☾✩☽ Guest Luminaries ☾✩☽
Carolyn Cowan is an embodied psychotherapist, yoga and breathwork teacher and teacher trainer with 30 years of experience in helping others move out of suffering and toward a more present experience of themselves. Carolyn lives, and runs a private psychotherapy practice, in London. She has trained in Psychosexual and Relationship Therapy, Trauma Therapy, Advanced Couples Work and conflict resolution.
Carolyn is over 30 years clean and sober from drugs and alcohol. Throughout her own journey out of addiction, over the last 30+ years, she has worked endlessly for others. She is also an Advanced Yoga Instructor with over 10,000 hours of experience. She runs a 220 hour Kundalini Global Teacher Training and many further trainings that are for both yoga teachers and individuals. The trainings include Altered States: The Breath, Mastering the Addictive Personality, and a new course called The Radically Inclusive Pregnancy Yoga Teacher Training.
For decades, Carolyn has been teaching yoga classes which, during the pandemic, moved online and which have often seen hundreds of live participants join from all over the world. In all classes, the invitation to stillness is made. It is a thread woven through the embodied way in which Carolyn approaches many avenues of her varied work life.
☾✩☽ Astrological Resources ☾✩☽
Here is a selection of some of our favourite Astrologers you can tune into across 2022.
↠ Blue Rose School https://www.andrewsmith.ie/introduction/
↠ Mystic Mamma https://www.mysticmamma.com/astral-insights/
↠ Chani Nicholas https://chaninicholas.com/about-chani-nicholas/
↠ Virginia Rosenberg https://virginiarosenberg.com/about-virginia
↠ Lorna Bevan https://www.hareinthemoonastrology.co.uk/lorna-bevan
↠ Paramatma Siri Sadhana https://spaceweathertransmissions.com/paramatma
↠ Matthew Stelzner https://www.youtube.com/channel/
↠ Jennifer Racioppi https://jenniferracioppi.com/
☾✩☽ Other Recommended Resources ☾✩☽
↠ Find out more about this month’s Luminary Carolyn Cowan on her website here
↠ “The Courage to be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi
↠ “Savage Grace” by Andrew Harvey
☾✩☽ Cosmic Intel + Teachings ☾✩☽
Full moons are a time to look at everything in full light and make changes as needed. They can represent endings, completions or something coming to a ‘peak moment,’ The lunar qualities of emotions and instincts reach their peak at a full moon. The energy of a situation is at its fullest potency and potential. We fluctuate with the moons energy and the Full Moon is time of release. La Luna affects the gravitational pull of tides, birth rates, can regulate menstrual cycle, sleep, moods, plant growth, Emergency Room, Crime Rates. Every 29.5 days the Moon reaches its full phase and so do we…..
The Moon in astrology is associated with the feminine and in particular the Mother archetype. She rules the emotional body connecting us to our instinctive wisdom and our most basic needs. She helps protect and guide us by gifting us with information about our feelings and about the wellbeing of our nature. She enables us to penetrate our deepest recesses in the personal and collective unconscious and our roots in the past, our ancestral inheritance.
We are in a time of collective and personal awakening to what has been in the shadows, oppressive and imbalanced across our implemented systems as well as our personal realities. The process of awakening can be painful, because new realities precipitate trajectory shifts. In the process of things dismantling, disassembling, and crumbling, we can feel unstable and this is why change is often so dreaded. But we are the change makers of this time, and we are here at this time for a reason. We each carry our own truth, but a universal truth is that we’re all here ultimately to learn to love and be loved.
Full Moon In Sagittarius
The full moon in Sagittarius lights up the morning sky on June 14 at 4:52am PST/7:51 EST and Ireland 12:52.
The full Strawberry Moon in Sagittarius also happens to be a supermoon, which essentially refers to any full moon that’s at a distance of at least 90% of perigee (aka the point at which the Moon is closest to Earth). Get ready to feel wonder.
According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the Algonquin, Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota peoples, among others, call this lunation the Strawberry Moon because it rises around the same time the berries are in harvest. The sun will be in Gemini, and the moon will sit across the sky in Sagittarius; the Gemini-Sagittarius axis is concerned with information—disseminating information, teaching, learning, and exchanging dialogue.
Gemini season one of the most fun times of the year. How can anyone resist falling for the charm, wit, and unfiltered chaos dished out by the Mercury-ruled sign?
The Gifts of the Gemini Energy:
Energetic, Fun, Playful, Versatile, Intelligent, Inquisitive, Info Junkie, Quick-witted, Optimistic, conversationalist, Socializer, Curious, Willing, the Reader, the Writer, the Storyteller.
The Challenges of the Gemini Energy:
“I’m bored”, Nervous anxiety, Spread too thin, Burn-out, Verbose, Unreliable. Scattered. Ungrounded. Top heavy in the mind.
Sitting opposite of Gemini on the zodiac wheel is Sagittarius, the centaur and great knowledge-seeker. Much like Gemini, Sagittarius operates on learned and absorbing information, but because it’s ruled by the expansive benefic Jupiter, it takes things to the next level. Sagittarius is the crusader, the whistleblower, the social justice warrior. Sagittarius is the sign of Freedom. These astrological archetypes play out in the sky.
Gemini/Sagittarius Axis
With Gemini /Sagittarius polarity we seek freedom and truth, so this is the time to revise the ideological basis of our belief systems, individual and collective. This makes it an opportune time to support each other on the quest for meaning, freedom, and truth. Opportunities abound for expanded vision and enlightenment.
What does freedom mean? The dictionary definition is, “the ability to act or change without constraint.
