Tag: full moon

Slow Your Mojo

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

I was part of a discussion yesterday, at one of our local adorable boutique stores. We were having a conversation about the start of the new year and yesterday’s gorgeous, illuminating full moon. Everyone was talking about how this year feels like more of a slow, yet steady start out of the gate. We’re definitely in a forward motion, but not at a frenetic pace.

Interestingly, a young turtle appeared in front of our house, by our garage door yesterday afternoon. He was easy for my daughter and I to pick up, and to move into our backyard, closer to the lake. The turtle’s self protection was to clam up into his hard shell. The turtle knew that he would never be able to outrun us. He knows that his own pace is slow, deliberate and steady, with a hard armour of protection surrounding him. The turtle played to his strengths, and so he stayed closed up into his shell, until he realized that he could trust us to help him to get to a better place.

Perhaps this is a good allegory for this upcoming year, or at least the start of this year? One woman in the discussion said that she does not like to say “low energy” or “low frequency”, because unfortunately we have given “low” a negative connotation in our society. Instead, she uses the terms “slow energy” or “slow frequency”, because sometimes it is important to slow down, and to pay attention to the road ahead and to the direction which you are taking. Another woman chimed in with this thought: “You can only go as fast as the slowest part of you.” This made me think: What is slowing you down? What is holding you back from marching forward? Do you have heavy baggage that needs to be let go? Are there cords that need to be cut? Are there parts of your bodily and mental health that need to be healed, and to be nurtured, before you move on down the road?

The moderator of the discussion suggested this journal prompt written below. I am taking my slow, sweet time meditating on my own answer to this prompt. The answer hasn’t become apparent to me yet, and that’s okay. Stews and soups that have simmered for a long time, tend to make for the best melding of ingredients, resulting in the tastiest of concoctions. Here is the prompt (and we all giggled a little bit, because although this was a groupshare event, this prompt does not necessarily encourage ‘sharing”):

What is something this year, that you will keep to yourself for yourself?

My daughter went “to town” furiously writing her answer right after the prompt was announced. I mentioned to my daughter that I noticed this fact, and she was immediately forthcoming with sharing her response to the prompt with me. My daughter told me that she likes her evenings to be completely “chill.” She doesn’t like when most of her evenings are filled with activities and stimulation. My daughter likes to ease into nighttime. As a freshman in college, she recently came to the realization that she had lost her boundaries around this fact, and she plans to go back to school with a firmer, protective shell around her personal needs. Wow. I love my girl. It is times like these in parenthood when you see the blossoming of your children turning into adults, and you open up your mind to all that you can learn from them, too. It also makes me realize that just like how baby sea turtles inherently know to follow the light to make their path to the sea, so do our baby children inherently know to follow the light of their own souls to find their path to the vast adventures of life that lie ahead of them.

And I would add to this, “and at ease with your own pace.”

Full Moon

credit: @STONEHENGE, Twitter

We experienced an absolutely gorgeous full moon last night, didn’t we? It’s the last full moon of 2022. It is said that full moons are an excellent time to let go of things that no longer serve your greater good. What needs to be let go for you at this time? What are you hanging on to that needs to be released for your well-being? What can you release to lighten the load as you travel into 2023?

Lately, I’ve been doing daily guided meditations by Chani Nicholas and I love the wording that she chooses to use. When doing a body scan meditation she asks, “Where on your body do you feel a “grip?” Where is the “grip”?” She says to get “curious” about yourself (not judgmental, just interested). Why might you be feeling a “grip” in a certain part of your body? What can you let go that might soften that “grip” – that “grip” that has a hold of you?

“Channel the energy. Don’t let the energy channel you.” – @bigempressenergy

 “I feel like the moon is a very beautiful woman. She’s in control.” —Ravyn Lenae

 “There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” —George Carlin

“Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.” —Sojourner Truth

“Be both soft and wild. Just like the moon. Or the storm. Or the sea.” —Victoria Erickson

“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon who could not be happy?” —Oscar Wilde

“Don’t worry if you’re making waves just by being yourself. The moon does it all the time.” —Scott Stabile

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Porca Vacca!

https://twitter.com/i/status/1589282144840740865

This is a delightful video of an Italian little girl who is telling her mother the story about her friend who told this little girl in the video, that she shouldn’t have worn a miniskirt, and so the little girl in the video told her friend, to mind her own business. Her mother says, “Brava!” I so agree. Brava! The little girl uses lots of emphasis and hand gestures when telling her story. She’s a girl after my own heart. I am not Italian (as much as I wish I were), but I do talk a lot with my hands. People have called me out on it. I once caused a bruise near the eye of my friend’s fiance (now ex-husband) when while telling a story, my ring on my dramatic, story telling hand, smashed him in the face. (I guess now I would do it on purpose – kidding.)

