The best part of the Many Moons publications is getting to collaborate with one-of-a-kind magic makers. For the April Full Moon of the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner, Babette Burrell gifted us a renewing spring cleaning ritual. Babette is a magical, constantly changing container that creates handmade pieces, reads Tarot, works in the akashic records, hosts creative workshops, and so much more.

Learn more about Babette below:

Hi Babette! I’m wondering if you could share a bit with about yourself and your practice.

I’m coming out of a time of being defined by what I do to just being. I’m a Scorpio rising, Aquarius sun, and Aries moon if that helps. At the moment, I am literally feeling my way through life. I’m following my instincts as much as I can. I’m moving towards what makes me happy more and more, and I’m trusting that in all situations that everything is going as it should and that I am alright.

I know you that you are a spiritual practitioner. Reiki is among them. What has Reiki helped you with?

I can get lost in the process, I love process. The idea that all these different processes exist that we are aware and unaware of: from the impact of the outer spaces of the universe down to the mitochondria that exist in each cell. I'm blown away by the connection between all the many factors that maintain our existence. My personal Reiki practice connects me to all of these processes by both going into the body and exploring its relationship with the universe, and coming to terms that it is the universe. All that is outside is found within us. It brings me to the border of everything and nothing, and shows me that both are the same.

For your piece for the Planner, you focused a cleaning ritual. Do you often intentionally clean? What are your favorite, everyday rituals?

I actually love cleaning—again, process. I may be a bit compulsive in my obsession for a clean home, because home for me functions as a place of healing and sanctuary for me and my family, so I’m ok with that. My mental health relies heavily on having a healthy home to come home to after navigating and negotiating life as a black woman.

That said, I don’t have much time to dedicate to doing the actual cleaning of my home. Good thing I have children. I delegate the day to day chores of doing dishes, making beds, etc., to my children as much as I can. For the actual physical clean, I have my wonderful friend Jay, owner of Love Only Cleaning services, and her team come in and transform my space every other week. This doesn’t mean that my space is always spotless, I have two boys and a dog after all. It just means that I get to focus a bit more time towards maintaining the energy of my home and my sanity.

At the end of the day my home is a container for me, the people I love and all that I own and I’ve developed a bit of a shopping habit over the years as a part of my ‘self care’. I no longer want to walk in and immediately feel the weight of it all. Lately I’ve been focused on shifting the energy of my home by clearing it of stagnant energy and things I no longer need. I’m in the middle of a monumental purge. My new favorite ritual has been picking a drawer, closet, cupboard or shelf, and trying to reduce its contents by half. I’m renegotiating my frame of reference for what I actually need and how having what I need makes me feel

My new, favorite daily cleaning ritual has been taking out the garbage/donations each night. At the end of the day, I gather up the bags from the garbage bins, and donations set aside from what has been decluttered from my home, wash my hands, get some herbs—usually rose, calendula and lavender—walk around my house doing a dry smudge, because one of my kids has asthma. When I’m done I use any herbs that remain and roll them up into a joint, take the garbage out and go for my nightly walk. Depending on what I’m letting go of or need to release, my walk can be 10 minutes or 3+ hours . When I’m done, I return lighter to the space that feels lighter as well.

What is your current favorite Moon phase? Why?

My favorite Moon phase is the New Moon. For the last year, my cycle has been starting with the New Moon—I get to come undone and feel fully without filtering the extent of my emotions in the womb of the Dark Moon. The darkness of the New Moon offers me a space of protection where I can focus on my own personal renewal without an audience, because it’s so internal. It reminds me that no matter how deep in the cellar I might be, the door opens to a magnificent bright light. It always gets better.

What are a couple of things that you are excited about? Why?

This is the first time in my life I’ve had no concrete plan, and no idea what comes next. I usually have it all planned out. My mother’s passing almost 2 years ago opened my heart to life. Like actually living it, experiencing it, because this is it, and our time here on earth is so short.

This is both exciting and overwhelming for me. Letting go of the traditional idea of what productivity and work look like, and moving towards a life of ease is a hard battle because the mind is strong. I want to spend the majority of my time enjoying it as much as I can. Once I made this switch, the universe has met me at every step.

I’ve also started making more time for my hands. I’ve always had a hand fetish of sorts: hands hold the potential for healing. My hands have always been my strength, but making time and space for creating things outside of what is done for work used to be hard. I now have more time to explore the extent of knowledge held in my hands. They hold memory. Half the shit I've done in my life, from catching babies to making kombucha, has been a result of cellular knowledge transfer through my hands. When I was a midwife, my hands would do things my conscious mind had no memory of learning, yet the knowledge was right there in my hands. Just mind blowing all the knowledge and power our hands hold.

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