a tantric path:
Although western culture often associates Tantra as only relating to sexual practice, it’s actually a much broader yogic path that is unique in the sense that it includes rather than renounces worldly pleasure. I find this to be a particularly resonant and appealing path, since we are indeed in the world.
My intention that underlies all of the work that I do with my collaborators involves reconnecting raw life force energy with heart-centered leadership. I guide people towards liberating their limiting patterns and ways of dancing with the life force in order to expand the ability to tolerate, and then create with, increasingly bright emanations of the creative fire.
This work matters to me because there is no liberation without integration. You don’t get to leave the unsavory parts of yourself behind. This world does not need more separation.
So how can we be with the raw intensity of our life force, which includes our sexual energy and our creative capacity, without reacting to it - meaning without projecting it outwards, without repressing it, and without creating endless coping mechanisms for managing the agitation?
If there’s no escape from our circumstances (which there isn’t), and our hands our tied until we face the deeper truths behind our upsets (which they are), we can either continue to resist the bondage, or we can find the freedom, maybe even the pleasure, within it.
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book recommendation: “Existential Kink”
In “Existential Kink,” Carolyn Elliot draws upon the insight that psychoanalysts have been grappling with since the development of the field of psychology: that there is a part of us that actually deeply desires all of the negative patterns, frustrating circumstances, and recurring bad luck that we have in our lives.
The technique of EK is about uncovering and being willing to celebrate and deeply love these kinky sadomasochistic desires in order to unite your will. In other words, it’s a method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don’t.
Even Elliot consents that this is an insight that can be very offensive to our egos. The idea that on some level we could want or enjoy awful things in our lives is scary and troubling to most people. So if this flavor of Scorpionic ♏️ intensity isn’t your cup of tea, I’ve included another book recommendation below.
another book recommendation: “Living a Committed Life”
Author Lynne Twist says that in committing our lives to a vision, a purpose larger than our own desires, wants, and needs, we are freed from the smallness and pettiness of our own minds, and catapulted out of anxiety and fear and into inspired action. In this way, a commitment, even one that seems impossible - like Twist’s commitment to end world hunger - is a liberation rather than a burden.
When something greater calls you, human frailties begin to fall away or move into the background. You don’t have to be smart enough or talented enough to make commitments - you make the commitment and then the talent, the knowledge, the passion, the resources start to become visible and move toward you. It’s the commitment that shapes you into who you need to be to fulfill it.
quote of the lunar cycle:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
staying power:
The full moon in Scorpio ♏️ takes place within Taurus ♉️ season, highlighting the polarity between these two fixed signs.
Scorpio cuts through the bullshit. There’s a time and a place for a gentle approach to dismantling the psychological defenses that keep us from seeing a hidden truth, and that time and place is not under a full moon in Scorpio. Fixed energy holds us in place, which can be uncomfortable or liberating, depending on our willingness to embrace it.
Taurus gives us tools to embrace it. A fixed earth sign, Taurus reminds us that even amidst emotional intensity, the ground is still below our feet, holding us steadily in place. We couldn’t react even if we wanted to within this signature because Taurus cannot be rushed; it moves at the pace of nature, stabilizing any raw, intense, or rushed energy into the sustainable life-enhancing productivity that is required to manifest a vision that is larger than one life.
How do we tap in to this world-building manifestation power?
Pleasure. If it doesn’t feel good, or look good, or taste good, Taurus doesn’t want it.
This astrological signature has staying power, but we are the ones who decide what we’re committed to so that we can channel the power of our life force through an intention that comes from the truth of our hearts.
Scorpio says, “Let the resistance burn.”
Taurus says, “Do it in sweatpants. Pack your favorite snacks. Don’t forget that there is so much beauty to behold.”
💚
Coach Laura
Work with me:
Learn about working with me in a coaching or mentorship capacity, in order to channel your creative capacity into heart-centered action.
Get a taste of what I do through a “Release and Redirect Energy Tune-up.” This is a powerful reorientation that has the capacity to catalyze a positive, life-affirming integration of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies.
Lastly, it would be very much appreciated if you shared this newsletter with all of your moon-loving friends, closeted or otherwise: