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The new Moon is on Sunday, December 21st, Winter Solstice, at 19:36 CST. Moon is in Sagittarius and Mula Nakshatra at this time, joining Sun in this same position. Sun and Moon conjunct Mercury and Venus, who are both in PurvaAshada nakshatra. This is a particularly unsteady new Moon, with a lot of movement, shift and restructuring potential. It is also a particularly dark, inward and demanding empty Moon- which will ask us to dive deeply into our beings, let go and release from a very core level. The release is necessary in order to increase flow and fluidity, change and movement in the coming cycle. In order for deeper nourishment to arrive in the coming weeks and months, we must be willing to deeply release and let go of any parts of ourselves we have been clinging to. This is a time to be re-tracing our steps, enliven our deepest needs, and awaken our innate truths. This new Moon is also intensified by Winter Solstice, the darkest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere, and is marked by a natural turning inward, towards our depth and darkness. The need for this turning inward, touching the depth of our darkness, is as natural as turning towards the light. Nature reminds us with her cycles and rhythms, the potency, power and necessity of both light and dark, and our dance with both. This is an ideal time to be working very intentionally with our shadows, our own darkness. Please join me for my free online class this Sunday, Resourcing From Your Shadow on December 21st at 6pm CST. The coming waxing Moon cycle will continue to stir our deepest longings, truths and inner wisdom, while digging up some dirt in the process. As we expand our depths and our darkness, we also expand our container and capacity to hold truth and light. The willingness you have to explore your depths and dive deep, will determine the gifts and awakenings you will be able to enliven and hold in the coming cycles. Your efforts are not futile. Working consciously with your shadows is not for nothing. Strengthen your ability to dance with both your light and your dark parts with more awareness and life will expand in all forms. Creative Ritual for the Waxing Moon Cycle
Expanding our container, our capacity to hold and to release, can physically and metaphorically be done through the breath. Jupiter's retrograde motion through Cancer, is allowing us to retrace steps within our heart, work intentionally with our emotional body, our capacity to feel, while also giving us new opportunities to work with healthy boundaries. The open and close dynamic of boundary work (yes and no) is signified by our inhale and exhale. Below is a breath dance, designed to enliven and maximize your breath awareness and your container for sensing and feeling. 1. Breath Dance. Begin standing, lying down or sitting. Bring your awareness to your breath as it moves in and out of your body. Filling and letting go, opening and releasing, like waves moving in and out of the body. Track the movements and sensations in the body and let these guide you. The sensations will guide you into the physical body impulses, the messages of the body. As you continue to breathe and become more and more aware of the movements of the ribcase, let these movements exaggerate. These exaggerated movements are the making of your "breath dance". Continue to move from and with the movements of the ribcase as you breath. Explore, expand and develop your breath dance for at least 10 minutes. Let it evolve and as it does, continue to self track, noticing the body parts most alive and awake as you explore your body part sensations present. As you bring your breath dance to a close, ask yourself these questions: I sense, I feel, I imagine. 2. Create an image of your ribcase. What colors, textures, shapes and images arrive on the page as you draw your ribcase? I encourage you to get your hands involved in this process whether it be through painting directly with your hands, or smudging the craypas with your fingers. Let the hands be sensitized through the process. Get messy. Let the hands and fingers fully engage in this image. (Working with clay may be an alternate medium to work with). Title your image. Take at least 15 minutes for this. 3. Harvesting. When your image is complete, use it to harvest with further inquiry by asking it these questions: Ask your image if it has anything it would like to share with you: If your image could speak, what would it say? I am I want I need What am I opening to? What am I closing to? Need some extra guidance and clarity? Schedule a session with me. Plan your week in tune with nature. Never miss a planetary update. Sign up for my weekly newsletter. Was this post helpful? Please share it with a friend! Thank you.
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Do you rush through the day without checking in with your experience of life, your experience within? Do the days lead to weeks and years of being out of touch with your own needs and feelings? Are dissatisfaction, burnout and health being sacrificed as you continue to "push through"?
