Lunar Love Letter 🌒 - March 10, 2024 — Worm Moon*

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Important dates this cycle (in EST): 

Lunar Cycle Duration: 3/10-4/7
New Moon: 3/10
First Quarter Moon: 3/17
Full Moon: 3/25 Worm Moon*
Third Quarter Moon: 4/1

Happy new moon, friend 🌑

This occasion marks the one-year anniversary of the lunar love letter, and what an enlightening and extraordinary journey this has been so far! How’s it been for you?

I’m so grateful for the intention and purposeful energy that it’s brought into my life and business. This is a practice and ritual that I’m still growing and exploring, and I hope that curiosity never settles — it’s become a profound source of magic ✨

And hey – a special thank you from my heart to yours for coming along with me. I’m glad we can commune together in this shared digital space 💜

—

This past lunar cycle focused a lot on shifting and active energy. Did you try new things? What happened? What did you notice? 

I welcomed some new things in my life and also started purging and rearranging things to make room for new energy. It’s been unnerving and a bit scary at times, but overall it feels quite lovely and roomier. And the most remarkable thing is that I found I didn’t have to combat such resistance as is typical for me 😸

This new lunar cycle centers around the Worm Moon*, last year’s last full moon of Winter, but this year’s first full moon of Spring – a shift indeed.

Spring and Aries season are so very close right now, and the energy feels lighter. Not like it was a long and hard winter where we had to endure typical weather struggles, but like the world is quaking at its knees for hope and promise. 

There’s this stage of growth and evolution where the old stuff just doesn’t fit the same anymore and you become so consciously aware of it, and the new stuff isn’t quite ready to put on just yet. You’re in this liminal space exercising the most precious of patience, and sometimes doing an ugly job of it (or feeling like you are), and you just feel like you’re waiting and you’re ready to pounce and you know the general direction, but you’re waiting to do…...something. But what exactly?

❓Good question.

It occurred to me that I’m asking the wrong question. It’s not about what we should be doing. 

It’s about allowing.

And here we are — back in this productivity/active action/do do do mindset. And yet. I wonder to myself — isn’t allowing “doing” something? It’s making a choice. Yes. However. But. And yet. It’s not taking a direct action. It’s a passive approach. 

And I think we routinely associate passivity with weakness or something negative. But. However. And yet. To allow something is just seeing what happens. To not exert force over it. To give it space to spread out and do what it’s going to do. 

And I have a really hard time with that. How about you?

I like to control things. Or at least think I can. In therapy I’ve learned this is a very typical response and way of life for people like me who have PTSD. So it’s totally normal and makes sense.

And.

I don’t like it.

One side effect of subconsciously trying to maintain this control is mass tension in my body that repeats like some terrible b-side of a cassette tape, and it keeps coming off the spool, so my inner child, inner teenager, and current adult self are all sitting on the floor with a pencil trying to wind it back up 👀

It is physically hurting my body. It’s aggravating. It makes me unpleasant and less patient way more often than I’d like. 

It recently occurred to me that all this time I’ve been asking how to release the tension. How to get rid of it. But the tension is just a symptom. A better question here is how do I release the effort of the control that’s leading to the tension? Because that’s the habit I fall into. I fall into the habit. The effort. The thinking I need to do something.

I very much realize that my body has been conditioned to confuse tension and strength. Physically I am capable of many things, but it's not just because of efficient muscle. It’s aided by areas of my body not meant for those tasks in such a habitual way, which leads to tension city. And that’s limiting how I can grow my physical practice and find ease in my body.

And. Because how we use our physical bodies affects our mental, emotional, and energetic states, this is all trickling into these other areas of my life. 

What a fucking racket. 

So it’s time for a (more passive) shakedown, and I’m doing that with a simple word/energy combo — the ol’ mantra/intention (a beloved classic 😉).

These two mantras are buzzing all over my brain:

I release the effort of control.

I do not confuse control with strength.

I’m taking these into my daily yoga and somatic practices and noticing what happens. Maybe I journal, maybe I talk about it. That doesn't so much matter right now. What does is that these particular mantras feel like less pressure and more like allowing possibility, and that’s helping me stick to this simple practice and stay curious.

This feels like the nature of springtime — sow the seed, step back, and let nature take its course to see what blooms

You’re more than welcome to use these mantras or alter them so they better resonate with you. Or come up with something that meets you where you’re at and feels less active and pounce-y than you might normally be inclined to pick. Let’s get simple and organic.

I’d love to hear what you’re noticing if you feel up to sharing 💌, and whatever happens, let’s let our energy cosmically mingle and commune in support. 

🪄 May we remain open to witnessing the possibilities we naturally have ✨

From my heart to yours 💜

photo credit: Jen Theodore on Unsplash