Mercury Retrograde and Using this Time

Here's your weekly AstroYoga Forecast:

Welcome to Mercury Retrograde (Rx)!

Mercury Rx has received a bad reputation in recent years due to its connection with technological, travel, and communication mishaps, but its many gifts are often ignored.

You see, in a world where we rely on technology and smooth travel and communication, it can be upsetting when things go haywire.

However, there is a BIG gift in Mercury Rx, and I promise you that the gift is worth the minor inconveniences Mercury Rx brings up.

When a planet retrogrades, its energy is temporarily inverted, allowing for reflection on the nature of that energy itself. When Mercury retrogrades, you have a heightened potential to see the inner workings of how you think, communicate, and move through the world.

Let yourself into your inner world, and temporarily draw your attention away from forward momentum and into intentional reflection. 

This retrograde takes place amid the sometimes unsettling shifts of the eclipses, and in my mind, it's a welcome balm in a time when many of us are seeking to integrate abrupt shifts in our lives, relationships, and internal states. 

Allow yourself some space this week for honest self-reflection, self-care, and internal listening to the most subtle whispers of your soul.

This week's AstroYoga pose offers strength, balance, and inner fortitude to help with this retrograde.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice Side Crow (Parsva Bakasana)!

To practice this pose:

1. Start from toe stand
2. Twist to your right and place your hands on the floor to your right
3. Bend your elbows, pressing your knee and hip against your elbows
4. Shift right until you are light on your toes
5. Stay OR lift the feet
6. Repeat on the other side

PRO TIP

Move slowly and broaden your chest as you move through this posture. Let yourself move into your comfort zone and slowly expand from there.

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

Life's major challenges (career, relationships, finances, personal growth, etc) tend to have repeatable patterns in your life.

Your birth chart shows you these patterns as well as the simple steps you can take to overcome these patterns in a way that truly aligns with YOU.

Get started with Quintessence and Luminary Memberships which give you exclusive access Ask Me Anything Sessions, on-demand yoga classes, your monthly astrology guides, and MORE. These tools can help you unlock the secrets in your chart that help you solve life's biggest enigmas. Learn more here.

Full Moon Total Lunar Eclipse May 2021: Your Weekly AstroYoga Forecast

We are in the midst of eclipse season, and tomorrow is the Full Moon Total Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius. This eclipse, along with Mercury turning retrograde on Saturday, is opening a powerful energetic portal.

Eclipses are big moments in which major shifts can happen rapidly. These shifts often alter and align your trajectory for the next six months (or even longer in some cases). 

Tomorrow's eclipse is affecting the Sagittarius, Gemini, and Pisces placements in your chart primarily, as the Sun, Moon, and Jupiter form a temporary formation which creates a major shift in terms of how you know what you know.

Ask yourself where you tend to get the variety of thoughts you know as truth. The chances are good that intuition, personal experience, culture, and trusting the word of others (teachers, family, books, media, etc) all play a role.

Tomorrow's eclipse along with Mercury Retrograde offers you the chance to take an even deeper look at thought and truth itself: 

Where is it that your thoughts truly originate from? When you're in a flow, artistic, dream, or meditative state, where do your thoughts go?

Prepare to let go of any limited notions, begrudging intellectual commitments, or unenthusiastic duties you've been holding onto. Now is the time to make space for what truly resonates in your body, mind, and soul. 

If you do let go of patterning that no longer resonates, you may find yourself experiencing aspects of your life in ways that feel more deeply aligned with your soul's inner truth. 

This week's AstroYoga pose offers grounding and support for this eclipse.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice Warrior I (Virabhadrasana I)!

To practice this pose:

1. Stand at the back of your mat
2. Lunge the right foot forward so that the bent knee is just above the ankle
3. Lower the left heel, so that the toes are at a 45 degree angle
4. Lift the arms
5. Stay OR lift the heart to find a slight backbend
6. Repeat on the other side

PRO TIP

Without motion, feel as if you're dragging your feet toward one another. This midline squeeze allows you to safely stretch and lower the hips while simultaneously allowing deep support for any backbend you'd like to add.

