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Tag Archive

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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Saturday, June 3rd at 8:42 pm PST in the evening, Saturday, June 3rd at 8:42 pm PST in the evening, the moon is fat and full and beaming at 13° of Sagittarius. Sagittarius is mutable fire. More than most full moons, it has the potential to dry us off and shine our hearts. Represented by the centaur with its bow and arrow, it activates the archetype of the adventurer as well as the wise philosopher, and the student trying to become the wise philosopher. It’s generally known for its optimism and idealism, and wherever it leads in your chart, you might have extra access to high spirits and a love of expanding both your consciousness and horizons. But it’s ultimate aim is to seek and arrive at some greater truth that will help us understand our suffering, how to live through it, how to transmute it. If we allow it, it can help us to develop our own mature, guiding philosophy. My philosophy has something to do with the hidden wholeness in all things, and remembering it’s there, even if I can’t see it or feel it. Our lives move in cycles and phases, like the moon. We may only see a crescent of the moon, or even when she’s full, only one side, but the moon is whole; only our perspective is partial. If I am feeling lost or sad or undone, a part of me knows that it’s a state or phase, I am still whole, and I am a part of a greater wholeness. I call this knowledge the “bright cord of meaning.” It took me a long time to make it, and to practice using it I n emotional deserts and illnesses and dark times. If nothing else, it insists that I be kind to myself when I’m in another abyss, and that kindness itself is a compass. That’s the medicine Sagittarius is trying to brew up for us. There is no one right approach to life. But you have to have a way to go, you have to your own arrow of light, or the losses in this life will crush you. If you have found or made yours, reconnect with it on this full moon. Give thanks for it. Use it! If you have not yet found it, or articulated it fully, that’s ok, you can give thanks for the beginning threads, for where you are on the path of its evolution. If you are working to free yourself from old, harmful philosophies, and who isn’t, this full moon will re-energize that liberation.
Happy new moon friends! Quick note before we get i Happy new moon friends! Quick note before we get into it — this new moon is a special one for me, as it’s my 44th birthday, a proper re-birthday. Thank you for reading these posts, and for whatever bit of strangely real community we get here and you are a part of. Consider joining me over at Substack, where the basic offering is free, and you can get my new and full moon posts directly in your inbox, without ads or algorithms. It’s more & more where I’m at. Ok, onward... Friday, May 19th at 8:53am PST, the moon goes dark and renews herself at 28° of Taurus. We haven’t had a new moon in Taurus in two years due to eclipses. We’ve really been through it, and now we are being offered a chance to rest and recalibrate, to plant some new seeds from a more experienced and hopefully wiser place. All of the earth signs encode secrets to manifestation—to creating concrete things in the world of form. Taurus' business is the ground, the foundation, nourishment and resources, fertile soil, hardy root systems. Whatever we want to grow in the garden of our life, it needs specific and nourishing conditions to come into being and inhabit the fullness of its possibilities. We can’t force anything to happen, and trying to do so often has the opposite effect. But we can create a good container and excellent conditions and then invite it warmly and gently to happen, if it would like to. We can also relax our grip, slow down, make the process more beautiful, & trust it to unfold at its own intelligent pace. Astrologically this is one of spring’s energetic peaks. It wants to help us rise into and inhabit a state of great accomplishment and grace. If you do want to work a little manifestation magic with this new moon, here’s the Taurus advice: consider that everything you’ve ever been through is actually the perfect resume, the perfect foundation for what’s to come. Give thanks first for all you already are and all you already have. Then really consider what future is calling to you--no halfhearted wishes on this moon, it's too potent. But if it's a whole-hearted yes, take one small step this weekend toward creating the conditions for it to come into being.
