Episode 144: Uncovering the Path towards Your Best Life through Astrology with Julien Elizabeth
If you’re someone like me who used to check the newspaper to read their daily horoscope readings, then you’re going to enjoy this episode!
Since learning about Human Design, I’ve been curious about the systems it’s based upon, astrology is one of them.
So a few months ago, I had a natal (birth) chart reading and it validated things that I innately knew about myself, that I had never shared with anyone else. And, it also enlightened me to see astrology in a new perspective.
Joining me in this episode is Julien Elizabeth (I had my natal chart reading with her). Julian is a teacher, astrologer, and writer, who’s inspired by the cycles of life, the natural world, the universe, and spirit.
As an astrologer, teacher, and yoga practitioner, her work focuses on strengthening our connection to the intuitive world. She’s motivated to create more pathways and tools for self-healing.
You’ll hear Julien and I discuss consciousness, how astrology can be used as a tool for health, and simple wisdom and aspirations to live an authentic life that reveres gratitude, compassion, and honesty!
Episode Highlights:
Astrology + Human Design
Astrology as a self-healing tool that can help us lean into our intuition, and develop self-awareness
How Julien got into astrology work
My birth chart reading experience with Julien & takeaways that I'm using as tools for health
The Fall Equinox and why it’s important
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE:
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Episode 130: Finding Ease & Alignment Through Human Design with Victoria Jane
Episode 131: Reclaiming Holistic Wisdom Through Embodiment and Clarification with Sadie Adams
CONNECT WITH JULIEN ELIZABETH:
SHARE THE EPISODE:
“Bringing consciousness through into what you’re eating and how you’re finding methods and modes of self-care, all of that can help to bring you into balance.”
Read the Episode Transcript...
Naomi Nakamura: Hello, and welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I'm your host Naomi Nakamura.
Joining me on the show this week is Julien Elizabeth. As a teacher, astrologer and writer, Julien is inspired by cycles of life, the natural world, the universe, and spirit. Her work as an astrologer, teacher and yoga practitioner focuses on strengthening your connection to the intuitive world. Believing we do what is best with the resources and perspectives we have, she is motivated to create more pathways and tools for self-healing, what we talk a lot about on this show, and expanded consciousness.
Her presence is often described as grounding and insightful, which I think you'll really feel as you listen to this episode. Through it all, she shares a simple wisdom and inspiration to live an authentic life that reveres gratitude, compassion, and honesty.
Just to give you some background, for those of you who have listened to the past few episodes, you know that I have really been introduced and have really leaned into human design this year. Astrology is one of the systems that human design is based upon. I really have started to look at it in a different perspective, as opposed to the way most of the pop world looks at it.
A few months ago, I had a reading, a birth chart reading with Julien, and it was so powerful for me, because, and I talk about this in the episode, but there was just a lot of things that we discussed that one, were validating to me, and two, made me see myself in a way that I hadn't ever seen myself before.
I've really come to want to learn more about astrology. It is an ancient system that I think has changed a bit as we move through this modern world. But if you get back to the root of it, and its intentions, I think is very powerful, and there's a lot of things that can help us lean into our intuition and develop self-awareness. That, in and of itself, is a tool for self-healing.
I so enjoyed my conversation with Julien, and I hope you do too. With that, let's get to the show. Hi, Julien, welcome to the show.
Julien Elizabeth: Hi, I'm so excited to be here.
Naomi Nakamura: I know, we've been trying to make this happen for a while and I'm so glad we finally are.
Julien Elizabet...: I know, it's perfect timing.
Naomi Nakamura: We connected a few months ago. I was actually referred to you by Sadie, our mutual friend. She's been on the show a few times now. Earlier in the pandemic, I guess it must've been around April or so, I got introduced to human design, and I'm really, really ... I'm just fascinated by the whole thing. I'm really digging into it. I know that one of the systems that it's based upon is astrology. I'm really trying to lean into learning all of the different systems that human design is based upon because it's based on several systems. I turned to Sadie and I'm like, "Hey, do you know anybody who might be able to help me understand this or give me a reading, and she referred me to you. I had a reading with you a few months ago, and we can get into that a little bit, but for those who maybe aren't familiar with you or your work yet, can you introduce yourself and tell us what it is that you do?
