Living in Moontime
While the earliest civilizations operated around a lunar calendar, and some cultures still do, the Gregorian calendar does not. The “moonth” and the month are almost never in sync. A new moon might appear at the end of the month, a full moon right at the beginning.1 The Gregorian calendar has become a tick-tock container that prescribes when to clock in and when to clock out, when to sleep and when to work. This rigid, mechanistic scheduling is neither healthy nor natural. The lunar cycle is less prescribed, more personal. It’s the way so many of us experience time. Dipping into peaks and valleys; sinking into what we feel, what we need.
The Gregorian calendar prioritizes productivity over all else; as a result, we are constantly “behind.” Exhausted. Not enough. Feeling guilty for a nap, for an early reprieve from work. Solar time is binary; we’ve been trained to be either “on” or “off.” When we connect with our natural intelligence and observe our natural cycles, our quality of life and time drastically improves. Time becomes abundant and holographic, healing and reconciliatory. For example, a three-minute meditation sometimes feels like an hour.
The moon is both an internal and external timer. It helps us tell spiral time. Our energy bodies, creative processes, and healing cycles all correspond to the moon’s cycles. The moon can serve as a tracker for our dreams, our self-development, and more.
The actual moon orbits counterclockwise, not clockwise as shown. This diagram reflects the perspective of the Northern Hemisphere.
Look at the diagram of a lunar cycle. It is an illustration of the largest celestial body in our solar system—the sun—dialoguing and engaging with the celestial body nearest to earth—the moon. This is a visual that represents motion, time, perceptions, interpretations, energy, and relationships. The past, present, and future are intertwined. Moonlight is reflected sunlight, traveling to us from the past, eight minutes from its initial reflection. The earth—us—is the bridge of perception that connects the interaction of these luminaries. As you gaze at the diagram of the lunar cycle, take note of all that you see. There is symmetry and fluctuation. Balance and movement. Expansion of light and loss of light. Waves rising and crashing, the inhale and exhale.
A belief of evolutionary astrology is that zodiacal archetypes evolve through their opposite sign. Integration is found through embodying and engaging with the archetype that is furthest away from one’s natural state. Look to the lunar cycle. What phase do you most intuitively feel drawn to at this time? Now look to the phase directly opposite of it. What could this phase teach you? How could working with the themes of this phase help you to embody your most intuitive self?
There are eight distinct phases of the moon that Western astronomy recognizes. Other cultures have different interpretations. Hawaiians observe the approximately thirty days of the lunar calendar with an understanding of each day, with thirty different moon names that are divided into three ten-day periods.2
The nine phases that I discuss are: New Moon, New Moon Crescent/Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Last Quarter, Waning Crescent, and Dark Moon, also called the Balsamic Moon.3
New Moon
This is the first day of a lunar cycle. For many folks, the “new moon” is still the “dark moon.” There is 0 percent illumination. This is a phase for planting seeds, tending to the underground, intentions, new cycles, imagining, initiation, dreaming, envisioning, hope, rest, renewal, recharging.
Waxing Crescent
The waxing crescent is approximately two to six days old. It is between 1 percent and 49 percent illuminated. This phase corresponds to beginnings, optimism, creating better habits, tangibility, action, breaking the surface, visible new life, starting a process.
First Quarter
The first quarter moon is approximately six to nine days old. It is at 50 percent illumination. (The day before and the day after may still look and correspond to first quarter energy and themes, though technically the first quarter is the exact halfway mark of the lunar cycle.) This phase is conducive to choices, pivoting, changing course, refining, balance, overcoming hurdles and blocks, discipline, will, healthy habits, boundaries.
Waxing Gibbous
The waxing gibbous moon is approximately six to thirteen days old. This is between 51 percent and 99 percent illuminated. It can facilitate health, healing, energy, fertility, luck, abundance, expansion, growth—particularly in the tangible realm, sensuality and self-care, and achievement.
Full Moon
The full moon is approximately thirteen to fifteen days old. This is at 100 percent illumination. The day before and the day after might also be energetically felt and utilized as a full moon. It corresponds to the harvest, ripeness, blooming, celebration, sex, creativity, embodiment, amplification, emotional release, emotional information, consciousness work, psychic ability, intuitive work, divination, ancestor work, any efforts you need a magical boost around.
