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Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “embodied alchemy”

Healing Your Defenses

admin October 2, 2018

An introduction to healing our defenses in the mind and body.

depth psychologyembodied alchemyhealingimmune system healingmindy nettifeenettleoregonplant alliesportlandpsychic defensesomaticstraumavenus retrograde

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The full moon at 11° of Aquarius came this mornin The full moon at 11° of Aquarius came this morning at 8:59 am PST, giving us a breath of fixed winter air in the middle of Leo season’s fixed fire. The Leo/Aquarius axis can teach us a lot about the tensions alive in this moment. In the northern hemisphere, Leo is summer heat and hair metal and high noon and monarchy. Aquarius is wintermint breath crystals and Moog and starlight and democracy. Leo is intuitive self-mastery and full-bodied expression and Aquarius is intellectual clarity and utopian social theory. On the exaggerated shadow side of the axis, it’s Donald Trump vs the Borg. We can personally use this full moon to take a pause and reflect on our broken hearts and our activated complexes. We can breathe and remember the intentions we intuited this last winter for our own personal and group evolution this year. We can collect our bruised and scattered selves, and practice seeing things from the cosmic point of view, letting our defensive responses deactivate just a little, just enough to get some inner space. How far have you come in the six months? What can be acknowledged and celebrated about how you/we have adapted and evolved this year? What weaknesses and imbalances have been revealed? To get through what we need to get through, this year and in the coming years, we need to invite in greater integration of the opposites and increase our tolerance for their paradoxes. We need passionate action and mindful reflection; strong intuition and healthy, rigorous science. We need to fully embody our agency and fully feel and enact empathy for how our agency impacts and restricts the agency of others. Remember - the changes we wish to see in this world are not, in fact, radical. Tap into the Aquarian knowing that we are more like conservatives from the future - a future where we have reformed societies around agreements to aid and fend for one another. A future where care has been taken to imagine, design and implement sustainable and self-healing systems for resource use. A future where we were taught how to channel our selfish instincts into collective ambitions, and our fierce love for beloved others into fierce love of the whole world.
This morning, at 10:33 am PT, we have our second n This morning, at 10:33 am PT, we have our second new moon in Cancer in a row 🌑🌑 The first was on June 20, at 0° of Cancer, and also solar eclipse. This one returns but at 26° of Cancer, making directly opposite contraction-bringing Saturn in Capricorn. The vibes are pretty Sysiphean right now. The labor and struggle feel relentless, perpetually frustrated by setbacks. We are seeing (again and again) just how large and ongoing the task is of undoing entrenched systems of oppression and supremacy. We can feel how long it’s going to take, this work of staying awake and unlearning our conditioning, so that something new can be born. The Cancer archetype is about mothering and resourcing and emotional labor, and also home, containment, protection, guardianship. Fully realized, it provides us a kind of deep safety and access to right defense that we take with us everywhere we go - the crab shell. The new moon arriving in its waters twice, we are getting a deepening of its teachings and gifts. At this moment, Cancer wants us to embrace radical adaptation. We have radically adapted this year - whether all our efforts have gone/are going well or not - and we will continue to need to radically adapt. We have the power to change, to release anything that we don’t need anymore, anything that isn’t working under fresh conditions, and to then develop new strategies. If we havent fully let go of a harmful perspective or pattern or behavior, or if we’ve tried new ones that didn’t quite work, we keep at it. We try again. We create better conditions to support the change. We practice practicing. Saturn in Capricorn is about nothing if not perserverence. If you’re tired, deeply, cellulary, that makes sense. Take a break today, on this new moon Moonday, contract fully, reset. Focus on the outbreath until you’re grounded. Then, breathe in. Imagine new adaptations and defenses awakening and coming into being. A glittering, permeable, intelligent armor, to protect and sustain you, to make it safer for you to continue loving and fighting and healing and building. Rest, re-membrane, remember what you are capable of.