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. Actually, before I do, what is your human design?
Naomi Nakamura: I'm a projector with a one three line.
Julien Elizabet...: Okay. I'm a projector also.
Naomi Nakamura: Yay.
Julien Elizabet...: So, thank you for the invitation.
Naomi Nakamura: Of course. Thank you for accepting.
Julien Elizabet...: My name is Julien Elizabeth, and I work with several modalities, but my work and my interest really is in connecting people to their intuition and to the natural rhythm of their inner worlds, as well as the cycles of nature. So, I work with nutrition, and yoga, and astrology to help bring people and myself into balance.
Naomi Nakamura: That's such an interesting mix and we can get into that in a little bit, but I take the approach when it comes to nutrition, because I'm a health coach as well, of really getting into the root cause of things. A lot of times, when you start to peel back that layers, people are looking for the medical part, and is it this, this, that, but when it gets down to it, it's really, people don't trust themselves. And it's really the whole part where you said about leaning into your intuition because we all have that within us, and it's just a matter of figuring out what's the best way that's going to help you lean into your own intuition. For me, that's been human design, and as I learn more about these other systems, I'm really, really, I guess seeing them in a way I've never seen before.
Now, before we started recording, I said that ... I'm Sagittarius, and I came to know that because even as I was super young, my mom would read her horoscope in the paper every day. That's just something that as a kid and growing up, and till this day, that's something that I just always did. It's not like I actually knew what that meant.
Just to what the common person knows, and I have to say, I can't even say that I connect with all the "aspects of someone who's a Sagittarian, but then, I had a birth chart reading with you and it was really eye-opening, because I'm like, oh, there's all this other stuff that I don't even know what it means. What does a moon sign need, and what does my ... is it called the rising sun or the ...
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah, the rising or the ascendant.
Naomi Nakamura: Right. I was like, I don't even know what all this means. When I talk about it with my friends, they're like, "I don't even know what you're talking about.
What is the birth chart?" I know this is very basic for you, but can you explain to us what all this means in a high level? Because they know you can probably go so in-depth on every single one of them.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. Absolutely, it's basic, but it's so complex and it's so nuanced. There are several approaches to how I can explain it.
One significant thing that I think is missing in horoscope astrology, or sometimes it's called pop astrology is the connection to the actual stars, to the solar system, and that's what astrology is, is it's a map or a blueprint.
The moment that you're born, and it's really the first time that you feel gravity. You're in a womb before that, and so the force of everything is essentially stamped into your nervous system. That's a really simplistic way to understand astrology, but that includes every planet, the sun, the moon.
You're sort of getting this imprint of, okay, here I am on earth. We're, of course, influenced by gravity. We're influenced by weather and the forces of nature on earth and we're also influenced by how close or how far planets are to us in their orbit, as well as our orbit, as well as our rotation.
All of these factors are going to influence us in a very, very subtle way.
So, astrology and the birth chart or the natal chart is looking at the moment that you're born, within the minute, where was everything? Where was the sun? Where was the moon? Where were the two in relation to each other? Where was Venus, and Mars, and Uranus, and Pluto?
Then the most specific part, the ascendant, is what constellation was rising on the horizon at the moment that you were born. That changes every two and a half to three minutes.
Within a 90 minute span of time, that constellation, which really forms a significant imprint on your personality, could be different.
Naomi Nakamura: Is that why knowing your birth time is so important?
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. That's why to have a real, proper holistic reading, that birth time can be really important, because what we're looking at is actually literal constellations. So, Sagittarius, and then there's Capricorn, which is the month after Sagittarius season, and then Aquarius and Pisces. All of these are actual constellations within the zodiac, or the zodiacal constellations. Throughout the year, we are moving through that constellation, as are the planets in the solar system.
That's why this really is a holistic study, because you're not just a Sagittarius, you are literally every constellation, and some of those constellations may have planetary placements. So, you might have Venus and Mars and Scorpio, and you might have your moon in Leo, and you might not have a planet in a specific constellation, but it's still influential. It's still [crosstalk 00:09:05] influence on you.