Waning Gibbous
The waning gibbous is approximately fifteen to twenty-two days old. The moon is between 99 percent and 51 percent illumination. The light on the moon has now flipped over to the left, in the Northern Hemisphere. This is the time of the second harvest, reveals, downloads, dissemination, release, and sharing inner wisdom.
Last Quarter
The last quarter phase, also referred to as the third quarter moon, is approximately twenty-one to twenty-three days old. The illumination is at 50 percent. This is the counterpart to the first quarter moon. This phase is associated with balance, crossroads, uncrossing, recommittal, surrender, “behind the scenes” work, subconscious or “below the line” work, organization, research, and internal processes.
Waning Crescent
The waning crescent is approximately twenty-two to twenty-seven days old. The light now fades from 45 percent to 1 percent illumination. This time corresponds with cleaning, clearing, banishing, diving deep, and going within. The entire waning moon phase facilitates all growth around internal work; when the light of the moon fades, many of us can process and connect to self more deeply. As the light of the moon fades, our inner knowing grows.
Dark Moon
This is the traditional end of the cycle. The moon is in its last three days. It is between 27 and 29.5 days old. This is traditionally the time of deep rest, release, turning inward, the void, the destruction before creation, connecting to other worlds and other states of consciousness, peace, acceptance, banishing, cutting cords, death, endings, bold visionings, brave new worlds.4
Look again at the lunar cycle diagram. What now jumps out at you? What are you intrigued by? Do you see things differently?
The Lunar Cycle as Seasons
The lunar cycle is a visual metaphor for the seasons of our lives. Looking at the entire cycle, we can intuitively tell that our lunar-suggested rest time would be from the third quarter to the new moon. However, you may find that this is the time where you have the most energy. I will write this repeatedly, because it bears repeating in this world of restrictions and prescriptions, and one size fits all advice, and “shoulds”: Do what feels right and what works for you. Become your own authority. Discover your own patterns. Create your own permission slips. Moon work is about tuning in to your patterns and needs, and attending to those accordingly.
The lunar cycle is a visual metaphor for our earth’s seasons. I am using the Northern Hemisphere as my reference. (If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, this is flipped, just like the lunar phases.) The new moon is from very late winter to early spring: when the light is much more apparent, but the earth is still not quite entirely thawed. Springtime, with its green shoots starting to poke up from the earth, and the tiny buds on the tree, simultaneously so verdantly alive and yet still so fragile: that’s the waxing crescent time. At first quarter, there’s no turning back: fragrant blossoms seduce us outside. The bees pollinate, fastidious and focused, and we wish to follow suit. This is around late spring leading up to summer solstice.
The full moon is around summer solstice, headed into midsummer. This is the time of the first harvest. Abundance is evident, receive it. Folks are pulled to go out, to show up, socialize, and celebrate life. However, your mood might not match the season. Many folks feel the summertime sadness. While the world buzzes around us, we may feel forlorn. Feel your feelings. What comes up could be useful information for getting resourced.
The season that correlates to the waning gibbous is late summer to around the autumnal equinox. This is the time of the second harvest. A period of simultaneous slowing down and preparation. Our gaze starts shifting toward the end of the year: that which we’ve been trained to mark as our collective finish line. For some of us, our inner flame is relighted, reminding us of what we’d like to heal, produce, or move toward accomplishing.
The time that correlates to the last quarter moon phase is between the equinox and Halloween. This could feel like a time of reckoning and turning corners. Of dedication or rededication. Our energy is urging us to turn inward, to reflect on the past and sift through it.
The waning moon correlates to the time just before the winter solstice. Most of our days are spent inside, and so our awareness and attention is affixed to our interior. We cleanse and clear. The promise of another cycle allows us to take stock. At night, we can see the stars more easily. The great beyond beckons. We get cosmic.
The dark moon is that time from the solstice to the first months of the Gregorian calendar. Technically not the dead of winter, but it can certainly feel that way. Spring is coming, the light in our days is growing, yet our bodies may not yet believe this. This season asks us to dream in the dark. We could feel called to plan, to strategize, and to imagine ideal futures.
