Embodiment Series Week 5: Sensory Attunement and Ritual Touch

Welcome back to Week 5 of my Spring-Summer series called Embodiment as Sacred Force for Change!  Today’s episode was recorded amidst the afterglow of the powerful New Moon in Aries conjunct Chiron, the wounded healer, invoking courage to release pain and embrace regeneration.  The core message is that your deepest wound can become your greatest gift when you meet it in right-relationship with its roots. With the arrival of Taurus season, we shift our focus to the beauty and intelligence of our bodies and how the sensorial experience of being alive becomes a real resource for power and nourishment.  

We get practical with sensory attunement and nervous system support, including a clear breakdown of more than the “five senses” through vestibular awareness, proprioception, and interoception. I guide you through orientation using sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, then offer an ear self-massage that can support vagus nerve tone and help your body soften into parasympathetic ease. 

From there, we move into a self-touch ritual that asks a different kind of question: where does your body want love, what wounds want tending, and what hidden gifts are ready to awaken? The practice includes feeling into ancestral wounding and familial patterns held in the tissues, while also seeking hidden gifts, pleasure, and remembering. 

Bodywork, movement, and sensory attunement become rituals of release and reclamation, acknowledging that disembodiment is a survival response shaped by colonial violence, systemic oppression, and intergenerational trauma. Re-inhabiting the body becomes a daily act of resistance and a return to belonging. The way we care for our body shapes how we show up for each other, our communites, and the world we want to build.  Surrounding ourselves with beloveds who are also seeking embodiment brings a profound energy for this work. 

Thank you for tuning in.  If you’re ready for more then join me each week, and get ready To Dare, Together!  If this resonates, subscribe so you don’t miss out, share it with someone who needs body-based, spirit-centered support right now.  

Check out the links below to connect with the brilliant people and their work mentioned in today's episode:

https://bloodlineastrology.com/about/

https://www.morrigan.academy/intensive

https://www.embodiedastrology.com

https://www.decolonizingtherapy.com/dtft

https://www.stephenporges.com

Transcript

Welcome And The Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello, friend. Welcome. My name is Erin O'Brien, and I'm daring to create and hold space for decolonized healing, transformation, and collective liberation. I'm a licensed psychotherapist for over 20 plus years, a relationship counselor, a spiritual intuitive, shadow worker, and witch. And I believe that true therapeutic practice calls for right action and remembers all the ways of well-being. This is a place that will remember the old truths and reconnect them to their land and to their people. Together, we will unite the relational, social, spiritual, psychological, ancestral, scientific, environmental, political, and magical. Because it is most powerful when working as a sacred whole. As are we. 2026 is a time to dare to create the world that we've been dreaming of, to dare to be the dream we have been waiting for. Let's do it.

Venus Shift And Aries New Moon

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Okay, I am recording today, Thursday, April 23rd, and today is a day where Venus is in Taurus leaving to move into Gemini. And before we get into all of that, I want to acknowledge the potent new moon that took place on Friday, April 17th. And it was a new moon in Aries, and we were still in Aries season at that time. And I want to actually read something that was shared through the decolonizing therapy training, the foundation's training, which is a series of four trainings. The next one is on June 18th. You can still join. So I will link that info. And I was deeply blessed to be a part of. And I want to share what one of the astrologers, Don M. Harrison. She is at Bloodline Astrology. I'll link it in the notes. And this is what she shared. We planted the seed of our next lunar cycle. The Aries New Moon landed Friday at 7 52 AM Eastern Time here on Turtle Island, forming a potent conjunction to Chiron, the wounded healer, the cosmic medicine maker, and the ancestral vow to transform pain into wisdom, beauty, and power. Aries is the sign of the sacred warrior within us all, calling us to remember not only that we have the right to, but that we are fully equipped to begin again, claim our hungers as holy, expand beyond the walls that so violently seek to confine us and dismantle every single lie that sought to separate us from our power. Friday's new moon is not coincidence, it is divine synchronicity, a sacred invitation, a doorway to dig down deep, remember our courage, and meet the obstacles and the opportunities before us with a fierce commitment to rise. And one of the most important things that dropped into our bodies and minds, we're walking through this fire together. This is not prediction, this is reclamation. That is what she shared with the decolonizing therapy training foundation fellowship. It's a mouthful. Uh, because the first training started on Thursday, and then the new moon was directly thereafter. So I want to weave that in and share that soul-nourishing message because Tara season began on the 19th, which actually is when I put out my last episode and had some, you know, technology issues throughout those few weeks.