Knowing where and how all of these constellations and planetary placements are within your blueprint, you can start to understand, okay, well, for example, like with health, if I have Virgo in, what's called the sixth house, then I know for myself that I need routine and ritual and nutrition is going to be really a value of mine. It's going to be very helpful for my mind if I have an organization system, all of these things I can know by recognizing, well, where does Virgo fall in my chart, or what is in my sixth house? If they're both the same, then I can start to develop a system or an understanding of myself that's bigger.
Naomi Nakamura: I was sharing with a friend of mine that I had their reading with you and all these great things that either validated things I innately knew about myself.
There were some questions that you asked me that I was like, I've never shared these thoughts with anyone before, and that was really powerful to me.
What was interesting is when we did our reading, we didn't have cameras on, so you could not read my body language or anything, and I thought that was so brilliant, because when I shared with my friend that there's a lot of things that were validated and a lot of things that were ... or they're put into perspective or things that I came to realize. She was a little bit skeptical. I said, "Well, this is the way I look at it, is that these constellations are real. They actually exist." They are there, there's no doubting that.
I grew up in Hawai’i, where, culturally, they lean a lot into ancient traditions. One of the ancient traditions is navigating without instruments, and they navigated by the stars. That concept is not abstract to me. It's just something that was taught to us in elementary school, and so it's not this out of, for lack of a better phrase, out of the world thing, but I just see it as an extension of our world that we don't necessarily know what it is and we don't have to understand it, but it's another, I guess, system of energy out there and just another universe for us that we may not know everything, but we may know something.
When she was asking me like, "Oh, do you believe this stuff?" I said, "Well, I think in the way the modern world has come to know it, I think maybe it might not be how it's truly intended in its original form. But I do think there's a lot of validation there, and it's really another way of looking at science. That's my take on it.
Julien Elizabet...: Well, yeah, and I share that and I think that's so well said, because historically, astrology and astronomy were the same study. They were the same science.
When we really think about it, from my perspective, the sky is what we all share. We're all over the world in different places, and we're all governed by the moon.
A full moon has a different experience than a new moon, and the tides are going to change based on that, weather patterns are going to be different based on seasons.
Naomi Nakamura: We all see the same sun.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah, but we all see the same sun. We're all sharing the same sky, at least in our hemisphere.
You mentioned horoscopes, so newspaper horoscopes. If you study the history of how astrology in the modern sense came to be, it was once something that rulership was determined by astrology.
Astrologers were like the philosophers of ancient time and they've provided so much insight and wisdom, but that wisdom was very much preserved for the ruling classes, for the King. Then astrology was buried about, or really separated from astronomy during the dark ages and was put into this magical realm that was against the church or against religion.
Naomi Nakamura: Of course.
Julien Elizabet...: How it really came to be, where we only, most of us think of what's called sun sign astrology or pop astrology, which is the magazine horoscopes, is that it kind of got tied to the movement of the development of magazines and newspapers, and it was something to add in that was fun and interesting, but your sun sign was actually one of the most ...
It wasn't the most important part of your astrology. Way back when, if we're looking at Greece or Egypt, you weren't necessarily asked what your sun sign was.
Most of us know, okay, I'm a Sagittarius or I'm a Virgo, but that actually wasn't in the past, the most important thing that people knew about themselves.
So, we've sort of gotten away from that, and I think we're in a time, this 2020 is sort of astrology's redemption year. Anybody who doubted it, now astrology can be like, well I can [crosstalk 00:13:51].
Naomi Nakamura: Actually, back in January before everything happened this year, I watched the Instagram Live by someone who teaches astrology, and she gave this whole outlook of what the year was going to bring, because there was all of these unusual things happening.
Of course, I didn't understand any of it, but what she said, but I keep going back to thinking about it.
She said all this stuff was going to happen, obviously not in this literal sense, but there would be a lot of upheaval and a lot of shifting and changing this year.
This was literally in the first week of the year. I happened to just click on it, and I was ... something I'm interested in, so I just happened to watch it. I don't even really remember who it was, but I keep going back to thinking, every time something else happens this year, I'm like, it was kind of expected, not this specific thing, but ...