These are cycles of birth and death, destruction and resurrection. These cycles mirror the spirals of time we all experience: dreaming, incubation, beginnings, learning, trying, doing, building, fruition, illumination, becoming, sharing, reconciliation, shedding, decay, death, transformation, healing, and visioning into the great beyond.
There are no “good” or “bad” moon phases. Every single moment can teach us something important if we are paying attention.
The Lunar Cycle and the Wheel of the Year
Let’s compare the lunar cycle and the Wheel of the Year. The Wheel of the Year is a series of seasonal celebrations that celebrate the equinoxes, the solstices, and the midway points between them. The Wheel of the Year is a Neo-Pagan invention. It was first introduced to mass modern consciousness by Jacob Grimm in 1835 in his book Teutonic Mythology. In the 1950s and ’60s, modern Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans adapted it for their religion.5
Please note that the moon orbits counterclockwise, not clockwise as shown.
There is evidence that all around the globe, cultures honored the cycles of the earth, the sun, and the moon. Before, and after, monotheism was introduced, nature-based living and worship was what most Indigenous peoples were guided by—as a way of life, as a spiritual practice, and as a religion.
There are the remnants of Indigenous practices in the holidays that Christians celebrate. The holy days that some peoples observed were colonized and Christianized. Samhain became All Soul’s Eve. Yule became Christmas. Ostara became Easter, and so on. Almost every Christian holiday has a Pagan or Indigenous root. Of course, there are Christian and Catholic witches who combine their various practices and beliefs beautifully. In the West, over time, communing with the earth, with multiple deities, with various aspects of nature, was taken over by the patriarchal theory that there was only one God to whom we were to answer. The chorus of different aspects and different relationships with different deities and natural states connoted an engagement, a dialogue. Living with a relationship to nature, to the elements, to the seasons, to the zodiac, to the phases of the moon is one way to regenerate one’s own intuition and reconnect with a very ancient, very human rhythm. Adapting and adding to these practices creates ancient futures.
In the Northern Hemisphere, Western Pagan and Wiccan traditions, eight Wheel of the Year Holidays are celebrated. They are:
Samhain:
October 31–November 1. Dark moon. Ancestor work, internal work, intuitive work, shadow work, grieving, banishing, releasing, binding, protection.
Yule:
December 20–23. Usually corresponds with the solstice. New moon. (Dark moon in some practices and traditions.) Rebirth, cosmic consciousness, intuition, divination practice, summoning hope, optimism.
Imbolc:
February 2. Waxing crescent moon. (New moon in some traditions.) Sprouting, healing, new beginnings, rebirth, thawing, planting seeds, dreaming.
Ostara:
March 19–22. This corresponds with the equinox. First quarter moon. Renewal, growth, abundance, turning the corner, health, generation.
Beltane:
May 1. This corresponds to the waxing gibbous. Sex, love, fire, creativity, celebration, connection, community.
Litha:
June 19–23. This correlates to the summer solstice and to the full moon. Accomplishment, celebration, gratitude, joy, blooming, teaching, self-empowerment.
Lammas/Lughnasadh:
August 1. This correlates to the disseminating moon. Second harvest, abundance, unions, work, investments, bounty, relationships.
Mabon:
September 21–24. This correlates to the equinox, and to the last quarter moon. Gratitude, harvest, balance, discipline, shifts, clearing.6
The Wheel of the Year may not resonate with you. It does not with me, as I am not from a Celtic background, nor am I a practicing Wiccan. It doesn’t make sense for everyone to adhere to a system that does not resonate for any number of reasons. I utilize the solstices and the equinoxes, as well as holidays from my own background in my practice. Look to your culture for guidance, or observe the holidays you feel called to celebrate. What I do like about the Wheel of the Year, which is why I included it, is its focus on certain energies and themes that flow with nature. There is a similarity between the Wheel of the Year’s rituals and activities, and an entire lunation. Incorporating seasonal and earth-based practices into your praxis is living in concert with the cosmos. These holidays reflect the quality of light we are exposed to, the temperature, what is growing, and what is dying. It could be a fruitful project for you to develop a more localized “Wheel of the Year” based on the natural cycles of where you live and what you value. Find a system that works for you. Create your own rituals. Forge your own traditions. That’s all holidays are, at their root.
