New Moon in Gemini: Making Adjustments

photo credit: Do Your Yoga

Making Adjustments

Today we have a New Moon in the mutable air sign of Gemini, the Twins. Upon analyzing the chart of this lunation, I have one word for you, dear readers: ADJUST.

I sure hope you’ve been working on your flexibility, friends, because there is a mutable Grand Cross formed at this New Moon which will require us to change in significant ways. Whether you practice stretching yourself in a yoga class, through brain gym games, or by learning the arts of negotiation and accommodation, we will all benefit from making slight yet effective adjustments through our communication, mindset, and actions.

Grand Crosses can often create tension to the breaking point, but the good news here is that the flexible theme makes it easier to implement “all change.” This Grand Cross formed by planets in mutable signs is made by Saturn in Sagittarius, opposing the Sun, Moon and Venus all in Gemini. These planets are squaring Jupiter and the Moon’s North Node in Virgo, and Neptune in Pisces. All these hard angles smack of making life difficult for us mortals. But it doesn’t have to be so because we’re loose and adaptable. As the saying goes, we can’t adjust the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

 

photo credit: Ashley Strong

Focused Movement

Saturn in Sagittarius opposing the New Moon is the main force to be reckoned with at this time. The planet of discipline and responsibility is tempering our urge to grow and expand, to fly high in our philosophies and long-distance, exotic travels in mind and body. Some of us may feel restrained, tethered beyond our liking, in order to meet responsibilities and stay closer to home. We are being asked to put our Geminian floods of ideas and perceptions into practical form. This is, generally, a good thing. But, if we’re the type to hate restriction and limitation, we will whinny and snort and chomp at the bit.

Saturn is taming our impulsivity right now. If we willingly face this taskmaster, we can put creative, whimsical thoughts and notions into lasting projects. We are building. Remember, Saturn rules Capricorn, earth sign of tradition, aging, and wisdom. He is Father Time, and wants us to leave our legacy, our unique, lasting impact on the universe. In order to do this, we have to take the Long View.

How does this heavier Saturnian influence play out at a time when the light, quick, ‘easy come, easy go’ tone of mercurial Gemini insists on making itself useful right now? Again, we adjust. We find chunks of time to breath in between meeting our responsibilities. We may not be able to take a two-week vacation or a month off right now, because of important projects we’re starting or digging into. “But it’s summer!!” we wail. “I need time off!" Well, yes, and you can learn the art of taking a mini-break, that wonderful British term that encompasses the real feel of a short vacation, a weekend getaway, with the aim of refreshing and finding respite in and amongst a sea of responsibilities.

Your Inner Hammock

If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be so nice

I have also come to realize the value of setting up a hammock inside the Self. Imagine your Being relaxed and cradled in a sort of bassinet, the seat of the soul. Breathe deeply into it. This can be done anytime, anywhere, even while sitting in a stressful meeting, commuting in the car or train, waiting in line at the checkout. Imagine your self simply ‘hanging out,’ blissfully being inside a hammock, relaxed in consciousness.

If you really want to go for the inner hammock experience, add the bonus of conscious, deep breathing to go all out! Allow the breath to massage the nervous system. In yoga, the throaty “ocean breath” technique known as Ujjayi (Sanskrit for “Victorious”) gives the breath texture. This helps the prana massage the air passages, and allows the oxygen extra entry into the cells, nourishing our selves all the way down to the DNA. I use this Ujjayi technique all the time, even if I am not in a yoga class, to turn on the parasympathetic nervous system. When I'm really taking it in, it's intoxicating, in a good way. Conscious belly breathing is the ticket to true embodied happiness, providing an instant oasis in our demanding, modern lives.

At this New Moon time of air sign Gemini and beyond, let the breath be your elixir, a place to make slight yet effective micro-adjustments within the Self. Allowing you to take a holiday, hanging in your inner hammock – anywhere, anytime you need it.

Erin Reese is an author, spiritual guide, astrologer, and modern psychic reader based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works with clients all over the world. For readings and spiritual counseling by Skype, phone or email, contact her directly. She can be reached at erin@erinreese.com.

Earth Yoga

When our energetic roots go deep enough, we can fly even higher.

As a chill-susceptible woman accustomed to tropical climes, I am thanking the gods and goddesses for a warmer-than-average Indian Summer on the west coast of California.

Bring the heat, I say. Dose me, sweet Sun, with vitamin D and stoke the inner fires now in preparation for the coming cold.

It’s time for Earth Yoga.

With Surya’s golden rays still dappling the grass, penetrating the bones deeply, it is time to set the asana mat aside while we can and get down and dirty - body direct on the ground - with our yoga. Find a patch of sunlight on a lawn – mid-morning or mid-afternoon is best – and send your energetic roots down deep into the earth for some real healing.