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. Astrologers have been talking about 2020 for a hundred years, really, of this being a very pivotal year of transition for the world, and for us, how we look and systematize our worldview has had to change.
We've been building pressure and building pressure and building pressure towards that. I was having a discussion, probably back in January, with a friend of mine who, we both are astrologers, and we were just talking about how can this happen? How can the world change in the way that we're seeing it could change?
I think she was recalling that her brother had said, "The only way that could happen would be a pandemic or something." [crosstalk 00:15:24]
Naomi Nakamura: I didn't even know what a pandemic was before this happened.
Julien Elizabet...: Totally skeptical. He's not an astrologer, and she just said, "No, that couldn't happen," and here we are.
Yeah, I think I am naturally a skeptical person as well, or I have been in the past, and now after having been doing readings for several years, and probably I've looked at a thousand or more birth charts, I have never really had an experience since getting into this study that has proven that this is not a system to really tune into.
Naomi Nakamura: It's an ancient system. We know ancient things rarely are wrong. How did you get into this work?
Julien Elizabet...: I really got into this work, partially from moving to California and Los Angeles. It's definitely more accepted. I was living in Venice, California, which common icebreaker [crosstalk 00:16:21].
Naomi Nakamura: Well, I love it. It's my favorite place. I'm dying to go back. So, go to Erewhon and to get a facial from Sadie and to get my hair done. Eat sushi, all those things.
Julien Elizabet...: It's such a treat.
But one of the icebreaker questions that gets asked a lot in Venice is, what's your sign? I got into it and then I started to really look deeper.
At this point, probably it was eight or nine years ago, I just thought, oh, I'm a Virgo sun and a Capricorn moon and a Gemini rising, and that's all that I knew.
Then I started to go a little bit deeper, and really just through unpacking my own chart, I found so much perspective and personal healing. I'm so hard on myself, or in the past, I have been so hard on myself, and that's like a Virgo trait, is just being really in the head. Through looking deeper at my chart and studying this in my own body really came to a place of acceptance and recognizing I have a lot to offer. I am a genius. Everyone's a genius. Everyone's a little bit psychic. We all have this potential within us.
Sometimes it just takes organizing and being able to see, either more specific or a bigger picture. Astrology really gave me that and it continues to.
I just had a reading yesterday with an astrologer, and she was able to pull out parts of chart that I've never noticed, and I've looked at my chart for 10 years. There's always a place for growth, and we're always given the information that we need right at the time that we need it. I'm just an eternal student, and astrology is like an endless study.
Naomi Nakamura: It really is. When most of us look at our pop horoscope, that's the sun, right? That's usually our sun that we're looking at, our sun sign, or?
Julien Elizabet...: It really could be anything. This is what I usually will tell someone if it's their first reading or they're learning about astrology, is that what you're looking at is the influence of that constellation in your world.
Certainly, you can look at it from the perspective of your sun sign, and that could tell you a big amount about your identity or your purpose or your ego, but you could also look at it from the perspective of your moon sign. If you're ...
Naomi Nakamura: What's the difference between the both? What is the sun sign? What's the moon sign, and what's the ascendant?
Julien Elizabet...: Okay. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: Are those really big questions?
Julien Elizabet...: No, not at all. It's perfect.
Your sun sign is, where the sun was when you were born. Most of us know this because it's generally a month. Right now we just entered Libra season yesterday. Today's the 23rd of September. A Libra season goes from the end of September to the middle of October.
There's a 28 day period, 30 day period, where the sun is in this one place. That's your sun sign. You can think of the sun as ...
Life exists because of the sun. It's big. The central marker of day and night is the sun. The sun sign is a lot like that. It's your identity. We can know a lot about what you're eternally directed towards and you're internally directed towards, this fire within you, your ego. There's several understandings of what falls into understanding the sun sign and all the planets.