The BREATHE Act was unveiled today: “Imagine sc The BREATHE Act was unveiled today: “Imagine schools free of police and full of trained counselors and restorative-justice programs, where all our children are kept safe and their needs are met. Imagine easy access to trained, trauma-informed interventionists who can be called on in domestic-violence situations and who are equipped to facilitate long-term safety, healing, and prevention. Imagine 911 operators dispatching unarmed mental-health experts instead of police in situations involving behavioral health crises, and callers being allowed to request responders that connect to the gender identity of the person in crisis. The BREATHE Act offers a radical reimagining of public safety, community care, and how we spend money as a society. We bring 4 simple ideas to the table: -Divest federal resources from incarceration and policing. -Invest in new, non-punitive, non-carceral approaches to community safety that lead states to shrink their criminal-legal systems and center the protection of Black lives—including Black mothers, Black trans people, and Black women. -Allocate new money to build healthy, sustainable, and equitable communities. -Hold political leaders to their promises and enhance the self-determination of all Black communities. Uprisings around the country changed what was possible. What felt impossible two months ago is being accomplished now; what seems impossible today is doable tomorrow, and we will be the ones to make it happen. We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.” 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 #breatheact breatheact.org
I’ve often heard Bayo’s voice in my head over I’ve often heard Bayo’s voice in my head over the last 3 months, speaking the proverb: “the times are urgent, let us slow down.” As the reality of COVID 19 set in, it seemed to describe exactly what was happening, and what needed to happen, what we had needed to happen all along. A great slowing and uncoupling from ordinary/automatic states, a deepening understanding of our interconnectedness, a creation of the exact conditions that would finally allow for real and lasting change. As Bayo lovingly chides, we cannot solve problems using the same approach that created them, echoing Audre Lorde’s declaration that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Happy full moon friends. It’s another big one. Tonight, at 9:44pm PST, the cosmic tides peak with a full moon lunar eclipse at 13º of Capricorn. For those of us in the U.S., it carries added significance, arriving on the 4th of July - Independence Day - meaning that this eclipse will happen as fireworks explode in the sky. It feels to me like a direct invitation to move even more deeply into contemplation of liberation. We must dismantle the master’s house, and the myth of independence, with its illusions of separateness and specialness and supremacy, isn’t going to get us there. To discover what will get us there, to be present to more true, more liberating ideas, we have to continue to not-rush, to slow down. We have to continue the work of opening our hearts and imaginations and cultivating radical receptivity. Saturn has also now retrograded back into Capricorn, joining Jupiter and Pluto and tonight, the full moon, to begin its final six months of it’s Capricorn transit. Whatever rituals you do tonight, don’t forget to set a proper container, and show Saturn some respect. This is an opportunity to honor how far you have come, to complete a stage of your healing process, and to practice, again, releasing the stories that are holding you back. This moon has some Capricorn-style encouragement - stay with what is ending, stay with what is difficult. Stay climbing the mountain, one step at a time. Rest when you need to, but don’t check out. You have not come this far to only come this far.
Happy Solstice friends ⚡️ In the northern hemi Happy Solstice friends ⚡️ In the northern hemisphere, this is the longest stretch of light, the big finish to the latest cycle of growth/flowering/expansion. It is coinciding this year with a moment of maximum contraction: a new moon and solar eclipse at 0º of Cancer, coming tonight at 11:41 pm PST. As with all the astrology this year, this alignment is epic. We are being invited deeper into this portal where old forms and beliefs and ways of life can dissolve, the next step in our collective evolution. According to the laws of alchemical transformation, solution can only come through dissolution. This next six months will dissolve things further, and we we have the opportunity tonight to honor what is ending or has ended for us personally, and to process our emotions and come apart if we need to. We can grieve all we’ve lost, and we can call in further necessary dissolution of any and all hostile patterns, systems, and beliefs in our culture that are disconnected, disconnecting, and bring harm to life itself. At the same time, something new is being born. In some ways this new form is still a dream dreaming itself; in other ways its early crystallizations are already visible. The Cancer constellation evokes the archetypal mother and nurturer. New life is fragile and vulnerable. If it is to thrive, it needs safety, containment, home, love, nourishment, and attuned, disciplined care. What do you need at this time to restore your lifeforce and build your capacity for the work ahead? What new forms have you been dreaming of, and what might they need to become fully realized? How can you create more safety for vulnerable people, and for revolutionary new forms to emerge? What stabilizing structures and emotional labor might the revolution need to continue to grow strong? Get specific. Write it all down. Say it all aloud. Send any money you can spare to support Black trans lives, and tell it to grow ten-fold. Light a small fire and sing encouraging songs to it, then tell the dark, listening night sky what you wish for. The signal boost is strong. Use it well. Dandelion art by the amazing @hobopeeba 🙌🏼
