Dear Reader of these Words,
If you’re like me, you receive a lot of emails every day. Thank you for opening this one. May there be something here that opens our hearts and offers inspiration to create a gesture of truth, beauty, and love in the world.
This full moon in Sagittarius, I’m thinking about honoring the journey. The inner journey. The outer journey. The adventure. The remembering, the forgetting, and the remembering again. Sagittarius is a fiery and expansive sign known for its adventurous and optimistic nature. It is associated with exploration, seeking truth, and expanding horizons. The combination of the full moon's energy and Sagittarius's influence may amplify these qualities and bring a sense of enthusiasm, spontaneity, and a desire for freedom.
I led a class with this theme Honoring the Journey in NYC this week and invite you to join me when leading this in England next week! Or listen and dance along to the playlist here.
How is this full moon landing in your life?
I notice in myself there is an inner hermit that is still longing to integrate the lessons of the last few years. Socializing is different than before. There is a higher level of discernment in the places I'll go and the reasons I will adventure. I can feel myself releasing attachment to the impulsive yearnings to do, do, do and instead listening deeply for what truly calls me. And why.
For example, my birthday is next weekend. Some of you who have known me for a long time or read my book may remember my email address for a long time was mybirthdayisjune11 at gmail.com. I was hoping the people I communicated with would see my email address and start getting ready to celebrate. So much has changed since those days. I definitely did not want to have a party this year. A friend sent a sweet message inviting us to get together with our kids next weekend. I sent her a voice memo that I'm not sure what I want to do for my birthday, I'm waiting for some inspiration. I said, "Honestly, what I really want to do is fly to Chicago and see the Grateful Dead/Dead and Company show since it's their last tour, but that's not going to happen."
I then got a response from her that says, "What are the chances we go to Chicago to see that Dead show together? I can see about childcare and we could fly cheap or even drive the 10 hours, whatever. I love you. You've shown up in moments I deeply needed a friend countless times. I'm down to figure this out if you are." Then, my favorite part, "P.S. I hate jam bands, so this is a true testament to my love for you." That text was good medicine for me. I felt seen, heard, loved. and met. I wish for everyone to have friends like this and to be friends like this. To show up for each other.
Yes, I love the Grateful Dead's music. It has woven through some really significant moments in my life. The first and only time I met my dad in person was when I was 35 and knocked on his door, introduced myself, and waited for his response. He said, "It makes me think of those lyrics, 'what a long strange trip it's been.'" (This is a very popular line in a Grateful Dead song.) I remember how my heart softened hearing it. My dad is a Deadhead. When I had just begun leading Qoya Inspired Movement classes, I met Carolyn Garcia, Jerry Garcia's wife (Jerry Garcia was the legendary guitar player and singer of the Grateful Dead who died in 1995). I met her at a Divine Feminine event in upstate New York, and she shared a story with me about how there was so much going on in the world when the band started and the intention for Dead shows was to create "a place to gather." I took that on as an intention for Qoya Inspired Movement classes and retreats. A place to gather. Practices to support us to be even more here, together.
Then, I name that the pressure I feel around this year's birthday is amplified because this will be my first birthday after my husband and I separated. There's an exorbitant amount of grief, reflection, and surrender to a new phase of life marked with this turn of the wheel.
I feel the push to go and reclaim myself: my joy, my past and the pull to stay home, cuddle up and read books with my son on the couch, and know that celebration of the simple blessings that are here is more than enough.
Life can often feel like a momentum tunnel, and we're cruising down the highway going 80 miles an hour. Sometimes, going so fast, we might not have even seen the "signs" of potential shifts in direction. Then something, internal or external, shifts our attention towards to possibilities of making a turn, going in a different direction. Sometimes we choose this, the road less traveled...and it can make all the difference.
Sometimes we choose the journey; other times we're forced through circumstances. Inevitably, we are all embarking on the journey of life. Walking, dancing, running, crawling, pausing, resting, reflecting, fumbling, rising, forgetting, and remembering alongside one another.
The practices in Qoya Inspired Movement classes, retreats, and gatherings offer tools for a community to practice with to meet life, to look it in the eye with love, to embrace, face and ace the invitation to growth that is always in front of us. Embracing it because it is here. Facing it because inevitably we must. Acing it less from a place of performing perfection and more from a place of wholehearted embodied presence. Those moments when there is a clear direction from your inner wisdom on what to do or not do, when it asks something of you and show up for yourself in a good way.
On the forever journey, I've noticed that there is so much richness when I can stay in deep listening with the body. So much information to integrate and bring forward. It's simple, deep, and restorative. The embodied presence I feel at the end of each Qoya Inspired Movement session is like a blessed return back to myself.
My love of of the mythopoetic metaphor between the outer and inner journey has also been what has inspired me to offer retreats. I remember when my mom came on her first retreat with me in Costa Rica and said, “I didn’t realize you were actually helping people. I thought you were just on vacation all the time.” So often when a woman arrives on a retreat, there is a deep soul calling to be in that place at that time. Retreats offer a higher level of support to more deeply reflect and consciously, courageously choose one's best next steps.
There is something about embarking on a journey, overcoming the obstacles, and coming home that deeply nourishes the human soul. There's a story Rumi shares called "In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad." Here's how I remember it,
A man cried out to God for help. He heard a voice that said, "Your wealth is in Cairo. Go to such and such a spot and dig. The man went on the journey. He got to Cairo and could not find the spot. He was wandering around lost, and a guard stopped him, thinking he was a criminal. The man shouted, "I can explain - I'm not a criminal, I am a visitor here. I came because I had a dream to come to this spot and dig for treasure." The guard had pity on him as he shared, "I too had a similar dream. It was to go to Baghdad at so and so a spot, but I would never be so foolish to follow it. Look at you sitting here lost and alone. The guard had described exactly where the traveler lived. He went home and found the treasure on his own land. He reflects, "What I was longing for was under my feet, but I had to travel a long way there and back to know it."
Sometimes that's just how it is.
Thank you for going on the journey of this email! Whatever journeys you may be feeling called to, whatever journeys you have already taken that you may be reflecting on, whatever journeys you are saying not now or not yet to, I offer blessings in every direction.
Under the Sagittarius Inspired Full Moon, I'm asking myself the question: where is life force stuck that now wants to move? How does life's natural cycle of movement want to dance? What is the constellation that will offer the most strength and support to the journey?
May the full moon illuminate the guidance that is most helpful for each of us.
For any of you who may be feel called to go on a journey, here is a list of some upcoming ones. I'd be honored to adventure together.
With so much love,
Rochelle