New Moon Magic

New moon magic correlates perfectly with visions, dreams, and wishes. Seeding spells, growth spells, and attraction spells were made for this time. Sometimes, it is good to cast a spell to summon the solid baseline of your desire: creativity, discipline, openness—pick an energy that will help you begin your lunar journey with the right ingredients and support.

Spend time corralling your highest pie-in-the-sky hopes from the clouds. Bring them down to a place you can touch, understand, and hold. Daydreams, musings, and sketches all get your subconscious excited and on board with your desires.

Vision boards—art that expresses the overall feeling, emotions, or outcomes of your dreams—are excellent to create at the new moon. Writing poems, song lyrics, and collaging: these are all great magical activities for the new moon. Clearing spells like uncrossing spells, cleaning spells, and ritual work that facilitate release of the past all help to create a blank slate.

Spells that include hypnosis, affirmations, and guided meditations are especially appropriate now as these help reprogram the brain. Spells and activities that stimulate the imagination and the senses are excellent to try at this time: making playlists, buying divine-smelling fruit, and trying to use fascinating words in conversations all serve as a reminder that there are endless beginnings. This is a hallmark of this lovely lunar phase.

Creating Your New Moon Altar

A new moon altar could be the base of all the spells for the entire lunation. You may wish to leave it up for the duration of the entire lunar cycle. Start with a few items and then add to it every couple of days. Or, a new moon altar may be set up for your new moon spell only. Your new moon altar could be sparse and minimal, symbolic of a welcoming, clear space for your dreams to settle into. It could be a blank page, an open book, a hum of hope in the background.

Your new moon altar could be you, deciding to breathe deeply, alone in the dark, resting your hands over your heart. Your altar is the faith you affix to. It is the dreams you are remembering, the small steps you are taking in different directions, the way you imbue your gaze with the openness you are now ready to meet.

Magical Correspondences of the New Moon

Knowing what you will be casting spells for will guide the ingredients you will be using in your spell. For example, if you are creating a money spell, you would most likely use a green or gold candle, honey, basil, bay leaves or peppermint, cinnamon, maybe a lodestone, citrine, or a pyrite crystal, possibly actual bills, coins, and even a check made out in the amount of money you wish to bring in.

It is important to develop your personal set of correspondences depending on how you interpret each phase of the moon. It has to feel resonant and meaningful for you personally. For you, the new moon might be all tigereye and nettle, brown candles and smoky quartz, because grounding and strength is what is required of you at this time. For another magic maker, the new moon might be an homage to Mercury, complete with peacock feathers, mint, and celestite—they wish to revel in beauty, camp, and strange transmissions from the ether. Experiment and play! Below are a few suggestions:

Correspondences of the new moon: Seeds, eggs, feathers, magnets, lodestone, hematite, clear quartz, fluorite, moss agate, chrysocolla, kunzite, celestine, obsidian, aragonite, cinnabar, rhodochrosite; air, the direction east; the colors black, pink, peach, green; lemon verbena, peppermint, ginger, lemon, eucalyptus, catnip, chamomile; salt; the Aces in the Tarot, the Fool, the Magician, the Pages.

Deities: Artemis, Diana, Luna, Selene, Chang’e, Ishtar.

Archetypes: The life of Joan of Arc; the music and work and art of Prince; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Agnes Martin, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, drag queens.

Animal guides: Ibis, kangaroos, dragonflies, colts, seahorses, butterflies, foxes.

NEW MOON SPELLS

Seed Magic Spell

This is an early springtime to early summer spell. The best times to cast it would be between late February and before the summer solstice in June, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere. Adjust the spell as needed.

You will need:

 

 

 

• Seeds (or a small start of a plant)
• A pot (find or use a special container for your seeds)
• Soil
• Any other objects or talismans you’d like to put in the soil (think about what hope/intention/dream will be linked to these seeds—maybe you want to embed a small piece of citrine, for abundance, or a key, for finding solutions, in the soil)
• Gardening tools (spade, fertilizer)
• Paper
• Pen

Cast the spell:

Gather everything you’ll need. Get quiet and focused. Call your energy back to you. Cast your circle and conduct any other practices in your spell work routine.

