for Consciousness Around Comparison

1. Set aside an hour (investing time in yourself is the best investment you can make) this full moon.

2. Create a space to relax with a journal, pen and a cup or glass or tea to reflect upon these questions in a free writing exercise.

What is your relationship with social and cultural conventions?

How do you feel when someone walks in the room who expresses clear originality in the way they look, dress, express and/or present themselves?

What is your inner reaction to a person who shines and shimmers in their authenticity; whose presence commands attention?

Do you compare yourself to others in ways that can trigger feelings of inferiority or judgement?

3. In the next week carry these questions with you.

4. Pay attention to your inner world as you react to the outer world.

5. When a situation arises that relates to one of these inquiries simply and ask yourself how would it feel to shift that inner dynamic?

We will continue this inquiry as the moon wanes. If you are interested in going deeper, please consider an Astral Insight Session or work with me in a deep process of self-discovery, pattern breaking, and personal evolution.

Align With The Calling of Your Wild-ish Nature

Tonight’s New Moon is in the constellation of Leo, as the Sun enters it’s annual journey through the constellation. Leo, symbolized by the Lion, is associated with the archetype of The Sovereign. It is the unbridled soul reigning with full authority over themselves, living in synchronicity with their environment and following their own intuitive knowing.

Archetypes are neither positive/constructive nor negative/destructive in and of themselves. Key attributes associated with Leo are energetic, bright, willful, spontaneous, instinctual, intuitive, charismatic, dramatic, expressive, affectionate, inspirational and playful. All of these characteristics can be used to generate positive outcomes that contribute to our wellbeing or those that undermine it.

While the characteristics associated with Leo are expressed more readily and abundantly in some, they are attributes that all of us can cultivate to our benefit.

This Sun Cycle, we will explore our relationship to our own sovereignty, intuitive guidance, and self-expression. We will consider how we relate to the key attributes of Leo. We will engage in inquiry and practices to engage in our natural environment more keenly through our senses. As we do this, we scan the bigger picture, recognizing opportunities and vulnerabilities in the landscape, from a position of power and strength.

Upon this New Moon we begin this journey with self-inquiry and orient with intention.

If you are able to  join our New Moon Circle, we would love to initiate this journey together.

If not, set aside an hour on this New Moon day/night to be out in nature, taking a journal and writing implement.

1. Find a place where you can sit on the ground and be in contact with the earth.

2. Take time to settle into the landscape.

3. Take long, deep breaths and one by one tune into your different senses. Take several minutes with each sense. Smell what you smell. Feel what you feel. Taste what you taste. See what you see. Hear what you hear. Allow yourself a direct experience of where you are right in that moment, as much as possible.

4. Sit in quiet observation of the landscape, experiencing yourself as a part of it.

5. Take out your journal and free write on the following prompts:

What does sovereignty mean to me?

Do I feel I exercise sovereignty in my own internal affairs?

Do I hold authority over my own choices?

How do I exercise my will?

6. When you feel complete. Tune into the environment again through each sense.

7. Turn to the questions again, and add anything that arises to what you wrote.

8. Tune into your body and feel what you feel in relationship to your sense of authority over yourself.

8. Consider what you have written and set an intention that reflects your willingness to invest in this process of exploration over this Sun Cycle.

9. Feel into your body and ask what you desire to feel in relationship to your sense of authority over yourself at the end of this Sun Cycle.

10. Offer a blessing to yourself and the earth for this time in reflection to shift your attention to your own evolution.

To stay engaged in this Evolving Mindfully Process tune into our posts through FB, Instagram and our Celestial Cycles blog.

Align with the Wonder Woman in You!

The Sun’s rays illuminate this waning Half Moon in the fire sign of Aries. Fire embodies initiatory, vibrant, spontaneous, feisty, enthusiastic, impassioned and transformative energy. Fire is a change agent that we employ to burn away limiting patterns in order to free energy to direct toward actions that support our well-being.

Aries embodies the archetype of the Warrior(ess), so stunningly portrayed by (the pregnant!) Gal Gadot in Wonder Women. It is also embodied by her nemesis named Aries in the film. As many myths reveal, this story illustrates the inherent duality in archetype. The interplay between these characters reflects the internal/external tension between the creative and destructive potential within each of us.

Exemplifying the positive/creative aspects of the Warrior archetype, Wonder Women is motivated by an aspiration to serve peace and the spirit of sister/brotherhood. She is fearless because her cause is born of love.