Now, your moon sign is going to be, where was the moon when you were born? That is about a two and a half day cycle. Every two and a half or so days, the moon moves into a new constellation. I might not know. I think today the moon is in actually in Sagittarius. I think it shifts into Capricorn. Let me check, shifts into Capricorn a little bit later today, yes. The moon is at 28 degrees of Sagittarius as we speak. Then later in the day, tomorrow, it's going to shift into Capricorn. That's going to tell you something a little bit more specific about yourself, because you have 30 days to understand your sun sign. You have two and a half days to understand your moon sign, right? So, your moon is a little bit more intimate.
Think of the moon, it's nighttime, it's romantic, it's emotional. So, the moon can tell us about our emotions. Can get us a little bit deeper into our soul and our spirit. Spirituality can come from looking at the moon sign. Certainly, it can tell us about this maternal nature to us. The moon is very maternal. Can tell us even about our relationship to our mothers, or the mother line within our ancestry.
Naomi Nakamura: It sounds very nurturing.
Julien Elizabet...: It's very nurturing. Yeah. Then there's a phase to it. The sun's relation to the moon is going to give you information as well. When the sun and the moon are in the same place, that's called a new moon. We had that last week. When the sun and the moon are both in Virgo, you have the new moon. Now, when the sun moves to Pisces, which is six months away from now, you have a full moon, and that's, in two weeks, it takes the moon to go from Virgo to Pisces.
Naomi Nakamura: This is just the natural rotation of the solar system.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah, it's just literally looking at the sky and seeing ... if you look up at the sky tonight and tomorrow, you'll see what looks like a half moon. That's called a quarter moon. That means we're halfway between a new moon and a full moon. That full moon is bright, it's shining people who are born under a full moon, tend to have a brighter face. They might feel like they have internal conflict because you have your emotional side, is far away from your ego side, so there can be more drama in someone's life if they're born under a full moon. Then two weeks from that point, you have another new moon. So, halfway there, another half moon. So, it's really literally looking up at the sky and then tying that to the constellation. That's the moon.
Now, the rising, the ascendant, that's what constellation was rising on the eastern horizon at the minute that you were born. That's a two and a half minute cycle. That means if we have 30 degrees per constellation when we're looking 360 degrees from where you are on earth, I know this gets complicated and numbered, but in that time, you have about a 90 minute period of time where you could either be a Gemini rising, or a cancer rising or a Leo rising. That is the most specific part of you.
Your rising sign tells us a lot about your personality. It tells us sort of the face that you see the world through and the face that the world sees first when they look at you. When you understand this, you can know, okay, this is similar to what people's first impression of me is. If I can understand that part of myself, and if I can see that part of myself, I can be more authentic about it.
I'm not wondering, there's sometimes a feeling or I've had this of like, I don't feel like people know me, or I don't feel like people get me, but maybe it's that I didn't fully get myself. Your ascendent can give you that great information, and I tend to, if you know your ascendant or your rising sign, this is the archetype that I would read a horoscope from.
Naomi Nakamura: Really? I think says an Aries, although I guess, traditionally, I'm born in December. If I read my horoscope, would you say I should read it what it says for Aries instead?
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: Really?
Julien Elizabet...: I would read it for Aries. That's going to tell you the most in the moment relevant information.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay.
Julien Elizabet...: [crosstalk 00:24:15] you can read it for Sagittarius, and I don't have your chart pulled up, but do you remember what your moon sign is?
Naomi Nakamura: Scorpio.
Julien Elizabet...: Scorpio, okay. So, you could read Sagittarius, Scorpio and Aries. Then, what I've found in some circles that I run is that, when you look at all three, it tends to be that there are three significant stories playing out at any given time in your life.
Those three stories will correlate pretty closely with what might be going on for you.
This last new moon, I had a gathering, and someone shared they were Virgo sun, a Pisces moon, and an Aries ascendant. They were explaining that they had this bigger cycle that was at play a shift in their career, and that was very much what was indicated by their sun sign. A longer shift in life was happening. Then a shorter change in their life was they had met someone, and that Pisces moon was related to relationships during this moon sign.
Naomi Nakamura: That's the emotional part.
