December 2023 Full Moon
Read Sarah Faith Gottesdiener's Full Moon in Cancer essay and affirmations for this lunation from the 2023 Many Moons Lunar Planner.
October 2023 Full Moon Lunar Eclipse
Saturday, October 28th
Full Moon
Partial Lunar Eclipse
in Taurus 5°09'
1:23 pm PT
Creation in Destruction, Life in Death by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
All successful life is
Adaptable,
Opportunistic,
Tenacious,
Interconnected, and
Fecund.
Understand this.
Use it.
Shape God.
— Octavia E. Butler
Happy Halloween! Happy Full Moon!
This is the last Eclipse in the sign of tropical Taurus for about a decade, but the next time we’ll experience a Lunar Eclipse will be in five months, around the equinox. This Eclipse season ushered in even more change on top of this capital C Change year. The whole year has had countless tumultuous moments, surprising realizations, and pockets of potholes alongside real victories.
Under this lunation, we inch toward the darkest days of the year, when all the energy flows down to our roots. The ancestors beckon, as do all sorts of ghosts: the past, some regrets, and depression. Turn toward quiet magic, and remember that more darkness means more time to rest, which is part of any alchemical process. More darkness means more time to recover, compost, and germinate. Clear out stagnant energy by anchoring into the present time. You can’t change the past, but you can change the way you relate to it and learn from it.
The Earth keeps communicating what is most important, and what will happen if they continue to be ignored. Our food systems must change; the way we treat bodies must change. The temporary and the infinite, what is truly important versus not, and where we put our attention and energy all demand a reworking. The ways we relate to our true nature, to pleasure, to abundance, all are getting radical overhauls. Now you must ask what you have learned about your relationship to the Earth, to your trauma, with your energy, and with divine timing. This time of the year—Samhain, in some European and American traditions—correlates to facing our demons and, in doing so, restoring our full power and magic. Some of our most potent energy is imprisoned in the shadows; if not allowed expression, this trapped energy will destroy us. Any unresolved past imprints will continue to haunt us if we don’t alchemize them by first bringing them into the light.
This year served as a runway for major departures: some unexpected, others self-determined. There have been beautiful moves toward truer dreams, and more authentic expressions of self have been uncovered, which has resulted in some triumphant homecomings: the more you moved away from some familiar situations, the closer you got to yourself.
This is the last Eclipse in the sign of tropical Taurus for about a decade, but the next time we’ll experience a Lunar Eclipse will be in five months, around the equinox. This Eclipse season ushered in even more change on top of this capital C Change year. The whole year has had countless tumultuous moments, surprising realizations, and pockets of potholes alongside real victories.
Under this lunation, we inch toward the darkest days of the year, when all the energy flows down to our roots. The ancestors beckon, as do all sorts of ghosts: the past, some regrets, and depression. Turn toward quiet magic, and remember that more darkness means more time to rest, which is part of any alchemical process. More darkness means more time to recover, compost, and germinate. Clear out stagnant energy by anchoring into the present time. You can’t change the past, but you can change the way you relate to it and learn from it.
The Earth keeps communicating what is most important, and what will happen if they continue to be ignored. Our food systems must change; the way we treat bodies must change. The temporary and the infinite, what is truly important versus not, and where we put our attention and energy all demand a reworking. The ways we relate to our true nature, to pleasure, to abundance, all are getting radical overhauls. Now you must ask what you have learned about your relationship to the Earth, to your trauma, with your energy, and with divine timing. This time of the year—Samhain, in some European and American traditions—correlates to facing our demons and, in doing so, restoring our full power and magic. Some of our most potent energy is imprisoned in the shadows; if not allowed expression, this trapped energy will destroy us. Any unresolved past imprints will continue to haunt us if we don’t alchemize them by first bringing them into the light.
This year served as a runway for major departures: some unexpected, others self-determined. There have been beautiful moves toward truer dreams, and more authentic expressions of self have been uncovered, which has resulted in some triumphant homecomings: the more you moved away from some familiar situations, the closer you got to yourself.
Some of the departures were somber and serious: better boundaries, lines drawn in the sand that healed ancestral lines as well, break-ups, intense conflict, leaving relationships or careers that had been built with much love and much investment, and real identity deaths. Radically new dreams have been birthed from decay and decimation.
— Excerpt from the 2023 Many Moons Lunar Planner. To read the rest of Sarah Faith Gottesdiener's Partial Lunar Eclipse essay and access the Composting Ceremony ritual for this Eclipse, get your copy of Many Moons. The benefit edition is here. The digital edition is here.