Taurus Season And The Body

SPEAKER_00 5:15

So I'm actually gonna put out two episodes this week, week five and week six together. And what we're gonna be focusing in on over the course of the next four weeks is gonna be all about the body because Taurus is an earth sign, and this is also ruled by Venus, and Venus is all about love and beauty and passion and truth and aesthetics, ambiance, and very aligned with Taurus. And Taurus really is about the sensorial experience of being safe and being at peace in the material world, in your personal land, in your body. And so another piece with the Aries New Moon was all about Chiron, the wounded healer, and the mythology surrounding this being really speaks to the potential to heal and how our deepest wound is our greatest magic when we're able to respond to the wound in a way that is in right relationship with the root and the source. And as I'm connecting all these layers, it's speaking to me around the colonial soul wound and the colonial mindset that exists in all of us. And as we move through Torah season, it feels significant to really center the wounds in our body and how the wound of colonization in particular creates disembodiment and dislocation and dis-ease and despair and all the things and disconnection. So we're really going to focus in on movement and body work, tending to our bodies. And today, our practice is going to focus in on self-touch and massage and tuning into the sensorial experience of your environment, both internal and external, as within, so without. So we're gonna do a bit of that a little bit later. And what I want to actually back up and share has to do with the deep movement, I would say, that is happening inside of me. And I can feel a real integration of all of these layers coming together as one does when you begin to connect to aligned communities and groups of people that are really channeling a similar message in my mind from the divine. And the message that I am hearing, and not just hearing, but feels like it's landing in a more embodied way, and I feel that resonance with the bodies that I'm sharing space with, it's really inspiring. And so I want to bring that here into this conversation because the voice and the throat and the tongue and the jaw and all those beautiful parts of our body is ruled by Taurus in medical astrology. And so I know in the last series of several weeks, I was really focusing in on vocalization and I said, Oh, we're gonna shift away from that. And I'm recognizing that our voice and the sound that comes from our body has such profound impact and can uplift the energy around us. Oh, and there's crows right now

Beloved Community And Learning Spaces

SPEAKER_00 9:26

outside my window. Anyway, oh my goodness, I cannot leave this conversation without saying, ah, if you are interested in participating in a deep dive all about the Morrigan and really learning from native source enrollment for the Morrigan Academy. 2026 Morrigan Intensive is opening this week. It opened on April 20th and it is available to sign up up until midnight Irish time, Thursday, April 30th. And it's a six-month path with the Morrigan, and there's three different tracks that you can do to make it more accessible based on economic resource and availability. And it begins on May 3rd, and you have access to this for 11 months from the time that you enroll. And so I enrolled, I enrolled in the mentor program because I am all about trying to, you know, I don't know, do all the things. This is kind of my jam. Like I want to, I just I'm a seeker and I want to learn all the things and integrate them and then tell you all about them and be a bit of a bridge to places that might just feed your soul and nourish your embodiment practice and life. So, what's my point? My point is being in communities right now for me has been so life-giving. And I talked about the community through embodied astrology at the heart of conflict, which is an embodied focus on your needle chart and the different conflict dynamics to decolonize, let's say, in terms of your conflict patterns. And in the work there, it's been really eye-opening. I'm learning so much about astrology. I feel like I'm not quite 101, maybe 102 level. I feel like maybe I'm becoming 103, who knows? But I will always direct you back to astrologers for deeper dives into the celestial weather. And so if you want to know more about what's happening this week, because there's a lot going on, I will link them in the notes so you can tune into their weekly astro forecasts and somatic space and all the goodness that's there.

