Embodied Astrology: Recent Episodes
Renee Sills
Embodied Astrology and other tools for living in your body and from your heart www.embodiedastrology.com or reneesills.com for more.
In this meditation I explore the concept of toxic masculinity as a societal predicament and influence that affects us all. I offer some guided visualization and imagination exercises to connect with our bodies, innate essence, and the ways we may have been influenced by assumptions, expectations, and ideals surrounding masculinity and gender. This meditation is for all genders and gender expressions.
In this guided meditation and healing soundscape I guide you through a felt-sense embodiment and exploration of the energetic centers of the body and alignment of the endocrine glands. The head glands, specifically the pineal gland, are related to dreaming, visioning, and intuition. Regular practice with this meditation may help you access these parts of your psyche and open more deeply to spiritual assistance.
This meditation is a movement and sensing exploration. In it, I'll guide you through several short explorations meant to help you access awareness of your nervous system and associated states of attention.
This meditation is the second in the Healing & Resilience Series for 2019. In this episode I explore the embodiment of ancestral trauma and privilege. It is meant to open inquiry into the invisible inheritances we carry as recipients of our lineages.
This meditation is the first in the Healing & Resilience Series for 2019. In this episode I explore the foundations of positioning and ancestral origin. I provide some writing prompts, so grab a pen and paper!
This recording was made at North Portland Yoga on December 22, 2018, the day of Winter Solstice and the full moon in the sign Cancer. There were about 30 people in attendance who held the ritual space with me, so as you listen and practice with this recording you’ll hear all of our movements, breath, and voices, as well as the sounds of the space. The first hour and 17 minutes is a time to attune to your breath and body sensations, and to explore your relationship to space, movement, and possibly other people or objects. Feel free to adapt considering your space and those around you. Then, we shift gears and move into a writing practice. You’re welcome to continue to follow along for that portion with my voice, but you can also find the writing promptsI offered below. The last 20 minutes of the workshop, our group shared some words and lit candles together. If you’d like to follow along for that portion, then listen to the words we each offered, and take them in for your own intentions. Light a candle at the end and imagine that your flame is burning with ours, and that your intention is also held with our group here.
I offered this meditation at solstice, just days before Christmas, in the midst of a season that is challenging for many of us for many reasons. In this meditation I explore gentle connection with ancestors, family, siblings and community. From a place of spacious empathy, we can breathe in and out; give and receive; and share and benefit together.
This meditation zooms out and zooms in to give you a macro and micro perspective on the wonder of the multiverse and the mystery of your own body and cellular intelligence. This meditation is for the moments when you get caught up in details that make your head hurt, when you get swamped with worry, and other times when shifting your perspective towards a broader, bigger vision is necessary.
This guided meditation is offered as a tool for times of mental and emotional overwhelm, or when connection to your own inner wisdom doesn't feel readily available.
In this guided meditation, recorded on the day of the U.S. midterm elections in 2018, I invite a creative exploration of the shadow self and its integration. Courage isn't bravado, control, or domination. Rather, true courage is the ability to self-reflect, to admit to one's failings, to forgive others, and to choose compassion over competition. This meditation is a practice of externalizing, then (re)internalizing our shadow selves so that we can work with them skillfully and make choices rooted in courage.
In this guided meditation I lead you through awareness of three "gates" or energy centers in the body where fear, shame, and insecurity are often lodged and registered. Through learning about our bodies, instincts and reactions, we become aware of our habits and develop choice in managing our responses. The meditation offers suggestions for how to bring awareness to embodied habits and how to work with emotions that lodge in these centers.
In this guided meditation I lead you through layers of awareness that have solidified as gender identity. Gender is a social construction and binary that separates humans from their vast potential. The construction of gender and the ways it is imparted in our societies lead to suffering on multiple levels and the perpetuation of abusive systems. Through imagery and felt-sense awareness, this meditation invites you to explore how notions of gender lodge themselves in your body and offers a practice for dissolving their strength and attachments.
This is a recording of a live guided meditation that I led in Berlin on Sept 23, 2018. The meditation focuses on the balance and polarity between self and other. This fundamental, primary axis of awareness is a place we all experience growth, challenge, joy, and mystery throughout our lives. In this meditation I explore the felt-sense of relationships and ways we can come back to our own center and inner witness.
This meditation guides inner awareness towards sacredness - the spirit and inspiration that moves through all life on Earth. I provide tools for reflecting on ego instincts that distract and distort sacredness, which can help you align your sense of sacredness with intention, attention, and life choice.
This meditation focuses first on awareness of our inner Sun and essential radiance. This solar energy is the creative principle and the essence of our childlike, innocent nature. Using this awareness, we'll travel towards our infant and child selves to acknowledge and integrate them, as well as help them heal and come into balance.
This guided meditation helps you balance your urgency and call to activism by giving simple tools for breath and body awareness, as well as the reminder to receive and take in goodness as you also fight for change.
This guided meditation supports cultivating healthy boundaries and stable attachment through easily-accessible somatic practices and visualization.
This guided meditation is a simple introduction to your central nervous system and offers an easy practice for attuning and harmonizing your outward-moving attention and inner-moving intention. Use this meditation to relieve stress, balance your energy, and facilitate clear thinking.
This sensory and imagery-based meditation guides you through layers of time and existence, to connect with the deep truth of your own body and being. As you journey into your own center and connect with Earth energy, you can release unnecessary attachments and anchor in a sense of deep grounding and constant peace.
As agents of our own revolution, we should determine our own currencies! This meditation focuses on cultivating prosperity and abundance within and recognizing the abundant support that is available already. Practice with this meditation to increase your receptivity, magnetism, stability, and ease.
In order to heal and evolve, we must courageously face our shadows. Recognizing when shadow is present and active is the first step. In this meditation I offer simple, body-based tools of awareness for meeting your shadow, understanding its mechanisms, and cultivating skillful choice in your actions.
This guided meditation is a simple body-based visualization practice that helps with accessing internal stability and wellbeing at any time.
This guided meditation teaches simple, body-based awareness and breathing techniques that are quick and effective tools for reducing tension, stress, and anxiety.
This guided meditation is one in the series of Deep Healing meditations. In this episode I focus on the sensation of sacrifice: the liminal quality of letting go, emptying, and being receptive to spiritual companionship.
This meditation is for times when intention isn't fully clear, or when there's a lot of sensory, emotional, or mental overload, and making decisions feels complex. The technique I offer is very simple and easy to use. I find it helpful particularly when I have anxiety or agitation and feel the need to "do something" but am uncertain what to do or how to position myself for the best outcome.
In this meditation I guide you into physical awareness of fascia. Fascia is a connective tissue, prevalent throughout the body, that holds tension patterns, and is strongly associated with the nervous system. Working with fascia mirrors ways in which we can work with the mind. In the meditation I present ways to mobilize and release stuck patterns.
Life is constantly changing and there is nothing any of us can do to control how it changes. Though we all know this conceptually, most of us forget it most of the time. Many of us suffer deeply in our feelings of incompetence and lack of control when faced with change and endings. This meditation is a simple reorientation with our bodies and breath to the constant state of change that surrounds us. Practicing this re-connection we are more likely to open ourselves to possibility, trust, and flow.
Tolerance is hard. It requires being uncomfortable and making space for people and experiences that push us to the edge of our familiarity and comfort. Even those of us who preach tolerance still have to practice it! This is a guided meditation on working with habits of intolerance and cultivating clear personal awareness and tools for remaining with challenging interpersonal dynamics and working with differences skillfully.
This guided meditation is from a series of Deep Healing meditations. In this offering, I focus on energetic reconnection and healing of abandonment wounds through connection with life source.
In this guided meditation and somatic movement exploration, I introduce a very simple and practical method for integration and realignment. As we move through the basic spinal and neural patterns of human development, we are strengthened in our "central axis," or what you might think of as the energetic core of your body. This practice can be taken through movement forms such as dance or yoga, by lying on the floor and rolling around, or simply sitting or lying still and feeling the movement of your awareness throughout your body. After we explore each pattern, you'll pause and notice the cognitive and perceptive shifts. I've found that in this practice I can easily work through complexity and resistance of all kinds.
This guided meditation leads you toward a gentle process of releasing bonds and cutting cords with destructive energy. Emotional bonds and cords occur when violation, manipulation, or trauma has occurred. These energetic locks keep us attached to negative thought patterns, depression, anxiety, and unskillful actions and choices. In this meditation I guide you through a simple process of holistic inclusion to build the internal support required to create lasting release.
In this guided meditation we'll work to include and integrate what are often felt as separate parts of ourselves: physicality/instinct, mind/cognition, and heart/emotion. As we practice integration, we'll extend healing back to our influences of dis-integration to promote resolution and forgiveness, and we'll extend healing forward into our future choices and circumstances.
