Reignite Your Spirit: How to Bring More Soul Fire Into Your Life
The Embodied Path - A Grounded Spirituality for Holistic Living
Step 1: Get Out of Your Head
Me (18 years old): I am going to become a Bioengineer and Neuroscientist, exploring the mysteries of the mind as I bring forth information that can help us better understand ourselves.
The World: Hands me an academic path embedded in capitalism, driven by bureaucracy and almost entirely devoid of any meaningful pursuit of the mysteries
Me (23 years old): Fine, I will pivot. I will use my Biomedical Engineering degrees, my knowledge of human behavior, and my thirst for useful knowledge to help people better understand themselves, their choices, and their impact on the health of their own bodies
The World: Hands me the health & wellness industry, overfilled with toxic coaching tactics and stress-causing practices
Me (27 years old): WTF do I do now?
The World: Hands me full view of the state of the world, overwhelmed by endless toxic systems and structures embedded in every facet of humanity.
Me (29 years old): Now completely unable to make sense of any of the world that humans have created… not knowing any meaningful path forward, taking whatever desperate steps forward that I can that have any sort of meaning to me.
The World: There you go. Now you are walking a path that is meaningful, and that matters.
Me: But it doesn’t make sense! I don’t understand what is happening and what I am doing!
The World: That’s because the world you envision does not exist yet. Therefore, your mind can’t grasp it. Keep taking steps, and your mind will understand in time. Meanwhile, you will create the world that you desire, as you take each grounded, intentional step forward.
Walking The Embodied Path - Mind and Body
It is Gemini season as I write this, so I feel fully warranted in speaking to my South Node in Gemini, which is a part of my astrology that resonates fully given the way I came into this world: A mind on fire with desire to understand this world, to make sense of what matters and to use this information to make more skillful choices.
This is Gemini, and this is what much of the world values more than anything these days: information, and the ability to use our minds to make sense of it as we become smarter and wiser.
Let us be clear: I love this aspect of Gemini. However, if my wholesome experience in this life has taught me anything, it is that our minds are only one part of who we are, and that if we focus only on the power of the human mind, we miss out on so much of what is here to be experienced as an embodied human being.
Even worse, what I know now to be true is the harm that is caused when we live life constricted within the theories, the models, and others belief systems that have been created within our minds. Yes, these constructs can be a useful part of our working in reality; however if we cling to them and believe that they are everything, then we fail to act skillfully in reality for that which it truly is.
My personal journey from mind to mind & body.
Gemini is my South Node, which means it is that which I came into the world already prepared with. It is that which is easy for me, and that which I automatically do.
My North Node, in contrast, is that which I am being guided towards as I am here to learn it and embody it.
My South Node, the energy of Gemini and the power of the mind, is easy for me. I excelled in school. I even studied neuroscience and prepared to become a neuroscientist as a career! I spent 4 years in 3 different neuro-based research labs, one at an Ivy League school. Believe me when I say, my early days existed in full devotion to the mind, and I did a powerful job of pursuing the path.
But as I moved through early adulthood, I found it to be unfulfilling. My soul fire became drained as I continued to pursue paths of the mind. I could not see how this path was going to help anyone or anything in this world. Worse, it seemed to be suffocating my own self. I needed something different.
Chaos, turbulence, as the dark path of awakening
It is the pandemic times that woke me up. They coincided with my time as a health coach and health educator, the pivot I had made after graduation. I thought that I could take my knowledge and skills out of the laboratory and into the lives of others. I thought that this would be helpful for the world.
I believed that, if only humanity understood why their behavior was causing disease, then they would change.
What I observed showed me differently.
What I observed is that, despite the mountains worth of information we have on what we could do to be healthier, humanity didn’t act in alignment. Instead, the disconnect between knowledge and behavior created shame and even more stress. It was making people less healthy, not more.
More information was not the path. More cognitive processing of information was not the path.
We needed a different path to change our behavior, and in turn, to change ourselves.
I wasn’t going to find this path by reading another book nor peer-reviewed published academic paper. In truth, the path of the mind that had gotten me this far was now failing.
I needed to do things differently.
What, exactly, that was, my mind couldn’t tell me. No one could tell me. However, what I could do was take each step, each moment of each day, as I found solid ground beneath me and created my own staircase out of the dark and chaotic pit that had become my life, and into a far brighter, beautiful way of being in this world.
What I teach today is this path, which I call it The Embodied Path. Not to be confused with any mental, idealized system or structure that I come to believe is significant; but instead, a path of presence: of turning inward, of connecting your your own guiding light in this world.
Humanity has lost its sense of direction
We find ourselves in modern times being guided by all the ways we are “supposed to” walk through this world. How do you have the most successful career? How do you be a “good person?” How do you make something of yourself?
There are so many “how-to’s” when it comes to the paths you’d best be walking. Find them in church. Find them in career coaching. Find them in the gym. Find them among any path you want to walk through life. Guaranteed, there is a “how-to” to walk this path with ultimate success.
Whatever the space, the problem is the same: we outsource what we best need to others - those who have walked “successful” paths before us, had their own dreams fulfilled, and now put the path into a formula with a guaranteed output.
Meanwhile, we have lost the ability to carve out our own, soul-centered paths through this world.
And, in doing so, drained the juice out of this life.
A soul-fired path forward through life
With a South Node in Gemini (the power of the mind), I have a North Node in Sagittarius (the power of grounded, embodied, soul-fired action).
It is an energy that teaches me forward movement, the kind that is taken as we are moved by heart and soul towards that which is meaningful. And, as it teaches forward movement, it teaches how to be in skillful connection with reality.
When we walk in alignment with the energy of Sagittarius, we find ourselves following the paths that most fully light us up as we are filled with life, itself!
I do not know of any greater joy, nor fulfillment, than that which unfolds as you walk this sort of path.
A wholesome path through life: Integrating Gemini and Sagittarius
This story is not here to hate on Gemini, nor any other energy that creates a wholesome life. In truth, a most skillful life is that which is well-rounded.
Per the Zodiac and astrology, we come into this life with a sort of framework. Call this Karma and Dharma. Call it whatever you want. It is a framework. It is a mental construct, one that humans have created in an attempt to understand, and to work within reality.
According to this framework, we come into the world with natural gifts. What is easy for you to do? What don’t you need to work so hard at (when others do)? We get to express these gifts in the world.
And, as we walk through life, we get to learn, and to transform as we embody more of that which is here to be experienced.
I teach The Embodied Path, not to hate on the mind, but to integrate it more fully with the whole of who you are: A human being, grounded within your body in connection to this Planet Earth; taking each step as you receive the information that is here to be received, making the best decision you can in the moment, and experiencing for yourself what is real, what is truth, and what matters most.
This is the power of Gemini integrated with Sagittarius: Mind, held securely on top of you shoulders; embodied, as the whole of who you are.
Moving forward through life, taking in the information that is available to you as you make the best decision that you possibly can in a moment;
Taking action, receiving what is to be received in each moment, changing your mind as is needed.
All-the-while, learning what serves your highest path the most.
I have written more on the archetypal zodiac sign of Sagittarius, including this post written during Sagittarius season. May it serve you well.