The Yod And Sacred Purpose

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Anyway, what I learned in the group was that I have some interesting aspects in my natal chart. And the one that was pointed out to me was that, and I had never heard of this because again, I'm like, you know, 102 level. I have a yod in my needle chart. And I've since done a bit of a deep dive on Google and all the things to try to, you know, learn how to speak the yod language and know more about it. And I also want to be able to support the other beautiful members of this community when they have the opportunity to do a deep dive into their natal chart, like I was given yesterday. So I learned that I have a yod and the apex planet, so the top of the yod. And if you're not familiar with yods, I'll link a little info in the notes. You can learn about it as I recently have. The apex planet that my yod is pointing to is my moon, and my moon is in Taurus in the 12th house. And the two supporting planets, Pluto, which is in Libra in my fifth house, and Neptune, which is in Sagittarius in my seventh house. And what I've learned is that yods are a pretty, I guess, rare, they're not very common in terms of different aspects. And they are referred to as the finger of God or some kind of, I don't know, calling or mission or something, but it but it brings a lot of challenge and a lot of opportunity in your life. So it's this clue a bit around how your greatest challenges can be the path or purpose that you're here to fulfill. So it's exciting. And also I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And in particular, why I'm sharing this is this idea of collective liberation and decolonizing our bodies and embodiment as sacred force for change, how it's all rapidly coming together for me. And what I feel inspired and excited to share here is the way that reclaiming our body, loving our body, is an act of decolonization, is an act of fulfilling a sacred path and purpose to fully inhabit your force because we are a force of nature, because we are a part of the earth, and our body is our personal earth, our sacred land that is our home here on earth, right? I mean, it's sacred. And I'm tuned into the wounds that colonization leaves inside our body. And depending on your positionality or your location, and your, of course, ancestral and intergenerational and historical trauma patterns, there are imprints that are really challenging and that live in our blood and bone and being. And then there are, as Dr. Jen would call it, the glimmers, or I think of it as these hidden gifts that are connected in. And the idea of polarity, rights, finding the balance that from deep wound can come great gift, great offering, and not to bypass by any means that this idea of to become, I don't know, enlightened or something. I know there's some real spiritual bypassing around wanting to negate the impact of violence and systemic oppression and how that trauma that we that we have to experience these traumas to evolve or some shit. I mean, that's that's just real insensitive bypassing, right? And yeah. So what I want to go into now a bit is really looking at how we today can be more aware and in touch with the science and intelligence and magic that exists in our sensorial experience and in our body. And so I wanna well, actually, hold on, let me back up. So I'm gonna just do a quick little overview. We're gonna be focused in on movement and body work and sensorial experience and using the earthen environment to resource us as the earth wants to and always has in honor of Tara season for the next four weeks.

The Roadmap For Coming Weeks

SPEAKER_00 16:49

And then when we enter into Gemini season, we're gonna shift into a dimension of embodiment, mindfulness, altered states of consciousness, trance work, shifting more into the mind and Gemini being ruled by Mercury, all about communication and how we communicate with the different parts of our consciousness and shadow work and all that stuff. And then the last two weeks. So as we get into June and we're at the new moon in June on the 15th, and then at the summer solstice on the 21st, those last two weeks are gonna really focus on integration and celebration of all of the different embodiment work. Because let's be real, it's all happening in connection, right? When you use sound, you are using breath, you are moving your body. When you are moving your body, you are being inspired by music or sound or rhythm. You need your breath to be able to move your body when you touch your body, right? You're experiencing the movement of the touch as your fingers move across the soil of your body, right? So it's all connected.

