Putting yoga and astrology together in one workshop or retreat seems, at first blush, a little like sitting an elephant down at a computer and saying, “See? Now do you get it?”
In other words: No. It’s not obvious at all. Yoga is all about the body, isn’t it? While astrology is, well, a little arcane and out-there, a kind of voodoo psychobabble — right? So wouldn’t a workshop that brings the two together be more like two classes running alongside each other?
You would think, but you’d be wrong.
At the core of both yoga and astrology is an understanding of how energy operates in our lives — the energy to express oneself, to establish security, to learn, relate, experience and love. Yoga understands that energy as gaining expression through the body, while astrology views the psyche as the central medium. But both disciplines have identified the same basic energies coursing through our lives.
As mind-body integration is becoming more accepted and energized throughout the west, yoga and astrology both are growing disciplines. So it seems a natural time to explore how the roots of these two powerful and ancient technologies are connected, and how they can twine together for the benefit of individuals and humanity as a whole.
This is the principle on which my Yoga & Astrology work is grounded. I hope this little story, and the explanation following, will further illuminate the way we work in our workshops and retreats. And I hope it will intrigue you enough to come to one of our upcoming Los Angeles workshops or even our week-long retreat in Taos this fall.
The Story of Rapunzel
Originally told by the Brothers Grimm
After many years of barrenness, a poor couple was expecting a child, but they had little money for food. The pregnant wife craved radishes, which could only be gotten by the husband stealing them from the garden of the witch next door under cover of darkness. When the husband was finally caught, the witch demanded the unborn child in recompense. The frightened husband agreed.
After their child – a girl named Rapunzel – was born, the despondent couple brought her to the witch. When Rapunzel was 12 years old, the witch locked her in a tower with no doors and only one high window. Using Rapunzel’s long hair as a ladder, the witch brought food and drink to the tower. One day, a prince spied the witch climbing Rapunzel’s hair. He waited until night, then called to the girl and climbed her hair.
The prince visited nightly from then on, and soon the young couple was in love. By and by, they hatched a plan to free Rapunzel from the tower. But before they could carry it out, the witch discovered that Rapunzel was pregnant. Furious, the witch cut off Rapunzel’s hair and threw her from the tower. That night, the prince called to Rapunzel and, when her hair unfurled from the high window, he climbed it. He was astonished to see the witch’s face when she reached the top. She pushed him away from the window; he fell to the ground and was blinded by thorns when he landed.
Rapunzel, pregnant with twins, and the prince with gouged-out eyes, wandered separately in the wilderness for many years. One day, the prince heard Rapunzel singing near a well and approached, calling her name. They fell into each other’s arms, and their tears of joy restored the prince’s sight. He took Rapunzel and their children to the castle to live happily ever after.
Our Capricorn workshop last January began with this simple tale, which is rich with images and themes that evoke the Capricorn archetype. We then unpacked those themes, our eyes ever on Capricorn, to better understand the dynamics of the sign and how it might operate in our own lives. For example, we discussed the following themes, each of which is the sort of challenge a Capricorn person* might face:
- The poor couple had tried for many years to conceive a child but could not. They continued trying until finally their goal was within sight.
- The shortcut and dishonesty taken by the father to satisfy his wife’s temporary craving had disastrous results, hugely exacerbated by his fear and inability to stand up to the witch and protect his child.
- The witch, representing the opposite imbalance, became drastically overprotective of Rapunzel, locking her in a high tower and infantilizing her.
- Rapunzel was not allowed to touch her feet to the ground, to gain life experiences and build her own competence, survival instincts and independent selfhood.
- Rapunzel had to have tangible resources and a well-laid plan – aided by her own animus, or inner masculine – in order to reach the ground and begin experiencing life.
- But she also had to have the courage to overthrow her own limitations in the form of overprotectiveness, clinging to obligation, and so forth.
- Finally, she had to wander in the wilderness by herself. She could not again cling to another outer authority; she had to build her own inner resources by struggling on her own before coming back – more mature, more competent, freer – to the external partner.
As we explored these insights, each person identified a goal they’d been trying to reach and examined possible instances of self-sabotage or rigidity and limitation. We discussed the importance of having a “strong spine” in order to stand up for oneself and to individuate, then did some muscle-testing to find out how strong we could physically resist simple toxins like sugar and caffeine. Muscle-testing was followed by a yoga set for spine strengthening which was, in turn, followed by another round of muscle-testing. Participants were amazed at how much more they could resist after a single session of spine-strengthening yoga!
To counter the inflexibility and outdated assumptions that can accompany a stance of strength, we then turned to consider flexibility. We discussed the roles played by the symbol of stone in the Rapunzel story and tried to identify some assumptions that had calcified each person’s ability to meet challenges and achieve goals. Yoga for flexibility followed this discussion, and then people were asked to return to their assumptions and try out how it felt to change them — no matter how outrageous the change!
The workshop concluded with a look at the last part of the Rapunzel story: the part where the main character is thrown out of the tower, pregnant with twins, to fend for herself in the wilderness. This crystallizes the Capricorn challenge of developing our inner authority so that we may choose strength and flexibility, community and individual, the straight path and deviations from it, with consciousness and self-possession. The workshop concluded with yoga for survival and vision, and a visualization that helped participants access that powerful and authoritative figure within themselves.
Each of our workshops operates on several levels like this, engaging body, mind, heart and imagination, and cross-pollinating story with physical activity, self-reflection, creative artwork, peer dialogue and more. Our Taos retreat this fall will also integrate visits to local sites such as Taos Indian Pueblo and the Rio Grande Gorge to see how the signs manifest in the landscape and human creations. It will cover the whole cycle of 12 signs in a six-day period — a challenge, to be sure, but one that you’ll come away from with profound insight and deeper self-knowledge.
I hope you’ll join us.
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* And by “Capricorn person,” I don’t only mean people with Capricorn as their sun sign. Anyone whose chart contains strong Capricorn energy — which can appear in a number of different ways — would qualify as a “Capricorn person” in my estimation. And certainly all of us could stand to know about the dynamics surrounding goal achievement and individuation!
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