The Aries character holds the other end of the spectrum, representing the shadow side of the Warrior(ess) archetype. The aggression, duplicity, greed and lust for power that he exemplifies perpetuates pain and suffering.

In the final scene we witness the two sides of this archetype (dark/destructive vs. light/creative) battle it out until the dawn breaks and light emerges victorious. Wonder Woman embodies courage, determination, strength, intelligence and leadership to face down the destructive force. This film illustrates a process that is at play in each of us throughout our lives.

Aligning with our inner Warrior(ess), whether male or female, we can find our ability to individuate from our mother (as Wonder Woman must do) to more directly confront the darkness within ourselves. This is key because we so often project onto our mothers’ in ways that prevents us from confronting what is within us.

We bring our energy, intelligence, commitment, discipline to the fore to gain victory over the destructive forces (voices, messages, thoughts, patterns) that live in us. As we do, we answer our soul’s calling and align with our desire to lives of meaning and purpose.

This brings us into a state of deeper responsibility for where we are going in life. It also frees us to appreciate more fully who our mother is as a woman in her own life journey.

Developing our relationship to Mother Earth can support and empower us as we further individuate. In her, we can find a sense of constant strength, support, resourcefulness and inspiration.

Consider these questions as a practice of self-inquiry to come into relationship with the Mother Earth to support this process.

Do I acknowledge and give thanks (make offerings of song, dances, poetry, art) for the amazing abundance and beauty of my Earthly home?

Do I spend time with The Mother Earth: let her hold me as I gaze at the stars; sit in a park and watch the light play on her body; stroll through her landscape and wonder at the shapes, forms and variety of life she supports….?

Do I feed myself mindfully drawing upon her bounty of color, texture and flavor for sensual pleasure and wellbeing?

Do I consider/ think seriously about how my actions affect her?

Blessings to those of you who are engaging in your personal evolutionary process this sun cycle. If you are just tuning in and would like to circle back visit previous posts on this Celestial Cycles section of my blog.

Release into Action with the Full Moon in Capricorn

This Full Moon, the Sun in Cancer illuminates the Moon in Capricorn. Capricorn is an earthy doer whose energy flows toward the work at hand. This is the archetype of purpose, calling us to direct our energy into what is of value.

At its best, Capricorn is a responsible, empowered individual who knows what is within their power to do, and brings the elements together to complete the task at hand. This archetype reminds us that it is not enough to know, we must apply knowledge to bring forth change. In the light of this full moon, we turn our reflections regarding the relationship with your mother/primary caregiver into release, in order to free energy for grounded action.

Build on the process we began as the Moon entered Cancer and ask yourself the following questions to refine your understanding of what emotional or thought patterns you repeat internally that reflect how your mother/primary caregiver:

Navigated feelings and approached meeting your needs?

Responded to hopes, fears and dreams?

Regarded external and internal resources?

Further inquire:

What patterns serve me and what do not?

Am I ready and willing to shift?

What is within my power to change the patterns that do not serve me?

How can I lead myself to make these changes?

What support might I need to make these changes?

Personalize this Ritual of Release:

1. Set aside personal time in the next few days (under the light of the full moon if possible).

2. Have with you: any notes you have taken in this process; a pen and loose piece of paper; candle, matches/lighter and a bowl that can withstand a little heat; incorporating anything of symbolic meaning to you on this journey.

3. Light the candle and focus on the flame as you breathe deeply. As you inhale, call yourself to full presence, with each exhale feel yourself arrive in full presence.

4. Distill your reflections to extract what is at the heart of the matter, write down the patterns that you wish to release, being specific about the ways of thinking or seeing yourself/others/world that you wish to shift.

5. Speak out loud each pattern, thought or idea (you are taking a vow to yourself), stating, “I release…..”

6. Light a corner of the page and drop it in the bowl where you can watch it burn.

After your release, allow yourself to visualize what you will do differently in light of this release. What is one grounded action that you will take in this next phase as the moon wanes, to carry this release through in your life?

This release is a part of the ongoing process we began at the beginning of this Sun Cycle, and will continue to actively unfold as we engage at a higher level of awareness and have opportunities to respond to ourselves and life. To circle back on previous parts of this process, please visit past Celestial Cycles blog posts. Stay tuned to Evolving Mindfully posts as the moon wanes to continue our journey with The Mother archetype.

