Howls and Hiccups: May Waning Moon

Hello beautiful human beings! Crossing the street, picking up trash, calling your mother, smelling the peonies, sticking up for yourself, stretching and running, quietly sobbing in the shower, kissing your dog on the forehead and leaving lipstick traces, perusing your credit card bill, sipping that iced tea. Hello!

We just crossed over from Last Quarter into the Waning Moon phase. We are about 5 days away from the New Moon. Maybe you are still trying to process messages or meanings that popped up for you during the last Full Moon. Maybe it is very, very clear by now what you are ready to let go of. Like, breathtakingly apparent.

This is the time to do so.

In my own practice of living as a wonderful, thriving, loving, feeling, fucked up, flawed person on this wild, unbelievable, heaven-and-hell-on-earth Earth, no matter how weebly wobbly or completely controlled one's daily life is, it is remarkable the patterns that pop up if only we pay attention. How we trade one addiction (smoking) for another (social media). How we berate ourselves now that we are Queens in the same manner as we did when we were living under an unkind person's roof. Our fear-based thoughts, attempting to take over and live as an unwelcome yet nurtured subletter in the temples of our brains and bodies.

You just can't hide from that which threatens to take you down.

You can run, you can push aside, you can ignore. It will stay there, the elephant in the room of your life, your sadness, your gifts.

It is there, and will stay there, until you decide to deal with it. The pattern may still always faintly be there, like the faded corner of the book cover you left for too long in the sun. It is how you address it, how you choose to view it, that changes the relationship and ultimately the power dynamic inherent there.

During this Waning Moon time, I invite you to pay attention to what is a diversion, what is a distraction, and how often you spend your time in it. How addicted are you to the negative thoughts and feelings that bubble up, in howls or in hiccups? How much needs to be let out, how much needs to be let go of?

Release feels uncomfortable. It is a pause. Release and letting go is something that is practiced, over and over again. Until the lump in the throat doesn't threaten to burst into flames. Until a knee jerk becomes a slow breath. Again and again.

Some activities supported during the Waning Moon activities, magickal or otherwise.

Detox from technology. Glued to your phone? Maybe try checking it once an hour instead of every 6 minutes. According to Time Magazine, the average American checks their smartphone 46 times a day, spending up to 5 hours a day in the tech void.

Detox from food patterns and habits. This is a great time to focus on what you are eating and why, to go on a cleanse, or to simply detox from harmful, chemical-laden processed foods. Put the focus on hydrating. If you don't like water, drink herbal tea or seltzer with lime or lemon and bitters.

Tie up loose ends. Pay bills, clean out a drawer or a closet, make those lingering appointments, wrap up those annoying to-do items and make it a habit of throwing out, donating, or getting rid of what you can.

Get quiet. Talk less. Listen more. Wait, take a longer time to outwardly react.

Do a banishing ritual. Burn what you aren't taking with you anymore. Write down what you are ready to see pass out of your life during the next three months. Be very clear in your wording. Note whether you are banishing "the cigarettes" or "the dependence on the cigarettes". Underneath that might actually be: "My refusal to let myself feel emotionally uncomfortable, my reluctance to reward myself with healthy behaviors and activities." And so forth. Maybe you are letting go of decades of self-punishment when you do something remarkable or sparkling. You can break glass, scream, crack an egg at the crossroads at midnight. You can burn paper or a totemic object then bury that in a symbolic place. You can release it lovingly into the fire, into the earth, into the air, into water.

Focus on cord-cutting and lightening up energetic baggage. Every morning, meditate. Call back your energy; this might be to an old place, relationship, or thought pattern. Focus on returning energy that is not yours into the Earth, into the Sun, with love. Visualize a glowing light surrounding you like a strong, impenetrable pod of love. Only love and kindness gets to pass through it.

Try doing one of these things for the next 5 days, and see how you feel.

LA! I'm teaching a Moonbeaming Workshop at the Women's Center for Creative Work this Wednesday. It is at 7 pm. You can sign up here.

Thursday at 7:30 I am leading a Dark Moon guided meditation and sound bath, also at the Women's Center for Creative Work. It is $5-$10 sliding scale.