Working with the Seasons: Making Up Your Own Practice
Many people make New Year’s resolutions. A couple of years ago, I began making “seasonal resolutions.” New Year’s resolutions felt too vast and overwhelming; it was hard to choose just one thing. At the beginning of each season, I started making intentions for that season only.
This shifted my life. By tuning in to my energy levels and following my focus seasonally, my life became more manageable and enjoyable. I wasn’t fighting against myself, I was listening to my needs. Three months is a less daunting time frame than a year. Commitments are more easily made and kept. If the season passes, and you still want to keep moving forward with your habits or goals, do so.
Obviously, we can’t quit our jobs and obligations and burrow under the covers with soup tureens for the entire winter season. We do what we can. Maybe we take on less during the winter: go out less, conserve our energy. Go to bed an hour earlier. If we are sick, disabled, or chronically ill, we center our needs, no matter the season.
If we are working with the moon to make magic, we tune in to the lunar phase that correlates with the season. Our dark moon work and new moon work may be potent around the winter solstice. If we are interested in spells and actions for discipline, strategy, and new growth, we focus our efforts around those themes from March to June, the time that correlates to these themes. The crescent moon–waxing moon time period would be a particularly good time to focus on magical efforts. Following is a list of suggested activities for each season.
Fall:
Harvest, abundance, work, projects, lineage and family tree/ancestry work, health (especially scheduling in ways to take care of your health—doctor’s appointments, finding walking buddies, etc.), structuring and restructuring, getting organized, learning/education, mentorship, clearing out, wrapping up loose ends, “fall” cleaning, living “with the season”: eating more soup and baking, less screen time, going to bed earlier.
Winter:
Inner knowledge, divination and journeying work, interior work, shadow work, banishing, ancestral work, destruction/creation, grief, death, emotional healing, fortifying, dreaming, visioning, tending to the light inside, spiritual practices, living “with the season”: slowing down, taking on less, resting more, self-care practices, connecting with loved ones in person, eating to fortify the immune system.
Spring:
Sowing and planting seeds, love, fertility of all kinds, collaborations, growth, new projects, new relationships of all kinds, communing with nature, sex and sex life, risk and rewards, nurturing, living “with the season”: waking up earlier, eye toward productivity, new aesthetics, greens and raw foods, bolstering and fortifying the body.
Summer:
Accomplishment, contracts, good luck, celebration, prosperity, joy, travel, community, tending to all your gardens, consciousness and identity work, birthing of all kinds, creativity of all kinds, expansion, emotional healing, consciousness exploration, living “with the season”: being outside more, connecting with nature, relationships, relaxing, exploring new places—both outside of you and inside of you.
These are some suggestions. Make the process your own. If this structure inspires you, plan a few “seasonal resolutions” to experiment with over the next few months.
MOON MAPPING
Part of working the lunar phase in a holistic fashion is planning. In the classes I teach on the moon called Moonbeaming, the first step I advise everyone to do before working with the moon around a specific goal, is to strategize and plan. I call this moon mapping. This is where we begin.
Moon mapping is that process of pairing the appropriate actions with the most supportive lunar phase. Writing down blocks and challenges, and then making plans to address those, is important. Anticipating roadblocks and figuring out why these are happening, and how to move through them, is imperative. Getting in a calm space and figuring out a realistic plan has to happen. Any magical practice is about discipline, connection, and building belief. We must name and commit to what we will be doing emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, and magically that will support our efforts. Each lunar phase corresponds to the 360-degree quality of your process. On the other side of our desire is what we fear. Moon mapping works with all aspects of a goal.
Planning ahead is useful to folks with trauma, as it offers a sense of security. When we plan ahead, we prime the subconscious to be in an accepting state. Any large change is an accumulation of repeated thoughts, actions, habits, and beliefs. The repeating pulse of the lunar cycle keeps us motivated, on track, and in alignment.
This is an example of the moon map I use. To download your own, go to themoonbook.com.
Let’s discuss a moon-mapping example with a past Moonbeaming client, who wanted to transform their relationship to abundance: from a scarcity lens to an expansive lens. The first step was writing down all the clear goals around this. “To create a relationship to abundance where I feel like I have enough. This would include having six months of savings in the bank, working less, and being able to spend more time on doing things other than my day job that bring me joy.”