This is a guided meditation for working with trauma responses and triggers that come up in relationships, or as I like to joke, "having a bad case of the relationshits." This meditation is for the moments when your lovers, partners, friends, family, parents, bosses, employees, etc. happens to be a "trigger," saying the wrong thing in the wrong way or doing something that sends you into a space of reactivity. This is a meditation for self-soothing and calming down so you can work responsibly and maturely in the situation. The people who are the most important are often the best at activating our inner children, and so this meditation is for the times when you'd be better off taking a temporary time-out than staying in the conflict.
This is a guided, somatic(body-based) meditation to assist you in relaxing your brain. Our brains are often overwhelmed by information, stimulation, anxiety, worry, and stress. Somatic meditation offers incredibly simple and profoundly effective tools to get back into your body, breath, and heart. This practice will increase a sense of wellbeing and create space in your mind to observe your thoughts rather than be ruled by them.
Please enjoy this meditation that supports you to enter a quiet mindstate and open field of perception. Through guided awareness towards deep relaxation and sound frequencies which assist you in releasing tension, you will enter into inner quietness where you are more able to listen to your intuitive guidance. The more you practice attuning to your intuition, the more at peace you can be.
This is a guided meditation in support of working with addiction and craving. As humans, we all have to deal with craving, and we are all addicted to various forms of distraction. Basic mindfulness and simple meditation are incredibly powerful tools for recovery. These tools are simple, practical and always available. Practicing regularly increases their effectiveness. Please share.
This meditation is for those of you who are angry and know that your anger is necessary. This is not a meditation to get rid of anger. This is a meditation to help you work consciously with it so that it can be a force for healing, transformation, and equality in the world rather than more destruction. I offer an embodied, feminist, trauma-informed lens and give many options for modification and support to work with this powerful emotion.
This guided meditation and creative exploration invites you to explore sensual, erotic satisfaction through mindfulness, meditation, somatic (body-centered) awareness and creativity. I come from a feminist and trauma-informed lens and include lots of options for self-care and modifications throughout. This meditation is excellent for those in need of safe spaces to investigate personal healing of their bodies and sexuality, those looking to reconnect with their own desire, and those who are simply interested in exploring deeper levels of embodiment.
This guided meditation helps you develop and maintain a clear psychic/energetic boundary so that you can live with steadiness and ease from a place of peace and centeredness. You will be guided to feel the way your nervous system interacts and relates with the outside world and build your auric container so that you can easily accept goodness and cultivate gratitude and appreciation in your relationships.
Living from our hearts is mysterious at the best of times. How do we listen deeply when our conditioning and fear is so loud and the world seems to be in constant chaos? Listening deeply is a choice in support of activism because it requires some kind of ethical code and trust in our own intent. In this meditation I explore some of the somatic, mental, emotional, and spiritual sensations of listening to the heart.
Choosing transformation and evolution depends upon our ability as individuals to cultivate inner support, extend it to others, and receive from them in turn. This guided meditation explores creating healthy boundaries, which includes being able to set (and sense) limits as well as relax them. By focusing on breath potential in the container of our skin, and easeful stability in the structures of our skeletons we can learn how to sense and cultivate healthy non-physical emotional, mental and psychic boundaries.
This meditation was inspired by the full moon in Capricorn on July 8, 2017. In the symbolic language of astrology Capricorn rules the skin and bones.
Visit www.embodiedastrology.com to learn more about me and my work and to access current horoscopes for all signs, upcoming events, birthday reports, monthly astrological journals, or to schedule a session with me. Additional audio offerings, including horoscopes, can be found at https://anchor.fm/embodied-astrology/
Asteya is the ethical practice of nonstealing and is one of the yamas, or the ethical relational observances described in the practice/path of ashtanga (eight limbed) yoga. In this talk Renee describes how the ethic of nonstealing is intrinsic to cultural competency and anti-oppression work.
This is a guided meditation to help you learn how to run (and walk and stand) more efficiently and effectively. Unlike other fitness instruction, I use a meditative approach to build body awareness, which can lead to joyful, resilient movement patterns. I'll guide you through a grounding meditation, breath awareness, embodiment of gravitational force through your skeleton, and neuromuscular sequencing that helps you work with weight and force to minimize impact and increase buoyancy.
This guided meditation brings attention to the ways in which we get easily distracted and pulled into imbalance. The focus is on creating energetic attunement by learning how to recognize feelings of "centeredness" and creating a strong capacity for psychic/mental discernment.