Constant movement, change, focus and drive can challenge your ability to be grounded, embodied and fully present to your needs. If you are living on autopilot, this will have a dramatic impact on your health, comfort and nourishment, as well as your relationships. What really suffers is your relationship with your true Self, and most certainly your creativity and life force energy. Fortunately you can unwind the numbness and choose to step into embodiment with very little effort. I use a simple technique to help bring presence to what is occurring within at any given moment. It's beyond listening to the breath and deep breathing (though this can certainly be valuable for the nervous system). I use a "three level check-in" process to immediately name the experiences arriving within. In this embodiment practice, you human experience is divided into four levels: mental body, emotional body and physical body. The fourth level includes the spiritual body. The spiritual body upholds the other three bodies. The Vedic koshas correlate to these "four bodies" and Ayurveda corroborates, since it also speaks to these four "bodies" as well. We can also use this tracking process in conjunction with Jyotish. As you track your inner landscape, you are literally tracking the effects of the planets on your physiology. There are multiple reasons why a Four Level Check-in is valuable for health and well being as well as for deepening one's ability to increase resiliency and thriving. First, let's take it for a spin and experience the mechanics of it. 1) Whatever you are doing right now, hit the pause button and bring your attention inward. It may help to close your eyes, but this isn't necessary. You may be sitting, standing or walking, but bring your attention to the now regardless of what is happening around you. 2) Notice the physical body. What is coming to you? What is the physical body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. 3) Notice the emotional body. What is coming to you? What is the emotional body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. 4) Notice the mental body. What is coming to you? What is the mental body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. 5) Notice the spiritual body. What is coming to you? What is the spiritual body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. This level of awareness is the most nuanced. Sometimes it's available, other times it is not. Create a space for listening nonetheless. Use this check-in practice at least once a day to do an "audit" of your inner landscape. As you track your physical body, you are tracking the Sun and Saturn and often Mars- which give awareness of sensation in the body. As you track the emotional body, you are tracking the Moon and often Venus. Tracking the mental body arrives through Mercury. The spiritual body is connected to the Sun as well as Jupiter. Mars and Venus support these bodies in subtle ways, while Rahu and Ketu intensify the experiences arriving. Your four level check-in findings can be written down and used at another time. You can take these findings into a creative process by moving your words, creating a poem from them, drawing an image, or turning them into a song etc. This keeps your bodies alive, potent and moving. It can also help you deepen the identification process- which is so vital for creating life change. Use your inner experiences and harvest from them further; move them, transform them, change them through an intentional art making process. But if nothing else, create space for these feelings, allow them to be with you and be present to the experience of your inner landscape. This presence alone can be immensely valuable. Far too often people gloss over feelings, physical body sensations and the potency of the inner landscape- cutting and pasting over these vital messages. Everyone wears numerous masks just to get through each day, week, year. But when you take time to stop what you are doing and notice how you are unconsciously being, you have the opportunity to arrive into the now. The potency of life is in the moments of now. Here you can listen intently to your feelings and inner experiences. Here you gain an opportunity for more depth and awareness within your life. It is through pausing and listening that you can more clearly and courageously attend to your own needs, use healthy boundaries, and create a life that is more in harmony with joy, nourishment, thriving and satisfaction. This is the power of the present moment and being in the now, being embodied. Never miss a Creative Ritual, sign up for my weekly newsletter. Want more Creative Rituals? See my current virtual workshop offerings here. Expansion and Contraction: The Ribcase
The planets are charged, poised and ready for take off during this next waxing cycle. Can you feel the expansion taking place within you and your life? In your relationships and desires? This is a perfect opportunity to work with the rib case and our experience of expansion and contraction. Using this theme of expansion and contraction, we will work specifically with the ribcase in this Creative Ritual. The ribcase provides protection for the body's vital organs- heart and lungs specifically. Every breath we take is connected to opening and expansion as well as letting go, releasing and contracting. The breath is the greatest metaphor for boundaries, and it's no mistake that the lungs literally provide us with the ability to live and "take in life" as well. Our ribcase is the protective case that houses these sacred physical tools of the body that allow us to expand and contract our life. When we work with the ribcase, we can explore these themes more intentionally, while letting the body direct our experience. Start standing or lying down. Begin by bringing your attention to your breath. What is the quality of your breath on the inhale and exhale. Do you feel the breath staying in your chest or moving into your belly? Don't try to force this to change. We are just being a witness to "what is" right now. Continue this focus for a few minutes, then add another body part to this open and close momentum that starts in your chest. As you expand on the inhale, let another body part become involved. As you exhale let the body relax and surrender to a neutral. Rise and fall. Open and close. Expand contract. Continue working with these expressions and notice what other body parts naturally join. Let the body move like a wave in harmony with the breath. Use a time frame of 20 minutes for this ribcase/breath exploration. Then come to your drawing pad and do a 10 minute sketch of your experience. A "snap shot" of your embodiment process. What colors arrive? What textures? What types of lines and shape? Give a title to this piece then answer the harvesting questions below. Harvesting Questions: If my ribcase could speak, what would it say to me? What am I opening to? What am I closing to? What am I expanding towards? Where am I contracting? Where am I letting in life force? Where am I resisting life force? What does my ribcase need? Never miss a Creative Ritual, sign up for my weekly newsletter. Want more Creative Rituals? See my current virtual workshop offerings here. |