Next, blocks or fears around this are named. “I’m afraid that if I work less, I’ll be destitute. I’m afraid I’m not ‘good enough’ to let myself experience joy for no reason. Collecting six months of savings seems really daunting. I don’t know how to do this.”
Then, we go beyond these blocks and fears into the subconscious beliefs and behaviors that lie underneath them. “I have to be perfect, and because I’m not perfect, I do not deserve to make more money. I spend money both as a form of punishing myself, and as a numbing/soothing device. I am afraid to experience joy regularly.”
Habits are addressed. “I’ve become undisciplined and accustomed to a dull life that is rinse and repeat. I need to tap into my motivation and tap into my discipline.” The student is prompted into naming exactly what that looks like in action.
Now we envision a best-case scenario. After that, we would get even more specific. Our moon mapper would begin working backward from their goal. How could this person work on their discipline and their self-esteem? What subconscious beliefs would have to be transformed, and how? An undercurrent that came up for the person doing this process was that they didn’t feel deserving of being joyful, happy, and abundant. They knew they would have to address this in various ways, including therapy.
Through the moon-mapping process a lot will come up. Painful emotions will surface. That’s normal. It is also very normal to experience the domino effect of looking at a goal, seeing all of the other pieces that need to be addressed, and feeling overwhelmed. The person is now thinking about self-worth, discipline, and willpower. They are also thinking about joy, pleasure, play, creativity, and how that intersects with self-worth and money. Anyone going through these themes would most likely not expect to see the entire outcome they want in a single lunar cycle: this could be a seasonal, or even yearlong process.
After all this unpacking, you might want to rest for a few hours or a few days. Figuring this all out is mentally and emotionally exhausting! From a calm and rested place, you would then moon map. You would plan actions to take for each phase of the moon, based around your goals. For example:
New moon: Cast a spell for safety around healthy expansion of all kinds, define and cultivate abundance and joy, look for therapists.
Waxing moon: Meet with a financial planner or knowledgeable friend, figure out a budget that would include a savings plan, schedule thirty minutes three times a week for joy that does not revolve around money, look at where and why money is spent on so many “extras,” decide on a therapist.
Full moon: Cast an “enough” spell, where permission is granted to take up space tending to pleasure, just as you are.
Waning moon: Freeze credit card, eliminate a couple of “extras” that aren’t needed such as cable and some takeout, do a ritual to say good-bye to the part of yourself that believes you can’t feel safe and abundant at the same time, allow yourself to make “bad art” joyfully, have first therapy session.
Dark moon: Begin a forgiveness meditation practice, make space for grief, rest.
Next new moon: Begin work around a more expansive creative practice, figure out how to negotiate a raise at your job, and/or start looking for other employment that will appreciate your creativity and pay you more.
Our friend would make a plan that would also keep them accountable on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis. An important part of moon mapping is locating what needs to change in the everyday. A lot of our actions reinforce our limiting beliefs. A lot of our actions are habits that feel scary to change at first, but over time, with repetition, are replaced with better habits. Many of our reactions originate from the subconscious, which in turn begin as limiting stories we tell ourselves. Part of this work is writing new stories, imagining different outcomes. This needs to happen every day. Even a few minutes is a fantastic start.
When we make a moon map, it will inevitably have to be revised. Life rudely scribbles over our best-laid plans. Through engaging with this process we may wish to go deeper into a specific limiting belief, or we may be compelled to go down another path. Revise and adjust your actions and spell work as needed.
I often get asked: Where to begin? Check in with yourself. There are times where what you will be focusing on might be really “small,” but you really must start there: beginning a morning practice, or completely cleaning and organizing your home. There are other times when you are ready for deeper transformation and to make large life shifts happen. Putting yourself out there after a painful breakup, deciding to have a child, leaving and healing after being in a cult, focusing on managing anxiety or trauma, coming out, undergoing a gender transition, moving across the country, getting diagnosed with a chronic illness and adjusting and learning how to manage it, or starting a business are all examples of these sorts of huge life processes that may not have a definitive ending. When we begin one of these larger processes, we need to understand that this is the beginning of a longer, winding cycle. It may take months or even years of diligence and devotion to witness the results of our efforts.
