Rebirth
The dark moon current has come into your life, and now you know how to use it. But what next?
Perhaps you’ve now traversed the darkness and come out the other side. You’ve contemplated your inner fears, negative emotions, and your shadows. You’ve learned about death, rebirth, blood, dark magick, and all the mysteries of the night. You may be a little bumped and bruised, but you’re definitely wiser and stronger.
Even if you are lost in the midst of your own dark moon phase at this moment, know that with every ending, there is a new beginning. After the dark moon current has taught you its lessons, the new moon will come, full of dreams, growth, and potential. It may not seem like it, but it’s on its way to you right now.
Below are some rituals and spells to encourage growth and new beginnings, appropriate for when you’ve gone through a harrowing or dark time in your life but can see the light beginning to return. When you’ve fully worked through whatever darkness the Crone sent your way, it’s time to let the light back in.
The things you have learned on the dark side will help you in your future tasks, whatever they are. Like I promised, morning always comes. Embrace the bright part of the cycle and grow!
Signs of a New Beginning
In part 1, we discussed the symbols that pop up when you’re entering into a dark moon phase in your life. Now that you’re on the other side, you may notice a whole new type of symbol: that of new beginnings. This includes things like rabbits, flowers, sprouting plants, blossoms, songbirds, imagery of baby animals and people, eggs, and other growth imagery. You may not know exactly what they denote at this point, but just know that they’re signs of new life coming your way. In the darkness, things have been growing and germinating in you. The end of your shadow work may feel as warm and relieving as the arrival of spring after a hard winter. What will you grow into?
Meditation for Welcoming Growth
Sit or lie comfortably.
Close your eyes. Take five deep, slow breaths, allowing your body to relax muscle by muscle.
Imagine your entire energy body is a black void, like the dark moon.
Become aware of your physical body. Imagine that it is made of deep, dark earth where worms turn and roots burrow.
Notice your breath. Imagine it is the very blackness of the night sky as it flows in and out of you.
Note your heartbeat and feel how it pushes the blood through your body. Your blood represents water, the deepest most hidden parts of the oceans where no human eyes have ever seen.
Feel the warmth of your body, how it generates its own heat. You are your own fire, constantly destroying and creating, burning with life force, incubating new growth.
Feel all the elements combined in you together for several breaths.
Now visualize a sun above you. You can feel its heat beating down onto your body. This warmth is benevolent and welcoming.
As you lie beneath the sun, notice how the night sky that is your breath turns it into bright blue daylight instead. Breathe in the bright, cheerful light deeply. Bring the sun power into yourself with your breath.
As you keep breathing in the sky-blue air, notice that the dark earth of your body is beginning to shift. Sprouts are emerging, nosing hopeful green tendrils to the surface, small and tentative at first but gaining strength. Leaves and stems push up through your entire body and start to grow. Your blood, warmed by the sun, keeps the new plant roots moist, while the heat of your body creates a warm, fertile bed for them to grow in.
Notice the little details of what is growing from you. What starts as a small green stub may become a tall blade of grass or unfurl into a brightly blooming flower. Maybe you are a whole field of flowers.
Fill yourself with greenery, blooms, and life. Your lush growth draws butterflies, bees, rabbits, and wildlife, while the roots of the blooms burrow through your body and become sturdily anchored there.
Spend some time lying there enjoying your own blooming growth. You are transformed from the darkness into a bright new beginning.
Open your eyes and welcome the light.
Spells for Rebirth and Growth
Road Opener Oil Recipe
Below is my own recipe for road opener oil. I use it to attract new beginnings by anointing candles with it, adding it to a bath, or sprinkling it around my property. You can also put a small dab on windows and doors to open the way for opportunities and fresh starts. You can even rub some on your pulse points each day. Some of my most meaningful, life-changing projects have begun with a bottle of road opener oil.
materials
Key that has been used to actually open locks or doors before—not just an ornament
Witch’s salt (see page 49)
Fresh flowers or herbs that are alive, not dried, preferably at the stage when they are just about to bloom
Pinch of rosemary or pine needles, or a drop of tea tree oil for cleansing properties
Olive or jojoba oil
Jar with a tight-fitting lid
Place all the ingredients in the jar.
You can empower this oil during the waxing moon phase; however, unlike the rest of the workings in this book, I recommend doing this in the morning sunshine or at dawn if possible. Draw a circle on the ground with a stick or chalk and place the jar inside it. Envision the purpose of each of the ingredients in turn, linking them to a life situation, like this:
Key: Visualize the key fitting into a lock and opening a door. Imagine doors of opportunity opening all around you in life.
Witch’s Salt: This is cleansing, protective, and unique to your own energy. Imagine it acts as a layer of protection around you. This can be replaced with a drop of your blood if you wish.
Fresh Flower Buds: These flowers are on the cusp of bursting open with life, potential, and glory. Visualize how your own glory and accomplishment will take place in your life.
Pinch of Cleansing Herb or Oil: These materials have energy that cleanses away blockages and negativity. Imagine that which stands in your way being wiped away.
The olive or jojoba oil is just carrier oil, so there’s no need to give it a specific job beyond holding everything together.
Shake the jar and observe all the different energies mingling together to create a potion of new beginnings. As day breaks, hold the jar of oil over your heart and spend some time visualizing your short- and long-term goals. Allow the jar to be filled with sun. Leave it in a sunny place for a day.
You can strain the oil if you wish or leave the ingredients sitting in it.