Eight Senses And Sensory Science

SPEAKER_00 18:08

All right, I'm going to now go into a little, you know, just science-y stuff around what is going on in your body when we are using movement and body work and sensory experience. So I'm just gonna share a little bit of info with you. And this comes out of this nervous system regulation activity book that I received as part of a training that I did on the safe and sound protocol, which, you know, was connected to polyvagal theory, and Stephen Porges developed this technology, but it was ancient and has been a part of our consciousness for, you know, a millennia. It just got modernized, right? And not given credit to the indigenous cultures and ancestors and folks who really developed this. So I'm always gonna add that. All right, so one thing that we're gonna go into right now is it's called sensory orientation, sensory attunement. This is really important because let me actually review it. Because we actually have eight senses, eight sensory systems. So we've got the five that we all know, right? Visual, auditory, olfactory, which is smell, gustatory, which is taste, and tactile. And then we've got the three sensory systems that focus in on describing sensory integration. And this is called the tactile system, which we just talked about, the vestibular system, which is the sense of head movement in space, and then the proprioceptive, which is sensations from muscles and joints of body, that kind of awareness. And then it's recognizing the recently discussed set of sensations related to internal organs, which is that interoception. So what you're going to do right now, if you are willing, is you're going to bring your attention to your body. And you're tuning in, you're dropping in into your tissues, into your blood, into the water, into your breath. You're just kind of following. Maybe you bring your breath in and kind of just tune in. And you perhaps notice your feet wherever they are. You notice your hands, your back, your spine, your neck, your jaw. Maybe you move those parts of your body. If you're driving, you know, just you're you're doing your thing. And sensory uh attunement brings attention to your body and your environment, and it provides uh sustenance and presence, and uh lets you attend to the places and spaces that might need some care, some love, and are giving you signals of pain or discomfort or uh excitement or a longing for pleasure. You know, you're just bringing your senses in. Um What this promotes, right, is body awareness through the senses. And so perhaps you can run through those senses. So if you are sighted, what do you see? And if you are hearing, what are the sounds around you? Kind of noticing. Do you hear birds around you? Do you hear the breeze? Tuning into that. You can also take in the sounds inside your body. And you can just sort of maybe just like put your hand to your heart, see if you can hear your heartbeat. And I know one really cool thing that I learned recently through the Duryekule class that I took that I mentioned last week was they were talking about uh coherence and hearing the instrument of your heart. And a way you can do that is to submerge yourself underwater and just listen to your heartbeat. You can hear it under the water. And I thought that was quite special. And so that's definitely a way that you can tune into the your beating heart as a sacred instrument that lives inside you that you can hear and orient to and attune to. And then you can bring your awareness to uh the tactile, right? Can you feel the fabric of your clothing or your skin or the hair on your skin, right? What do you smell? What are the scents that you're taking in? And the smell sensation holds such memory. It's very evocative. It really calls in almost like none other. I mean, at least that's my experience. So I mean, sound also has that for me, too. And smells in particular, for me, my absolute favorite smell is the smell of fire and a bonfire. And just that it's so relaxing. It's so peaceful. And it kind of brings in a seasonal orientation. For me, it can be really any season because we frequently have a fire going in the summer. You know, we're camping and we've got a fire going, or in the winter we're in our backyard and we have a fire that we sit by. Anyway, another sense to bring your awareness to is your taste, right? And you can move your tongue around. Can you taste your toothpaste? If you brush your teeth, maybe you taste, like for me, I taste a little coffee right now because I've had a couple cups, and just being with that sensation and notice, and you can orient your awareness and you can kind of pivot between the inside of your body and the outside of your body. So I want to share the rationale, and this comes from that guide.

Orienting Through Sights And Sounds

SPEAKER_00 25:24

So practicing orientation, connecting to your environment, using the senses helps to shift attention to the present moment away from discomfort or disruptive thoughts, racing thoughts, to present awareness and experience and sensations in the body. This is something that you can do all the time. And in sensory attunement, this is a part of what Stephen Porgis refers to as neuroception and interoception, right? The modernized kind of framing of it, the language that he chose to put on this very human, ancient thing that we are all doing all the time. And tuning in can feel really empowering because there's so much wisdom in your body and trusting your body. And we could think of it as bottom-up attunement and experience where you're really diving into your body and discovering what is my body trying to communicate to me. And sometimes I might sit in my altar and I might, you know, just enjoy being still because for me and my neurotype, I am in motion a lot. I feel like I'm often just moving around and just trying to remember this and that. And it feels so powerful to just slow myself down and sit down and be still. And I feel like so much gets channeled up from my body when I can use it as an oracle and kind of slow it down. And what I'm learning about having a Taurus moon is that so much of my ability to feel safe and at peace has to do with my ability to be in a place of embodied peace and safety. And I know one way to put this often is nervous system regulation. And I, yeah, I know that's a word, and that's a way that we talk about it in interpersonal neurobiology, and it's a shared language. And something about it, the word regulation has just been, I don't know, pinging a little bit for me. And I really want to find other ways to describe this. So body-based brilliance.