Julien Elizabet...: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and then where that moon was in their chart has to do with where they can understand their relationship style, so they had just met someone. Then the most relevant thing was just that day before they had gotten a new promotion or something like that. The ascendant had to do with money. Everything played out, but in very, very different ways, in larger cycles, to more specific.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, like I said, when we had our reading, again, you didn't have the camera on, so you couldn't read my facial expressions or my body language, but you asked me some very specific pointed questions about things that, like I said, I've never verbally shared with anyone before. It was so moving to me because when you have things that are so private to you and someone who you don't even know, who you're not even having face to face contact with, to narrows in on that specific thing and ask you about it, how can you not feel seen?
Julien Elizabet...: I'm glad that, that was your experience. [crosstalk 00:26:22].
Naomi Nakamura: It was really great. One of the biggest things that came out of my reading for me is, at the time, I was going through ...
Well, I've been really trying to manage burnout, and being a health and wellness coach, you want to lean into all this wellness things, but it's like you're living in the real world and you have all this stuff going on and you're trying to manage it all.
One of the things you talked about was, maybe not necessarily sticking or trying to make myself stick to a routine and then feel the guilt if I'm not able to, but to really lean into more rituals.
That really stuck to me, because as someone who's Yype A, and I always have lists and checklists of things to do, it gave me the permission to be like, okay, it's okay if I don't get everything done today or do everything in the way it's "supposed to be done."
But if I can create a ritual around this, where it may not look the same every day, creating the ritual is good enough.
Yesterday was the Fall Equinox. I know it's important and I know a significant, so maybe you can share more of what that is and why that's important, but you also mentioned that it also leans more into rituals or routines as well, so I'd love to hear more about the Fall Equinox.
Julien Elizabet...: Absolutely.
The equinoxes are equal day and night. They're marked by the quality of day and night, and it's twice a year, and they also Mark the start of two seasons.
The first is Aries season in the spring. So, tends to be April 21st-ish is the Equinox, or March, I'm sorry. It's the end of March. That kicks off Aries season.
Aries is the archetype of the individual. In astrology, is looking at airy season. It's like the rebirth. It's the astrological new year. This is a time where we can think of our creativity of Aries tends to be very innovative, and what's the word? It's like ...
Naomi Nakamura: Is it like new beginnings or growth or birth?
Julien Elizabet...: Exactly.
Naomi Nakamura: It's like what do you think about for spring. That's when like the animals have their babies, and winter, we shift from winter to spring. The days become longer as opposed to shorter, and I guess Fall Equinox is the opposite.
Julien Elizabet...: The spring Equinox is halfway through the solstices. The summer solstice and the winter solstice sort of give us the North and the South of the year, and so the days are getting longer or the days are getting shorter, depending on your hemisphere.
The equinoxes are the equal points in between those two. Aries is about the individual. It's our time to understand and explore ourselves. Then halfway through, between the summer solstice, which is June and the winter solstice, which is December, we have the Equinox of Libra, of Libra season, and this, for the Northern hemisphere is fall.
This is looking at ourselves in relation to other and understanding that it's not just about us. It's not just about our creativity, but how does that play into a larger world? This is harvest season. It's a time where we start to turn inwards in order to understand ourselves from a new perspective.
Libra season is the time where we start maybe thinking bigger, or thinking, like I said, in relation to other. What comes right before Libra season is Virgo season. These two have a nice relationship with each other because Virgo really rules, in a way, the mundane life, looking at our lifestyle and our health, our routines and our rituals, and finding that rhythm. That rhythm is meant to carry us through the rest of the year, especially in the darker months when our rhythm must change and we must nourish ourselves in different ways.
So, this period of time is really the shift into the final cycle of the year, and for us to use this time to shed and to really reflect on the wisdom that we've gained from spring and summer, where we're more active, so that we have something to ruminate on in the darker months.
Historically, in most ancient cultures, this is the practice, this is the harvest season moving into a time of reflection. This is really a pruning away, a time to reorganize and find the rituals that can give us the rhythm to move through when the sun's not shining on us and giving us that energy.
Naomi Nakamura: So, it aligns so well with seasonal eating.
