A Beginners Guide to Connecting with The New and Full Moon
Every culture, community, group, religion has a creation myth of how their people came to be. Almost all of them share a reverence for the Sun, the Moon, and their relationship with the Earth’s living body.
Even Scientists have an origin story for people: organisms evolved from minuscule cells that miraculously came to be billions of years ago, swimming in the womb of an ancient sea. Before Earth’s Beings had eyes, they had photoreceptors (light detectors) that were sensitive to the Light of celestial bodies arching across the sky. Just like us, our primordial forebears' lives ebbed and flowed with the rise of the moon, the setting of the sun, and the rhythmic dance of each.
Is it any wonder so many vital, life-giving rhythms coincide with a lunar cycle? Awaking, turning in to sleep, hibernation, women’s menses, skin’s renewal processes, biodynamic harvests, and key sabbaths in the Jewish, Muslim, Chinese, Mayan, Celtic, Buddhist, and Hindu calendars, and many more.
The Moon has denoted human life for longer than we have been able to look up.
In kind, Lunar Devotion is a common practice across many cultures and those of us seeking to have greater attunement with our place among Nature. Lunar Devotion can be as simple or involved as you Love. If you choose to devote attention to the Moon and Her phases, you will notice a gentle rhythmic current that underpins your days and a new relationship with an ancient friend who has watched over you and your ancestors since before time.
Sweet Seeding….
New Moon: Seeding Hopes & Desires
A simple practice on a New Moon can be to simply pause, write down your heart’s True desires, goals, or anything you’re hoping to create or cultivate or manifest. This is often referred to as “Seeding” - as in seeding your desires just as you would plant a literal seed to grow and cultivate. And just as you would a living botanical, the desire you’ve seeded requires your care, loving attention, devotion, and discernment to evolve and eventually manifest.
This New Moon offering can be a simple list you make for yourself, or you can make it a full devotional practice invoking ancestors and other allies for guidance. Since “they” say praying is talking to Spirit and meditation is listening, you might weave in a special meditation to get clear about what wants to become. Please keep in mind, the meditation itself doesn’t need to be complicated, it’s more so the intent with which sitting or walking in meditation is undertaken.
Under a Waxing & Waning Moon: Help Your New Moon Seeds Grow
Once you have your list, consider planning some actions for your next month. This could include scheduling a daily gentle reminder to review your list to ensure you stay focused on and aligned with your desires, or you may want to schedule action items to be completed to help your hopes come to be.
Full Moon: Gratitude, Claiming, and Releasing
The Full Moon swells the tide, induces flowers and fruits to plump, tugs on peoples’ sanity, and invites us to “see” in commonly dark, obscured places - literally and figuratively.
So on the Full Moon, review your list…
How are your seeds of desire coming along? Are they still germinating? Have they sprouted? Are they blooming? Have they flowered and need to be thanked and returned to the Earth or Her aethers? Have you forgotten to water them with your Love and attention all together? It’s ok, no green thumb required to lovingly return to the North of your Heart’s compass.
What and who can you say a special gratitude to and for? You can note this just to yourself or send a text, or email, or a Love Note to anyone you want to express care or gratitude for.
Is there anything, any habit, any misalignment, any relationship, or whose-a-whats-it that wants to be surrendered or released? This might be as simple as saying thank you to a pair of pants that no longer serve you and donating them or noting a habit like too many cups of coffee and making an alternate plan for cups full of delight that won’t leave you jittery at 4pm.
May your seeds of Love all come to be.
Photo by João Luccas Oliveira