Friday morning at 10:34am PST, the moon peaks and Friday morning at 10:34am PST, the moon peaks and goes dark at the same time, in a full moon south node lunar eclipse at 14° of Scorpio. Scorpio is such a powerful healer, there is nothing to do but bow down and try and trust whatever it’s bringing, both collectively and personally. It’s ruled by Mars, so it’s never healing us with Venus’ beauty and warmth and love, or Jupiter’s infinite mercy and kindness and resourcing, or Mercury’s ability to understand and communicate. Scorpion healings often work by bringing on a crisis or illness—surfacing a toxin to be cleansed. They use both deep water and fierce fire, and it’s a lot of intensity and lifeforce. Working with Scorpio can teach us how to properly defend ourselves and others when we are vulnerable, how to honor, sustain, and channel our healthy anger so that we can stand in our power, set and enforce boundaries, and be in relationship honestly. It can also teach us how to shed those harsh defenses when we need to, to be the vulnerable one receiving protection so we soften and feel our pain and grief. This is the final eclipse in the Scorpio series. It’s likely you’ve healed something in the last year around your earliest defenses and survival strategies. You’ve brought them into the light of consciousness, and learned to interrupt and let go of the ones that aren’t serving you. And now you might be getting one last round of this poison/medicine. No matter how difficult it is this week—or, alternatively, how strong you feel—appreciate how far you’ve come. Celebrate the holier relationship you are now in with your needs and feelings and defenses. And, as always, all we actually have to “do” during an eclipse is get through it as lovingly as possible. It’s wise to lay low until the energies to restabilize. The eclipse field is active Thursday through Saturday, but healings may continue to unfold through the next week. I’ll be putting my bare feet directly on the earth often, taking naps, and probably also putting honey on everything, to remind myself about sweetness. *** For a more in-depth reading, sign up for my Substack. The basic offering on new & full moons is totally free!
Tonight, at 9:13pm PST, we get a second new moon i Tonight, at 9:13pm PST, we get a second new moon in Aries, the holy ram, and this one is a total solar eclipse at 29° of Aries. It’s happening in a serious square to Pluto, god of hidden powers and transformations, who is still hanging out in the liminal 0° space between Capricorn and Aquarius. There’s some real drama and gravitas here, and it’s certainly a big finish to this wild Aries season. Aries is an archetype of instinct, agency, and initiation. There’s been so much going on here in the last year, as Jupiter has been transiting here with its generosity and growth powers, and Mars, Aries’ ruler, got that retrograde healing in Gemini. You may have received some big healing in your relationship with your life force, your intuition, your innocent core self, your personal power, or your authentic voice. And some finishing touches got put on that growth and healing just in the last month, with Mercury + the Sun + Chiron + Jupiter all in conjunctions. If you know which house Aries rules in your chart, really take a moment and savor how far you’ve come there. It’s probably astonishing. And if you’re feeling “all set for now” in terms of your growth in Aries, that would make sense. However, this eclipse is the first in a series of north node eclipses in Aries over the next two years. So all this was just laying a new foundation. We are summiting a mountain only to discover it’s the base of another, much larger mountain. The good news is there is nothing we need to do exactly, not this week. We don’t need to work with this eclipse ritually, or try to invite or force anything to happen. We also can’t stop it from happening. Forces that are larger than us are at work. What we can do is take extra care, ground, drink water, get sleep, show up for ourselves and our people. We can notice what is emerging and go with the flow. Eclipse energies are unstable, but it’s temporary. It’s probably wise to slow down, tread lightly, trust more, and lighten that grip. Life will take us where it wants us to go. For a more in-depth analysis, you can sign up for my substack - In the River of What’s Happening Now - link is in my bio! The basic offering is totally free 🌑🌘🌗🌖🌕
Tonight at 9:34pm PT, the moon peaks in fullness a Tonight at 9:34pm PT, the moon peaks in fullness at 16° of Libra. Full moons in Libra call our attention to balance in our relationships, and where we are it in our discovery of the beauty and harmony made possible by right relationship. They also tend to activate tension wherever our need for autonomy and authentic self-expression (sun in Aries) conflicts with our need for secure attachment relationships (moon in Libra). This one is co-occurring with a Chiron cazimi, so any painful patterns we experience in how we enter the world or how we are received by it will likely get highlighted this week, but in the warmest, most compassionate way possible. The tension between these two core human needs is near-universal. We all receive some early social conditioning, from our families or the culture at large, that welcomes and rewards some parts of us and denies