Moon Magic

“The circle emerges wherever it is invited.” ~Christina Baldwin

Artist Unknown

It started two nights ago when I dreamt of doing a Full Moon squatting meditation – a powerful practice described by Maya Tiwari in her book The Path of Practice. In the dream, I was on the roof of a building, staring at the moon in a kind of mesmerized gaze as the four walls of the building I was on crumbled down around me and beneath me. Even though I felt a sense of danger, I could not move or look away from the Moon’s glow – drawing down her magic, drinking it in, and absorbing it into my body as though staring at her so intently could lend me some of her power. I awoke the next morning knowing that I needed to connect to that practice as this Full Moon took her rightful place in the sky last night.

The squatting meditation is reminiscent of ancient times when women squatted during their menstrual cycles as a way of returning their blood to the earth and connecting them to their Shakti power – the power that exists within women’s mysteries. As Tiwari describes, squatting has all kinds of benefits for women's health, and to me, it is one of the most comfortable positions, offering rest and grounding, and drawing me closer to my centre and closer to the earth. In combination with gazing at the Moon, there is a deep primal feeling in it as a Moon ritual – reminding me of my ancestors and how their inner and outer lives revolved around the moon’s monthly cycles. We were all Moon Sisters at one time.

As I went to the rooftop of my building last night, moving into a squat as I stared in awe at the enormity and beauty of the Supermoon, my dream came flooding back to me and I recognized that, once again, I was on the roof of a building – transfixed. The memory of the last time I did that meditation came back to me as well. It was during the Supermoon last May, which I spent at an artist’s retreat north of the city with my Full Moon Women’s Circle. After a powerful evening right before bed, the four of us went out behind the cottage, squatting down with our hands on the earth, our gaze at the Moon, the sound of a stream beside us a gentle soundtrack as the Moon took us under her spell.

Since that incredible evening of sisterhood and ritual, so many changes have found their way into our lives: one of us had a baby, two of us left our jobs, one of us went back to school, one of us is taking on new roles in her business, one of us began writing a book, and one of us is about to move across the country. It is the gentle way our circle supported us to live closer to our truths that I will remember most – a process that evolved through carrying secrets from our hearts to our lips, releasing them to a circle of women and up to the silver circle in the night sky, granting us entry to the many passages and portals that have emerged along our path.

But now, our circle enters its own cycle of death – closing in the form that held for us for two years, yet remaining forever in our hearts as the place where so many of our fears and longings were witnessed and realized – transmuted into something we could be proud of and own.

The four walls crumbling around me in my dream is our circle moving into its next form. But my commitment to these women and to that wizened circle in the sky lives on; I cannot look away. Last night in a silent prayer I renewed a promise and I listened to the Moon’s secrets as her magic filled my dreams throughout the night. It is now an offering to my sisters, an invitation, and a wish for new memories to fill our days.

My true face

“This gate marks the choice to be someone who is fully alive, a courageous explorer and adventurer who is willing to disturb the comfort of familiar roles in order to discover the true face that lies beneath family conditioning and cultural imprinting.”  ~Angeles Arrien

Artwork by Christina Garcia

On Saturday morning two weeks ago, I woke up and started my daily routine: a conversation with my husband, dream journaling, preparing a pot of tea, breakfast and a shower. A regular day, it seemed, until I included another set of morning rituals, which I’ve been experimenting with as I bring myself back into the world.

Slowly, I covered my body in essential oils, put my Goddess Rosary around my neck, and pulled out the orange and red paisley shawl given to me by my mother to adorn my shoulders. I was about to begin the second day of a three-day workshop focused on uncovering the messages and meanings behind body language, signals, and dreams as a way to engage more deeply in relationships and discover the true essence hidden behind what is seen on the surface. It was a powerful weekend, and the work was deep.

As I continue to enter more intentionally into the domains of spirituality, healing, vulnerability and shadow work – not just in the privacy of my home, but out in the world, I’m realizing the importance of protection, boundaries and self-care. Energetic protection is something that all Wise and Wild Women should know as a first line of defense. It is an essential prerequisite in maintaining physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological wellness - particularly after a time of deep inner work, when we begin the “return” after a descent, and as we slowly show the world who we are now becoming.

“In the center [of the labyrinth journey] we have been open and vulnerable. How can we emerge, still open to ourselves, but also protect ourselves in a world that moves quickly and does not recognize vulnerability?

