Happy Autumnal Equinox! The bridge from summer to fall begins Friday and crosses into Saturday. Autumn reminds us of the importance of letting go of that which no longer serves us and turning inward to nurture and nourish ourselves as we prepare for winter. As we let go it can be helpful to practice gratitude for what has passed, what we are letting go of, as well as what is to come. I believe finding the balance between letting go and holding on is a key lesson of autumn.

The coming week carries a lot of shifting energy. Today’s New Moon in Virgo is a turning point toward the changes to come in our lives and provides us the opportunity to reflect and set intentions about our next steps going forward. Looking at the weather forecast, summer will be offering a last hurrah early in the week and letting go of its hold as we approach the autumnal equinox on Saturday the 23rd. Pausing to turn towards the sun and soak in the last vestiges of its summer energy can be a moving practice of gratitude to explore this week. Find more astrological insights at Forever Conscious or The Power Path.

This week the cool mornings have begun to feel more like autumn, while the warm afternoons keep the energy of summer alive. Transitions in our lives can also feel like this. We receive peeks into the future and experience the reality of the present at the same time. This can sometimes feel disconcerting and lead us to wishing the present away in order to get where we are going. Striving towards the future can lead to anxiety and cause us to miss the gifts and lessons the present moment has to offer.

Hello Yogis -

Last night’s Full Blue Super Moon was so beautiful and powerful. I hope you were able to spend some time soaking up its energy. I was able to sit outside chanting the moon mantra, Om Chandraya Namaha, with my moonstone mala, which was just the grounding connection I needed after a week of feeling a bit out of sorts.

Mercury entered retrograde yesterday offering us the opportunity to turn inward and explore the messages our inner voice and intuition are sending us. The Power Path offered the advice today of giving ourselves more space and time to allow for the hiccups this retrograde shift creates. This can support us by decreasing the frustrations with communication and other things that often accompany Mercury’s retrograde shift.

Hello Yogis -

I hope you soaked up this week’s supportive new moon energy and traversed the erratic effects of Uranus with ease. New moons are an opportunity to deepen our understandings of ourselves and begin again with the new lunar cycle. Simplicity has been a big focus of this Leo New Moon and following that energy has been very helpful for me.

I am excited about several endeavors coming to fruition in the next few weeks and I hope you will join me for the ones that speak to you.

It’s Leo season!!☀️ This is my favorite time of year because everything is bursting with life, the sun’s energy fills my spirit, and it’s my birthday season, yay!! I know not everyone loves these long, hot summer days, but as a summer baby they are exactly what I need.

This summer we have netting around our vegetable garden to keep the neighborhood cats out, which has offered the added bonus of protecting the garden from all the crazy hail. Unfortunately, a butterfly found its way into the netting this evening and is struggling to find its way out. We’ve opened the entrances in hopes it will figure it out, but it keeps trying to go through the netting instead of through the opening.

Hello Yogis -

As we step into July I am reminded of long summer days as a child, exploring, playing, swimming, and most of all reading. Reading was a wonderful escape that took me on adventures to new places with new perspectives and sparked my imagination. I remember bringing home stacks of books from the library and tallying the number of books I read each summer on a paper taped to my wall…yes, I was that kid, lol!

Hello Yogis -

It is hard to believe that June is almost over. As we reach the end of the month it can be helpful to look back and savor some of the things we experienced, offering gratitude and appreciation for them. This practice can help to slow down the sense of the summer passing by too quickly and fill our emotional cups.

Happy Summer Solstice! The beginning of summer and the abundance it brings is a wonderful time to let go of things that no longer serve us and set intentions for stepping forward into our true nature.

This week my the focus of my self-care practice has been breathing. My lingering cough and asthma symptoms have pushed me to be more aware of my breathing and advocate for more medical intervention. It has also pushed me to be more in tune with my body, differentiating when I need extra care and rest and when I have the ability to do more.

Most of the time our breathing is something we aren’t required to pay attention to. Yet how we breath can have such a profound impact on our physical, mental, and emotional health. When I am struggling with my breathing, I notice that I am breathing more shallowly and consequently am more tired, irritable, and easily dysregulated. When I am breathing with more ease, my breath is deeper and slower, leading me to feel more energized, focused, and relaxed. Pausing to notice our breath is an important self-care practice. It gives us information about how we are feeling and provides the opportunity to actively care for ourselves with a few deep breaths, engaging our parasympathetic nervous system and decreasing our stress levels.

