Illuminating Hearts

08/28/2026

Just another day at the office… 😂🔔✨

Except this is our office. This shining moment was our Sound Bites event at MCC Community Education with Culinary Arts at MCC on 8/16.

And on September 19, you’re invited to come visit our shiny office for our Fall Equinox Sound Portal — an immersive evening inside our Cathedral of Sound as we cross the threshold into a new season. 🌊

And when we say immersive, we mean it pretty literally. At Bancroft Street Market, you can sit right behind the gongs if you like. 🔔

Here’s the magic happening in our universe right now:

🌕🌑 Tonight’s Pisces Lunar Eclipse — I wrote about the watery full moon bringing us a tsunami of trust, our collective eclipse graduation, the power of dreams, the secret of surrender, and what becomes visible inside the invisible in today’s eclipse portal newsletter. It is a MAGIC READ offering medicine for the times we are in.

🎶🍂 Fall Equinox Sound Portal — September 19 at 7-9pm. $35 Early Bird tickets are now available through 9/9!

🍂🌊 Trust Fall Sale — 25% off private sessions through the end of August. No code needed.

All the doorways are waiting at the link in our bio.

For tonight, maybe the invitation is simple: loosen your grip on the shoreline and listen for where life is asking you to go next.

Oh, and don’t think your way there. Feel your way there instead. 🌊

With stardust and surrender,💧
Astara + Orion

08/21/2026

Tomorrow is the day!!
Hearts and Harmony is almost here!!

Our organic acoustic instruments create rich harmonic overtones that many people experience as deeply calming — offering a welcome antidote to the constant mechanical demands of modern life.

✨ Hearts & Harmony
👥 host Holistic Hearts Foundation
📍 The Relevant Center
🗓 Saturday, August 22
🕗 Health Fair: 8 AM – 3 PM
🎶 Sound Alchemy: 12 PM – 2 PM

It’s time to receive.

Our harmony invites you to release the noise that isn’t you.
And harmony begins in the heart. 🫀

🔗 https://holisticheartsfoundation.org/heartsharmony/
Read full newsletter about this powerful moment. https://mailchi.mp/f348fc81fc86/hearts-harmony

08/19/2026

This year’s Hearts & Harmony Health Fair, hosted by Holistic Hearts Foundation, is just a few days away! 🫀✨ We’re thrilled to return for a second year and share our Sound Alchemy experience again.

Whether you’re a healthcare professional, caregiver, or simply someone longing for a little more peace in a busy world, we invite you to spend the day exploring new ways of caring for yourself and connecting with community.

Every day asks something of us.

Our attention.
Our energy.
Our care.

What if, for just a little while, you gave something back to yourself?

Hearts & Harmony will be filled with wonderful experiences exploring Healing Touch with Jane Bies, Music Therapy with Sofia Valle, and Sound Healing with Illuminating Hearts. Enjoy a light lunch and a diverse array of holistic health and wellness vendors too.

We’re honored to be the culminating presenters of the day, closing Hearts & Harmony with two hours of Sound Alchemy — an immersive experience where breath, restorative resonance, and Qigong invite the mind to quiet, the body to soften, and the heart to remember its natural rhythm.

Organic acoustic instruments create rich harmonic overtones that many people experience as deeply calming — offering a welcome antidote to the constant mechanical demands of modern life.

✨ Hearts & Harmony health fair
📍 Relevant Center
🗓 Saturday, August 22
🕗 Health Fair: 8 AM – 3 PM
🎶 Sound Alchemy: 12 PM – 2 PM

Come as you are. Leave feeling more like yourself.

Our harmony invites you to release the noise that isn’t you.

And harmony begins in the heart. 🫀

🔗 https://holisticheartsfoundation.org/heartsharmony/

08/18/2026

This Saturday! Join us and incredible presentations throughout the day of the health fair…and then integrate it all within our Sound Alchemy at noon.