or punishes others. We are told both implicitly and explicitly what we need to do (and not do) to belong. We cannot survive as children without secure attachments, so if there is any conflict, belonging wins, and authenticity gets repressed. As adults who can technically survive on our own, the dynamic reverses. The pressure to be our authentic selves increases, and any relationships that won’t welcome all of us as we really are eventually diminish or come to an end. If your struggle here is mostly resolved, give sincere thanks, and if you’re still very much in it, this moon is offering a signal boost to your healing. When we evolve, our relationships evolve, and there are times when old safe ground is washed away. This full moon wants us to pause before any rush to rebuild, to have a proper holy shit moment, acknowledge all we’ve been through and integrate something we’ve learned. It might be inviting us to stage a little memorial, to make a toast. To untangle our hearts from the fantasy that it happened differently. To adapt a quote from Heidi Priebe: “To love yourself and another long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people you used to be.” The hard work of change, of learning to balance loving ourselves and loving others, exactly as we really are, is worth it. So a thousand funerals it is.
It’s the equinox friends! A deeply holy day — It’s the equinox friends! A deeply holy day — the sun enters Aries, the Zodiac cycle renews itself, and for those of us in the northern hemisphere, spring officially begins. Then Tuesday morning at 10:23 am PST, the moon enters Aries, and we have the newest new moon possible – a new moon at 0° of Aries. Mercury is also here in Aries, and Chiron and Jupiter, adding blessings & magic for healing and growth. Pluto is sextiling this new moon from its own death/rebirth threshold, just days away from entering Aquarius. And Mars is about to complete its transit of Gemini (finally!) and enter Cancer. This is the most auspicious confluence for rebirth that I have seen or felt in a while. Aries is represented by the great ram, an archetype of individual power and will and commencement. Just picture a giant, majestic, muscley ram with its enormous spiraling horns and it’s at home on these craggy mountains because it is so strong and god-like that hard rock is comfortable and nurturing to it. Picture it winding up its power to charge an obstacle—there is nothing that can stand in the way of that kind of force. Wherever Aries influences your chart, that’s what you have access to—that pure energy that operates on impulse, that doesn’t over think, that just wants and acts and charges forward. Through this wanting and acting on the world, Aries helps us discover who we are. Any lunation at 0° is a wild card. Zero is the Mother Nothing, the fertile emptiness. So what we are experiencing here in Aries is an awakening of pure potential, connected to who we are here to be and become. You do not need to be ready for this new potential. You probably can’t be; it might even be essential that you wander into it innocently or foolishly, without knowing what you are getting yourself into. What you can do is be open. You can be willing to get ready, or to get ready to get ready. This new moon is inviting us to (again!) let go of needing to know or control the final outcome. It wants us to plant seeds of faith in ourselves and in our becoming. It wants us to follow an impulse, and then the next one, and the next one, until magically, what’s beginning has begun.
Tuesday morning at 4:40am PST, the full moon peaks Tuesday morning at 4:40am PST, the full moon peaks at 16° of Virgo. Then, just one hour later, Saturn enters Pisces. Virgo is the holiest editor, the priestess of precision. It’s gift is for assessing, somewhat severely, what’s working and what isn’t. It actually loves cleaning up a mess, and restoring order, and doing hard steady work, as long as it is meaningful. Wherever Virgo influences your chart, you’ve likely got real work to do in the world, diagnosing and healing and upgrading dysfunctional systems. While Pisces may be the most obviously spiritual of the Zodiac signs, the one most-stoned on cosmic love poems and embodied visions of wholeness, Virgo is the one of the signs most-equipped to put that love and spiritual insight into actual practice. As Pisces continues loosening us and readying us for the coming spring growth, this full moon in Virgo is inviting us to do a deep process edit. What have you learned about putting your aesthetic sense and sacred values into living practice? Are the systems you have created for yourself still supporting you? Where is it clear, from the hot mess, that you need to re-stabilize or re-tailor that support? Sometimes systems breakdown because we are outgrowing them, and our needs are changing. Listen to the wisdom of what is breaking down, and what isn’t. Under the light of this full moon, Saturn brings it teachings about the magic of limits to the Piscean dream realm. This will likely open a direct line to ongoing insights on how to manifest something very real that right now you can only imagine. For more on all of it, head to my substack, In the River of What’s Happening Now. Longer downloads on the new and full moons with ritual and creative writing prompts are free for subscribers. Happy full moon!
