Winter is the time for introspection. It’s when we need to send some gentle energy to the seeds we’ve planted so that they’ll germinate in the new year. By seeds, I mean goals, aspirations, intentions, and such. Here are five supportive scents to help put you in touch with yourself and your path…
Autumn is approaching, at least for those of us with discernible seasons. Though days here in Durango, Colorado, are still reaching the 90s, nights and mornings are cool and the sun is getting lower in the sky. Whether you love pumpkin spice and changing leaves or struggle with the shortening daylight hours, a great way to mark the seasonal change is to make your own natural perfume blend for the fall.
The New Moon in Aquarius on February 4 also corresponds with the Chinese New Year of the Pig, which runs from February 5, 2019, until next year’s New Moon in Aquarius on January 24, 2020. The Year of the Pig portends your potential to indulge in fantasy or to impose the rigors of reality on your life. Try to make this year one where you balance between the two extremes.
We are wild ones. The more we pretend otherwise the more twisted things become.
If we try to pretend we are not angry, we blow up when we least expect it. When we try to ignore energies like attraction, they can grow into a giant that drives us into situations that lack grace and integrity. If we instead tap into our wildness we can experience our insights and emotions as they come. We can see things as they are and see ourselves as we are, but we have to be fearless enough to let our wild self out.
As the sun moves into the deep waters of Scorpio we are all being called to face all that which has been cloaked in the unseen. Scorpio rules the 8th house in the astrological chart which includes magic, sexuality, death, inheritances/other people’s money, investments, crimes, dreaming, regeneration, reincarnation, shamanism, the subconscious mind and the mystical underworld.
Sleep pillows are a sweet way to help when a restless mind or body, recurrent anxiety dreams, or even outright nightmares are keeping you awake. The use of sleep pillows is not new. “Dilly pillows” stuffed with dill, lavender, and other relaxing aromatic herbs were traditionally used to help babies relax and fall asleep. Sleep pillows also make great gifts, something to keep in mind as the holidays approach.
I was first introduced to the concept of Turiya when studying and practicing yoga nidra at yoga school in India. It was described to me as a fourth state of consciousness, which encompassed the three most familiar: the unconscious, the subconscious, and the conscious mind.
In yoga class the other day, the teacher made some announcements, one of which was about welcoming new faces into the existing yoga community as we enter the New Year. I personally love the start of the New Year because people set out to try new things and make changes. It is a time to reset, refresh and renew, and I’m looking forward to meeting some new friends on the mat.
Imagine, if you will, your true soul essence, your authentic nature, ready to manifest here on earth as bright as could be. As it came through, from wherever it was prior to birth, it was placed into a patterned cage with various notes and energy signatures that were the out-picturing of lifetimes of experiences, as well as generation after generation of thoughts and impressions. This cage became your identity until you were able to get out. You knew that you would not be able to live your pure soul light, authentically, while inside of this cage.
We are moving beings. As animals in space and time, this is our nature. It is through literally moving into ourselves that we have evolved our way out from once being bacteria and into becoming the humans that we are today. Our bodies have grown to prove to be miraculously adaptive and capable - as a general species and especially in the modernized western world - despite our culturally confined upbringings.