Ear Massage For Vagus Support

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Anyway, so now we are going to move into the part that is all about massage and self-touch. So we're actually gonna start with the ear, and I'm gonna just talk a little bit about this. This is this stimulates the vagus nerve and helps you feel more relaxed very quickly. So you bring your awareness to your ears, and one at a time, you're gonna assess the experience in your ear and the tension in them by gently pulling the ear away from the head at different points. And so I'm starting with my lobe, and I'm just pulling, and I'm just working my way up. And if you have earbuds in or headphones or something, you can stop this and do this, or you can listen to this whole part just so you know what to do. Essentially, you're just working up and down your ear, and you're noticing if one side feels more elastic or stiff compared to the other. And then you place the index finger in the hollow above the ridge that is above the ear canal, and you gently massage the area in little circles. I'm doing it now. And just visualize the skin sliding over the bone, or anytime I'm doing self-massage or personal body work, I am imagining that my skin is the soil and I'm tending to the earth of my body, giving it life, renewal, right? Regenerating it. Okay, bring your finger to the ear canal and softly press toward the back of the head while making small circles with your finger. And then you repeat on the other ear, and then you check in, you tune in to your body-based brilliance. You my god, and you just check out your ears by gently pulling them and noticing any changes in stiffness. So the auricular branch of the vagus nerve supplies sensory innervation to the skin of the outer ear by providing sensory input to these parts of the ear, the vagus is stimulated to increase vagal tone and initiate a relaxation response through parasympathetic activity. So awesome. And there's a bunch of other things that we can do. I also really love acupressure tapping, which a lot of you know, somatic sensory motor modalities have taught. There's EFT, the energy focused tapping. I'm sorry, emotional freedom tapping. Oh my goodness. Emotional freedom techniques. You know, let me just acknowledge that cultures across time and space have been utilizing these embodiment and energetic ways of being with our body, healing their body, moving energy around, you know, then we just western ways of colonizing these ancient practices and then not giving them any credit. So, all right.