I encourage reaching out for additional support, such as to a group, a therapist, an accountability buddy, or a life coach or other professional that has additional expertise. Going to support groups, sliding-scale therapies, or taking affordable workshops from reputable sources can also be an alternative. You could also create a low-cost “curriculum,” where you find and read books, dialogue with friends, listen to podcasts, and journal a lot around the subject. This is free and works best for those who are self-directed.
The moon-mapping example shared begins at the new moon, but remember that the lunar cycle is a Double Dutch circle that one can jump into at any time. In any spiritual system, the goal is evolution; there is no beginning or end. I encourage folks who are interested in working with the moon magically or spiritually to experiment with starting their process at different phases. Beginning at a full moon or waning moon has been extremely useful for myself and others. (I actually prefer starting at those phases.) A go-to practice in magic or personal coaching is starting with the blocks you have. That would mean starting at either the waning moon/last quarter moon, or at the first quarter moon: the times for clearing away, and the times of the lunar cycle that traditionally mark a crisis of consciousness or faith, a pivot, or the ability to be able to see all of the challenges and positives of a certain situation. Begin at the time where you feel the best, or that correlates most strongly with what you need. Follow your intuition and instincts.
LIVING IN MOONTIME
Living in moontime means rejecting the toxic solar imperative. To be “on”—productive, producing, exerting, competing—the majority of the time is not natural. We live in a capitalist society that isn’t going to be revolutionized tomorrow. (Not that we can’t work toward that.) There are jobs to get to on time and bills to pay. Living in moontime isn’t necessarily about going off the grid and living in the forest. It is about paying attention to our own cycles. Understanding what our needs are and meeting them. Buying less into a system that wants you to mindlessly consume, to be detached from your intuition and your body, or to feel as if you have no agency. Living in moontime is to know yourself well enough to be adaptive to life, to accept change, and to develop and use your own set of resources.
Cycles of the Moon, Life’s Cycles
The same patterns and themes surface in our lives many times. They come back around continuously. Birth, growth, death, rebirth. What we need to heal, what gifts we must bring forth. These spirals make up the trajectories of our entire lives.
Our willingness to evolve transforms cycles of mindless repetition into spirals out into freedom. Our mind, our habits, our lives can get trapped on autopilot. The moon above our heads is a reminder that lessons come back around until they are learned. Without awareness, patterns automatically get repeated. Then we wonder why our life feels the same. We wonder why the same things keep happening to us. We wonder why we aren’t getting the results of our dreams.
Every hardship and challenge can ultimately be received as a gift for us to reclaim our power. Every heartbreak can be a reminder to move forward with love. A reminder to acknowledge the bullshit, understand our wounds, yet not let our core goals and visions become compromised. To keep our most sacred selves sovereign. To remain heartfelt and conscious even though the machine threatens to break us down. To stay connected to our highest ideals and deepest intuition even as society tells us to do the opposite. This is part of living in alignment.
There are larger circular and spiral patterns of time, space, and energy outside of a moon cycle. There are the transits the planets make. There are the smaller and more specific energy shifts and flows within a day. There are the larger patterns of our careers or family dynamics. There are the greater rhythmic patterns of our lives: the years we need to coast, the years we need to push. Identifying what larger pattern or phase we are in can help us adapt. If you feel like you are in a waxing moon phase, maybe you can and you will work more. If you feel like you are in a dark moon phase, more rest, shedding, and introspection is needed. If one is in a new moon phase, maybe this is a time period of going for it and welcoming in the greatest, most fascinating, and vibrant outcomes imaginable.
Living in moontime requires us to tap into our intuition. To pay attention to the messages that come in. We touch base with our core energy: try to understand it, be curious about it, take care to hold it like water. Living in moontime is honoring your true self: not squashing it down, ignoring it, neglecting it. To stop forcing it into prescribed boxes that were invented for someone else. Living in moontime is also being considerate to the truth that many other folks are trying their best to live in their own moontimes too.
Moontime Is a Spiral, Moontime Is a Circle
Raise your head to stare at the full moon in the night sky and you perceive a glowing circle hanging over the horizon. A circle is an endless line. A protected space. Witches cast circles to create a protected portal of possibilities. It is an act that invokes our own center, and the center that is in all things, the center that sits in the middle of all the elements, the perfect blend of balance and energy. Dark and light, day and night. A center is a circle.
Draw a circle in your mind. Where are you in the circle? Do you need to step into the center?
