June 1st: First Quarter Moon

Starting Here, Starting Now

Happy First Quarter Moon! We shift into Waxing Gibbous in a couple of days. It is eight days until June's Full Moon.

Many people involved in magic, self-development, and manifestation are constantly focusing on what they are working on attaining. Thinking about achievements, projects, and where next to go. Goals, gains, the future. That is all super admirable and wonderful, but sometimes getting tripped up in the future prohibits us from experiencing the gifts of the present. What about the process of just living, being? You aim for something, make sacrifices, or cast a spell because on one level you think that will make you feel better. It will solve a certain problem. And to a certain extent it will.

There is also the danger of overlooking the current situation, what is right in front of you—overlooking feelings of appreciation and forgetting to relax into the moment. The current moment that happens to be the only opportunity to reset programming and summon, through ease and gratitude, the future around the bend. Another issue here can be a perfectionist tendency inherent in overachievement: a shaming rigidity. It can stop people from starting anything, as the beginnings of everything are messy. The perfectionist is brutal in her self-blame.

Well, guess what? It will never be perfect. You will always be flawed and imperfect. Our model for true perfection is nature. The clouds above our crown, the paper thin silver peeling bark of the birch, the pea sprouts coming up in the dawn's dappled light. Yet even nature is imperfect. Rot and decay. Bones and rust. The gnarled trunk of an old tree will never be on a magazine cover.

Try one of a few suggested experiments during this next week.

1. Start something that you've been putting off in part because you feel it might be messy. Uncontrollable. Not wrapped up tight, glossy and retouched. It will take the power of the present moment to bring you back into your process, back into the task of trust, of feeling better about what the present actually is, not what it could be. At the very least, try being in the present moment of consciousness, connecting with your own personal flow.

2. Do the very least of what you need to get done for work, life, deadlines, etc. Don't pile anything new on your plate or create more tasks on top of your bare minimum. Don't reach out to anyone or make more obligations or plans for yourself. Don't run to filling up your time with scrolling or texting or mindless media consumption. Instead, when your day is done, spend time either doing nothing or in restful activities. Go to the spa, read, give yourself facials, message your feet, drink iced tea, lie on the couch with cucumbers on your eyes, experiment with being in the moment, feeling your body. Ask of nothing but ease, calm, and relaxation. Feel it into your body with your breath and give yourself the space to follow your inclination.

This is an excerpt from Many Moons Vol 1.  Order Volume 2 here.

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