Self Touch To Tend Wounds

SPEAKER_00 31:43

What I want to invite you to do now. So, this is going to be our intentional practice, and we're gonna focus on self-touch. And this is the practice of self-love, and it's almost like you're you're honoring the temple that is your being, your home, your earth. And there's lots of different ways that we're gonna be with this today. One of the ways that we're gonna be with this, right? Because Venus today, as I'm recording this, is in Taurus and rules Taurus. So there is a lot of energy that we can pull in terms of loving the beauty of our being and our beinghood. And we are reclaiming the power that we have in relation to our body. And so, what I want you to do, and you can do this now, you can you know engage in this practice throughout the week, whenever you want, really. Um, and you're going to decide how you want to approach this self-touch, self-love experience. You can do it wherever you are. You can get more explicit or intentional about it, and you can give yourself a lustral bath, let's say, where you're intentionally putting in supportive herbs or crystals, candles, and maybe you're choosing a time or day that the celestial realm is going to support your intention of what you're trying to give to your body. And our bodies hold receptive and active energies, right? And they're always in motion with each other. So you can tune into, okay, what is my intention? And maybe in honor of the new moon that we just moved through, you can focus on what do I want to release? What wounds in my body do I need to tend to and touch and move the energy around so that it can be released, it can the energy can move and regenerate my very being. Give me that renewal through transmuting the energy of the wound into something that is a healing gift that aligns with your greatest path and purpose. And I would say all of our greatest path and purpose right now is to be more embodied because when we are, that is when we are in our greatest power. That is when we are most connected to ourselves and each other, and that is when we are in right relationship to all life. And embodiment practice, tuning in is vital right now for all of us in calling in the new world in its material form. I mean, it's here, it's already here, and like, come on, we're ready for more of it, right? So let's, as above, so below, the way you tend to your body is going to bring in the new earth. There is a reciprocal relationship there. So it starts with us, so let's do it. So I want you to decide how you're going to tend to these wounds and release that energy. Or maybe you have a different intention and that's okay. You do you. What I want you to do is to just get very still. And maybe this is after you've had an intentional bath or cleansing of some sort, maybe just a quick shower, or maybe not. You know, however you want to approach this practice. Maybe you're gonna lie down. Maybe you're gonna be sitting or standing. Just give your body the place and space and time that it wants to be in for this experience. Maybe you light some candles, maybe you create a sacred circle. I mean, that's part of what I do when I record these episodes because I want to imbue it with the support of the divine and create a liminal container as I'm speaking between the worlds. And that's kind of my that's my belief around when you create sacred space, you are between the worlds, and that comes from my tradition. And anyway, I'm feeling about, let's say, that you ask your body, you engage in a loving relationship with your body, and you say, Where do you want to be touched? And you just intuitively, with your right hand or your left hand, go to that place, but you're listening, you're engaging with your body, where do you want to be touched? And then as you touch your body, you ask your body, right? How do you like to be touched? How is this experience? And you let the answers emerge, and maybe you ask your body, where is there an ancestral wounding that wants to be touched, and you just listen, and you go to that place on your body, and you are really tuning in with how that part of your body wants to be touched and loved and healed, dare I say, and you can begin to move your hands over that part of your body, and you can give it love, and you can ask that part of your body, what are the lessons here? What am I meant to know about this ancestral wound? How do I work with it and with the message of it? What is it here to teach me in how I can move this wound into something that can support the collective in collective healing and liberation? Because what shows up on your body is ancestral, is intergenerational and historical, and so might be in some unique ways specific to your line or your lineage, and also it connects into the collective. So as you are offering this sacred touch of love and healing to that wound on your body and listening to your body, you're actually in a reciprocal way impacting the collective and the healing that is located in the collective body. And so, I mean, that's my belief. That's my felt sense of how this is all connected. And so you are with that ancestral wound, and then maybe you ask your body, what is a familial wound that comes from my more immediate family system and the patterning and the context. And you allow your body to tell you where to touch and how, and what the lesson is or the healing purpose of that might be, and then how you can bring that forward, if that's something that you choose to do, right? Because you're always in choice. So this is you really, really listening to your body and letting that brilliant intelligence guide you and and heal you, right? And without judgment, kind of be as instinctual or intuitive as as you can be. And you can scan your body, you can say to yourself, where are the places that hold gifts that I want to awaken? So this is about wounds that are in our body and also hidden places and sources of power and pleasure and awakening. So, are there places on your body that are longing for touch and haven't received it and haven't experienced that in a long time or maybe ever, right? Like just be with that and take your time and honor the experience. And after you feel complete, you can journal about it, you can create a intentional recollection that you can return to because remembering and journaling is so important in our path. Or maybe you don't want to write it down, maybe you want to record yourself speaking about it and then listen to it back, give yourself like a voice memo, or maybe you want to um make a piece of art about it and make a picture or a painting or color what the experience was like. I mean, there's so many ways that you can really hold on to the experience. And what's the word I want to say? It's not hold on to, it's more like cherish it. That's the word I want to, that's the one I'm looking for. How you can cherish it. So

Closing Blessing And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 42:39

what I want to do now is come to a close. And we are gonna be really, really, really loving and honoring our body and our sensorial experience. And I hope that you come back for the next conversation. And I'm feeling like my cup is really full right now with beloved community, and that includes the folks at the heart of conflict in embodied astrology. That includes the decolonizing therapy fellow training, that includes the Morrigan Academy. So I'll leave this there, and we will be talking again soon. So take very good care of yourselves and be well. And I will see you later. As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul. Bye for now.