Cancer Lunar Cycle: Calling in a New Home

Marvelling once again at the exactitude of the lunar cycle dancing me through the opportunities and invitations of each phase and each day.  For some reason my real life strongly ‘matched’ the Moon this month!

A year ago, during the last ‘New Moon in Cancer’ lunar cycle I felt the call to move to the other side of the world (AKA Canada). Understandably, I sat on that inkling for a month – I knew if I spoke of it, there would be no taking it back.  It would have a life of its own, and it was big enough to change my whole life!

Sure enough, once I surrendered to it, and mentioned to my husband what I could feel coming, the following lunar cycle was a solidification and affirmation of this path: I wrote about it here.

Now, one year later, I walk within this ‘New Moon in Cancer’ energy once again – as we all have this cycle just past.  It’s an invitation to witness how much has occurred, how that inkling has become a reality within the space of a year.

What’s happened for you, in the space of one year?  Do you have a way of keeping track of your own transformation?  

The Lunar Journal is now half-price, just saying!  🙂

New Moon: what is new?

I start the cycle at the Dark Moon Gathering as part of the Four Seasons Journey in Victoria.  We are immersed in deep ceremony, re-enacting the descent of Inanna.  I am deeply grateful to be able to ‘priestess my life’ with other sisters doing the same.  Together we are powerful, we are listening and improvising, adapting to life!

The piece that arrived for me this gathering was the ‘dark as a seed, letting go as a seed, surrender as a seed.’  Not just waiting for the ascent phase of the cycle, and the arrival of something new to plant in the garden of one’s life.

Instead, ‘planting surrender’!  Viewing surrender as an active, yang activity – a seed – requiring effort and diligence to hold all that arises, to continue moving forward despite the fear and dread, to surrender some more, and then what do you know?   Some more!

This consciousness, this new framing of the dark/descent, is a seed in itself!

My New Moon prayers are ongoing and familiar: welcoming in my teacher self – whatever that looks like, quiet and strong, slowly but surely; and landing gently and strongly in Canada, finding our home there.

I dance my prayers:
I welcome my quiet leader/teacher self.
I am a sensual creature.  I love being in my skin, I know deep delight in this body, I call in more of this truth and play.
And may we embed gently and solidly in the womb of this small Canadian town, finding all the nourishment we need.

Crescent Moon: what is emerging and birthing?

We are packing up our home of ten years.  Letting go, and more letting go.  Certainly the ‘seed’ was release and surrender, this cycle!

How much stuff do we own?  Will these cupboards ever empty??  How much can I give away?

I am giddy with the satisfaction of turning ‘things’ back into money (via Ebay, etc) – money feeling like a more fluid form of energy, the whole thing feels like alchemy.

First Quarter Moon: what is gaining momentum and growing?

We leave our home.  We leave our town.  We leave our friends (for now).  Final bags, rubbish and randomness shoved into the car.  I am grateful to fall into the welcome of my parents’ home and hearts.

The next day, we leave Australia, heading to this life that was just a whisper one year ago – albeit an emphatic one!

We step through the Solstice Portal – Winter to Summer – fast-forward from composting/digestion to fullness of expression.

Waxing Gibbous Moon: what is increasing and blooming?

Attempting to get organised and functional in a new existence, but having to tweak things and be patient.  My lack of Canadian ID means I can’t get a mobile phone or apply for a credit card.  My husband, Gord, left his passport on the last plane, so he is short of ID too!

Househunting online, making appointments, finding my favourite home so far – is this the one?  It has a red front door!

Full Moon: what intensity is to be embraced?

Gord suggests we take a walk.  What do you know?  It’s just in time for the exact moment of the Full Moon!  11.53pm

In the cemetery up the road, with a view of the beautiful orb in the sky, we pray – by which I mean we speak what is on our minds, what is in our hearts.  We speak our hopes, desires and intentions, knowing that there is deep power in articulating these things aloud, and in bearing witness to the clarity of one another.

I call in the perfect home for us right now, a place in which we can put down roots.  Potentially it’s the one I feel drawn towards, the house with the red front door, but I hold open the possibility that another may emerge.  Whichever one it is, it feels close…

Disseminating Moon: what harvest is to be celebrated?

I dream: I am teaching the Four Seasons Journey, and grab hold of a teaching moment.  One of the women had balanced a pot very precariously, and it had fallen, broken.

Then another incident happened – can’t remember what – but in the dream it was ‘worse’ than the pot breaking, an escalation of chaos.

Above the noise of everyone talking, I start asking questions, pointing out that if we were shamans, we wouldn’t be drawing a distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ experiences, but rather, seeing them as interconnected.

Fruitful, therefore, to reflect on our ‘state’ and what was happening on all our ‘channels’ during the first incident (the pot breaking) and the second incident.