My daughter is currently taking a public speaking class in college and she said that one woman suggested that she not use so many hand gestures while speaking. (My daughter kind of looked like an older version of the little girl above, when she told me this story. I hope that the girl who offered the perhaps helpful, constructive criticism did not receive any extra hand gestures from my proud, indignant daughter.)

I like passionate people. I like people with flair. I like people who are interesting to watch when they tell their animated stories. I imagine that this little girl in the video above will be known as an excellent storyteller for the rest of her life.

Speaking of “dramatic”, could this lunar eclipse, full moon be any more suspenseful and electrifying??? Election day, delayed powerball numbers for the biggest jackpot in history, another possible hurricane in the mix . . . . Porca vacca!!! (written with my hands escaping the keyboard and flying into the air above my head, with dramatic flair like you’ve never seen)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Full Moons and Curiosity

It’s not lost on me that we are experiencing a Super Full Moon today. For many of us, full moons signify the ending of something big, and the doors to new beginnings. Our youngest child, and our only daughter left for college less than three weeks ago. My entire mantra for the first half of this year has been “Finish Strong.” It was my entire focus. And I believe that we did finish strong. My daughter loved and soaked in all of her senior events (as did we), and although we are all in a period of adjustment, I believe that she has a strong beginning set in place for the start of her adult life, away from home.

I’m not sure that I have fully allowed myself to feel the emotions of the magnitude of what this means for me. I was a stay-at-home parent to our four children. Mothering was not just one of my roles. It was my main role. It was my occupation. So not only is my main role of daily parenting coming to an end, I am also retiring from my occupation. Double whammy.

I don’t need suggestions of what to do with my time. I’ve never been bored. I am a curious person. Curious people are rarely bored. I think what I am struggling with right now is finding a new mantra – an aim to set my Sagittarius arrow towards. As it is said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” (Les Brown) For now, this mantra is “Start Strong”, but that’s kind of nebulous. I haven’t worked out the details of what that means. But I will figure it out. This I know. Curious people have a knack for figuring stuff out.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Shelling

We were shelling on the beach over the weekend. The shells that had landed on the beach were unbelievably beautiful and varied. It had been a long, long time since there had been such an unbelievable array of colorful and unusual shells for the taking. It turns out that times around the full moon are supposed to be the best times to find truly unique shells on any particular beach. We found large conch shells, and clam shells that were so brightly yellow and orange, you would have assumed they had been painted. There were piles of pearly snail shells which were so neatly arranged that my daughter wondered if someone had collected them and put them there, but it turns out, these piles were all over the beach, like leopard spots. I got excited and inspired enough by the experience, to order a book about the different varieties of shells on Amazon. It felt like a brand new, interesting experience, even though I have been shelling on beaches since I was a little girl. I got excited and reacquainted with the treasure hunt feel of it all, all over again.

Friends, this year has been an incredibly difficult and somewhat disillusioning year. A lot of things that make us energized and excited have gone dormant under layers of worry and concern and fatigue. But those things which arouse and delight us, are still there, underneath it all. Like finding a long lost piece of jewelry or another treasured thing, long considered gone forever, the experiences which make us feel moved and aflame, will happen again. We will surprise ourselves with the remembered feelings of delight and aliveness which these dormant experiences will bring us, when life starts to feel lighter again.

The beautiful shells that appeared on the beach, were always there. Some of them are hundreds, maybe even thousands of years old. It’s just that they got covered up by heavy sand and high tides from storms and winds and tossing seas. But on a calm, cloudless day, the sun shown its light on the glistening shells, and the moon smiled her blessing on the banquet of abundant gifts which she had bequeathed to the beach combers. And as the beach combers picked up their perfectly lovely gifts, to examine them closer and to hold them gently in their hands, near to their peaceful hearts, the shellers remembered how perfectly, naturally loved they were, and how perfectly and naturally loved, they have always, always been.