…It is hard work with times of progression and regression as we struggle to integrate the new with the old and to truly heal.” ~Sylvia Shaindel Senensky

The journey inward leaves us naked, raw, and stripped down to the bone so we can fully absorb the gifts and truths that our everyday armor prevented from getting in. But upon our return we are still open and exposed. We need time to replenish - to develop new fat, new muscle, new skin; to trust that the inner journey has removed the masks and will eventually reveal a face that is more our own.

I came home Saturday evening from my workshop exhausted. I smudged myself with sage, then drew a bath and soaked in the tub while listening to a Tibetan prayer chant, letting the deep, repetitive sound of the monk’s voice embrace me while the waters removed any final residue from the day.

Later, as I sat in my living room, a strange feeling came over me. As the sun continued to set, withdrawing the light from the room and leaving me alone in darkness, the word initiation bubbled up from somewhere inside me, and I realized something is changing. Wearing my truth proudly on my chest, I begin the difficult work of integration – bringing the lessons of the last year with me as I develop this new skin.

What lies ahead is another beginning, another path unwinding before me and revealing a new set of births, deaths, tests and challenges. I carry with me a pouch of self-made magic – potions of protection, personal truths, courage, prayers, and newfound faith in the beauty of what is slowly forming, but cannot yet be seen.

The Wheel

"The Earth is alive and contains the knowledge you seek. It is your consciousness that determines what it reveals. How to access this knowledge? And where are the keys to open it and make it yours? The Earth speaks. Love her, honor and respect her and she will reveal her secrets."

~Barbara Marciniak

The Basin by Steven Kenny

I am walking around the perimeter of a canyon in Utah with my husband and best friend. The ridge of the canyon slopes precariously down into the depths below, and I need to watch my footing so I don’t fall. Although I’m frightened, I continue my journey around this circle, walking slowly and carefully. When I arrive back to where I began, I look down, and in the dirt I see a piece of raw amethyst, broken apart, yet very beautiful. My friend tells me I should take it. Although I want to, I feel it is a living, breathing piece of the earth, and so I choose to leave it in the wild, trusting that its healing properties will come to me when I need them. 

The passage above is from a dream I had a few days ago – a dream brimming with many other elements of nature and the Wild – porcupines shooting their quills at my feet; wild dogs chasing each other; the foundation of my house replaced with loose dirt and stones; lions stalking me; a one hundred year-old tree uprooted and threatening to kill the three women I’m protecting. They are symbols of the Wild Woman life, of facing my fears, respecting the power and unpredictability of nature, and protecting the sacred feminine that I have so carefully been nurturing over the past year. Each element of the dream represents the dangers I encounter while learning to maneuver this new territory and live within it. The beasts and natural elements that keep appearing both threaten to harm me, and save me from the sanitized world that would rather censor than embrace the creative wildness that so many women are coming to identify as the most important part of their lives. I have learned to walk alongside the contradiction by developing a kind of sensory awareness that keeps me moving in the circle, letting me know This is Right – no matter what unexpected change or threat comes my way.

But I am not alone. Wise Woman Lady Fortuna walks beside me, like the shadow of a ghost, whispering age-old wisdom to keep me on my course. So many of us are sisters in this mission, this wilding rebellion, finding ways to uproot our lives, with only the lantern of Trust and Faith to guide us as we walk those steep canyon ridges, find our courage, and learn to forge our own path, no longer willing to obey.

Today, like every birthday that has come before, I face a doorway, a passage, an opportunity to step into the unknown, and give myself permission to imagine, create, and own the messages that come to life through those whispered words of Fortuna's truth. They are Her mysteries that I am learning to hear, decipher, and make my own.

Each birthday, I calculate my Tarot Card of the Year, which provides a reference point for the year ahead, and illuminates some of the challenges, lessons, and accomplishments to come. For 2012, my card was The Hermit/Crone, and as the card indicates, it was indeed a year of withdrawal and descent, a solitary journey within. Having just climbed out of my Hermit’s hole, dirt still clinging to my skin and clothes, I look at the world with new eyes, still adjusting to the light. Feeling ready to face my 36th year, The Wheel of Fortune, or The Wheel is now my guide. The Wheel teaches about the cycles of the earth; birth, death, and rebirth; transformation; impermanence; and the laws of karma. The Wheel is also my Birth Card – the card that maps onto my year of birth, revealing broader life lessons. I can already sense this will be a big year for me. It is my year of stepping fully into circle, facilitating a process of re-membering, cyclical living, and learning from the past as a pathway to wholeness. To honour ourselves fully, the cycle must continue – accepting that death is always on the heals of every new birth, and that a re-birth follows every death.