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

NOTE: Life's major challenges (career, relationships, finances, personal growth, etc) tend to have repeatable patterns in your life.

Your birth chart shows you these patterns as well as the simple steps you can take to overcome these patterns in a way that truly aligns with YOU.

Get started with Quintessence and Luminary Memberships which give you exclusive access Ask Me Anything Sessions, on-demand yoga classes, your monthly astrology guides, and MORE. These tools can help you unlock the secrets in your chart that help you solve life's biggest enigmas. Learn more here.

Your Weekly AstroYoga Forecast: Gemini Season 2021 and Shifting Energies

Things are always shifting in the zodiac, but some shifts come more quickly than others.

Now is one of those moments when the shifts are powerful and quick. The potential for swift change and powerful growth is potent in this moment.

What is happening:

Jupiter is now in Pisces, a transit which fuels potential for spiritual, artistic, and joyful growth; the Sun is moving into Gemini on Thursday, heightening the experience of the lunar nodal axis; Saturn is turning retrograde on Sunday; and to top it all off, we are now in eclipse season.

Wondering what that all means?

Essentially, big shifts are possible right now. The trick with this energy is to allow yourself to be open to dealing with change around you, while simultaneously envisioning and acting in accordance with the shifts you'd like to see in your life.

Give space to others as they shift, feel, and open to unexpected change and growth. But also remember to give yourself space to flow through your own shifts.

If you can envision the way you'd truly like to live, and can see clearly one single shift that can help get you there, then all the efforts of your mind will conspire to help you.

This week, go with the flow, but also offer yourself a true vision for where you'd like to be going.

This week's AstroYoga pose offers balance and support for the areas of the body affected by these shifts.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice Eagle Pose (Garudasana)

To practice this pose:

1. Ground the right foot evenly on the earth or floor
2. Lift the left leg and cross it over the right (option to continue to wrap the ankle or leave it free
3. Wrap the right arm over the left and place the palms together
4. Bend the right knee and descend the hips back in space
5. Pause, then practice bowing forward, drawing elbows toward knees
6. Repeat on the other side

PRO TIP

Spend some time in this posture. While many postures offer great benefits from being held for a while, this one in particular has the ability to highlight hidden strengths within you and to open up the back of the heart so you're able to gain deeper support.

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

A New Moon For A New Earth: New Moon in Taurus 2021

Today is the new moon in Taurus. This new moon marks a moment of energetic renewal from the ground of your most connected being.

The energy of Taurus draws in the energy of what you most want to possess, and those resources you can never truly own, but that nevertheless support you and are yours simply due to the fact you're a human (like the Earth and the energy of love).

This is a moment when you can use your conscious mind to lovingly suggest to your subconscious what you most want to draw into your life on the physical plane. 

It's the perfect day to remember that from even the most trying circumstances, new life can still grow. 

There's an esoteric secret that on plane of manifest reality (on earth!), both a heavenly state and a hellish state can be called into play.

This new moon marks a moment when you can consciously choose to remember those things that make your life heavenly. You can create a new world of wonder and joy, simply by committing to truly seeing the world for what it is, and recognizing what is already wondrous and joyful within it.

If you do this, even more good things are bound to come your way.

This week's AstroYoga pose offers opening for the Taurus-ruled energetic areas of the body.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice fish pose (Matsyasana)

To practice this pose:

1. Lie on your back
2. If you have lotus in your practice, set legs in lotus, otherwise extend legs long
3. Place your elbows on the floor
4. Arch your back so your heart lifts and your throat opens
5. Place the top of your head on the mat
6. If you legs are in lotus, grab your big toes with your pointer and middle fingers

PRO TIP

Find the right elbow angle that allows the top of your head to lightly rest on the floor. Then, use the weight in your elbows to gently press the heart more skyward, opening up the front of the heart and throat chakras simultaneously.

