*Use the handy-dandy table of contents below to click on down to where you want to go.

I have a lot to say about “self-care,” Samhain, & what we think can wait until later. (HINT: it’s not caring for ourselves or cultivating connection). The tip is below, but I encourage you to read the full post.

Be sure to RSVP for the How to Manifest with Astrology workshop happening November 18.

There’s a gorgeous full moon in Taurus, we’re headed for a wild Mercury retrograde, and it’s Scorpio Season.

This week’s Insight Timer recommendations are all tracks perfect for bedtime.

And be sure to check out the Reflection of the Week; it ties back to my opening post and gives a little more insight.

Oh—and don’t forget to book a session with me. They’re on sale (or free) now through the end of November.

PS: I do not receive a commission for links to Insight Timer or anything else in my newsletter. I link to what I find truly valuable. If ever I do get a commission, I’ll let you know :-)

(Excerpt from the full post here).

I attended the virtual Collective Trauma Summit a few weeks ago (partially…watched a few videos). Thomas Hübl, the founder, made the significant point that trauma teaches us to borrow from our future. When we experience trauma, we want to get out of the now…”not here, not now” is the human reaction.

“The intelligence of trauma is that it knows we can take a loan from our future…but it comes with interest. It’s not free.”

In his discussion with embodiment coach Prentis Hemphill, they converge on how we use the idea that we have a “later” as a resource. She points to Christianity and the idea of heaven.

Salvation is always in the future.

This is how some think of self-care, or what I prefer to call resourcing ourselves, since the phrase “self-care” has become so tainted and convoluted. We are too busy to care for ourselves, even though we are never too busy to take care of someone else or something else. So I ask:

What is the quality of the care that you are giving? If love is attention, are you able to give your full attention if you are drained, empty, and resentful?

Together Hübl and Hemphill point out that the idea of “later” prevents us from making change now. We are intoxicated by the thought that change will come later.

From my perspective, you don’t not have time now (sorry for the double negative). You don’t “have time” until you are sick, or in burnout, or constantly yelling at your kids, or not sleeping, or making frequent mistakes at work, or wondering how in the world you got here.

And that brings me back to Anya Kamenetz’s commentary on the rat park method. The idea that instead of trying to figure out how we can avoid information overload to stay centered—doom scrolling, most notably—we  ADD fulfilling activities and meaning to our lives. Making love, family dinners.

“Calling much of this stuff “information” is kind, of course. It’s porn, lies, rage bait, AI, PR, nonsense. Our names express our revulsion–“data smog,” “data trash,” spam, brainrot, slop,” she says.

Taking in too much information—or “information”—makes you tired. It makes you make worse decisions, or avoid making decisions. It makes you miss important messages in the noise. “We are beings with agency. If we are seeking out all this information we must be trying to fulfill some need, right?”

I’ve unwittingly and without strategy been adding things into my life: signing on to free workshops, upleveling my morning routine, taking new classes, saying yes to connection with human beings at every opportunity, keeping my commitment to resourcing myself—and that’s in addition to my daily tasks and trying to magic up sustainable income.

And guess what? My daughter isn’t suffering. My friends are not suffering. There’s a lot more dirty laundry, but the quality of my sleep is amazing, and I’ve spent an average of two hours less on my phone each week. I open a news app and if anxiety rears its ugly, primordial head, I recognize it immediately. So I shut it and don’t force myself to withstand the trauma. I listen to a max of one hour of news analysis a day, and I’m not missing out on anything. But also, I read the screenplay, so nothing about the performance shocks me sans the level of absurdity. And if I do find myself scrolling on Instagram, I recognize what a waste of time it is and that I’d rather be sleeping/doing my gratitude list/reading/writing the astrology/napping or whatever.

The Nap Ministry boils it down even simpler:

The caption goes even further: “And hear me out…you don’t have to make a reel to share it online either. You can just do it and vibe and live and be human in community. You can connect without technology.

I’ve noticed this obsession with launching something, crafting a project and doing these perfectly curated attempts that are full of unnecessary labor. You can just be. You can also rest.”

The rat park method is far more effective than creating rules around screentime, or “saying” I’ll be more present with my daughter, because the actual practice of presence is enough to recognize when I am not and refocus.

“The “rat park” concept of addiction refers to some famous studies that suggested that given ample company, and toys and exercise gear like balls and wheels, rats are less likely to develop addictions to cocaine or morphine, even when the drugs are freely available. So maybe instead of moralizing or beating ourselves up about chronic info-overload, or putting ourselves on an information diet, it’s more thinking about where we can intentionally enrich our environment, adding in more experiences that meet our needs for connection, inspiration, novelty, curiosity fulfillment, soothing, and fun.”

