Align Your Orbit: Make Way for Sacred
Align Your Orbit is a monthly series of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide you toward intentionality and impact in your daily life. These are games to inspire intuition, so please adapt the offerings to fit you and find delight in how you engage.
While the reality of war is fresh on our minds, we remain heartened by the solidarity with Ukraine as people around the globe demand an end to war in general. Seek out all sides of the story while standing strong in your moral foundations. Get curious about the villains as well as the victims. Don’t be afraid to let events taking place in other parts of the world affect day-to-day life.
As these massive shifts continue, pay special attention to dream messaging, and say yes to opportunities to defrag as you set metaphorical bones.
Want to experience this month’s offerings as a Spotify playlist?
Experiments for March
1. Flex & Adapt – There’s so much grief in the air—from devastation about this new war to continued covid losses. If you need to make changes to your schedule or give yourself more emotional buffer, take heart in knowing that’s rational and necessary to stay afloat. Give yourself permission to begin events with an acknowledgment of the conflict in the air to stay present through turmoil.
Challenge Mode: Our animal natures were born to adapt. Take advantage of the evolutionary knowledge in your body and explore animal-like movements in your active meditations. Try moving through a series of animals cyclically—bear, monkey, frog, crab, bear monkey frog crab.
2. Implement Failsafes – If there’s a bigger-than-life part of your personality, what safeguards do you have in place to bring the people around you along for the journey? How do they get off the ride? Embrace taking a breath together after moments of intensity. Bring curiosity to the practice of writing down what others need you to remember.
Challenge Mode: Borrowing inspo from shrimpteeth, make a list of the areas where your ideal doesn’t yet match your reality. Where is there a gap between theory and practice? Invite new conversational cues along the lines of, Ultimately, I’d like to feel comfortable with _________, but right now I could use some support getting through. Can you ________? Commit to progress but be honest about where you are now.
3. Define Worship – For us, worship is an act of honoring. What do you honor and why? Consider the ways you worship in your daily life. Which household gods do you appease? What wishes do you carry? If you find yourself thinking that everything you do is a form of worship, imagine an action that is only worship with no other purpose in mind.
Challenge Mode: It’s difficult to navigate existence without a compass. Revisit your guiding lights and core philosophies. Make an inventory of what you are and what you would like to be. Determine your own definitions of good and evil. How do these philosophies guide your everyday decision making?
4. Listen & Embody – Choreography requires diverse parts of your mind and body. There’s the embodied imagination performing the dance, the version that studies music to trust in its rhythms, and the part that displays attitude through facial expressions, among others. Listen to music like a choreographer this month and dance, even if only in your mind, to frequencies that make you feel alive.
Challenge Mode: Pay special attention to your dreams and imagine that dreamspace is an entity all on its own. How would you make a friend of this realm of reality? What would you leave on their doorstep? If you haven’t already found one, search for a dream encyclopedia or start making your own. This is our current favorite after scouring the bookshelves at Powell’s.
Please tell us how these experiments are working for you!
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Andra’s Recap of February’s Experiments
The theme for February was Tend Your Metaphors, with experiments around embracing proximity, reminding yourself of your quirks, traversing valleys of disappointment, and playing with the independent halves of the pelvis.
This month threw a curveball at me with regard to proximity as I caught what was likely Covid-19 and needed to isolate not only from people outside the house but also my downstairs roommates. Thus commenced two intense weeks of realizing just how different from lockdown my life had become up to that point. I missed my job, I missed my roomies, I missed my new friends, and it was tragic to cancel so many events. But, it was nice to reconnect with my nesting partner and make sure that we did what we could to take care of each other.
As such, I had to take a big break from my yarn mill work, but I have been thinking a lot about how doing things on trade rather than directly for money might delay or prevent burnout. There’s an urgency around direct monetary exchange that I’m not very interested in.
I’ve been celebrating my own quirks mostly through gender expression. I picked a day to wear a fun wig to work, and I went out with my nesting partner to a burlesque show dressed as one of my most masculine spirits. It has been both entertaining and affirming.
Learning the systems and being patient about change is still a challenge for me, but I still feel like good things are in the works and will soon stabilize in a very nourishing way as I head toward breakthroughs. I have, however, felt like I’ve been hitting my stride in instructing both the volunteers who work with me and with my apprentice at the yarn mill. I’ve been told many times lately that I am a good teacher, and that’s surprising because it’s not a skill I have intentionally developed. I’m seeing the value of those skills, though—they are widely applicable. I’m leaning into trusting my understanding of my roles such that I can provide direction to others.
In terms of pelvis exploration, I’ve been doing a lot of dance lately, primarily because I signed up for a burlesque class! This is part of the challenge I gave myself this year of learning more masculine mannerisms, and most of the dance styles I am interested in are very high energy with a lot of pelvis and hip movements. It’s been awesome to reacquaint myself with my body in this way and actually study the music I’m listening to.
Additionally, there have been a lot of times this month where I’ve been asked what I want, specifically in sensual situations. Historically, I’ve been rather tongue tied about all that and have deferred to focusing on the other person as a result, but I did my best to be brave this month and provide instructions. It’s been valuable and has strengthened my relationships as a result.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy March’s experiments!