Julien Elizabet...: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: I find that, when we align our sleep patterns to the circadian rhythm, that's when we sleep the best, and this is just aligning our lives. Same concept here.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah, and I mentioned that I work with nutrition as well, and seasonal eating makes the most sense to me.
Naomi Nakamura: Oh yeah.
Julien Elizabet...: It's just like reconnecting with the earth and the intuition of life on earth and who we are and where we are.
This is a time that could traditionally be really fantastic for cleansing, reorganizing the diet, and really like getting into a more grounded foods and working with ... connecting with who and what your body is right now, because we've all gone through summer. We went through spring, before that, winter. Over the last year, how have you grown, and what does your body need to feel nourished and grounded and supported? That's so much of what astrology can give us to.
Naomi Nakamura: Now, and depending where you are in the world, the foods that are going to be in season locally to you are pretty much going to be in alignment with this as well.
Julien Elizabet...: Absolutely.
Naomi Nakamura: With all those warming and grounding foods.
Julien Elizabet...: [crosstalk 00:32:13].
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, and it's really interesting because I see an acupuncturist every week, and of course, that is rooted in ancient Chinese medicine, which I think is so valid.
A lot of people are, again, like, "Do you think that really helps you?" I'm like, "I think you just don't necessarily have the right perspective or understanding of it."
But I'm like, "My insurance covers it, so there must be some validity there." But it's the same thing as with aligning to the seasons, and when you aren't aligned to the season, and again, this is going to vary depending on where you are living in the world, that's when you start to see maybe some illness, or some just not feeling right and feeling out of sorts. Again, like you said in the beginning, it comes back to leaning into your intuition and what is just the natural force of the world.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. Something that really interests me is looking at the intersection of all of these different studies. I started [crosstalk 00:33:12].
Naomi Nakamura: They're not all that different. If you really get that, they all compliment each other.
Julien Elizabet...: Absolutely.
For example, late summer and fall in Chinese medicine, late summer is the spleen and metal element. One of the marked emotions of imbalance is worry.
Well, if you talk to somebody with a lot of Virgo in their chart, late summer, September is their birthday, and worry, anxiety, overthinking, all of these things are indications of an imbalanced Virgo.
So, bringing that consciousness through with what you're eating and how you're finding methods and modes of self-care, all of that can help to bring you into balance, which is exactly what's prescribed in Chinese medicine. All of these things have this connection point, and neither of them are outside of a silo, again, because we're all looking up at the same stars and with all ancient studies, and so there's definitely a lot of overlap.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. There's so much synergy, and I think it's just in the way that we have been programmed to think about modern things now, that if you really, actually, take a step back and realize that actually how things are now can really be used in supplement to the ancient ways as well. It's not this either or against each other. It's like they can all be used together.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. I really think learning to trust ourselves and be advocates for ourselves can be, not only empowering for us as individuals, but for our whole system, including Western healthcare. [crosstalk 00:34:54] western medical doctors, they're not psychic.
They're really great at the process of elimination. They're really great at looking at specific parts of the body. This certainly is not every Western doctor at all, but the more information we have as individuals and as patients, that we can bring to our doctors and have informed conversations and be advocates for ourselves, the better outcome. It makes their job easier. It makes over [crosstalk 00:35:26].
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, they're so happy when you bring them more information to this. With the way this healthcare system is set up, you get five, 10 minutes with someone, and that's all the time that they're allowed to try and make this diagnosis or figure out what's going on with you. A lot of the ways they're trained is to look at things in silos.
Julien Elizabet...: Process of elimination.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes, and it's not until something gets really, really bad or someone's really, really sick and advanced, then they're able to take the step back and maybe to see how different things are connected, or if somebody has more than one thing going on.
But if you, as an individual, can, again, tap into your intuition and take a look at your whole self and start to make correlations about maybe because you did this or maybe this is connected to that, and then be able to document it in some way and then communicate that, in my experience, a lot of the challenges between patient and doctor as well are communication styles. If you're just able to communicate, I think that can go a long way into, first of all, getting the best outcome, and then maximizing your doctor's time.
This is the approach I've taken in my own healthcare, and I can't tell you how appreciative my own doctors are of that.