Reflecting in this Moon Cycle: Becoming a Brighter Version of You

Tonight is the New Moon in the constellation of Cancer. This water sign is associated with the Moon, which reflects our emotions, and our relationship with our home/environment; and holds the archetype of the Mother. Harnessing the symbolic and energetic support of this astral cycle, we are able to raise our level of self-awareness and wellbeing with respect to this integral aspects of Self.

So much of our self-understanding, the way we treat ourselves and the way we react to others, is wrapped up in our experience to our mother, which creates our understanding of “The Mother”. The implications of that relationship, and the way we internalize it, is so central to our self-concept, that it often goes underestimated and unexamined.

Superficially, we may be aware of the issues we have with our mother or the way she modeled relating to ourselves and creating a home. Yet, are we wise to how much we have internalized this primary relationship and how it lives in us today? Are we truly aware of how much our mother informs an archetypal concept that influences how we tend to our emotional and psychical needs and the people in our lives?

The Mother reflects the original understanding we have for what it means to attune to and care for our emotional and psychical needs. If left unexamined, most of us will remain in a state of unconscious reaction and act out of subtle (and not so subtle) patterns that are less than what we desire to offer ourselves and others.  

On this New Moon, I invite you to set an intention to raise your awareness of how you relate to the attributes and characteristics reflected in this watery sign associated with the Moon and the Mother archetype.  

As the moon begins to wax, set aside time to shine its soft light inside, to illuminate how your relationship with the Mother is reflected in the way you relate to yourself and others.

Set aside a few minutes each day to explore the question(s) that hold the most charge; which may take the form of subtle reluctance or avoidance. Return to the same question at different times throughout the days as you will find you relate to them differently, depending on what is happening in the moment.

Do I create space to feel/express my feelings?

How do I respond to myself/others when they express strong feelings/emotions?

Can I offer support and reflect an understanding of emotion without having to “do” something or try and fix it?

Where am I holding resentment or judgement about how my mother responded to my emotional needs?

What did I long for from my mother or primary caregiver that I did not get; have I processed the grief I feel for having been denied this expression of love; do I give it to myself?

What kind of home have I created?

What would it look like and feel like to be a “good mother” to myself and to those who look to me for care and nurturance? 

The first stage in any process of healing and growth is to dive into the dark of the unknown/unexamined (subconscious) areas of ourselves from which so much of our emotions, thoughts, words, actions reside.

This is why we begin this inquiry in the dark of the moon and will proceed through to articulate our insights in the light of the Full Moon and integrate it as the moon wanes.

To complete this cycle of inquiry and growth stay tuned.

Half Moon in Pisces

Letting go under the Waning Half Moon in Pisces.

We consider the blending of the Moon in Pisces with the Sun in Gemini. Pisces represents the mystical consciousness. One who empties their mind to be filled by what is beyond the capacity of our limited minds to think through; who attunes to intuition; who pays attention to the messages of the unconscious that imbue the dream state.

For the intention we set out on the Full Moon, we combine this energy with the aspects of Gemini, as archetype of communication and creative expression, which we are contemplating this moon cycle.

When the energetic, curious, creative and idea connecting mind can drop into a state of meditative clarity and mindful concentration; then, insight, creative inspiration and wisdom can emerge.

The waning Half Moon is the point in the lunar cycle when we complete our release.

Having engaged in self-inquiry and reflection, to identify those thoughts, patterns, fears, inhibitions that limit our capacity to communicate clearly from the truth of our hearts and the wisdom of the soul perspective; we use the next days leading to the dark of the moon to reaffirm our release and literally feel the weight of this layer of limitation loosen and fall away.

Circle back to the questions posed on the Full Moon for deeper inquiry and to reaffirm what it is you are releasing.

Then, take a few moments each night as the moon continues to wane to find the moon in the sky and observe the waning quality.

 If your circumstances do not allow you to actually see the moon, use one of the most powerful tools of transformation and manifestation you have, your imagination, to see it in your mind's eye and attune to it in your body.

Inhale deeply, allowing the breath to collect the feeling tones connected to the thoughts, feelings and patterns you are releasing and with the exhale feel your body soften and relax into the letting go.

Moonlit Reflection for Integration of Sensuality and Sexuality

Tis’ the season of flirtation and fertility. The world is exploding in color, sound and movement designed to attract and enliven. Among us humans this energy is bouncing around in a culture with a deeply conflicted relationship with sensuality and sexuality. 