One of the most effective decisions any of us can make right now is to be mindful. Mindfulness is a quality to bring into all aspects of your life. It is a tool that helps you stay awake, aware, and active as the author of your own life. It is not hard to practice mindfulness, but it is a practice, which means that you do it everyday. Learn how to practice basic mindfulness with this guided meditation.
Whether or not you have a diagnosed eating disorder, chances are good that you experience distraction, disassociation, and perhaps discomfort with eating. If you do, you are not alone. This is a symptom of a larger problem that we face in society today that has to do with separation from the earth and land. In this guided meditation on self-awareness, we'll practice bringing more awareness and healing energy to our relationships with food, as well as consumption in general. In consciously recognizing our wellbeing, we will come to understand the interconnectivity of ours with the wellbeing of others.
This guided meditation focuses on the evolutionary energy of life. The life process is a constant movement and creation in response to whatever is arising, including the ways that elements interact and influence each other, the ways perspectives and cultures shift, etc. This meditation uses cellular awareness and breath to bring your attention into the constant state of change and evolution that is your body and the environment around you. Through focusing in a friendly and loving way upon this process of transformation, we develop insight into the nature of relationships and how we each, as individual agents, can contribute to greater wellbeing.
Thoughts happen. Our emotions are tied directly to our thoughts, and our bodies respond to our emotional state. When thoughts are confused, turbulent, and negative, our emotions become cloudy and our bodies respond with stress. Meditation is a simple tool that can help you find balance, clarity, and calm in your thoughts. When you are able to work skillfully with your thoughts, it is easier to discern to which ones to pay attention and which ones to let pass on by. In this simple meditation, Renee guides you through an easy visualization that helps you notice how your body and emotions respond to your thoughts, and how to return to a more balanced and neutral state.
This guided meditation is part 2 of a 2-part series called Arriving in the Unknown. In this meditation we practice relaxing external control and grasping through connecting to our own center. Based in anatomy and physiology, this meditation guides your awareness into structures of support through the pelvic floor, skeleton, and spine. It also encourages awareness of fluid and organ support that facilitate a deep, inner relaxation. This technique is especially helpful for times when we feel out of balance or off of our own center.
Sarah Trelease of Sola School of Contemplative Arts gives a dharma talk on the meaning of Satya (truthfulness,) the second observance in the ethical practice of yoga. In this talk Sarah leads us on an inquiry of truthfulness as a personal practice within the context of subjective reality. The second part of this talk is a 10-minute guided breathing meditation (pranayama) that helps us align and listen to our inner truth and clarity.
Sarah Trelease of Sola School of Contemplative Arts gives a dharma talk on the meaning of Satya (truthfulness,) the second observance in the ethical practice of yoga. In this talk Sarah leads us on an inquiry of truthfulness as a personal practice within the context of subjective reality. The second part of this talk is a 10-minute guided breathing meditation (pranayama) that helps us align and listen to our inner truth and clarity.
This meditation is part 1 of a 2-part series called Arriving in the Unknown. Here, I focus on the yogic principle of santosha, or contentment. Through a walking meditation (that can also be done lying down), we increase awareness of relationship; support in gravity and levity; agency and choice; balance vs imbalance; and the sensation of surrender to the flow of life. This meditation invites you to recognize the changing and shifting nature of reality in yourself and your environment, and to find peace and appreciation for what is right now.
This is a meditation for accessing and increasing your personal creative energy. Creativity is the capacity you have to CREATE your life in all ways - this doesn't just mean artwork; it means anything and everything you do. The creative center of our bodies is where inspiration, ideas, and thoughts meet the ability to manifest and materialize. In this meditation we focus on feeling grounded in the earth element, inspired in the sky/ether elements, and empowered in the fire/air elements.
It takes courage and compassion to see the parts of ourselves that we keep hidden, but through cultivating inclusivity in ourselves, we become better able to develop inclusivity in our external relationships. This talk and guided meditation is for when you need support working with difficult feelings or in times of personal challenge.
This meditation leads you through a simple yet deeply effective practice for working with your emotions. Emotions are complex and tricky - we often don't realize their influence until after we have reacted to them. To work with our emotions productively, first we need to know what and where they are. In this guided meditation I teach you how to sense emotion within a safe container and work with yourself to stay present yet unreactive.
Sarah Trelease from Sola School of Contemplative Arts talk about non-violence as a practice in our daily lives - in relation to ourselves and one another.
Learn more at www.solaschool.com
This meditation focuses on clarifying our connection with our bones and skeleton. Our skeletal structures provide us with clear, direct pathways of stability and support. In movement practices we can avoid overuse and injury in our muscles by learning how to align and connect with our bones instead. As a meditative practice, connecting with the felt sense of bones increases calmness and inner stability.