Write your intentions down on small, separate pieces of paper.

Take the seeds or baby plant and hold them/it in your hands. Imagine your intentions infusing the life in your hands with positivity, electrical charge, and emotional fertilizer.

Bring these emotions and images in your mind as you begin to repot your baby start or plant your seeds. Put the pieces of paper in the soil, around the seeds, or roots of the plants.

Stay focused until the little life is inside your pot, watered, and you feel good. Acknowledge that what you want to start on or attract will grow with focus, care, and attention.

As time passes and you continue to tend to the life in the container, remind yourself to also tend to the new life of your intention. Know that as your plant grows, your magic does as well. Remember to engage with your plant and form an appreciative relationship. Work with it as a metaphor for your growth and change.

You can also walk through your neighborhood and throw intentionally charged seeds or plant them in a front or back yard, if available.

Attracting Spell

The following spell is a simple attracting spell. It can be used anytime from the new moon to the full moon. You may wish to follow your written spell or petition with a caveat such as “this or better, for the greatest good of all,” or another qualifier such as “no harm, only good, shall come as a result of this spell.”

You will need:

• Two candles—one that represents you and one that represents what you are attracting (choose colors that correspond intuitively to yourself and what you wish to attract)
• Elements that correspond to attraction—lodestones, magnets, copper, silver, and/or specific crystals, herbs, or plants that correspond to what you are attracting
• A spell, petition, poem, or letter you’ve written to or about what you are consciously attracting
• Any other ingredient or symbol that pertains to what you are calling in, to place on your altar or to anoint yourself with (e.g., knots, or oils, or special incense)

Cast the spell:

Set up your altar and space: You will need enough space on your altar to put the candles far enough apart from each other, without disrupting the other ingredients you will be using.

Call in any guides/angels/helpers, if in your practice.

Within the container of the spell, charge and dress your candles. If they are in a votive, you may wish to embed crystals and herbs into your candles. You may wish to carve your candles with words or symbols, anoint them, and roll them in herbs. If nothing else, charge both the candle that represents you, and the candle that represents your desire, with your emotions and intentions.

Place the candles at opposite ends of your altar.

Light your candles.

Chant, recite, or sing your spell. Repeat at least three times. The last time you speak/recite/sing, move your candles about an inch closer together.

Spend time visualizing your desire moving closer to you. Feel it in your body.

Close your circle.

Snuff out your candles.

Repeat this spell for the next three days. On the third day, move the candles together so that they are touching. Burn them down together. If there is any wax left, or they are in votives, on the last day, tie them together with a string or a ribbon. Bury them or discard them together.

NEW MOON TAROT

This spread welcomes in the new moon. Arrange your altar with items that symbolize what you are calling in at this new moon. Light any cleansing herbs to clear the space, cast your circle, light candles, pull out your cards, take out your journal, and get comfortable.

Shuffle your cards, focusing on what you are ready to call into your life at this time. When you are ready, pull your cards and arrange them in front of you, in a pyramid shape, left to right, with cards 1–4 at the base, cards 5–7 in the middle, and card 8 at the top.

 

Card 1: What in my life is ready to be created during this cycle?

Card 2: How can I call this in effectively?

Card 3: How can this be expressed in a way that is evident to me, in a way I can see?

Card 4: How will this be expressed internally, in a way I can feel?

Card 5: Where must I focus my energy?

Card 6: What activities do I need to focus on more; what actions must I take?

Card 7: What must I let go of, to move forward more gracefully?

Card 8: What will a possible outcome be if I take these conscious steps?

Journal about your cards. What connects? What confuses? Make note. You may wish to meditate on your insights after journaling. What images jumped out at you? If there is a card you must embody more, how can you do so? Can you visualize yourself doing so under the new moon? Write an action plan or a schedule after processing your insights from the spread.

NEW MOON RITUALS

Rituals can help us sink into the specific energy of each moon phase. Rituals can act as guides and support through transitions. Rituals can be created to offer ourselves what we need. Rituals can help us live more intentionally.

