Musing on multiple lives on two sides of the world, the new possibilities of Spring, and negotiating white water on the River of Change, throughout this second Leo New Moon cycle for 2017!
Each month I map my experiences as they unfold, using the Lunar Journal to help me see the patterns. Knowing my life is held in the cycle of birth, growth, full bloom, harvest, decay, death and rebirth grounds me, and also alerts me to the opportunities of each day and each season.
I offer these words in the hope that they help you attune to the cycles unfolding in your own life, and honour what is arising…
New Moon: what is new?
I am living between worlds, wrenched from the summer of Canada to the winter of Australia. Living with my brother who’s been minding our house, a window into his world and life. Sleeping in my daughter’s room because my brother is using my mattress. I am home, but not really home, not yet.
On the morning of the New Moon, I dream that I am talking with Jane. We are discussing being forced to do things as friends of a laboring woman, against her will. Collaborating in Dreamland to work out how to act, how to respond to life in the Dystopia… (Jane often reminds us in ‘real’ life that the Dystopia is here now, not somewhere in the future!)
Emerging from the previous cycle, I hold two seeds strongly: one, to help birth a Four Seasons Journey in North America, a longer-term project; the other, to respond to this latest conversation with my man about porn, to open up the dialogue with my sisters and see what emerges in the spirit of ‘circle as shaman.’
Under the New Moon I set out on a road trip to New South Wales, a sojourn to support 33 women spending solo time in the bush on the top of a mountain made of serpentine. As I drive, I’m on a Skype call with women in Tasmania keen to support the birth of a new Four Seasons Journey on the island.
I feel a small ecstasy of connection, that I can be driving, collaborating and Dreaming, all at once! Blessed work!
Crescent Moon: what is emerging and birthing?
We arrive on the fire-blackened mountain, present to what is, and what needs doing. Setting up basecamp, welcoming the women, walking the land, making food, setting up tents and teams to keep our communal life practically functioning…
And the most important work of all, deep listening around the fire, to stories that echo within all of us, stories spoken and unspoken. We hear and hold them all…
We are birthing ourselves anew, in a most magical transformation…
First Quarter Moon: what is gaining momentum and growing?
The women head out on solo, thirty-three questing souls. We weave our collective hunger for healing and connection into a potent synergy of spiritual renewal and shamanic conversation with the land. Up here, it’s obvious that everything and everyone is interconnected. We attune to this truth without distraction, in order to bring it back home, embodied, bit by bit.
The spell-crafting at basecamp is profound and life-changing, a laying-on-of-hands, a mycelial passing on of wisdom. Blessed work!
Waxing Gibbous Moon: what is increasing and blooming?
The questers return. The work of deep listening around the fire resumes.
The work of Re-Membering what we knew:
that birds, trees, rocks and wind talk, and that we are part of the conversation; that ancestors are present, that descendants are present, that our story with them continues and all their wisdom and love is available to us (and that we can cut the cords that bind us unhelpfully to them, if necessary);
that trauma can be transformed in the Now, and the power of this claiming ripples forwards and backwards in time.
The magic is tangible and unmistakeable, a ‘mountaintop experience,’ and all the biblical potency of that.
Basecamp is disassembled and we say farewell, to meet again in a moon’s time.
Just before the Full Moon, those of us left on the mountain gather round the fire in the darkness, this fire that has held all the stories, all the tears, all the silence, all the joy.
We name our tribe, our status, our role, locating ourselves in belonging and joyful functionality.
I am Witch, Priestess, Scrybe.
It is a powerful magic, to know ourselves thus and perceive each other anew. In this peak state, we pray, making the most of this potent opportunity to Dream the future of the School of Shamanic Womancraft and our unique contributions to it. Right now, those prayers are rippling far and wide, an ocean of change under a Pisces Full Moon.
Full Moon: what intensity is to be embraced?
I make the long drive home. Unexpectedly my faithful ute, which navigated the mountain multiple times so reliably, breaks down. I drag myself into Gundagai, to negotiate this new turn of events.
Again, I am so grateful for a web of communication that connects me to my man who can offer loving support from the other side of the world. I sit with my overwhelm, the need to wait, to gather more information, in order to make decisions. I cry, a familiar and effective means by which to adjust to change.
The Lunar Affirmation for today is “I surrender my ego.” Yes, okay, I surrender all my ego-plans of getting home, and I open to what wants to happen instead.
I organise for the ute and myself to be towed to a diesel mechanic in Wagga Wagga, and book into a motel. The overwhelming feeling I have is one of gratitude, for being so resourced, practically, financially and emotionally.
Just before the ute broke down, I started listening to an audio book on soulmate connection. I instantly started feeling uncomfortable, bombarded by all the voices and stories within that scoff at the idea that my man and I can create this kind of loving connection. In the motel, I write them all down, and then acknowledge that I could choose a new belief, a new story, to play with at least:
“We have fun together.”
It’s a thread that weaves its way into the rest of the cycle, proving itself to be true in various ways.
The next day, I catch the train home, a gypsy in the Void. My mum volunteers to pick me up from Broadmeadows station and drive me home. As I slide into the car, she hands me dinner and a thermos of tea. The flow of incredible resourcing continues!
Disseminating Moon: what harvest is to be celebrated?
My family arrives home from Canada. We are homey, all of us landing back together after many days lived apart. There is connection and resting and the making of home and the making of love. A deep exhale. The harvest of yet another deeply nourishing time with friends and family in North America. The work of adjusting to a new season, with new opportunities. Taking the goodness of our experience and ‘preserving’ it.
Third Quarter Moon: what change is called for?
In the homecoming, we reflect on our place, especially in light of the idea of moving internationally that arose last cycle. The social web in our local area has weakened over the last few years, and in many ways, our social investment has occurred further afield. Who are our friends? Who are our kids’ friends? What can life look like here?
From this place, my man suggests the idea of the boys going to school part-time. It’s an idea that has hovered around for a while, but this time it has more weight to it.
Balsamic Moon: what is to be released?
I bleed. I release. We consider going to school! We consider moving house! The river of change is flowing strong at the moment, there is a feeling of being carried along. I appreciate functioning as a team with my man, both of us being up for an adventure.
Dark Moon: what waiting and resting is necessary?
We have a Dark Moon tour of the school. I dream that morning that it might be a dead end, but it isn’t. I surrender our identity as a homeschooling family…
…though I will never stop railing at a government that is increasingly taking away fundamental liberties!
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” But new regulations are coming into play in the new year, more rules about what homeschooling families must teach and how.
It’s not a surprising development. This is the same story as what has happened with homebirth, the same result stemming from the fact that the government – which means us! – can’t trust the process… yes, this is the fucken Dystopia, but the losses happen behind closed doors, which means many of us are oblivious.
Under this Dark Moon, I surrender homeschooling with relief, for now, because my heart is elsewhere – nourished by my work and writing. I hold that surrender loosely, open to my children having different ideas and wanting to co-create an alternative education, particularly my daughter, who after two years of school is saddened by the rife judgmentalism. For now, I am grateful for the option of school, just as I was when my daughter first went, grateful for the convenience and resourcing that goes with flowing with the Main Stream.
And I nurture the spirit of the Renegade, because this is a most necessary seed to grow in the Dystopia (albeit in the humble, compromised context of being a white, privileged woman)… And I am deeply grateful for all the love and encouragement that has come from finding a tribe of renegade sisters! Blessed Be!