Hello Yogis -

Happy June! We are fully into late spring and enjoying the abundance of blooming flowers and unfurling trees, only a few weeks away from the summer solstice. Lena from The Power Path describes the theme of June as an ”Intuitive Choices" encouraging us to trust our hearts and sense of curiosity. This weekend is a new moon in Sagittarius bringing energy of both playfulness and meeting responsibilities. Finding the balance between these things may be the challenge for the month. Practicing pausing and being present in the moment can support us in tuning into our intuition and trusting our choices.

Please join me Saturday, June 17 from 3-4 pm for a New Moon Crystal Singing Bowl Sound Bath. Give yourself the gift of rest and relaxation, allowing the vibrations of the singing bowls to soothe your mind, ease your body and fill your spirit. The event will be in person at On the Move Studio, 925 S. Niagara, Denver, CO. Space is limited, so reserve your spot asap - Crystal Singing Bowl Sound Bath.

One more day and it’s summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime!! (Well, unofficial summer anyway 😉) While not everyone has the summer off, summer is a wonderful time to slow down and create intentional routines of rest and rejuvenation. Many of us plow through our days without pausing to breathe, move, connect with others around non-work topics, or go outside and soak up some sunshine. All of these activities improve our overall wellbeing along with reducing our stress levels and all the accompanying issues stress brings on. How will you create space for your own wellbeing in your life this summer? Sometimes in order to find this space, we need to ask others to take on some tasks or responsibilities for us. This can be challenging for some of us, but we are all worth it.

In my work world we are approaching the final week of the school year and most of us are sliding into the finish line on fumes. It is a pattern that has only intensified in the decades I have worked in education. Over the past five years my colleagues and I have worked to develop resources and programming to support staff wellness in our district with the goal of changing the culture of education into a system that supports everyone in thriving and performing at their best through caring for themselves. The more I speak with people in other professions, I realize it is not just education that needs this change. I believe we truly need to change the culture of work in our entire country.

I hope you all are safe in the midst of the dramatic spring weather we’ve been having. All this rain has been quite a change in our semi-arid climate.

I had a chance to do my first sound bath with my new crystal singing bowls for some educators in my district. It was so lovely to share the beautiful, healing sounds and experience them myself as well. Here is a recording for your enjoyment - Singing Bowls for Deep Relaxation.

I hope you are enjoying the amazing spring weather we have been gifted this week. The warm and sunny days combined with the blooming spring flowers and trees are lifting my spirits and sparking my excitement about the coming summer.

I recently completed a Sound Healing Certification and am excited to add this healing modality to my offerings. Sound healing sessions can provide a deep sense of relaxation, help to balance the chakras, and provide the opportunity to release energetic and emotional blockages. Sound healing can also be combined with yoga, meditation, and energy healing sessions. I would love to share the soothing sounds of my beautiful chakra crystal singing bowls with you. Please let me know If you’d like to schedule a session (in person or virtually) or group sound bath.

Over the last couple of weeks the universe has continued to remind me that rest is an essential part of caring for myself. After three years of dodging it, I came down with Covid. Fortunately, it has been relatively mild and I am slowly regaining my energy and stamina through listening to my body’s messages, caring for myself, asking for help, and resting.

It is not lost on me that a book I was waiting for from the library was ready for me to borrow this week - Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. Just when I was returning to work and likely to slip into to doing too much too quickly, Tricia reminded me “I am enough now.” I don’t need to prove myself through doing or wearing myself out. I have more to offer the world when I am rested and rejuvenated.

I missed you all last week, but enjoyed presenting about mindfulness and sharing yoga with social workers at the National School Social Workers conference. It was inspiring to connect with and learn from my social work colleagues from across the country and around the world working for social justice and advocating for students, teachers, and families. The multitude of challenges we are facing as a county were at the forefront in the keynotes, presentations, and conversations throughout the conference. While those topics can be discouraging and overwhelming, being with hundreds of people focused on finding solutions buoyed my spirit and reinvigorated my resolve to keep doing everything I can to make a difference. Each one of us makes a difference in our circle of influence and those ripples becomes waves of change.

Happy Spring! I hope you are feeling some of the forward moving energy from the Spring Equinox that helps us get moving out of winter’s heaviness.

In my last newsletter I mentioned the turbulent shifts that March was bringing astrologically. We all respond differently to these shifts and they can often be challenging for us, even leading to crisis. The Denver community experienced another significant gun related crisis yesterday, which has impacted us individually and communally. In the moment such events can cause us to feel helpless and hopeless. While difficult, allowing ourselves to sit with those feelings is important to our healing. Offering ourselves compassion for the suffering we are experiencing allows us to accept that our feelings are valid, that we are not alone in our suffering, and that we are worthy of kindness. This practice is called the Self-Compassion Break and can be a supportive tool in navigating the way forward.