My dream reminds me that as I leave the skin of an old life behind, tentatively walking the circular terrain of the Wild Feminine, I am closer to the earth, closer to the centre from which my Soul life flows. I walk the path with no objectives in mind, but with a growing sureness that This Way is Right. And I am excited to see what will come.

Claiming my stake

"Perhaps recognizing intuition is the easier of the tasks, but holding it in consciousness and letting live what can live, and letting die what must die, is by far the more strenuous, yet so satisfying aim." 

~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Artwork by Suhair Sibai

Today is the day I have been planning for for three months – the day when I would drive an hour north of the city to participate in a ten-day silent meditation retreat. I’ve wanted to do it for several years, and now seemed like the time.

But my body had other ideas.

Over the past few weeks, my dreams have been increasingly dramatic and frightening: being chased by zombies, strange people trying to break into the house, and mind control. It culminated in the most recent dream where I was responsible for draining the life essence from people’s brains until I finally snapped out of it and managed to get out of that horror scene before it was too late. This last dream reminded me so much of Jim Henson’s 1982 film The Dark Crystal, it gave me full-body shivers. “I get the message”, I kept trying to tell myself. These were the kinds of dreams I was having frequently before I left my job, and likely, I am still processing the impact of a work environment that felt Soul sucking. The sadness and loss that followed my awakening are still with me, re-lived in my dreams through coded images and nightmarish scenes. It’s been a slow process of healing.

Many months of learning to tune into my body and taking care of my needs like never before – getting enough sleep, eating the right foods, and following the structures that feel right rather than what I have to do or what I should do has been the foundation of it all - and deeply nourishing for me.

But things took a turn last Thursday when the symptoms of a chronic health issue re-emerge stronger than they have in the last 10 months. Concerned about how that would impact my upcoming retreat, I took extra care of myself – and it helped, a bit.

But last night, as I prepared for my trip, my symptoms worsened. Seriously frustrated now, I called my best friend for advice.

My main concern was not feeling strong and healthy as I entered what I knew would be a deeply rewarding, yet incredibly challenging process. Based on the feedback of friends who have participated in or taught this type of meditation, I knew it would be physically, mentally and emotionally challenging. I desperately wanted to face that challenge, and yet, my body protested.

Do I plow ahead and ignore my health, or stay home and feel like a failure before I even begin? The question kept circling, offering no answer, no easy way out. Not knowing which way was right, or which truth was mine, I felt caught in a self-imposed trap of fear, anxiety, “shoulds” and some image of myself that I was not living up to. Like a straightjacket I had already escaped, I was trapped in a cruel joke coming back to me, reminding me that owning this thing I call personal authority is a daily practice, not something I can accomplish and file away.

When the tears of frustration caused so much strain in my throat that I found it difficult to speak, I realized the answer could not be found through words. So I got off the phone and did the only thing I knew to do. I went to my altar, lit a candle, got down on my knees and prayed to the Goddess.

The Goddess is the one who answers my call. She's whoever I need Her to be. She is my maternal grandmother, who died before I was born but continues to watch over and protect me; She is Hecate, who’s crone wisdom comforts me and reminds me I am not alone; She is Ishtar who guides me through the dark shadows of my fears; She is Yemaya, who helps me remember my creative gifts; and She is my Higher Self or Soul Voice, reminding me that the answers I seek are not far away.

Patiently, I waited for the answer, and while I waited, I breathed, slowly remembering a faith that was so easily misplaced only moments before.

Finally, I heard the words I needed to hear, and everything began to fall into place.

After 35 years of following someone else’s rules, someone else’s structures, some authority other than my own – parents, school, work, bosses, teachers – this time is now mine. Time for nurturing, regaining self-trust, freedom to explore on my own terms.

This is the truth that I will continue to claim.

The nightmares haunting me in recent weeks finally fitting into place, I realized that ten days of learning to control my mind is not what I need right now.

My choice not to do the retreat doesn’t mean that I don't believe in this kind of meditation or that I won’t do it in the future. It doesn’t mean I’m opposed to structure or education – far from it. But for now, trusting my own authority has to come first. It must.

Although I will not be sitting in a rural Ontario meditation centre for the next ten days, I am still holding this time as sacred, spent in a personally crafted Self Love Retreat – where I will continue to excavate the truth I’ve come so far to know.