Happy Juneteenth!! Our liberation is entangled! I Happy Juneteenth!! Our liberation is entangled! I want to celebrate the work of Nkem Ndefo, the founder and president of Lumos Transforms and creator of The Resilience Toolkit. I have learned so much from Nkem over the last few years - including what is summed up so elegantly on this slide here. While somatic therapies are extremely supportive in resolving interpersonal trauma, and strengthening the connection to self in relationship, one-on-one settings / therapeutic dyads cannot resolve cultural trauma or systemic racism. We need group to activate those wounds and group to enact that healing. In her words, “When it comes to structural traumas such as racism, often the healing comes in the form of activism, community organizing, political engagement, and the arts. It is in these activities that survivors of structural trauma find ways to move out of freeze and/or appeasement and reclaim their power.” So let’s keep getting all the therapies we need but also let’s keep up the steady protesting, organizing, community building, art making, and celebrating through collective action this opportunity we have to transform this culture 🙌🏼 Follow @nkemndefo and @lumos_transforms, see Nkem speak as often as possible, and attend a workshop by visiting theresilencetoolkit.co
I took some time this last week to concentrate my I took some time this last week to concentrate my energies and complete my work from the last six years - on Monday June 15th, I defended my dissertation research “Voice as Embodied Sense: Rethinking Voice and Language in Trauma Healing” and was conferred a doctorate in depth psychology with a specialization in somatic studies. I am now officially a Dr. It’s still dawning on me that I finished 😭 This is the golden gate of knowledge my husband Brian Ellis made for me to ritually walk under (swoon) while wearing the red ruby hermetic shoes of witchcraft, and the look of shock and joy on my face is very real. Thank you for all the flowers & notes & to all of you who have made this as special as it can be in the year of no parties. If there were ever a time to pause and grieve and celebrate and release and thank the gods for the gift of being alive to enact the revolution, this coming summer solstice solar eclipse new moon in Cancer is it. More soon ⚡️⚡️
Michelle Vosika Cooper is an incredible psychothe Michelle Vosika Cooper is an incredible psychotherapist and human being, born and raised and living here in Portland, OR. If you’re looking for a local Portland resource, you can find her practice at www.allwithinyou.com. She also recently founded The Black Couch Project (theblackcouch.org) to address white supremacy and create consciousness in the field of counseling. The project provides critical feedback and guidance to white healing practitioners who want to do less harm. This work is a massive and generous offering, valuable for all white counselors, social workers, and facilitators and all clients they come into contact with. Considering the depth and breadth of racialized trauma, and inidivual and collective healing process ahead, this is leadership and work the world needs, and Portland needs rather desperately. Michelle deserves financial support to keep doing it. I invite you to check out theblackcouch.org, tell white therapists you know about it, and send a donation in any amount through Venmo to @Michelle-VC 🙌🏼
Happy full moon friends. If you’re not feeling f Happy full moon friends. If you’re not feeling full up, fed up, at/beyond your edges, stretched in every way; if you’re sleeping well, if you’re not redefining your capacity and seeking new ways to apply your life force to breaking the systems and spells of white supremacy, it’s time to let this revolution into your heart. Today, just after high noon, at 12:12 pm PST, is a full moon at 15° of Sagittarius and a penumbral lunar eclipse, activating a turn in the nodes of fate. If you want guidance on what this means for the movement against systemic racism and police violence, or for the uprising you are living through personally, I want you to head straight to @ChaniNicholas, who has workshops & rituals for this eclipse cycle. She is offering them for free right now to anyone who cannot pay, and donating 50% of all proceeds to Breonna Taylor’s family’s gofundme. It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this is not already familiar with the astrology of Chani Nicholas. But just in case ✨ Chani is a clear, fierce channel of love and truth, teaching us each moon how to use astrology to create consciousness, understand healing, and repair the harm of white supremacy & patriarchy & capitalism. Her book You Were Born For This: Astrology for Radical Acceptance is like an instant old friend. Her emotional leadership on all fronts of the revolution has been tireless for years, but I think it’s particularly important what she’s done to ground and promote feminist, relational, justice-centered, activist spirituality. Follow her. Take her workshops. Send money to the causes she lifts up. To truly hex/transform this system, we must heal from trauma and freeze, lean into loving and interconnected action, elect new leaders, & write and pass new laws. Chani’s guidance inspires and nurtures this exact kind of spellwork.
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