Julien Elizabet...: Absolutely. Then you're forming a relationship with your [crosstalk 00:36:42].
Naomi Nakamura: Yes, and you're in partnership.
Julien Elizabet...: You're partnering. I think the most optimal healthcare system on an individual level is considering that you're sitting and you're having a conversation.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, and this is-
Julien Elizabet...: [crosstalk 00:36:55] acupuncturist or your surgeon, or whoever [crosstalk 00:36:57]. They're all having an informed conversation.
Naomi Nakamura: Any way you can lean into learning more about yourself and building that self-awareness and really tapping into your intuition, I think, it makes it such a powerful tool for health, and that's really the conversation I wanted to have with you today.
Julien Elizabet...: Amazing.
Naomi Nakamura: Where can people find you and connect with you, and how do you work with people?
Julien Elizabet...: Awesome. I can be found on my website, julienelizabeth.com, and that's also my Instagram, Julien Elizabeth, so I'm there a lot.
Also, I write for several different astrology organizations or collectives. I teach yoga at a studio called Love Yoga Space, virtually, at this point, which is lovely, to be able to connect with people globally.
I hold monthly new moon circles with them, so that's every month. Right now, the cycle is about mid month. We gather and talk about astrology and talk about what's relevant right now. That's one place that people can find me.
Then I do individual natal chart readings, which we did. I also do several other types of readings, so you can also do a reading where you're looking at yourself in relation to someone or something else. If you have a partner, you're having challenges with your child or your parents, you can look at how your relationships are [crosstalk 00:38:27].
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, that would be so interesting.
Julien Elizabet...: Really, really cool. There is a type of reading that's called astrophotography that's based on mapping the longitudinal path of transit for each planet.
Naomi Nakamura: We did a little bit of that too.
Julien Elizabet...: I think we did, yeah. [crosstalk 00:38:43].
Naomi Nakamura: I was so happy, because you're like, oh, you're in a good place for you to go to my ... Good, that's all I needed to know.
Julien Elizabet...: Yes, you could say like, oh, why do I always dream of Paris? Well, you have this sun line going through there, so you feel like a part of your identity lives there. So, you can start to kind of look at the whole world in relation to your astrology.
I do, do natal chart readings, and then longer term, I do coaching and I do use astrology as a tool in health coaching, lifestyle coaching, and career, so helping people to transition into something that feels more authentic to them, whether it be healthier way of living or relating or working. Yeah, really, I'm busy.
I also creates a longer term program, so using a specific plan as a focal point, and studying your life in relation to it.
Right now, I'm working with one organization that I work closely with called Attuned to the Moon, and we're running a long-term course around Mars, and looking at how Mars can give us clarity around purpose, and can show us a lot about anger and how we channel our frustration into something productive.
I really like using the lens of astrology to empower our actual lives rather than just teaching you about Mars, which can be valuable, but how do I actually use [crosstalk 00:40:08].
Naomi Nakamura: What do you do with it once you have this information? Gosh, what a relevant topic right now.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah. Mars is a big player for the rest of the year. We're in a pretty significant transit right now with Mars through November, including the election, where we're really meant to look at our reactivity, look at where we are in resistance to things. These are all Mars themes, and to open ourselves up to be flexible to the changing world, and really clear about our energy and our mindset and the ways that we feel like we're going forward as individuals. Mars is teaching all of us everywhere that lesson right now through ...
Naomi Nakamura: I knew we're all forced to be very flexible right now, because if not, we will not be very happy people.
Julien Elizabet...: Yeah, we'll blow our top.
Naomi Nakamura: Exactly. Well, I will have links to all of these things in the show notes.
Julien Elizabet...: [inaudible 00:40:58].
Naomi Nakamura: Thank you so much for joining me.
Julien Elizabet...: Thank you, Naomi. I'll talk to you later.
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Nutrition Health Coach. She helps high-performing women prioritize their health so they can be more productive, take care of business, and do big things in this world!
Through her weekly show, The Live FAB Live Podcast, programs, coaching, and services, she teaches women how to optimize their diet, support their gut health, reduce their toxic load, and improve their productivity, bringing work + wellness together.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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