On Facing Fear & Expansive Views

Editor's Note: (November 2011) I had a session of Breath of the Soul, a guided meditation practice, created by astrologer Adam Gainsburg. I began by telling Adam, "I had a dream, a nightmare actually, last night, that I want to tell you about." Adam says he gets that a lot -- people have dreams to share from the night before a session. It's shades of the mysterious way that the soul prepares for a meeting with a healer.

Because of his presence, even though on Skype, I was able to trust him completely, which is rare for me. I found it reached questions within that only symbols and witnessing could draw out. I highly recommend it as a healing modality, combining astrology at times, with breath and meditation.

Adam recounts, “I was on a trip in Peru – it was a shamanic sacred site trip. And we went to Machu Picchu and as I’m sure you know, the village is all the ruins of buildings. Above the village, there are mountains at higher elevation. One is the mountain of the Moon, and the other is the mountain of the Sun.”

He continues, “I found that I was drawn to go up there. I got up to the top and there was nothing up there, no guard rail and I was walking on rock. There was massive flag with a metal pole that someone drilled into the rock. But the wind is whipping, and it’s at about 11,000 feet.”

At the top, Adam says, ”I’m not afraid of heights, but this dropped straight down, and it felt like with the wind, I could be blown off, so I crouched down. Then I found that this was an outlet for what I was experiencing. I found something in myself that wanted to stand up but I was afraid. I thought to myself, ‘If you fell no one would know.’”

”I started to stand up slowly. I did breath of the soul where I breathed in from the various vastnesses above, in front, and to the sides, and, the more I could connect to those spaces, the more grounded I felt.

When we connect with something outside ourselves, the way to feel safe and grounded, in the foreign environment, is to feel yourself in that space also. It’s the boundary of the Self to our body, the feeling of the Self in to that space. So that allowed me to stand up," he says, adding, "so I’m now I’m doing yoga poses."

The image here is of Adam at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona. He says, "So that came up again during that grand canyon time. The deeper we go into that practice," he says of Breath of the Soul, "the more we build that capacity to expand into the space around us, no matter what."

Adam is pictured against a wide spacious sky. But what of times when we're jam packed with others, I asked, like in places like New York. I mentioned how I read somewhere that when you move from a zen bubble place like San Francisco, to crazy populated like New York, your aura is said to pull in tight around you.

Adam says it's to keep us from being overwhelmed by all that's energetically around us. "That’s why we compress, it’s that we don’t feel we can exist in the space around us with other people who have a lot in their field. It's an assumed smallness of space."

Adam has lectured on Chiron in Pisces at astrology conferences, where he's said, "We’re going to find out where we shut down, because we’re scared to find out how big we are. It's how we experience the Energetic space between each other, where we pull in, where we expand, where we shut down. And Chiron in Pisces is going to be emphasizing where we do that because of fear or pain...what is the underlying egoic contraction movitvation.

The Chiron thing has to do with closing down our hearts, into an artificially enforced, defined and enforced safety zone we hold ourselves in. Anyway that our contraction pattern is trying to keep us safe from being too diffuse, too forgiving, that’s when our issues are going to come up. It's confronting this idea that I have to keep small or cope by dissociating."

Since this was a conversation, I want to share here that I recently de-activated my profile on Facebook. I mainly did this because I sense the need to undergo a transformation, that requires me to be more concentrated energetically and focused on a few things I’ve got going on. The constant stream of open conversation and articles was making my mind too full!

But the other reason is that it often left me feeling awkward about what’s said and the idea of responding, being responsive in relationships – the ‘liking’ of what others are doing. And perhaps it’s having Saturn in the first house (identity), it’s a medium that’s about creating a presentation of who you are. I saw how I was spending a lot of energy thinking about my virtual image, and who I am to these two hundred plus people, from different parts of my life. It brings up interesting parallels to Adam's mentioning of dissociating, and the Chiron Pisces potential for experiencing multiple (fractal) selves.

Adam has this to say about the absorbing social network: ”Facebook is a repository for the projection of our own social shadow. What I mean by that is, Facebook, in the way people are using it, has become a fake way of connecting to people. You’re not connecting to people.”

I told Adam about de-activating and how they put up a display of four faces and say, “(Fill in the blank) will miss you.” It's a play on your emotions, using the virtual identities of people in your circle. The draw to Facebook for many, is the longing for connection and to belong. Says Adam, “The reason they keep hounding that in about connection, is because it’s not a way to connect.”

Adam continues, "When you tweak your group of friends, that’s not connecting. Facebook degrades authentic intimacy. We are socially illiterate. We don’t know what it is to be with someone in a platonic way. It’s your little bit of fame, social persona, what image are you putting out."

For now, I'm experiencing the space that comes with stepping out of the virtual social network. That's where I am with it today. Adam and I went on to discuss real-sky astrology, and other exciting areas to expand into, with astrology. His Breath of the Soul, combined with a dynamic, direct engagement with the real sky, as well as tropical 'signs,' makes him a pioneer in the field. I'm sure our conversations will continue!