Meet Jessa
Hello!
My name is Jessa (she/her), and astrologically speaking, I have a 3rd House Cancer Sun, a 12th House Aries Moon and Taurus Rising (with Venus in Gemini conjoined the Ascendant).
I have always had a hunger for learning, evolution and change. I studied Psychology in undergrad, with a minor in Family Studies. I received an MA in Philosophy and Religion (emphasis in Women’s Spirituality, Feminist Philosophy and Buddhist Studies) from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco in 2006, which is where I was first introduced to Evolutionary Astrology.
I had further life experience to gather before I would dive fully into professional study of Evolutionary Astrology with a teacher (Steven Forrest’s Evolutionary Astrology Apprenticeship Program), but this particular lens of astrology changed my life from the moment it crossed my path. Evolutionary Astrology became an integral part of my daily life and frame of reference.
Around the time of my Saturn Return (age 30), just after graduate school, I moved to Daegu, South Korea, to live and teach at a university for three years, immersing in Korean culture and community, learning so much about so many things I never knew and finding my voice as a teacher.
TRAUMA CENTER TRAUMA-SENSITIVE YOGA
I returned from South Korea to my birth place of Minnesota in 2011, where I became a Registered Yoga Teacher and began teaching yoga. It was through teaching yoga at the Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis, that I chose to deepen my yoga education and specialize in Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) through the Center for Trauma and Embodiment at the Justice Resource Institute with David Emerson, founder of TCTSY.
This education and practice has influenced all aspects of my life, including my approach to astrology and how I work with people. At the heart of TCTSY is the centering of each individual’s agency and right to choose for themselves. So, in my astrological work, centering the free will/choice of each person to relate with the possibilities and take action in the ways that feel aligned with their own knowing is the vantage point I’m coming from and the space I seek to hold.
EVOLUTIONARY ASTROLOGY
Since 2015, I have been offering Evolutionary Astrology readings professionally, both individual and relationship readings. In 2016, I began facilitating Evolutionary Astrology group classes/workshops and offering Moon Medicine events where we explore astrological energies through organic engagement with music, artwork, ritual and sharing in community.
In addition to my astrological study with Steven Forrest, in his 3-year, in-person apprenticeship program, the following astrologers (to name just a few) have and continue to inspire and enrich my astrological perspective:
–Chani Nicholas – her work showed me early on that social justice has a place in astrology
–Jessica Lanyadoo – queer + relationship astrology + culturally critical and social justice lens
–Demetra George – traditional astrology (Hellenistic) + asteroids*
*I work with Asteroid Lilith in astrology as a function or drive within our birth charts/selves (all genders), to confront, resist and ultimately uproot and eradicate patriarchy. Feminist and cultural critic, bell hooks, names patriarchy as not only male supremacy/domination, but a more complex interlocking of oppressive systems of power that work together in their functioning: “Imperialist, White Supremacist, Capitalist, Hetero-Patriarchy.”
–Melanie Reinhart – Chiron as a portal to family lineage/ancestral connection and healing
–Stephen Arroyo – The utterly transformational energy of the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and how to work with them in the birth chart as well as by transit
–Maurice Fernandez – Evolutionary Astrology + Neptune/12th house themes
And many more!
If you wish, you may view a full list of my credentials along with acknowledgements of my teachers and mentors HERE.
I am currently located, with my partner Daniel Gaustad, DC, SEP, in Montara, California, the unceded, occupied ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone Peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula.