A New Moon Cleansing Bath

The only ingredients needed for this are a place to take a bath, a candle, and a salt scrub of your preference. If you don’t have a bathtub, do this in your shower. The other ingredients are only suggestions. Add your own, based on your intuition!

You will need:

• A place to take a bath
• A scrubber/exfoliating sponge of some kind
• Salt/salt scrub blend
• Dried lavender or lavender oil
• Fresh or dried violets or violet oil
• Kunzite
• Clear quartz
• Blue kyanite
• At least one candle

As you run the water for your bath, ground and center yourself in your body. Envision what you want to invoke during this next cycle. Imagine it filling you up with colors, sensations, and images. Imagine the essence of your invocation integrating with the cells in your body. Place the herbs, salt, and crystals in the bath. Light your candle(s). Turn off the lights and slip into the bath.

Relax the body and mind. Call in hope by focusing on the word, or a calming color. Imagine tension, or the past, leaving your body. Begin scrubbing as much of your body as you can, from your toes to your neck. Once you’ve vigorously sloughed off the dead skin, take some deep breaths. Re-center. Spend as much time as you need evoking your desires and new story in your body.

Imagine the candlelight on the walls as the projector of your own new movie. Try to visualize your dreams and new behaviors coming through the flicker of the flame. Take as long as you need to create some of the scenes in the flame. Stay in the bath until you feel a shift in energy, spirit, body, flame, or all of the above.

Quickly rinse off under the shower. When you rise out of the bath, take this new energy with you into your waking life. Know that you are leaving resistance and unhelpful patterns behind you in the bath that were sucked down the drain.

Take your crystals out of the bath and place them by your bedside, on your altar, or carry them in your pockets as needed.

A New Moon Consciousness Check-in Ritual^*

Start this ritual in your bed, or just before bedtime—give yourself at least one half hour, up to about one hour.

You will need:

• A piece of paper
• A pen

On a piece of paper, at the top, write down your intention. Draw a circle that takes up the rest of the space on the page. Draw a line in the middle of the circle horizontally. This circle represents you at this new moon. The top half of the circle represents your consciousness and your intention—your awareness, affirmations, and behavior around this intention. The bottom half of the circle represents your subconscious, pre-consciousness, and your intuition—what motivates you, your core beliefs, and subconscious reactions.

Now, think about the specific consciousness your intention needs: your attention, affirmations, awareness, and behavior. Write down what emotions, tools, actions, thoughts, beliefs you must consciously focus on in the area above the line.

Think about what new subconscious beliefs and behaviors you’ll need to reorient around your intentions. Write down these beliefs, emotions, and any other insights you’ll need to prime your subconscious in the area underneath the line.

Pause and take a few deep breaths. Look at your circle. There might be a word or sentence that grabs your attention. Examine why. Make an affirmation around it.

You may wish to prime your dreamtime for more insights around that before you drift off to sleep. Ask your dreams to deliver useful information in the morning.

Leave your drawing out as a reminder for the first week after the new moon, or as long as you need to.

A New Moon Awareness Ritual

Once a day, go someplace you’ve never been and will most likely never go again (this can also take place in the mind and imagination). Move around for at least thirty minutes in this place you’ve never been.

Observe your surroundings as if you were a cosmic detective. Notice your noticing.

Practice thinking thoughts you rarely give yourself the opportunity to think—intriguing, beautiful, or loving ones. If a negative thought comes up, immediately change it to a positive or neutral one.

Try to take as long as you need to in the new space, in this new thought exercise.

Repeat this exercise for the three days directly following the new moon. Feel free to go other places. Try this exercise in your home, walking around your block, in your bed.

Record your insights in your journal.

JOURNALING PROMPTS FOR THE NEW MOON

Pick a few of these prompts to consider at the new moon:

What seeds am I planting at this new moon?

Why am I focusing on these seeds?

What is the quality of presence I must commit to, if these seeds are to grow?

What do my dreams feel like?

What are my intentions?

How can I remain curious about and engaged with my intention until the next new moon?

Where am I craving change?

Where am I afraid of change?

What must I clear away?

What are some very small habits or patterns I can change in my everyday thinking?

Who am I becoming?

What new beginnings am I ready to innovate?