When life gets stressful, find the time to relax and unwind. The Hearts & Harmony event can help! Sign up today! https://holisticheartsfoundation.org/heartsharmony/

08/14/2026

Every Sound Alchemy experience by Astara Raven and Orion of Illuminating Hearts begins with warming up our instruments and our voices.

Before the room fills…
Before the first gong is ignited…
Before the first note softly echoes through the room…

There’s a moment of tuning — of instruments, of space, and of the sound artists themselves.

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes glimpse of Orion warming up with the didgeridoo before last year’s Hearts & Harmony event hosted by Holistic Hearts Foundation. We’re thrilled to return in this year to share our Sound Alchemy again.

Whether you’re a healthcare professional, caregiver, or simply someone longing for a little more peace in a busy world, we can’t wait to return and share another afternoon of restorative resonance with you.

Organic acoustic instruments create rich harmonic overtones that many people experience as deeply calming — offering a welcome antidote to the constant mechanical demands of modern life.

Every day asks something of us.

Our attention.
Our energy.
Our care.

What if, for just a little while, you gave something back to yourself? Our harmony invites you to release the noise that isn’t you.

Join us for Sound Alchemy at the Hearts & Harmony Health Fair — an immersive experience where breath, restorative resonance, and Qigong invite the mind to quiet, the body to soften, and the heart to remember its natural rhythm.

✨ Hearts & Harmony
📍 Relevant Center
🗓 Saturday, August 22
🕛 Health Fair 8 AM – 3 PM
🎶 Sound Alchemy: 12 PM – 2:00 PM

Come as you are. Leave feeling more like yourself.

Harmony begins in the heart. 🫀

🔗 https://holisticheartsfoundation.org/heartsharmony/

08/12/2026

Watch until the end…don’t miss the high five. 🙌🏼
It’s our favorite part.

We high five because, before a single note is played, joyful intention is already in the room.

Every instrument is placed with care.
Every detail helps create a supportive space where people can rest, reconnect, and remember what harmony feels like. It’s like a smile on the inside.

With over ten years of living research, immersive sound experiences can help regulate the nervous system, reduce stress, and invite the body into its natural rest-and-restore state — creating the conditions where healing can begin.

Astara and Orion of Illuminating Hearts are looking forward to returning for this year’s Hearts & Harmony Health Fair to share another immersive Sound Alchemy experience.

That little high five at the end? It’s our quiet celebration that the space is ready to welcome you. ◡̈

Whether you’re a healthcare professional, caregiver, or simply someone longing for a little more peace in a busy world, we can’t wait to welcome you into our cathedral of sound.

✨ Hearts & Harmony
📍 Relevant Center
🗓 Saturday, August 22
🕛 Health Fair 8 AM – 3 PM
🎶 Sound Alchemy: 12 PM – 2:00 PM

Harmony begins in the heart.

08/08/2026

🦁🦁✨ The Lion’s Gate is here — and it also happens to be Orion’s birthday. Happy birthday to our favorite 8/8 human! 🎂🦁💫

Some call the Lion’s Gate “high frequency” energy. Think of it as an invitation into the depths of heart energy. ✨🫀✨

We love expansion. Breakthroughs. Peak experiences. The feeling that something BIG is opening.

And then comes contraction. Nature designed it this way.

The heart itself moves through electric and magnetic pulses — expansion and contraction. The invitation to keep reaching for the peak, then honor the integration inside the whole loop of emergence. ♾️

After 12 years of witnessing my Lion’s Gate beloved, I’ve learned about its energy through his eyes and soul path.

Sometimes the lion roars.
Sometimes courage is quiet.
Sometimes life reorganizing itself is exhausting.
Sometimes your body asks for rest, space, surrender.

My Leo mother came to mind as I wrote about this in today’s newsletter. Her bravery became part of my bravery — what I call my fierce. There are so many ways Leo teaches us courage. Sometimes courage is going inward to meet what generations before us could not. 🦁❤️

So if you’re feeling magical today, savor it. And if you have your grumpy pants on, welcome to another aspect of the portal. 😂

Honor the expansion. Honor the contraction. Eventually, you’ll learn to enjoy the infinite dance.