This meditation focuses on balancing the right and left sides of the body and hemispheres of the brain. Through simple guided body awareness and imagery, you can travel deeply into a calm and balanced internal awareness. This practice can be applied to any physical activity and is especially helpful when your thoughts become distracting.
This meditation focuses on cultivating receptive awareness of others through generous attention toward our own self-care and emotional regulation. It also offers tools for maintaining inner balance in the midst of conflict and challenging conversations.
This dharma talk and meditation focuses on the concept of the "pain body" as termed by Eckhart Tolle. I explore how the residual impact of unexpressed pain manifests as physical and mental discomfort, unconscious reactivity, and rigid self-constructs. Through very simple mindfulness practice, we can start to heal our own pain bodies and facilitate space for others to heal.
This simple meditation and breathing practice balances polarity and opposition within the mental, emotional, and physical states. This practice is excellent for times of heightened stress and anxiety. This is also a very easy practice to incorporate into your daily life and rhythm.
This guided meditation focuses on healing and integration of the deep fluids in our bodies, including the interstitial or "ground fluid" from which all other fluids arise, the marrow and fluid centers of our bones, and the fluids contained in reproductive organs. Working with these parts of our bodies works with deeply-held emotional patterns.
This meditation is simple and powerful for times when you need to feel grounded, secure and calm. It's also an effective warm-up in preparation for exercise, creative action, or anything that makes you nervous, like public speaking.
This meditation focuses on balancing the energy of the head, heart and body. The practice of yoga is based primarily in uniting these three energies. Experiences of trauma and stress are commonplace for all of us and create cycles of disembodiment and disconnection when we don't have the tools to stay present with ourselves. This meditation guides you through simple awareness and offers tools for staying present.
This basic mindfulness meditation is for anyone seeking to bring more peace and ease into their life and daily interactions.
This meditation focuses on turning towards our discomfort, starting with our bodies, to transform addictive and compulsive instincts. This offering arises from the energy of Pisces, which rules addiction, grief and escapism.
This meditation focuses on expanding energy from your center outwards and balancing the need to control with the need to surrender. This practice invites you to relax and breathe into your abdomen to allow for pause and centering.
This meditation focuses on integration of the head/mind, heart/feeling and solar plexus/power. Working with our thoughts, our knowledge, and our power can inform our decision-making processes, our sense of agency, and how we take up space.
This meditation focuses on the physical, emotional, and mental manifestations of the sign Leo, which rules the heart, spine, and general vitality of the body. It also governs our ability to express creatively, feel unique, and be in the spotlight. A healthy and balanced Leo expression gives and receives easily, enjoys playful and lighthearted fun, and is inspired, creative, and generous.
This meditation invites you to relax your organs and heart space, to feel the structure and stability of your body and to recognize value and abundance within yourself and others. It also explores connecting with openness and care to our lineages, remembering that those who came before may have perpetuated harm or been harmed.
A dharma talk given on June 13, 2016, the day after the Orlando Pulse massacre, on Ahimsa, the yogic practice of nonviolence and compassion. It focuses on the impossibility of nonviolence in a violent world and emphasizes the importance of practicing healing and forgiveness towards our own personal violence as we seek to become more peaceful and tolerant of others and in the world.
This meditation focuses on balance and integration internally and externally. There are prompts for simple, gentle physical movements and breath awareness to promote expansion and fluidity in our bodies, thoughts, and beliefs.
This meditation focuses on connecting to the earth and sensing internal stability and abundance. Taurus rules the lower jaw, throat, neck and shoulders and is the guardian of the 5th chakra, a place of discernment surrounding choices we make to swallow/consume as well as to speak/make impact. In this meditation, I bring awareness into the potential of this space as as point for stability and intentionality.
This meditation focuses on releasing pent up energy from the "gates" of the body that are ruled by the Taurus/Scorpio polarity, with Taurus ruling the throat and 5th Chakra and Scorpio ruling the eliminative and reproductive organs and the 2nd Chakra. These two bodily locations can be understood as energetic portals that give and receive, where we are able to make choices around what we speak, what we swallow, what we release, and what we let in. Due to the nature of these spaces there is often intense emotional stagnation/frustration that gathers in them, and for many, memories of abuse and experiences of oppression or manipulation are closely wound in their tissues. In this meditation I lead you through a gentle, loving, exploratory practice that encourages release of each space and integration between them.