There is an urgency in the things that consume us that make us feel guilty or drain us or retraumatize us. Sarah Tacy examined the words “urgency” and “emergency” and concluded that there is a sense of doom in the “-gency.” Our survival instinct keeps us tethered to that sense of doom in a society that fuels, demands, and idolizes the “-gency.” And that’s why she likes “agency.”

The prefix “a” means without; when we operate from agency, we proceed without that feeling of doom. And the rat park method hands us back our agency.

Slowing down from the momentum into the moment.

(cont…,)

This season doesn't have to deplete you. These offerings are invitations to deepen your practice and resource yourself before the intensity arrives—so you can meet family gatherings, end-of-year pressure, and 2026 from your center, not your chaos.

Whether you're ready for comprehensive transformation through a package, want to explore a specific area through an individual session, or have a story to share that helps others find their way—there's a pathway here that honors where you are and supports where you're becoming (and one of them is FREE).

Contact me directly book any of these offerings.

Current ways to deepen your practice before the holidays:

Book any individual session by November 27 and receive 18% off.

Sometimes you don't need a full package—you need focused support for exactly where you are right now. A birth chart reading to understand what the cosmos is asking of you. A sleep restoration session because exhaustion is stealing your joy. Transforming one daily routine from mundane to magical. Creating your embodied practice map so presence becomes sustainable.

This isn't just a discount—it's an invitation to give yourself what you actually need before the holiday season tests your capacity.

When you resource yourself now, you walk into family gatherings with tools. You navigate end-of-year pressure with practices. You meet 2026 already aligned with your inner authority instead of scrambling to find your center in January.

Sessions available:

This offer is exclusively for newsletter subscribers - honoring your commitment to your own unfolding.

Explore sessions and claim your 18% discount →
(Contact Lex to book)

Offer expires November 27, 2025

Stay Centered This Holiday Season

The holidays test your nervous system. Resource yourself first.

Receive 20% off any package when you purchase by November 27 (35%+ total savings). Start now and walk into family gatherings with embodied practices, grounded boundaries, and your inner authority intact.

Centered > scattered.
Resourced > depleted.
You > old patterns.

Claim your pre-holiday discount → Book by 11/27 for this subscriber-only offer.

Your Story = Someone Else's Permission Slip

Worked with me and recommend me? Choose a FREE session in gratitude, then share your experience through a testimonial:

⭐ Bonus Embodied Astrology Analysis (Astrological analysis w/ current transits — if you’ve already had your chart done with me)

⭐ Sleep as Sacred Practice (Customized sleep restoration plan)

⭐ Mundane to Magical OR Everyday Embodiment Mapping

Your honest reflection helps others trust they can come home to themselves too.

Write testimonial, claim your session → Newsletter subscriber appreciation offer. Contact Lex to book.

Fall Workshops at Mr. Rabbit

Tuesday, November 18 | 5:15-7:15PM at Mr. Rabbit Coffee

Astrology isn't just for understanding your personality or checking your horoscope—it's a mirror reflecting the energy of the cosmos. And when you learn to work with universal rhythms, you manifest with intuition, strategic alignment, and the support of nature’s timing.

Join us to explore how astrological transits guide us toward enhancing what we want to shine and transforming what we're ready to release.

*This is the foundation of my work on timing your intentions with the cosmos. It’ll provide a better understanding of how this works, plus there will be some really fun transits to practice setting intentions with.

🌞🌙 Luminaries (sun + moon cycles)
☿♀♂ Personal planets (short-term intentions)
♅♆♇ Transpersonal planets (long-term evolution)
♃♄ The Greater Benefic & Malefic
👒Style of each of the zodiac signs
🏠 12 houses (where & when to focus your energy)

We'll practice together through breathwork, meditation, mantra, movement, and journaling—embodying the cosmic wisdom so it lands in your cells, not just your mind.

You'll leave with a clear intention aligned to an upcoming transit of your choice—manifestation supported by the Universe itself.

Investment: $36, includes tea drink

Optional add-ons: birth chart interpretation + discounted personal reading (Birth chart* helpful but not required) If I’ve already done your birth chart, no need to pay for a new one.

RSVP by November 14 →
 

This isn't wishful thinking. This is strategic cosmic alignment for what you're actually here to create.

Brace yourselves: the next few weeks feature a lot of disruption. But you know what this week features? A gorgeous Taurus full moon. This is what we focus on. We know the other bits and pieces so we are prepared, but the Taurus moon helps us do that best.

