A Trip Without the Psychedelics
...some thoughts on feeling connected to our bodies + a meditation practice for the new moon in Aquarius
Back in 2020, about a year after I regularly started practicing yoga a few times a week, I had a very trippy experience.
There were no substances involved: it was just me, the basement apartment I’d rented for that final semester of grad school, my deep grief about the break-up I was in the midst of, and the looming deadline of my thesis project.
I was walking across the living room carpet, probably on my way to eat some dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s or to pour more coffee, when I distinctly felt the carpet on the soles of my feet. I stopped, stood on my tiptoes and lowered myself back down, and then I just stood still.
The carpet was spongey, and being an old basement apartment, it was well…damp.
I had walked across the carpet for the previous few months. I had danced my way around it, and I had done yoga on it – but this was the first time that I felt it. It was like I had timeline jumped and gone straight to a different world, with a whole new body.
While the sensation of the carpet wasn’t quite pleasant, just being able to experience this depth and complexity of sensation was mind blowing. I felt so much gratitude for my feet in that moment because I was feeling.
Much like people often report with psychedelic trips, this experience had an enormous impact on me.
It was a moment where I let go of whatever resentment I sometimes feel about this part of my body as a result of them not fitting into the dainty norms expected of people who were assigned female at birth. I wasn’t thinking about how I wanted my feet to be smaller – I was thinking about that spongey dampness.
It was also the first time in a long time that I really felt my body outside of sex.
…And it was the first time where I realized that perhaps I had been separated from my body, that I wasn’t actually getting to fully experience what my body was capable of feeling because I was so disconnected from it.
Since then, my relationship with my feet – and my entire body – has changed.
I’ve felt started to feel so many incredible things with this ability to be connected: the pull and tug of sand as it disappears when the ocean recedes, my fingertips pressing against my other fingertips when I bring my palms together. The exquisite softness of my lover’s lips against my labia and the delicious way the heat within me can build. The small spaces in between wooden floor planks, the depth of my shoulders when I sit up straight. I’ve felt the soft hug of my boots, the way clean sheets feel so delicate against my bare skin. The crisp crunch of an apple each time I take a bite, the textured handle of the pot I use to cook oatmeal every morning.
I’ve felt some of the less pleasant sensations too – like the sand being too hot against my feet, the exhaustion of my arms when I hold them up during chair pose – but over time, these have felt less distressing. I know that I have options, I know that having these sensations is my body’s way of keeping itself safe.
Rather than thinking about my body in terms of how it looks or how others might perceive the way it looks, I’ve started to concentrate on the way that it feels to be in it. I’ve been feeling more delight, and I’ve been practicing cultivating a sense of gratitude for my body and all the pleasures it provides me.
This has certainly been a work of progress, and there are certainly days where it’s difficult to be present in my body, or where it feels safer to not be in my body, but I like that I now have more of a choice than I did before.
Happening on February 9, 2024, at 3 pm PT, this new moon takes place in the sign of Aquarius. Along with the Sun, it will be squaring Uranus, which might bring some shakiness and instability. It also takes place just a few days away from the conjunction of the North Node and Chiron, which signifies deep healing.
When writing about this new moon, astrologer Jill Winterson says, “This new Moon is a time to stretch your imagination past what you think is possible. It’s a time to see your life, including your potential, differently. This new Moon in Aquarius challenges you to unlimit yourself, see past your self-imposed barriers, and reach for a new vision—one that breaks the mold of anything else you’ve ever written.”
This new moon isn’t just about making our own changes though – it’s also about the way our own changes can ripple out to the collective. Astrologer Chani Nicholas says that this new moon “is about remembering that we are not too late to make the future better. In fact, this moment is the only place from which we can create change. It’s the only place from which we can learn to love, cherish, and take care of one another, and therefore the world.”
With the energy of this new moon and the theme for this month, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to break out of patterns that we have with our bodies.
Due to the norms that systems of oppression have put into place and the traumatic experiences that so many of us have within these systems, many of us have difficult relationships with our bodies.
Rather than seeing them as something to be celebrated and embraced, we often see them as places to be shrunk, modified, and critiqued. We think of ourselves as unlovable or unworthy because of the way that our body looks. Trauma can also have long term effects on our bodies, even causing us to dissociate. While these are incredible tools that our bodies use to survive, they can often become harmful when it becomes our continual way of being.
While we think about our relationship to our bodies being an individual one, it often has collective effects: the comments we make about our bodies are often heard and absorbed by those around us, even if we don’t intend this to happen. We are hurt by this system, but sadly, we also take part in perpetuating it.
But what if we were to stop thinking about how our body looks and begin thinking about how it feels? What would it be like to be rooted in a place of compassion and appreciation rather than a place of dislike or fear?
For our sex lives, what could our sex lives be like if we were to feel safe enough to be present in these sensations, seeing them as important messages that are worthy of our attention rather than something to be pushed down and cast aside? What possibilities of pleasure could expand when we begin to accept our bodies just as they are? When we can be present in pleasure during sex instead of worrying about how we smell or how our thighs look in certain positions or whether we’re jiggling in unsexy ways?
So for this new moon, I want to offer a vision for the future: I want us all to be able to live in a world where we have the choice on what we do with out bodies and where we feel safe to be embodied. I want us experience what it’s like to inhabit our bodies and where we have access to the full range of sensations that our bodies can experience – from the discomforts to the pleasures.
I want us to be able to give our bodies a different truth to return to when we get stuck in a cycle of critique or harm, a truth that is rooted in our own internal experience of pleasure and gratitude rather than that of systems of oppression.
I want us all to experience this choice, this liberation of our bodies and all the pleasure of which they are capable.
An Introduction to this Practice:
For this meditation, we will start by finding a comfortable shape. I then offer an optional breath practice (equal breathing in counts of four), followed by a body check-in where you will be invited to feel into parts of your body and offer messages of gratitude. Each part of the meditation is optional, and I use invitational and gender-neutral language.
Breath practices can be triggering for some folks, so I encourage everyone to take special care with this part of the meditation and to stop if it feels overwhelming.
If you want to do this practice with the new moon energy, you might do it on the 9th or within three days after the new moon has taken place. If you stumble on this in the future or aren’t that into astrology, you can do it whenever feels right!
Optional elements to incorporate into the meditation:
amethyst: this stone is associated with Aquarius but can also be a helpful stone to incorporate into a gratitude practice because of its association with spirituality and the divine. It can help you tap into what you envision for yourself.
candle: white or deep blue candle to light while you do the meditation practice
an item that feels connected to the element of air (Aquarius is known as the water-bearer, but it is an Air sign)
journal and pen