Later tonight at 11:06pm PST, the moon goes dark a Later tonight at 11:06pm PST, the moon goes dark and renews herself at 1° of Pisces. Pisces is mutable water, the water of transformation, the ending that gives birth to new beginnings. It’s the final month of the 12-fold Zodiac development cycle that begins with Aries and the first personal instincts declaring themselves so that an ego can form, and ends with the total dissolution of that singular ego identity. It’s represented by the cosmic fish of nonduality, forever swimming the ocean while being the ocean, washing boundaries into boundarylessness, dissolving distinctions into unities, merging thoughts into feelings into meanings. In the northern hemisphere, Pisces guides us out of winter. In the outer world, it’s the rains that come and thaw the frozen earth. It calls on the seeds that have been planted in the cold and the dark and quickens their dreams of becoming. In the inner world, it’s the opening and loosening of psychic and bodily channels to bring us out of contraction. If you set an intention for new life back on the winter solstice, and there is anything in you that’s stuck and frozen and blocking the path to that new life getting to even begin, Pisces season has the potential to dissolve that stuckness. It does it by restoring the feeling function and flooding the poem gates. It does it by tapping higher forces like love and beauty. It does it by showing us to the limits of our gripping and control, and giving us the option to, instead, trust. 🌊🌊🌊 To get the full download plus some ritual suggestions and a writing prompt, go to my substack, In the River of What’s Happening Now. The basic subscription is completely free, and you can get my readings on new and full moons directly in your inbox. If you have the means and the desire, paid subscriptions get you additional writings, full access to the archive, and the satisfaction of helping me stay psyched and keep writing moon songs. That’s it - happy last new moon of winter friends! See you at the seed pods, dreaming of spring…
Today at 10:29am PST, the moon is full at 16° of Today at 10:29am PST, the moon is full at 16° of Leo. Leo is a fixed fire sign, the hot hot heart to Aquarius’ cool intellectual starlight. Leo is embodied, loose, passionate, fearless. It wants us to love and glorify and express our unique, individual form. That’s where the moon mirror is going full right now, reflecting all the sun’s light. From a northern hemisphere perspective, it’s like a little portal to peak summer has opened up in the middle of our psychological and actual winter. Leo is an archetype of mastery, self-dominion. It represents the kind of strength that comes from unapologetic individuality, from the totally free and controlled expression of our beings. This full moon weekend might be calling you to reflect on your indivuduation, and to celebrate how far you’ve come. Where are you at on your journey to acknowledging, embracing, and serving your nature? Where are you at in devoting time and power to developing your unique style and gifts, and bringing them into the collective where they are desperately needed? How is that fire in your belly doing? Here's what Leo knows: no one can tell you who you are, and no one can grant you access to your power and your gifts – only you can do that. But like, you can do that. You don’t have to live a life of quiet compromise. You can claim your life. Self-love and self-recognition are the keys. So is honoring the intelligence of the body, and all of its subtle signals. The more we honor our unique design, the more releasing we do of all that is not us and not right for us, the more our life force is liberated, and the more we can be in right relationship with others. Our liberation is entangled, so the ball of sun in the center of me thanks the ball of sun at the center of you, for all you’ve already done to be a light in the world. *** Want the longer download? Sign up for my substack! The basic offering is totally free.
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