January 2024 New Moon
Read Sarah Gottesdiener's January 2024 New Moon in Capricorn essay and ritual from the 2024 Many Moons Lunar Planner.
October 2021 New Moon
Safety in Self: Trauma-Informed Protection Magic
Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
New Moon in Libra at 4:05am PST
Content warning: This piece names trauma, but does not go into detail. The exercises and suggestions in this piece do not take the place of therapy or medical advice. It is deeply encouraged to work with a trauma-informed therapist if you feel that is needed.
This month’s New Moon is the last lunation before our last Eclipse season of the year. This Libra New Moon is a beautiful time for getting grounded. It supports moving towards balance and self-acceptance. Recommended activities for the next few months are shadow work, rest, release, clearing, forgiveness exercises, kitchen witchery, candle magic, subconscious repatterning work, emotional alchemy, intuitive and psychic development, ancestor magic, and dancing with the wild.
When the protagonist enters the woods of mystery, they need a way to get back out. An oft-repeated motif in fairy tales is certain symbols that guide and anchor the wanderer: bread crumbs, their horse, a golden-tinged gift from a tree, a witch, or a supernatural object. As you go deeper into the underworld and cross different thresholds of consciousness, consider investing in protection magic.
While all magic is visionary, it is informed by reality. Our world values some folk’s safety more than others. We can then internalize this. White supremacy and the political system that supports it harasses, policies, punishes, and terrorizes certain races and bodies. The dominant hierarchal ideology supports the safety of a few privileged identities at the expense of all the others. The media broadcasts these messages with trauma porn, victim-blaming, and harmful narratives. Some specific identities will be able to access feeling safe, feeling secure, and being protected more easily. Some bodies are more threatened by the state, more attacked by policies. It isn’t always reasonable to expect everyone to heal in the same ways. Don’t blame yourself if trauma, identity, your past, and/or the state of the world make it more challenging for you to feel safe.
Safety is everyone’s birthright. In a world seemingly designed to make us feel unsafe, it is all the more important to practice ways of feeling safe in our body, our mind, our Self.
Protection magic is healing because it affirms that we are allowed to feel safe and protected. For those of us with more privilege or access to feelings of, or actual, safety, our protection magic must include helping others to experience more security as well. When we learn how to protect ourselves, we protect others. When we use our voice to advocate for ourselves, we create a world where boundaries and consent are normalized and abuse is not.
Learning how to regulate our nervous systems helps us create new beginnings around trust. This can heal the triggers of past trauma, which can create new pathways of hope. This realignment acts as an anchor and guide for another brave witch to boldly embark on their own adventure.
—Excerpt from the 2021 Many Moons Lunar Planner. Pre-order the 2022 edition by clicking here!
This month’s New Moon is the last lunation before our last Eclipse season of the year. This Libra New Moon is a beautiful time for getting grounded. It supports moving towards balance and self-acceptance. Recommended activities for the next few months are shadow work, rest, release, clearing, forgiveness exercises, kitchen witchery, candle magic, subconscious repatterning work, emotional alchemy, intuitive and psychic development, ancestor magic, and dancing with the wild.
When the protagonist enters the woods of mystery, they need a way to get back out. An oft-repeated motif in fairy tales is certain symbols that guide and anchor the wanderer: bread crumbs, their horse, a golden-tinged gift from a tree, a witch, or a supernatural object. As you go deeper into the underworld and cross different thresholds of consciousness, consider investing in protection magic.
While all magic is visionary, it is informed by reality. Our world values some folk’s safety more than others. We can then internalize this. White supremacy and the political system that supports it harasses, policies, punishes, and terrorizes certain races and bodies. The dominant hierarchal ideology supports the safety of a few privileged identities at the expense of all the others. The media broadcasts these messages with trauma porn, victim-blaming, and harmful narratives. Some specific identities will be able to access feeling safe, feeling secure, and being protected more easily. Some bodies are more threatened by the state, more attacked by policies. It isn’t always reasonable to expect everyone to heal in the same ways. Don’t blame yourself if trauma, identity, your past, and/or the state of the world make it more challenging for you to feel safe.
Safety is everyone’s birthright. In a world seemingly designed to make us feel unsafe, it is all the more important to practice ways of feeling safe in our body, our mind, our Self.
Protection magic is healing because it affirms that we are allowed to feel safe and protected. For those of us with more privilege or access to feelings of, or actual, safety, our protection magic must include helping others to experience more security as well. When we learn how to protect ourselves, we protect others. When we use our voice to advocate for ourselves, we create a world where boundaries and consent are normalized and abuse is not.
Learning how to regulate our nervous systems helps us create new beginnings around trust. This can heal the triggers of past trauma, which can create new pathways of hope. This realignment acts as an anchor and guide for another brave witch to boldly embark on their own adventure.
—Excerpt from the 2021 Many Moons Lunar Planner. Pre-order the 2022 edition by clicking here!
- Tags: New Moon