Tune inward and listen. Your body knows the way.

Happy Lion’s Gate.
And happy solar return, Orion. 🦁🎂∞💗

Read newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/5ff477258f49/invitation-lions-gate

08/07/2026

We’re counting down the days until our restorative resonance and sound healing session at the Hearts & Harmony event with Holistic Hearts Foundation on 8/22. We hope you’ll join us.

Meet a Hearts & Harmony presenter. Illuminating Hearts will be providing a Sound Healing. If you'd like to learn more, including how to be a sponsor or vendor, check out our webpage with event information here: https://holisticheartsfoundation.org/heartsharmony/

07/31/2026

Tomorrow, we gather.
Step into our living laboratory.

“Since I was a girl, the antidote to the fear-based world waited right outside my window. I felt kindred to nature, where the energy of interconnected systems buzzed around me in a generous dynamic interplay. Nature became my mentor and friend. Connecting to nature uncovered a new world view that was the opposite of what I was taught.”
– Astara Raven, How the Stars Tell Time

Dear explorers,

Nature is where many of us go to recharge. That recharge is possible because it’s the larger intelligence we belong to, and our body and field knows this.

What gives an experience value?
For us, it’s never one thing. It’s the whole ecology.

🌳 The beauty of the forest.
🫱🏼‍🫲🏽 The conversations between strangers who become friends.
☕️ The warmth of tea in your hands.
🎶 The sound of many gongs, bowls, and voice inviting you in.
🍽️ A lovingly prepared organic meal shared in community.
⚡️ Practices that awaken and align imagination, body, and heart.

Nature as mentor whispers, “Every one of us belongs. Every element supports the whole.”

Tomorrow we gather for Nature’s Intelligence — a five-hour immersive workshop exploring the wisdom of the natural world, shamanic practice, sound, movement, and the three great sources of power we explore inside Inner Space Academy.

Experience Inner Space Academy
Open to the public just once each year.

Registration remains open until 11:30 PM tonight.

If you’ve been feeling the nudge, we’d love to welcome you into the forest with us tomorrow.

🌳🪶🌊🍃✨

With stardust and remembering,
Astara and Orion



Learn more: https://www.simpletix.com/e/power-lab-workshop-nature-s-intelligence-tickets-280739

07/29/2026

🌕 What if the future is calling?

Astara has always been fascinated by the future. And the past. And the eternal now. She calls it time travel and wrote a whole book about it called How the Stars Tell Time.

We produced the audiobook, it is phenomenal and so worth checking out on Patreon. Also, our sound alchemy is a time machine. (More on that later)

So, today’s full (future) moon. 🌕

There are Full Moons that amplify. And there are Full Moons that rearrange what is amplified. Today’s Aquarius Full Moon is the second kind.

Aquarius and Leo are a dance between intellect and emotion. Yet, life is not asking us to choose head or heart. It’s asking us to create coherence between the two (and all our other brains).

One of the themes that kept whispering to Astara while sitting with this moon was community.

This morning we shared our newsletter called The Future of Power exploring why we believe we’re living through an era of reinvention — not just with artificial intelligence and all it is revealing about us, but because human intelligence is evolving.

Astara writes about the Aquarius medicine, community rooted in authenticity, and meeting your future self.

If this speaks to you, you’ll want to go to our bio link and check out the newsletter.

And we’d love to know…

✨ What does the future of power mean to you?

And if you’re feeling called to time travel in practice, Orion and Astara will be gathering beneath the trees this Saturday for Nature’s Intelligence — this is the one Inner Space Academy workshop we’re opening to the public this year.

Registration extended through Thursday, July 30 at 11:30 p.m.
Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/0304318b523f/the-future-of-power
Event: https://www.simpletix.com/e/power-lab-workshop-nature-s-intelligence-tickets-280739