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I’d been getting reacquainted with yoga, lately, trying to get with a more conscious version of yoga. I don’t need yoga for exercise, I walk my dog and do cardio every day. I wanted a practice to deepen my awareness, to turn up the volume on my inner listening.

Boy, did I get that. In even the gentlest of yoga postures, my body began rebelling. No! It screamed in the bridge pose. Uncomfortable! To the downward dog. I began feeling frustrated, a habituated throwback response to when my mind tells me its perfectly logical to be able to do something and my very sensitive body doesn’t.

But now in my early 40’s I am finally learning to love my beautiful sensitivity, to see it is a gift. I see it especially in the way my body and mind are so connected. If I do something that is out of alignment with me, my body lets me know- in aches, pains, in symptoms. This can be anything, from attending a social function, resulting in a hangover the next day, or a thought of self-doubt that results in a searing pain ripping through my head.

Unlike the past, where I’d see my sensitivity as a liability, I’m currently loving this connection. I’m exploring it with loving curiosity. I’m enjoying watching the feedback and dialogue between the two. And I’m noticing that the better I get at inner listening, and heeding my own advice, the less my body screams. It may just sigh, instead, or need a slight adjustment, but it doesn’t need to grab my attention in the same old ways.

So. Okay, I ask my body, what do you want to do instead? And I listen.

What happens next is a mash up between Feldenkrais, Yoga, Chi Gong and Modern Dance. It’s kind of funny, this new thing I’m inventing, but as I drop into it and lose my self-consciousness or need to know what happens next, I feel like I’m both floating and deeply grounded, connected, moving, still and present. I experience the sensation of alignment I used to get from yoga, without the painful consequences.

After a few days of this, I actually broke down and cried healing tears of liberation because I had been trying- for years- to fit a square peg into a round hole, with yoga. Yoga was invented for a mind thousands of years ago, not for my body-mind today, and my inner landscape today is very different from even what it was a few years ago. What do you do when you have evolved beyond a 5,000 year old practice? You experiment. This new thing I was doing, whatever it was called, was so freeing. So fresh, new. So Gemini.

At this New Moon, we each have something we are ready to up-level in our lives.

When we up-level, we take something to the next level. This up-leveling involves hearing what our deeper self is saying. How well do we listen? Do we react dismissively toward a mental voice as it replays a limiting thought, or is it something we might want to take a fresh look at? Can we tell the difference between the voice of our Soul, our knowing, which is always calming and true, and the voice of our fearful Ego, which needs our reassurances but not our buy in?  Can we distinguish the voice of social pressure – that of a parent, boss, partner, ideas about what we “should” do or be- from our true voice?

I know, these are deep questions for light-footed Gemini Moon! But they’re worth contemplating. So many times we get caught up in the multiplicity of mind, which, like a multiple feature matinee, plays everything at once- the parental conditioning, the fear about this or that, guilt, what we should be doing, and underneath it all -our Soul’s quiet voice. Since what we give our attention to grows, it pays to know which talky talk channel we are tuned into, so we can dis-entangle our self and have more choice and free will.

When I committed to deeply listening with what was going on with creating a sustainable yoga practice, I had to make these distinctions, which allowed me to hear my true voice, and to let go of the others. Then I was free to invent something that better suited me.

During Gemini season, when you drop into the moment and really listen, art forms get invented, new things get tried, innovations happen. Gemini is about leaning into what’s required right now, being willing to try something different, to invent, experiment, get curious, play -and not be so God-awful serious about how you look or getting it right.

I went to my Gemini niece’s fourth birthday a few days ago. Afterwards, she wanted to have a dance after party with me. It turns out she had some never before invented dance moves, including one she called “the whirl”, which she taught me. We leapt and whirled together and for a few minutes I was caught up in the wonder and magic of the Twins, totally, utterly in love with seeing the world through her eyes.

Gemini offers this sense of refreshment. Think of a child opening up its eyes, discovering its senses for the first time, drinking in the tastes, textures, sounds and color. To nourish your inner Gemini: Ask questions. Listen. Get curious. Experiment. Be spontaneous, and be willing to look foolish. You just might learn something new about your self.