Oh, yeah. And this will be one of the messiest Mercury retrogrades we’ve had in awhile. There’s an excerpt below, but the full post tells you how to prepare now.

Here’s the vibe for Mercury in Sagittarius, and a deep dive on Scorpio season.

There’s more to come, which you can check out on the blog later this week.

The Taurus full moon offers us a unique opportunity this Scorpio season: get out of our heads—and the analysis and investigation that defines Scorpio—and into our bodies. Taurus is sensual 💃, while Scorpio is emotionally and psychologically deep 🖤. The moon represents not only the body, but the emotional body. And she is exalted in Taurus, meaning she offers us her best in this sign. Beyond this supermoon, the vibe is pretty heady until we get to Capricorn season in December, so let us not waste this unique opportunity.

🌝The full moon is here to highlight. And this one is a super full moon, so it's extra bright. A puffed up Luna shows us our recent accomplishments and how we've grown over the past six months. She also shines a light on what no longer serves and where we can release.

🍂With the Taurus full moon following on the heels of Samhain, All Hallows Eve, and Día de Los Muertos, we're asked to consider the tangible. It's the end of the harvest. This is also the Beaver Moon. How solid is your shelter? How are we attuned to nature and her rhythms in this transitional season? Touch grass. 🌾Let’s get back down to Earth. Taurus is where our values lie, as does our sense of physical security. How are we meeting our basic needs? 

💗With both Scorpio and Taurus being highlighted the question is: are our emotional needs being met? Venus is in charge of this full moon since she rules Taurus. She's near the same late degrees of Libra as the last new moon. The themes of balance and flow in our relationships are also part of this self-enlightenment package.  Who is being nourished and how?

🕯️How to honor the Taurus Full Moon: Take time to do a little ceremony. Take a hot bath, sit at your altar, or just light some candles at your desk or table. Reflect on what you've accomplished over the past month or past six months and how you've grown. What can be streamlined, tweaked or refined? What is no longer serving you? What do you need to release and/or surrender to? Where are you feeling grounded and secure? Are your needs being met? How are you resourcing yourself? Having just closed the harvest and moving into the void and the dark of winter, how will you prepare? You can take a salt bath, collect the moonlight in a glass of water and use it as you will. Bring in the family or littles by riffing off any of these ideas. Make it your own.

Full moons are peak moments. This is the second of three super full moons ending the calendar year and before the winter solstice. It’s definitely one for reflection.

🪄 Scorpio season, but EXTRA. Not only is the sun in Scorpio, but Luna also scooted in right after her new moon in Libra, AND we’ve got a few twists and turns to layer on the depth.  Add to that a gaggle of transits that take us to our edge. During Scorpio season we go deep. We’re a month into autumn, fully in a season defined by transformation, by release, by excavation. Scorpio season is for exploring our emotional and psychological depths. We crave more meaning, we want more feeling. Forget chit chat and time fillers. Personal and relational exploration and investigation are the order of the day.

Last month in Scorpio, Mercury went deep. Our intellectual processes, communication, and the flow of information were obsessed with excavation 🪱. Emotions. Psychology. Investigation. Analysis🔬. Now the messenger planet floats freely in the sign of the centaur. On one hand, this energy is expansive. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, so the vibe is generous and upbeat (minus that little retrograde period this month.) Seekers, this is your season.

🥷My friends, let us remember: we do not fear the astrology. We work with the astrology, we prepare for the astrology, and we take care of who and what we need to.

🤡That being said, Mercury just left Scorpio where it was doing deep work and moved into Sagittarius where...it struggles. You feel it already, don’t you? Not only is Mercury in detriment in sweet Sag (meaning it’s its worst placement), but it will also retrograde here. Yay! Adventures ahead: time to get flexible and pull out your toolkit.

There’s nothing more delicious than having the space to savor bedtime. To enjoy the folding back of the sheets on the bed, the feeling of cozy pajamas, the warmth of hot tea, the joy gratitude lists elicit, the release of bedtime yoga or stretching, reading to the littles, cuddling with your beloveds. Nice, soothing music is a bonus.

Note that these are not the same tracks I recommend for falling asleep to. That’s a different list, coming soon.

Pro Tip: A few of these have sounds for nature, which can be delightful especially if you realize you haven’t gotten a dose of greenery or Mother Nature that day.

*To help folks with the overwhelm that comes with downloading and using Insight Timer in its 9th or 10th year, I’m highlighting some of my favorite teachers, artists, and tracks. Check out last week’s list here.

