Heartfelt Greetings From Jill!
Greetings to you all! Not long after Valentine's day we will find the Sun moving into Pisces. This archetype is about universal love, the unlimited potential, the mystery and the thinning of the veil between spirit and self, and others and self. I feel it is a potent time to deeply reflect on the heart and the matters of our times that are affecting our hearts. I don't know about you but I feel like my life, the world, is in chaos and mass disarray. There are moments in which I want to find the escape or fast forward button to the place where it will all make sense and feel right again. This has been the intense Aquarian energy mixed with the Aries energy that is swirling around. If we see it only from the symptoms it looks like someone or something screwed up and all this cannot possibly be "right" or "divine order". It doesn't make sense. No amount of logic soothes the shock and sting of it all. In a tornado within the eye of the storm there is calm, a completely counter reality to what is going on outside. I think the same force is working in our lives and in our world collectively. Truthfully it always has been, way before we were here. We are healing and often times with healing it bites, it hurts and it is not a pleasant experience and most of the time it takes a hell of a lot longer than we prefer. When we start a cleanse we often feel worse during the initial detox before we we feel better. When lifting weights, we get sore before we get stronger. And it all takes time. How much time? The time it calls for.
That is where I struggle with the most personally. We can do and say all the "right" things and healing still goes at the pace best suited for our integration. At the end of the doing we meet fully what is underneath it all, the source, the wound, and our inability to change/fix/delete it. I am learning another aspect to healing. At some point we meet the edge of where our part in healing meets spirit's part and the processes merge. This for me in the place of unconditional love and acceptance. I am not all too familiar with this place. I now believe that "healing" is a human word for softening into our humanity and the acceptance of the perfection in the imperfection, simply put our growth. Easy to say and so hard is it to practice full and unconditional love of what is and trust in the process it takes to embody all of ourselves, messy, broken and often unexplainable. So much of the doing is aimed at fixing it and in doing so often we just place more distance between our hearts and this tender wound, the place where we reject ourselves and our reality. Acceptance and love seems like doing nothing, and perhaps that is just what it requires at times. It requires an openness that lets pure unabridged love pour through us in way we do not control. When we let go of the ideas we have around what is, we look intently into reality without an agenda or plan and we say with our beingness you must belong here because you are here.
I think this can apply to our own physical and emotional wounds but also to our collective and global wounds. We all have our thoughts and opinions about what needs to happen to "fix the gaping wound" in our world. Many of us are called to act and support causes and that is beautiful and we should honor what our truth calls of us. But, underneath it all there is still a wound that on some level needs our acceptance and love to heal. What if none of our wounds really need fixing? What if they are purposely here to inspire greater embodiment of the mysteries of living in the now. Nature has always been flowing through her cycles of growth, maturation and at some point endings and rebirth. We may create our part in the "solution" and the "healing" but may we never forget that "to create is only to reveal what essentially is. It is the viid recognition of as -yet unknown in the known." Dane Rudhyar . In due time things find their place, just like in due time a heart break heals and opens again. While many events going on are heart breaking, meeting this heart brake with incessant fixing won't necessarily speed up the healing. Loving each other, holding one another in our pain just may. Unconditional love is so powerful way more powerful than any of our actions. May we creatively find our own way to being a vessel of this love to share with our own wounds and the wounds we are collectively sharing.
I want to share a few events with you...
Star Passengers Monthly Circle of Support
This group are curious seekers willing to go dive into astrological topics that support working with the times. We meet monthly to discuss a topic and then have guided personal personal reflection time during the month to integrate the information that feels resonant in your own way. No astrology experience necessary.
When: Sunday, February 12 at 5pm
Where: If you are coming send me a message and I will send you the address.
Cost: $30-50 per month sliding scale
More information on my events page.
Supple Roots: An Exploration of the Pelvic Floor for Women of all ages: February 26th, 2-4:30pm
Come join me for an afternoon of meditation, movement, breath, and aromatherapy as methods of connecting to your pelvic floor and creating a better balance of tone, strength, and mobility. Learn how these states affect the rest of the physical body and your relationship to self. The goal of the workshop is to come away with simple ways to support your pelvic floor health at home or on the mat. Register at YoYo Yogi.
Sedona Equinox Retreat: March 17-21, 2017
I am so thrilled to be able to retreat to this magical place for the Spring Equinox. This is a powerful time to ask the deeper questions of what are we ready create that speaks to our truth, our wholeness, and ability to be met. We will work with balancing our doing and being (yin/yang). More than ever we are being called to be able to "do" in new ways, ways that promote balance, partnership and the emergence of a new paradigm. Come join me for yoga, astrology, nature, and community and best of all deep personal inquiry. More details on my events page.
Yoga - RX
What: Explore how to use yoga asana to work with pain/tightness/discomfort in these targeted areas and how to avoid injuries in class when these areas are “trouble zones” in your body. We will practice asanas that work to balance these areas, get tips on what to do to adjust to injuries (props, alternatives) in group classes, and learn about the subtle body relationships (mind/emotional/body connections) to these parts of the body.
When: Sundays, 2-4:00pm April 30 to May 14
Where: Yoga Pearl
More info here
Moonwatchers
This is a monthly community gathering where we talk about the astrology of the times and how to work with it and relate more openly to what is. No astrology experience needed. Just an open mind and heart!
Next Gathering: Tuesday, March 7th at 7:00pm
Where: The Conference Room, 2nd floor beside the YoYo Yogi Studio
Save the dates-More Retreats!!
**I am offering my annual Cannon Beach Summer Solstice Retreat June 23-25, 2017. More information will be up soon on my website. Message me to be in the know!
**This year I will also offer a Fall Equinox Retreat to a very special oasis of peace in southern Oregon, the Steamboat Inn along the Umpqua River. The dates for this trip are September 22-25, 2017. Again, details will be up soon but you can message me to be contacted directly with more information.
As with all my retreats I combine yoga, astrology, aromatherapy and time for integration and reflection on how to be in your life more ease fully in relationship with the times we are in!
Aromatherapy for the Times
I love how aromatherapy helps me adapt to the changing times and assist in my healing. I wanted to share some of blends that I recommend during these times. I can also make you a custom blend. If you work with aromatherapy yourself, then I highly recommend Peppermint oil and Cedar oil during these crazy times. Peppermint oil has been supporting me with opening to new ideas, new ways of relating and creating new neural pathways of thoughts, actions and being. Cedar oil is helping me listen to my deep inner wisdom and the quiet voice of my intuition. It calms me down and brings me back to my body. You can place a few drops of these oil directly on your body or for sensitivity in a carrier oil such as jojoba. You can also diffuse these oils or place a few drops on a washcloth in the shower.
My blends can be purchased at YoYo Yogi or online.
Yin your Yang: This blends calm down our overly "doing" and "type A nature" and balances it with peaceful being and allowing.
Mind Clear: Clean the slate of habitual thinking and spiraling that keeps you in the past or in a state of worry or stress
Forest Walk: It is like taking a walk into a fresh perspective, drawing upon the ancient wisdom we carry within us to bring us back to center and calm.
Weekly Astrological Reflections
I post an astrological weekly reflection on my website and on Facebook. Check it out if you are curious what the heck is going on out there!
"The faster we move the more that lands in our way. The tighter we grip the less we can hold. Life is like breathing like the heart it keeps beating. Let it breathe, let it beat." Sebastian Case
Much love to all of you and our tender hearts, never underestimate the power you possess in opening to and allowing love to flow through you. Your greatest contribution rests in that quiet and meek presence.
Love and Light,
Jill Case