We sit in circles to reinforce the idea that we are all equal. That all our wisdom is valuable. Sitting in circles feels familiar. We see everyone we are creating the space with. A circle is at once an activated line and a never-ending loop. From the center of a circle all is equidistant. We walk in the circle of a life labyrinth. Lose the loop and then circle back around. The medicine wheel is a circle. Circles connote wholeness and fulfillment. It is infinite: no end and no beginning. Ancient Greeks thought of the circle as being the perfect shape. The universe does not produce perfect shapes; only pure mathematics does.
Our existence is spiralic. Proof of this is in the blood and cells of our grandmothers’ grandmothers that make us, us. When something we’ve done years ago ends up coming back around to grant us an opportunity, a chance we thought we’d lost, we are reminded of spiral time by way of synchronicity. Seeds of wishes planted long ago become cheerful green starts, waving to us from the past’s future—a wish fulfillment we had almost given up on. Healing is spiralic as well. There isn’t an end goal. There isn’t a finish line to cross, a certain amount of therapy appointments to go to, a time when we will no longer feel discomfort or pain. Our healing needs to take the time it needs to take.
Lunar technology is some of the oldest out there. The Gregorian calendar is just one invention. Before it the moon cycle was time. There were never black moons or blue moons; there was never a need for forcing our rituals into a random Tuesday night. The seasons were time. Honoring the season and our cycles brings us back in touch with our natural existence, our natural intelligence, our essence.
The uptick in interest in the moon, in astrology, in ancient or alternative healing modalities also speaks to the non-linearity of time. The algorithm of the goddess/goddexx, of our ancestor’s practices, finds its way back to us, again and again. Remembering, rediscovering, reenergizing, reemerging: that is moontime too.
To live in this way is to bend time. We heal the past from the present. We go back into the past and clear things up. Apologize to our past selves. Understanding that time expands and shrinks, goes back and forth and around and around and knots and unknots and gets unraveled. It speeds up and slows down. The choices we make today may drastically affect our future, and the futures of others. We must do what is most needed in the moment. That in itself is bending time. So, take your sweet, spiral time. It belongs to you.
Moontime is feminist praxis. It is something we work with, not something we have power over. Collaboration, not competition. A deeper power, not a higher one.
Moontime is a different way in. It asks us to go very far inside in order to find our way back out. Moontime allows us to step into wholeness. Times of aching, of grief, of sorrow, of frustration prepare us for flow, for joy, for resurrection and connection. Rest prepares us for activity.
There are greater, more political implications for living in moontime. Living in spiral mode means being able to hold more. Acknowledging our complexities widens our compassion. Loving and accepting the most painful truths about ourselves grants us more space. Separations are dissolved. We tell the freezing cold parts of us, “Come inside, thaw out. We see you and we love you. It isn’t your fault. Come inside the circle of heart-led acceptance.” When insecurity, exclusion, and competition go away, violence does as well.
To live in moontime is to create healthier paradigms. Yes, and, both, also. We exist not solely in opposition. There isn’t a race, there isn’t a reason for punishment. There aren’t only winners or losers. We are here to learn from one another.
Living in moontime means remembering to rest because evolution is exhausting.
It is up to us to reclaim our own spiralic, holographic, multilayered existence.
Living in moontime requires the ability to create and partake in new paradigms. All the best magic does.
How to Live in Moontime
Follow the phases of the moon.
Track your energy.
Accept your own rhythms as reality.
Decide to soften. Breathe. Notice. Listen.
To your imagination, to your inner stirrings, to your mythologies.
Create new stories and share them.
Pay attention to what comes through in timeless moments.
Make space to remember what you’ve always known.
Make the shape of your life an accurate reflection of your heart.
Promise to never abandon yourself: your dreams, your gifts, your moonlight.
Define your anchors. Lean on them through change.
New anchors to make their way into your life.
Be in conversation with exciting, mysterious things.
Let the experience of mystery be your teacher.
Honor the experience above all else.
Always remember that you are a blessing.
Even on the endless hard days. Especially on those endless, excruciating days.
Your existence is a gift, and the risks you take, the love you make, the worlds you protect and save, the vulnerabilities and courage you enact will serve the collective long after you are gone.
Sing a song to the moon.
Let the moon share songs with you.