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

Join me Tuesdays at 4pm PT/ 7pm ET for AstroYoga Flow. This active yoga class will help direct the planetary energies into your life so you can actually benefit from the transits consciously! Click Here to Grab Your Spot!

Your Weekly AstroYoga Forecast: Allowing + Relaxing = Heightened Manifestation

This weekend marked one of the eight most powerful solar points in the year. This moment, which is the halfway point in both Taurus season and Northern spring, is a potent time for deepening your resolve and commitment to relax into your greatest self-possession.

Relaxing and deepening your resolve might sound paradoxical at first, but these two modalities must happen simultaneously to grasp the true power of this moment. 

There's a part of you that's able to make things happen, and there's a part of you that's able to allow things to happen in your life. This moment is the time to deepen your resolve as to what you will allow in your life, and what you'd like to hold onto or release (energetically, physically, and emotionally).

Set your resolve for both what you will invite into your life and what you will allow to stay.

Your mind can be your ally or your inner trickster during this time, with Mercury now in Gemini and Venus entering Gemini this week. Ask your mind to deeply inquire into your felt sensations, and you'll have a recipe for using this energy well.

Use your mind as a tool to see your body, resources, love, and life clearly and from multiple angles. Allow your inner inquiry to offer you the mental resilience to allow what you truly want into your life.

This week's AstroYoga pose offers grounding and energetic flow for the Taurus and Gemini ruled areas of the body.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice shoulder stand (Sarvangasana)

To practice this pose:

1. Lie on your back
2. Lift the legs to the sky at a 90 degree angle
3. Stay OR lift the hips to the hands, keeping the torso at a 45 degree angle to the floor
4. Stay OR double check that all neck vertebrae are lifted and shift the torso to a 90 degree angle
5. Breathe and stay

PRO TIP

Getting upside down isn't about rigor so much as reversing the flow of energies in the body. Play around with a more restorative position (perhaps you slide a block under your hips or use a wall to support the legs). If you find you want more rigor AND all your vertebrae stay lifted from the earth, you can try placing the legs in lotus and placing the hands on the knees.

If you do practice full shoulder stand, be sure to follow with a fish posture!

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

P.S. Want to learn AstroYoga deeply? Check out the AstroYoga Teacher Training course—now on-demand!

AstroYoga Forecast: Spring Cleaning for Your Soul--Pluto Retrograde and the Scorpio Full Moon 2021

Last night, the full moon in Scorpio brought the energy of release, cleansing, and opening for those submerged energies that are often so difficult to deal with.

Scorpio is an energy of what is felt, deeply intuited, protected in secrecy, and inherited from deep familial/relational lines. When the full moon happens in Scorpio, it draws what is hidden to the surface to be honored and released.

The post-full moon energy is still in effect, with aspects to Uranus, Venus, and Mercury in Taurus being emphasized. This allows extra clearing and release in your head, throat, and heart spaces.

This week is the perfect time to notice the ways life has changed in the last three years. What abrupt changes have come your way? What slow transformations have you processed?

Take up the transformative experience of compassion, forgiveness, and release this week (for yourself and others). As you let go, Pluto begins to retrograde, inviting an even deeper release of what no longer serves you, so you can make way for what is new, fresh, and suitable to your life today.

This week's AstroYoga pose offers grounding and release for this Scorpio Moon/Pluto Retrograde combo.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice garland pose (Malasana)

To practice this pose:

1. From standing, turn the knees and toes out slightly
2. Bend your knees and descend your hips toward the ground
3. Draw your hands to heart center
4. Broaden your chest and breathe

PRO TIP

Engage mahabandha here! Start by engaging your pelvic floor (mulabandha). Then draw your low belly up toward the spine (uddiyanabandha). Finally, draw the chin in slightly (jalandharabandha).

How does it feel when you breathe into these bandhas (energetic locks)? What changes about the posture?

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

Full Moon in Scorpio: Harness the Energy of Healing, Love, and Grace for Radical Self-Alignment

Details on membership here.