As the Moon waxes to full in the constellation of Scorpio opposite the Sun in Taurus, it is an opportune time to look at how all of this lives in you, but why?!?!?

Taurus exemplifies the part of us that longs to relish in earthly pleasures; celebrate the wonder of nature; create objects of beauty; prepare succulent meals for their beloved; delight in the senses and take time to luxuriate in the fulfillment of desire.

Scorpio represents our sexual nature, reflecting the intensity of sexual desire, energy and encounter as a gateway to profound intimacy and transformation. This archetype is also associated with the power of the unconscious mind as well as literal and figurative death.

In large part contemporary attitudes and expressions of sensuality and sexuality have developed in a paradigm of repression and control established and enforced through the religious tenets of many different belief systems. These cultural messages keep so many of us from experiencing our sensuality and sexuality with easeful sincerity. 

This paradigm denies many of us an easeful communicating and the comfort to inquire freely and openly with family and peers about these aspects that are so completely integral to who we are as beings. 

Moreover, in attempts to tamp down desire, sensuality is also sanctioned and we find ourselves living in a culture that is stifled and immature in its engagement with sensual pleasure and sexual fulfillment.

Buckling under this overlay of sexual taboo and stifiling of sensuality, as a collective, we witness the results of repression backfiring. Creating a taboo of something so natural and powerful fuels prohibited desire, rendering sex a powerful commodity that is blown up and featured in the marketplace in ways that are distorting and one-dimensional. 

In this split, the breadth and depth of our sensual and sexual natures are not given the regard or consideration they deserve. Our social, and for many, our personal engagements with our sensual and sexual nature are deprived of their inherent meaning, emotional implications and energetic importance.

These dynamics touch all of us. 

It is incumbent upon each of us to grapple with our own relationship with our sensual and sexual nature in the face of the conflicted context of our contemporary culture. In order to become integrated and empowered to have healthy and fulfilling relationships with our sensuality and sexuality, we must navigate these extremes to find our own balance.

The timing and confluence in this Full Moon is particularly potent symbolically and energetically to dive deep to bring release and balance in these areas. It is a opportune time to release anything we have internalized that prohibits us from experiencing our sensuality and sexuality mindfully. Let us take this opportunity to invite open, meaningful and authentic engagement with ourselves in these areas to support our embodied integration and wellbeing. 

While I write this in light of the timing with this moon, this practice can be undertaken ANYTIME to tend to these vital aspects of you!

Get in touch with the earth, sit on her, feel the quality of the air you are breathing, smell the fragrances, hear the sounds around you in layers.

Picture yourself at an age when you we're just forming your sense of yourself as a sensual and sexual being. Honor your wholesome innocence, your emerging desire and curiosity to explore these arousing feelings.

Be present to yourself with tenderness and sincere interest to discover, peering within to inquire:

What characterizes your relationship with your sensuality? 

Are their messages from your past (family, religion, peers, other influences) or experiences that proscribe sensual pleasure? 

What is your relationship to your sexual energy? 

How do you respond internally or externally when you see someone taking deep pleasure in something?

How much pleasure do you allow yourself?

What thoughts, emotional patterns, insecurities, shame, repression do you harbor around your sexual nature? 

Do you feel open and in balance with how you engage with your sexual energy? If you sense an imbalance, explore how your experience it.

Do you have clear boundaries and exercise integrity in the way that you relate through your sexuality in relationship to others?

Do you feel open to communicate and express to intimate partners or friends about your sexual needs or desires?

Allow yourself to dive into which ever question(s) holds the most charge for you. 

Be willing to observe and release what does not serve wholesome engagement, integration and personal integrity with respect to your ability to take pleasure in your sensuality and experience your sexual nature. 

Allow words, feelings and/or symbols that reflect what you intend/desire to feel and express o emerge.

Articulate your intention to release those aspects that you recognize as inhibiting the true balance in your relationship with your sensual and sexual nature. 

Relish in the inner connection, linger in the pleasure of the night and your own company. Emerge open to engaging the world from a new level of self-connection, balance and clarity. 

If this perspective and process resonates with you, consider and an Astrological Interpretation to support deeper inquiry; of one of my personalized Programs for Evolving Mindfully. Join us for a Moon Circles and share in sacred space for sisterhood to reflect, inquire, release, embrace and manifestation based on the cycles of nature, the symbolism and energy of the cosmos and the world around us. Visit evolvingmindfully.com to learn more.