Thursday, January 11th
New Moon
In Capricorn 20°44’
03:57 am PT

Reality Checks: New Moon in Capricorn
by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener

 If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid My angels will take flight as well. — Rilke

Not all New Moons feel sparkling new or are a reset. Some of them teach us new ways of being with the old, the difficult, the impossible. Within this alchemical process, acceptance is a crucial step, creating space for insight, for eventual ways forward.

Part of the struggle might come from buckling under the expectations of others or the expectations you’ve created for yourself, based on unrealistic or harmful internalizations. The audience in your head sneakily distorts the truth with judgments disguised as facts. An audience, especially in this digital age, expects both perfection and authenticity simultaneously—which is impossible.

Choose authenticity.

I began this year’s edition unsettled. Usually, I go away to nature alone and conduct a ritual to initiate the channeling I do. The pines whisper roadmaps and birds chirp with the fervor of one million rememberings. The endless Joshua Tree sky affirms the splendor of infinite space, play, and the field of Many Moons becomes an embrace of the visions unfolding all around us. This year, financial constraints and chronic illness and intuition told me to stay put while beginning this edition, close to dogs, bed, frugality, and all the comforts of home.

Usually, I am grounded, clear, and available. This year, I felt almost too messy to be a steward of such sacredness for so many: my identity is a compost heap, I’ve joked multiple times. No amount of Pema Chödrön quotes could address the quandary of the groundlessness within, though they certainly could describe it with precision.

I sit down to share and write this entry to you, sweet human, as another human in a period of transition: not yet able to fully let go of one way of being, not yet sure enough of the next direction to stomp toward it with certainty. I'm still trying on certain ideas and identities, then casting them off, because they aren’t quite right, like a grown-ass version of Goldilocks. Still wobbly, like the knees of a three-hour-old deer.

Embodying uncertainty, and then understanding there is no need to know, then releasing that need, has done wonders for the ego and nervous system. Not so much for my confidence and motivation.

Just surrender, just let go, I repeat to myself.
An unchanging identity is a myth.
There is no safety in fixed-ness, security is an illusion. Reinvention is only one decision, one afternoon, one inhale away.

— Excerpt from the 2024 Many Moons Lunar Planner. To read the rest of Sarah's exclusive essay and, get your copy of Many Moons.

Order your copy of the 2024 edition HERE!