Lunar Love Letter 🌒 - February 9, 2024 — Snow Moon*
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Important dates this cycle (in EST):
Lunar Cycle Duration: 2/9-3/9
New Moon: 2/9
First Quarter Moon: 2/16
Full Moon: 2/24 Snow Moon*
Third Quarter Moon: 3/3
Happy new moon energy 🌑
I hope today’s energy is finding you with peace in your heart 💚
There have been some exciting and meaningful shifts happening in my world these last weeks, and it’s been accompanied by a gamut of emotions.
Such. A. Ride.
And I still don’t feel like it’s settled. It feels like it’s about to catapult toward something — like I’m in that slow, magnificently terrifying build up of tension that requires nothing less than a wild release.
I have to keep reminding myself to breathe.
I’ve also been working a lot with the idea of community — meeting new people, deepening existing relationships that fill my heart, and reflecting on ones where the fit has gotten a bit off-kilter. It’s been extremely enlightening and heart opening, and I am all the richer for it 🙏
What about you? What’s your vibe been like? What have you noticed about your sense of community and how it does or doesn’t feel supportive? My hope is that it’s been purposeful and illuminating for you.
🎐 Let’s take a full round of breath together.
Deep inhale through your nose….
Slow exhale through the nose.
💜
This lunar cycle is for the snow moon*, dubbed so because it usually contains the snowiest days of the year and the scantest of natural resources. Those both seem doubtful where I am this year. It’s been a pretty mild winter and things already feel spring-like, both in weather and energy. And I think that’s where the energy is directing us this lunar cycle — to adapt and change while grounding into our existing supportive foundations 🌱
These full moon names are essentially descriptions based on historical records and habits, and the reality is that those things are changing at what feels like hyperspeed. There’s no avoiding it, even if you limit your exposure to news and politics and people. The change is on each of our doorsteps 🚪 — it’s in the wind that tangles our hair and jostles our coat strings. It’s arriving. Constantly.
What’s imperative is that we don’t lie down or dig our heels in too deeply to try to keep things the same.
Nature is not static.
Disregarding that would not only do her a great disservice, it would also be detrimental to our own efforts to generate more goodness in the world.
Stagnation does not progress make. And what are we if not also nature?
So while we honor where we’ve come from — what our roots are — we are also capable of intentional change, and we have the power to unite those two things to form beauty and wonder that the world has yet to set sights on 💫
How wild is that?
It’s also a leap year in the ol’ gregorian calendar, and the idea of consciously adding in a day presents a tricky energy. Part of me wants to say trickster, and maybe that’s the thing.
That is the thing — wow.
Extra knowledge, extra power, and defiance of conventions — trickster energy — the archetype that sets you free 🤹
As Emily Nagoski says, “Meaningful with a capital hmm.”
One thing I love about creating this letter is how it unfolds as I type — I never really have a destination in mind. It just pours out and seems to refine itself. And it’s in these moments that I better understand how all these smaller pieces fit together.
In therapy, much of my personal work lately has revolved around noticing how I define freedom and how I habitually find myself trying to remedy burnout reactively because I’m not proactively self nourishing upfront. I’m also efforting in living wider.
Where do these all intersect for me? In taking action rather than getting stuck in perpetual planning mode — in experience and taking risks.
I often feel unbalanced ⚖️, spending waaaaaay too much time arranging and scheduling because I do need that structure, and I also use up most of my energy on that. The scales get way out of alignment because I’m trying to perfect a plan before I even take a step.
Agency requires action.
And it requires finally shedding some old skins we’ve draped ourselves in for too long 🐍
Without noticing, I’ve developed these habits in thinking and life practices that don’t suit where I’m heading (wherever that is). And they’re ready to come off, and I feel it in the very depths of my bones. I can feel how the discomfort is stemming from having them instead of from what lies beyond them.
🌬️ That’s a big shift.
In yoga, we physically experience this by observing how our movement habits actually change our shape and movement patterns over time — just like we see bent trees coaxed into some obscure curvature by years of wind. I notice this because I love trees, and because I’m a body literacy enthusiast, and because I’m middle-aged. And what I’ve observed is that I’m wearing some of my physical and mental habits around like outdated fashion choices.
What about you? What do you notice and how does that land with you?
It’s constant work, and it can feel gross and discouraging.
And.
This is the time to assert that agency ⚡
Take action.
Do something different.
Maybe you step on the mat for the first time or try a different style of yoga. Maybe you use props. Maybe you improv some random movement that doesn’t look a thing like traditional yoga.
Break some of the rules and routines you’ve set in your own life. Wait to do the dishes in the morning. Take a mental health day already. Plan your own rest. Leave the schedule behind for a weekend.
💭 Who the fuck cares what it looks like?
We didn’t all arrive here because the generations before us played everything safe and stayed static. Let’s honor those roots and not get stuck in our own way by getting stuck in our ways.
Do something that embodies that positive trickster energy. :
What’s unconventional for you? What would feel liberating and purposeful? What would feel wild and align with your truth?
Feeling scared? Feeling excited? Feeling scited (shout out to the We Can Do Hard Things pod squad!)?
Me too 🫂
📓 I’d like to offer some journal prompts inspired by what I’ve been diving into, and offer the practice of noticing what happens in your body as you work through any of these that resonate:
What does your typical week or day look like? How often does that vary and why?
How are you honestly spending your down time?
What routines are a must for you? Why? What would realistically happen if they changed?
Where are you feeling dissatisfied in your life?
What would make you feel more alive?
What does feeling alive mean to you? What might it look like?
What do you want to remember about your life from this moment in time?
What advice or wisdom do you so very much want to pass on to someone else? (This is often something you want to hear yourself.)
What’s something new you want to open yourself up to experiencing? What’s holding you back from that? How are you holding yourself back from that?
Keep this email and work through them in your own time. Revisit them as often as feels right for you. And ask yourself questions as you’re journaling.
That’s one of my favorite approaches: having a conversation with myself and asking myself questions about what I’ve written. It might feel silly at first, but some of my favorite stories are written in the epistolary format, and no one’s going to see if it if you don’t want them to 😉
And…
I very often share what I’m journaling about with one of my most supportive friends, and it’s one of the most loving and tender experiences. They offer me support, encouragement, and bring up great points and questions I hadn’t considered and needed to hear.
So if there is a person or a community that offers you that kind of support (perhaps that you identified during the last lunar cycle’s work) might I suggest you fuel that connection?
And if you feel like sharing with me or giving your five million shiny cents on this topic, holler at me with an email reply 💌. I’d love to hear what you think.
Until then let’s all hold hands Thelma and Louise style and roll over the edge to whatever is out there beckoning us.
🪄 May our hearts and spirits find the magic of adventure and the thrill of positive mischief ✨
From my heart to yours 💜
**The moon names and phase details given here are as given on the Farmers' Almanac and Time and Date. There are many other moon names and stories from other cultures that are not included here, but I encourage you to do your own research. It’s fascinating!
All resources mentioned in this newsletter are included for research purposes only and are not affiliated with Zenful Mindings LLC.
photo credit: Brad Starkey on Unsplash
