I used to be disconnected with the flow of the moon, just as I was disconnected with the flow of my body. I didn’t know where and how the moon was, and didn’t care. Just like I thought I was supposed to show up and deliver each and every day in the same way, regardless of how my body felt, I used to think that the moon had nothing to do with me. Nothing to teach me. Nothing to remind me.
As I grew older and started to get closer to my body, I started noticing how connected my body and emotions were to the moon. I discovered it was much deeper that the common saying that people get nervous around the full moon (“the crazies get crazier” I heard in Belgium). I noticed my energies and my emotions flowing with the moon like an ocean, just as my menstrual cycle follows closely the changes of the moon.
Like a tide, I can feel my energies rising and pouring out as the moon becomes fuller. And my energies slowly flowing inward as the moon gets thinner. In the days leading to the full moon, energies are intensifying and bubbling up, to be released and cleared during the full moon. That’s also why it is said that a lot of births happen around the full moon. Then, on the days leading to the new moon, the tide slowly withdraws and our energies move back to the core of our bodies. For us to be still and reconnect with ourselves. To set intentions and plant the seeds for the next month.
The new moon is the time to plant the seeds into the darkness of the earth, trusting that it will take root and grow, and emerge to the light in its own time. The day before the new moon is also the hindu celebration of Shivaratri. The darkest night of the month celebrates Lord Shiva, who is Pure Space. Lord Shiva is so powerful because He Is All That Is. Light has a source, a direction, a quality. Darkness/Pure Space IS: it has no source, no beginning and no end. It is eternal and encompasses everything. That is Shiva.
In our society, we have come to praise the light and distrust darkness. We came to equate dark with negativity, fear, danger, low vibration. “Keeping someone in the dark” means not telling the truth. Dark came to mean the absence of light, of warmth, of life. Reaching inward, we can start to differentiate between the concept of darkness as absence and the darkness that is pure space, infinity, all that is. The darkness that is full. The darkness that is inviting us into the mystery of life, that is inviting us to sit in the night and feel the universe we have inside. The darkness that invites us to dig our hands in the dirt and plant the seeds for tomorrow. The darkness that means trust in the miracle of life and trust in a well-meaning universe.
The new moon is precious for me because it helps me reconnect with my immortal nature. When the new moon approaches, I have visions of the magic of Mother Nature spontaneously come to me. The richness of the soil under my feet, the slow dripping of crystal water in a cave down under, the quietness of the wind on a starry night. And I feel our place as humans in this big universe. I feel in my bones the women before me who gave birth, the blood running from their womb down to the earth. I feel the man who killed an animal and put a knee on the ground to thank the spirit of the being who will nourish him and those he loves. And it’s important.
In these times of shifts, unrest and fear, when so much hate and inequality are being unveiled, it’s important to stay in the light and it’s important to stay grounded. It’s important to go walk under the stars, feel the wind on your skin and give thanks to this beautiful universe that you are part of, that has been here for so long and will still be there long after you leave this body. This universe that would be less, that would be incomplete if you were not there.
That’s what the magic of the new moon brought me today.