Under the Stars, Too: Condor | by Joanne Lazzaro: | Under 5 minutes | Gorgeous instrumental flute music

Bedtime Gratitude Meditation | by Larissa Hall Carlson | Under 8 minutes

Dusk in the Wild | by Soulful Soundwaves | Under 20 minutes | Theta brainwave entrainment (6.3 Hz)| lovely for bedtime yoga or stretching)

Woodlands by Sherry Finzer | Under 8 minutes | Gorgeous, nature-y flute music

Relaxation, Sleep and Meditation: Peace for the Inner Child by Joshua (Rama) Inacio | Under 15 minutes | Instrumental

You Are Peace by Hannah Leatherbury | Under 20 minutes | Delicious meditation/visualization

Gratitude Meditation w/ Root Chakra C Drone-Cello by The Wong Janice | Under 15 minutes | Instrumental

Evening Rest and Reflection by Angela Kontgen | Under 15 minutes | Reflective meditation

Night Sky by Andy Hobson | Under 20 minutes | Meditation & music

Just for Tomorrow by Tom Evans | 10 minutes | Meditation/Visualization

Healing in Quiet Hours by Michael Howard Monroe | Under 15 minutes | Instrumental flute

Evening Prayer by Sherry Finzer Under 8 minutes | Instrumental/Flute

Unwind into Surrender: 10-Minute Release & Relinquish by Sarah Blondin | 8 minutes | formerly “Learning to Surrender”

Sleep Hygiene

It’s not the relaxation of the hot bath that helps us sleep. It’s the temperature drop. Yes, hot baths are relaxing, and yes, most definitely they are worthwhile if you can get an hour to yourself in the bathroom. BUT, the reason they help us sleep is because they raise our core temperature (so consult a doctor if you’re pregnant or have health issues where that is not a good idea), and once we get out, that elevated temperature begins to drop. Then we get sleepy if we aren’t already.

So sleep in a cool room. Setting the thermostat to between 60-68 degrees fahrenheit for nighttime facilitates the production of melatonin, and better quality sleep. Plus it can help for folks who have night sweats or hot flashes. This doesn’t mean you need to freeze yourself to sleep. You can layer the bed with blankets that you can peel off after you’ve warmed up. Programming your thermostat to warm up the house right before you awake can solve the issue of that brutal morning chill—although some say that can wake you up because it’s invigorating.

My advice is to sleep in a cool room, and figure out the details around that based on you and your family’s preferences. Also, check with a doctor if you have significant health issues.

While I was writing about Sarah Jenks’ Living Temple Samhain ceremony in the note above, delivered to my inbox at the exact time was Layla Martin’s most recent podcast episode with guest…wait for it…

…Sarah Jenks. I kid you not. I can’t wait to hear What to Do When Your Life Is "Perfect" but Your Soul Is Screaming. Mostly because I’ve been wondering what happened with Sarah’s marriage during her transformation from hugely successful businesswoman (and doctor’s wife) to priestess. (BTW, around here when we say priestess, we’re very, very far from the Catholic church. About as far as you can get. We’re talking about the sacred feminine.)

Here’s how Layla sets it up if you haven’t heard of Sarah Jenks. And here’s the actual episode.I’ve heard parts of this story, and it’s GOOD. But never with the part about their marriage.

When we remember our deep belonging to this world, a fierce and tender courage begins to move through us.

In this week's talk, Tara Brach explores “spiritual audacity—a sacred and embodied boldness that is much needed in our troubled, entranced world. Through personal and collective lenses, we’ll reflect on what it means to live true to our essence: grounded in love, guided by truth, and called to serve the freedom and healing of all beings.”

Meditation Gurus Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield are offering a FREE 40-day online training in mindfulness meditation. Daily lessons are 15 minutes or less.

I am very interested in the worlds that we build and how we build them. But I, think if we go about trying to save some world without savoring it. What we lose, what we forget to honor, what we forget to bring along what we don't realize we need to become for it. I think all of that gets lost. So it is sort of a shift in my life and the season of my life, the age that I am, my parenting, where it does feel like a priority to savor, which to me is present. How do I drop deeply into my life, into the moment, into connection. And, you know, as much as I can not try to get out of there, not trying to be four places at once. And there's a lot of pressure to be four places at once, but as much as I can, how do I drop into presence? And I think that actually serves our saving of the world in ways that we don't quite articulate. 

-Prentis Hemphill

VOTE, if you haven’t already.

Reach out to me to take advantage of my current discounts and book your pre-holiday session. I hope to see you in a session, or in the How to Manifest with Astrology workshop on Tuesday, November 18 at Mr. Rabbit.

Yours in peace,

💚 Alexis (Lex)