I’ve always preferred to practice asana in Nature, especially on the beach. A few days ago, I was touched again at the brilliance of outdoor yoga. This particular day, I needed to get grounded, and quick. I’d been staying in San Francisco – lovely, to be sure – but I’d forgotten one of the main reasons I’d left the City four years ago: electromagnetic frequencies.

When you’re in a city, the sheer congestion of people, electricity, computers, radio and wireless, microwave, satellites, and other waves penetrate our system – especially if we’re in a location where we’re surrounded by antennas and there are lots of hills or structures bouncing waves right back into your brain. If you’re a highly-sensitive person, like me, it’s enough to make you super-scrambled. It can be quite disorienting, even painfully so.

One morning, after I’d been in the city for a week, I felt my third eye – the brain’s frontal lobe – totally clog up. It was like my forehead was filled with zip-zap substance, which translated into confusion and electrical fog. I couldn’t think clearly, for one. Then, the thoughts that started to come into my awareness were not my own. God knows, really, whose thoughts they were, with so much maya-mind stuff cluttering up the airwaves.

Finally, I realized, I was NOT GROUNDED. Even with breath awareness and regular exercise, I was like a live wire again. Oh, I remember THIS feeling! Psychic clutter alert! Get me into NATURE - now!

I marched myself over to the nearest urban park – a beautiful patch of green at the top of a sweet knoll on the city’s sunnier side – and sat my rear right down, right on the ground. Deep breath. The smell of freshly-cut grass. A whiff of soil. The feel of the sun – quite strong that day – piercing my skin. The soul soaking it all in.

AHHHHHHH….I closed my eyes, and started to “run energy,” up and down the spine, until I could finally get a clear column flowing, like a conduit, from the earth and out through the crown, and back down again, through the spinal column, down through the root chakra, the tailbone – deep, deep into the earth.

After about ten minutes, I felt a release of congestion from the head as the energy flowed like a river again. I was a big ol’, psychic beacon at the top of the hill – transmitting, receiving; receiving, transmitting – no longer ‘gunked up,’ stuck in the head. Going down, going down...

Much better, I determined, as I sauntered over to the playground and watched some daycare kids having a field day whooping it up with their sweet selves. Good. More grounding. Kids are really grounded.

Next, I hiked further up the hill and came upon a long-haired guy playing fetch with two adorable golden retrievers. The sunlight-colored dogs were half-brothers, frolicking with abandon. I gave both pups a good belly scratch and they smile-panted and lost themselves in ecstasy rolling around on the grass. Good. Animals are also grounding.

Last, I found a baseball field that was spiffy-manicured, no dogs allowed and hence no surprising ‘presents’ to step on, with the perfect balance of sun and shade.

Aha! I’d found it – my earth yoga oasis! My outdoor studio du jour. Didn’t even think twice about not having a mat – I was goin’ for the green grass itself. I bounded over the pitcher’s mound to the outfield lawn, tore off the tennies and dug the tootsies into center field. Oh, yeah…that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Out through the tiny chakras that lie on each sole, the feet poured electrical excess into the earth, and my soul purred as I plunged into a simple self-practice.

Starting out with a few yin passive poses, I soared through a short series of Surya Namaskar. From plank position – board-flat back – I chataranga’d down to the ground. Then, I deliberately let my forehead ever-so-slightly graze the earth – Bhooma Devi, Mother Earth. As my nose burrowed into the sweet grass, I took a deep inhale in through the nose, filling my lungs with healing prana, prana, prana.

Swooshing to push myself into upward dog, smiling face to the sky. In the delicious downward dog, all four appendages – two hands, two feet – sunk into the dirt, sucking it up – like little prana suction cups.

Post sun salutation, picking leaves of grass from my knees, inspired by the redwood grove canopy, I lingered long in tree poses. I mimicked the wind as I balanced and swayed my way into Natarajasana – Shiva’s graceful dancer’s pose. I finished with a few minutes of meditation and a very loud Oooooooommmmmmm that got even the ravens squawking in harmony. Complete, I could have meditated right there in center field all day.

Now, the body was supple, sultry and sweaty; grass-stained, good and gritty.

Now, the grounded mind could be – unfettered and free, calm and crystalline.

Smiling from the inside out, I opened my eyes and gazed with gratitude at this amazing yoga center – no-frills and free – founded right there, on the spot called “Earth.”

Om Shanti

I am considering offering a five-day yoga and meditation intensive for beginners or 'starting agains' (approx. three hours per day, non-residential) between Christmas and New Year's, December 27-31, in Marin. Seems like a fantastic way to prepare the 'ground' for the New Year, a New Beginning. Very small, six students. Might you be interested? Please reply so I know there's 'buzz.' Thanks, and namaste.

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