1. What does freedom mean to you?
2. What does freedom feel like in your body, mind, and spirit?
3. Imagine it. Memorize it. Note what blocks it. Move towards it.
4. Do we trust ourselves to be free?
5. Do we trust each other to be free?
6. What gets in the way?
7. How are we going to collaborate to make more freedom in the world?
The alchemical pressure may finally crack open a new era of progress that hasn’t been possible in decades. When the full moon is in the sign of Sagittarius, we are bold in our decision-making. Led by intuition, we’re inclined to do what feels right. Be honest with yourself during this time, because your gut will guide your path. The time has come to bet on yourself — strike out boldly, and be at peace with your navigation abilities.
Take a moment to think about what Sagittarius means to you. The centaur is always looking out at the horizon, ready to shoot its arrow toward a new destination. Full moons illuminate, so whatever truths come to light can be used to expand and elevate your life. It’s a time to take risks, think big, opt into adventure, and of course, expand your knowledge. Expect important information to be brought to light or truths revealed, and perhaps also a perspective shift or aha moment.
This is the full moon lunation closest to the Summer Solstice. During this time, we'll be called upon to reassess our guiding philosophies to see if they still resonate.
As Above, So Below
Samos Season - Power of Light
This portal is an incredibly powerful time, energetically speaking. Summer solstice is when there is the most light, sun energy, available to us for use. From an astrological perspective the sun (also known as a luminary and a star) is that vital life force energy that gives us the strength and the will to succeed and achieve our dreams, our destiny, our life purpose. This is the time to invite fire into our lives, fire to burn away all that we have outgrown and all that no longer serves us. It is also a time to examine our relationship with the light and the dark and our relationship to power and systems of oppression, internally and externally.
Indigenous cultures understand Solstices as turning points that provide possibility for transformation. The wisdom traditions attune to the power of light available at this time. Litha, meaning light, is the pagan festival dedicated to the life-giving, regenerative powers of the sun.
The Heroine’s Journey
We know that it’s time to reclaim our power as the natural creatrixes, nurturers, community-makers, entrepreneurs, activists and healers we are. It’s time to own our sovereignty by embodying and living from our true feminine power. We know that when women gather in circle, we heal, learn and grow together. We’re lifting the veil on the taboos we don’t often speak of to get to the heart of the issues we really care about. We know that we grow through stories and that in hearing from those who’ve trodden the path before us, we can find the courage to follow our own Heroine’s Journey. So we embark on a deep personal
journey, dive into ourselves to face truth, transform the parts of ourselves that no longer serve us and move forward. We realize that we have neglected the feminine way, even society places too much emphasis on masculine directive energy and we need to harmonize with the receptive grace of feminine energies. The Heroine respects male energy but brings feminine qualities online so we can evolve at a global level.
The Heroine’s journey is cyclical, and we experience many of them, small and large, throughout our lives. On her arm is a scar, a symbol of the wounds she will forever carry. But looking back upon her journey, she feels an overwhelming sense of pride. The Heroine’s Journey has made her who she is, and connected her to the strength of all the women who have come before her.
Consider your relationship to POWER as you look at the map of the Heroine's Journey here
☾✩☽ Moon Medicine Rituals ☾✩☽
Create an altar. Create a sacred space in your home - see our guide in aftercare.
Connect with the Moon. Whether or not you subscribe to astrology, the moon is always in the sky, and attuning yourself to the moon's cycle can guide self-care.
New moon: At the beginning of the lunar month, the moon is a new moon. Metaphorically, it's a time to plant the new seeds of goals, intentions, and actions.
Waxing phase: Her growth from new moon to full moon is the waxing phase. This the Warrior Phase—where we gain momentum in our actions.
Waning phase: The Sage Phase happens as she wanes from full, —where we gradually power down, restore ourselves, and integrate lessons learned.
Dark moon: The last few days before the new moon is called the dark moon. Here's when we retreat to our proverbial caves to rest and reflect, preparing for a new cycle ahead
Cleanse. Sage your Home, Bedroom, Chariot & Office. Energetically cleanse the energetic wombs of your life, where you find yourself “creating”.
Observe. Select a journal, and record your dreams, thoughts, insights, experiences and observations.
Collect items: pen, paper, tarot cards, candles, incense, herbs, symbols to represent Luna: mirror, mother, water, seashells, etc.
Have Patience. Have patience with yourself and the journey you’re embarking. Allow yourself the emotional space to process, release, learn, develop and heal.
Lavender Oil. Have lavender in your home, bed or altar. Lavender can bring stillness, and calm an overactive mind.
I Feel. Acknowledge your emotions and journal with what emerges.
Breathe Deeply. The pull of The Moon can bring up strong sensations and emotions – and sometimes this is uncomfortable. However it’s a prime opportunity to feel more and allow the emotion to unfurl. A very practical and grounded way to do so is to focus on the breath and breathe a little deeper than you would normally. Place your hands on your Womb and Heart and take a few deep breaths and feel.
Go For A Moon Walk. Walking in the lunar light in nature can be particularly magical.Watch how the trees move and interact; with The Moon, the wind, with you, and listen, really listen in to the sounds of nature. Moon Bathing can be a truly magical and intimate experience.
Take A Loooong Luxurious Bath. The Moon affects the tides, the Oceans, the water in our body.
To get in touch with this aspect of nature within and around us – take a long bath.Add in Epson Salts, your favourite essential oil, play some soothing music, light candles and relax.
Tending to your Temple: BodyLiving consciously starts with taking care of your body; the temple that houses you, here on this planet. So, scan yourself from head to toe. How does your body feel? Give yourself all the O2 and H2O your body needs.. Your body will thank you for that.
Ground, Ground, and Ground
The magnetic pull of The Moon is strong so Grounding is super important. If you do nothing else at The Full Moon – ground. It’s especially helpful just before bed as being rooted in the body aids a better sleep.
Beannachtaí 💚
from Kathy and all at The Trailblazery xo