Earthing Spell
Sometimes when emerging from a dark period, it can take a moment to get your bearings. When in the midst of crisis or a dark moon current, you may have been distracted from life around you, even though it has been moving on this whole time. Now you need to realign yourself with waking life. This spell uses the grounding power of the earth to rebalance yourself as you emerge.
materials
Outdoor spot to sit
Foot bone or bit of hoof that fits in your hand or pocket. This should preferably be from a cow or other steady four-legged creature that embodies the stable, grounded earth spirit. Try to avoid fiery, unpredictable animals like a weasel or cat if possible. (substitution: a brown rock)
Find a place outdoors where you can place your feet or hands directly on the ground. This needs to be a place of actual earth or sand rather than cement or other man-made surface, as you will be digging a small hole with your fingers.
Cast a circle if you wish and invoke your deity. If you’re in a public place and would rather omit the circle, that is fine.
Sit on the ground if you can or in a chair with your bare feet on the ground. Dig a hole in the earth before you that is just big enough to place the bone or hoof piece in.
Hold the bone in your hand and imagine that it feels heavy, almost like a magnet drawing it toward the earth. This is the grounded energy inside it. Place it in the hole and cover it with dirt.
Press your hand on top of the buried bone and concentrate on feeling the dirt beneath your palms. If you want, you can instead place your feet on top of it to feel the grounding sensation directly in your body as well. As the bone absorbs the grounding energy of the earth, say:
Element of earth,
Stable and true,
Ground me, steady me,
See me through.
Visualize the earth soaking the bone with heavy, steady vibrations.
Dig the bone out of the ground. Close your circle.
Carry the bone as an amulet, and any time you feel unsure or insecure, rub it between your fingers to ground and center yourself.
Filling the Void Spell
After doing shadow work, you may be left with a feeling like something is missing, because you’ve banished old habits and relationships. This leaves behind a hole to be filled with new positive things. This spell is to attract good energy into the space you have emptied of that which you no longer need.
You may not know exactly what you’d like to enter your life, but there’s a good chance it involves some basic generic things, such as love, prosperity, spiritual energy, and good health. You can tweak this spell to be more specific if you like.
materials
Jar with a lid
Items representing what you want to attract, such as one or all of these: coin for money, heart charm or rose petals for love, pinch of ginger root for health, or a quartz crystal for spirituality
Sterile lancet (optional)
Honey to fill the jar with sweetness (substitution: any sweet, sticky syrup)
Yellow chime candle to burn on top of jar
Gather your items at your altar and cast your circle.
Each item will be empowered one at a time and placed in the jar. The jar is empty and represents the hole of potential that is currently inside you waiting for new beginnings. Hold the jar against your heart and feel the nothingness inside it, how much space there is for new things in it. Put the jar down and pick up the coin.
Hold the coin in your hand and visualize yourself living with financial stability, with your bills paid and more. See it glow with green light. Place it in the jar.
Hold the heart charm or rose petals in your hand and imagine the type of love you’d like to attract into your life. This can be romantic, familial, friendship, or even self-love. See it glow with pink light. Place it in the jar.
Hold the ginger root and envision your physical self as full of energy, free of illness, and feeling great. See it glow with orange light. Place it in the jar.
Hold the quartz crystal and imagine yourself practicing spirituality in your chosen way. This can be a vision of meditation, spellcasting, or just an altar. See the crystal glow with white light. Place it in the jar.
Using the sterile lancet, add a drop of your blood to the jar (optional).
Visualize the green, pink, orange, and white light mixing together.
Take the container of honey or syrup and think about how sweet and sticky it is. Everything it touches is enrobed in sweetness and held in place by the stickiness. The stickiness is what binds the items and their intentions to you, drawing them into your life.
Pour the honey over the items and fill the jar completely. Put the lid on tightly.
Light the yellow candle and melt some wax onto the lid of the jar. Use this wax to stick the candle to the top of the jar like a holder.
As the yellow candle burns all the way down, dripping its wax all over the jar, visualize yourself with all these goals, living your best life. Allow the candle to burn out.
Close the circle.
Keep the jar somewhere you will see it each day, as a reminder of what good things can come your way.
Fire Visualization to Inspire Growth
The dark moon current corresponds with wintertime, when all is cold and dormant. After your own dark experience, you may be feeling frozen and unsure of how to move forward. Toward the end of winter, even while there’s still snow on the ground, sap begins to run through the trees due to a slight increase in temperature. Even while the branches remain leafless, inside the tree is coming back to life as sap starts to move through its veins initiating the very first part of rebirth. This simple fire meditation is to get your spiritual blood flowing, so to speak, after a period of dormancy, just like sap running through a tree.
Ideally, you would do this sitting at a fire outdoors, but if that’s not possible, a single green candle will do.
Sit in front of the fire or candle flame and pay attention to the warmth coming from it. Feel it on your skin and soaking into your body. Even with just a candle, when you hold your hands near it, the heat is very powerful.
Picture the veins in your body, which are just like the veins in a leaf or stem.
Hold your palms toward the heat of the fire and imagine it entering your hands, flowing up your arms and into your heart center. From there, it slowly creeps through your veins, filling them up with vibrant yellow light. Slowly at first, the light starts to move around your circulatory system. As the energy gains speed and brightness, it becomes warmer. Soon the energy should be flowing through your veins as freely as warm sap through a tree. Lower your hands and enjoy this feeling of your energy coming back to life. Continue until your mind begins to wander. Repeat as needed to welcome new growth and opportunities.