We often don’t realize how carried and held we are every day of our lives. I lived without feeling held for a long time before I was ready to heal, which began with the birth of my son. I was in the shower one morning getting ready for work, shortly after confirming my pregnancy. I looked down at my flat belly. My skinny body had been underweight my whole life. I remember thinking the following words: “I am ready to be BIG.”
Big came along just under nine months later—a great big baby boy, born at dawn at the end of May. Without knowing anything about astrology, I named my double Gemini son “Thomas,” a name that means TWIN, the archetype of the Rising Constellation under which he was born.
Nearly two decades later, when writing an advanced astrological training, I realized the significance of my double Gemini Tom being born to a mother named Sylvia. In ancient Roman mythology, the Vestal virgin goddess Sylvia gave birth to twin sons, Remus and Romulus, who founded Rome. The night I wrote that section of the manual, I mused to myself, “You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. My Gemini sun and rising boy that a mother, Sylvia, chose to name Thomas (the twin).”
When the timing begins to ripen for a person to be ready to heal and thrive, life can sometimes take on this kind of synchronistic quality. There are usually a series of meaningful yet unexplainable events that start to line up one after another, pushing us toward the healing we need to do to live as a whole being. This “push” feeling that brought us into the world in the first place also drives us toward our purpose throughout our lives. This feeling of personal drive helps us eventually grow beyond our childhood and into a set of more adult dreams and goals. Exactly where that specific drive takes us is individual, but the energy of that drive to progress is called liberation.
When Tom was around two years old, I found yoga. His birth had blown my heart open, and that great love had also stirred up a boatload of childhood trauma that clamored for attention. Also, at this time in my life, auto-immune issues surfaced. In these early days of my healing, a doctor from India encouraged me in the late 90s to take up the practice of yoga as a way to cope with the existential crisis that had been driving my physical challenges. I had no idea at the time that this path would move me forward to seek help and healing on all levels of my being.
The marriage that produced Tom fell apart, and I ended up back in my hometown in Utah with two-year-old Tom and a yoga book. There were only two yoga studios in the state then, and neither was close to where I lived. I was busy dealing with trauma triggers, past and present, as I made my way through each day. While my babe slept, I would lie on the floor with my yoga book and work through the micro-movements of each pose. It was all I could do at the time.
As I practiced yoga for many months, I observed how it would bring two things to the surface. First, it would bring up emotions and help me cohesively piece together past traumas and their effect on me. I would then breathe through those moments, staying present with whatever came up. Within the first few months of practicing, my default of checking out began to be a default of checking in. This energy of checking in rather than out was new and big.
Second, my yoga practice would leave me with a tactile feeling, as if I was being held by a power greater than my own. It was simultaneously a brand new and vaguely familiar feeling, like a safe, cozy family member I had never met.
My study of yoga and healing journey brought me to an indepth understating of the Chakra System, which comes from the ancient tradition of yoga. Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means Yoking mind, body, and spirit to work in the best way possible, regardless of circumstance.
My study and eventual teaching of in-depth yoga and the Chakra system over the past nearly 30 years would take me on a wild ride of awakening. This path would become one of aligning and attuning my life in ways that would bring me more in one lifetime than I could have ever believed was possible in my youth and early adulthood. My study of the Chakras eventually took me to the doorstep of an old, retired mechanical engineer. This Mormon man, in his 70s, introduced me to the study of astrology. Once I began studying patterns and cycles in the heavens, I found it exponentially increased my understanding of yoga, the Chakras, and my potential to heal.
That’s what I love about sharing this book. I know from experience that awakening, alignment, and attuning create a path of healing that is interconnected to our potential as a human being. The feeling of things falling into place in a more synchronistic way than we are used to is called manifestation.
The path of healing I am sharing here offers a blend of astrology, yoga, and Chakras that are unique from being used independently. With this path, the often challenging aspects of healing and opening up one’s potential flow merge into something special. Blending these three synthesizes a more purpose-driven path, opening us up to something greater inside ourselves.
Everyone needs healing on some level. Every human processes life’s small and great traumas in a different way. One of the simplest yet most powerful ways to activate our human potential is to follow the path of the moon. Each month, the Moon naturally offers us instinctual Chakra alignment, whether we realize it or not. The moon’s daily phases and cycles give a pattern for reaching potentials we did not know belonged to us from the start.
Following the moon daily is one of the most simple ways to recognize how we are held. For this reason, when anyone is beginning to learn astrology, I always suggest we begin with the moon. The Moon moves through phases and seasonal cycles each month, taking us into a deeper sense of personal belonging that feels organically good.
When beginning to learn some of the basics of yoga, I always suggest beginning with the Chakras. The Chakras are ancient energy centers that bridge the body, mind, and spirit. Learning how to work with the Chakras is one of the quickest ways to learn that the body, mind, and spirit connection already knows what it is doing.
Learning what the charkas already naturally have in common with the moon’s monthly phases helps you simply and easily remember how adept your body, mind, and spirit connection is at healing and coming into alignment rapport with your potential. In both these basic studies of the Moon and Chakras, vast and magical spaces begin to open within, showing us how profoundly we are held once we glimpse their complimentary patterns.
We don’t need to do all our healing first to feel better (or worthy) of life working out for us. We simply need to learn that thriving is possible, and Mother Nature is already showing us that we are held each month in a stunningly beautiful cycle.
This feeling of being held makes everything else we want to be, do, or have possible. Embracing the inner knowing that we matter is our most basic birthright. When we feel held, we feel like who we are and what we do matters. When we feel how much we matter, an enduring sense of belonging is not far behind. Everything else changes when we feel held.
Patanjali, the 2nd century BCE mystic and father of yoga, explained it so well. I used to read his words to comfort me when the healing on my journey felt hard:
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.