In the dream, it felt like a lightbulb, free-form teaching moment – seizing the opportunity.  I was just about to get the women to journal for ten minutes when I was woken by a huge thunderclap.

Now, as I write about it, I’ve lost the sense of epiphany, although I treasure the affirmation of myself as teacher.

It was something around:
How does knowing that these two events are interconnected, and that we bridge them with our awareness, change our understanding of them?
How do they shed light on each other?
What is underneath our judgments of ‘good’ and ‘bad’?
How can we track the flow of energy?
How can we understand what is being communicated in these ‘mundane’ events?

Third Quarter Moon: what change is called for?

We are pre-approved for a loan, and a few hours later we put an offer in on the house – the one with the red front door.  It’s a positive experience, and I am glad to practice the art of negotiation.

Balsamic Moon: what is to be released?

In the days that follow, I register concern that maybe the house or loan won’t work out, that the dream/shape I’ve been holding in my head might have to be let go of.  But in the end, instead, I let go of my concern instead.

I prepare to co-facilitate workshops in Quebec with Sequoia.  Taking my teaching to the next level.  I feel periodic dread.  Evidence of stretching, of stepping out of my comfort zone.

I work on reframing this dread as a positive thing, thanks to reading Benjamin Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work.

He says:

“Pain, discomfort, shock, boredom, impostor syndrome, awkwardness, fear, being wrong, failing, ignorance, looking stupid: Your avoidance of these feelings is stopping you from a life greater than your wildest imagination.  These are the feelings that accompany a life of success.

Yes, this is my experience of stepping towards my heart’s desire – it periodically feels ‘awful’!   I find these words a most powerful reframe…  And:

“When you’re fully committed to something, the negative emotions and experiences along the way are expected.  They are even welcomed, because you know… (they) are purging your old weaknesses.  You’re releasing your suppressed emotions and evolving into a new and better person.  And very quickly, the experiences that were once emotionally traumatizing become routine and sometimes even pleasant.”

I am called to take my own teaching advice, to not judge dread – or whatever this uncomfortable stretching feeling is – as ‘bad,’ to be avoided, and evidence of my failure.  But rather to understand it as a signpost along the way, innately connected to success and experiences I would consider ‘good.’

I planted surrender at the New Moon, here I have to live it…

Benjamin Hardy’s book is well worth the read!  Our identity isn’t static.  We can change who we are and what’s possible by changing the structures of our life, making sure our environment cues the behaviours that will lead us towards success – whatever success looks like for each of us….

Or have a read of this article of his, at least!

Dark Moon: what waiting and resting is necessary?

I am in Toronto with Sequoia, dreaming up the next steps for birthing this Four Seasons Journey in Canada.  Feels like a big baby, so much trust required!  I must make dread my friend, a signpost that I am heading in the right direction!

We tour the Ontario countryside, researching potential venues for the 4SJ over here, finding ourselves in magical forests on a glorious summer’s day.

We play.  This is the Way, this is what I’ve learned from all these years apprenticing with Jane Hardwicke Collings and the School of Shamanic Womancraft.  We play together, and this joy sustains us!

We’re roadtripping into Québec, east of Montreal, following our own footsteps from a year ago when we headed out there with Jane Hardwicke Collings to attend Yonifest, and workshops in Vermont.

Now we’re heading out there to facilitate a Moonsong and Shamanic Dimensions of Pregnancy workshops, with women we met there last year.

The sense of looping, last year to this year, is strong…

walking in magical Ontario forests…

Oh, and our loan is approved!  Of course!  With that, all conditions on our offer are met, and all systems on our new home are GO!

I say yes to this, to this new home, to this new life, to this new role, to new identities, to new possibilities.
I say yes to the parts of me that are scared shitless, and can’t hold the vision.
I say yes to the parts of me that question, that just can’t see how all the pieces might come together with cohesion and abundance.

I sing up the Four Seasons Journey here in Canada.
I am attuned to this very particular container of safety and love in which I and so many others have thrived and transformed.
I know myself to be a good listener, responsive, creative, diligent, practical.
Someone has to say yes.  I say yes to this Call.

New Moon: what is new?

And the Moon waits for no woman, and certainly no email!  The cycle never ends…

On New Moon day, we sit in circle with a group of generous Québec women, listening for what they are singing up and calling in.  We speak our New Moon prayers outside – prayers for ourselves, our families and our communities.  Together, on Friday the 13th, day of wise women and witches.

Crescent Moon: what is emerging and birthing?

At the Shamanic Dimensions of Pregnancy (and Creativity) workshop, after letting go of a host of fears that all feel real, I choose these truths, these beliefs, instead:

I was not called because
I am perfect,
or know enough.

I heard the call,
it is as simple as that.

And I am strong enough
to take the next step.

 

 

The Four Seasons Journey in Canada will launch in November 2019!
Please spread the word, if you are interested!