Astrology & Altered States

When I was going through my facilitator training for Neurodynamic Breathwork, I learned a lot about Dr. Stan Grof - psychedelic research pioneer, father of Transpersonal psychology, and founder of Holotropic Breathwork. It’s not an exaggeration to say I’m a little obsessed…in a good way because his work is prolific and has made a big impact on the way I teach breathwork.

Around the time I started to learn about Grof - certain things started to get, well, interesting. I started seeing repeating numbers and other synchronicities everywhere. A lot of interesting events personally and in my external world started to line up with the lunar and planetary cycles.

Now if you were going to tell me (a few years ago) that I’d be paying attention to mercury retrograde I would have laughed at you (and I still will a little because I had the most amazingly positive recent retrograde season - so don’t think everything HAS to be a certain way). But I can’t deny that astrology has become a much larger area of interest.

Now if you were going to tell me (a few years ago) that I’d be paying attention to mercury retrograde I would have laughed at you (and I still will a little because I had the most amazingly positive recent retrograde season - so don’t think everything HAS to be a certain way). But I can’t deny that astrology has become a much larger area of interest.

So imagine my surprise to come across a Grof-written paper titled “Holotropic Research and Archetypal Astrology” about the influence astrology plays with psychedelics and breathwork. While Grof was initially skeptical, over 3 decades of studying the astrological correlates of mystical experiences, psychedelic states, and holotropic breathwork sessions showed that astrology, “can predict and illuminate both the archetypal content of non-ordinary states of consciousness and the timing of when particular states are most likely to occur”.

Let the magic of that sink in - planetary bodies thousands of miles away are influencing your breathwork and psychedelic journeys. 

I’d recommend reading the entire article - one important takeaway for me is the connection to archetypes:

“An important characteristic of the archetypes is that they are not confined to, and do not originate from, the human brain, but operate from transcendental realms and exert a synchronistic influence on both individual psyches and events in the physical world. The marriage between astrology and archetypal psychology based on Jung’s work represents an extraordinary advance in both fields. It brings the mathematical precision of astronomy into the interior and imaginative world addressed by depth psychology, enriching enormously the possibilities of theoretical speculations as well as clinical predictions”.

Another fascinating aspect is Dr. Grof’s work that points to perinatal trauma as the root and explanation for the shared and repeated archetypal experiences one encounters in the holotropic/psychedelic container and how these also aligns with the natal chart:

“It has also suggested that the degree and nature of participation of individuals in these collective events and the specific incidents in their lives reflect their personal planetary transits, which represent the relationship between the world transits and personal natal charts”.

So why am I sharing all this? 

My curiosity and experiments of breathwork and journeying during full moons, solstices and other significant events inspired me to start hosting Full Moon Portal breathwork sessions last year.

I’m excited to continue leaning into this over the next few months. Not only will there be several full moon sessions but a couple new moon groups as well. 

As above, so below. 

Coming up this Sunday is the Leo full moon. You have felt the intensity of the last few months, and this full moon is an opportunity to give yourself permission to drop into your heart space and breathe deeply, to release what’s holding you back. stand up, step forward and own who you are with pride. 

During these breathwork sessions I add in additional meditation and specially curated music. So that you can lean in together. So that you can release what no longer serves you.