Your Weekly AstroYoga Forecast: Mars in Cancer, the Scorpio Full Moon, and Taurus Season 2021

Taurus season is here, and this one has A LOT going on. Yesterday, Mercury and the Sun entered Taurus, creating a stabilizing effect on the energizing energy from the start of spring. 

Later this week, Mars enters Cancer (Friday), and the Full Moon in Scorpio opens up a major portal for potential healing and release (Monday).

These coinciding transits make the energy this week palpably rife with the potential to translate emotional healing (and purging!) into physical, manifest beauty and abundance. 

This comes with a caveat, as in order to receive the deep benefits of emotional release and manifest up-leveling, you have to be willing to move through the depths of your own shadows. 

Notice the full range of emotions from love to anger to grief to peace. Remind yourself that you are courageous enough and present enough to feel them one by one.

Mars in Cancer supports you in your ability to honor, nurture, and care for your inner state, but make sure this manifests as true care and not as hiding from yourself or your purpose.

This is a good week to take some time to reflect, pause, and heal. You can do it. 

If you want to know more about your chart specifically, and what area of life these transits are likely to affect, I suggest checking out my memberships. These give you face-to-face time with me, access to a detailed monthly horoscope booklet for the signs, and so much more. Memberships start at just $27.

This week’s AstroYoga posture supports the Taurus, Cancer, and Scorpio-ruled sections of the body.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice puppy pose (Uttana Shishosana)

To practice this pose:

1. Come to table top position (hands and knees)
2. Walk the hands forward and begin melting the heart toward the earth
3. Either keep the torso away from the floor, rest the forehead on the floor, or place the chest and chin on the floor (according to your comfort and flexibility)
4. Stay and breathe

PRO TIP

Allow the lower back and hips to widen as you enter this back bend. Allow the backbend to take place more in the upper back. This is a great posture to begin to open the more fixed vertebrae in the upper thoracic spine, so give yourself time and space here to allow them to open!

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth where there’s unrealized potential.

Your Weekly AstroYoga Forecast: Aries-Taurus Cusp--A Secret Stage of Manifestation

This is a week filled with the mixture of Aries and Taurus energy. 

Both these signs hold the energy of spring, and esoterically, these energies represent the coming together of the energy of your spirit (Aries) and the energy of your body (Taurus).

When Aries and Taurus combine, they lead to wellbeing, increased energy toward your goals, and heightened powers of manifestation.

As the Aries new moon energy from last weekend begins to grow and manifest new things in your life, offer yourself some Taurus energy to support it.

This week, Venus and Mercury both move from Aries into Taurus, offering you the chance to sustain, support, and ground yourself in the intentions you set for the Aries new moon.

Give yourself lots of space and grace as you travel this path this month. Uranus' presence in Taurus makes these transits important moments when you can examine, redefine, and offer compassion to yourself for the way you've responded to big shifts in the last few years.

This week’s AstroYoga posture offers invigoration and opening for the Aries and Taurus-ruled sections of the body.

ASTRO YOGA TIP OF THE WEEK 

Practice plow pose (Halasana)

To practice this pose:

1. Lie on your back
2. Lift the legs to the sky at a 90 degree angle
3. Stay OR lift the hips to the hands, keeping the torso at a 45 degree angle to the floor
4. Stay OR double check that all neck vertebrae are lifted and shift the torso to a 90 degree angle
5. Stay OR bend the hips, lowering the feet behind you

PRO TIP

Check in with the vertabrae in the neck as you move into this posture. The true hallmark of an advanced yoga practice is one that is both SAFE and AWARE. As you move, make sure that all weight rests in the shoulders rather than the spine. Ideally, most bodies will have a small gap between the floor and the spine throughout this posture.

If you do practice full plow pose, be sure to follow with a fish posture!

My advice on how this asana connects with astrology is general. Your personal chart will offer more specific advice on what sorts of activities could fortify your best qualities and encourage growth and healing where there’s unrealized potential.

New Moon in Aries 2021: How to Align, Heal, and Self-Actualize with Love