Lunar Love Letter 🌒 - September 14, 2023 — Harvest Moon*
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Important dates this cycle (in EST):
Lunar Cycle Duration: 9/14-10/13
New Moon: 9/14 ← we are here
First Quarter Moon: 9/22
Autumn Equinox: 9/23
Full Moon: 9/29 Harvest Moon*
Last Quarter Moon: 10/6
Happy good day to your wonderful, magical heart 💜
And happy new moon 🌑
We are sooooveryclose to my favorite time of year, but before I start drooling all over Autumn, how did your exploration with the Yamas and Niyamas go? What did you find interesting? Challenging? Enlightening?
I really appreciated the opportunity to self-reflect in this particular way. It helped me see how much I’ve evolved over the past few years since I first encountered these in my yoga teacher training, and it helped me see a few things I was having trouble admitting were bogging me down.
Which is a pretty big pill to swallow.
But it’s important because those things need to be let go. I can’t confuse them with roots.
Roots stabilize while unnecessary weights hold us down. We can’t grow in a balanced way with them hanging off our branches. And I want the freedom to rise up toward the sky 🌄
I love freedom so much.
I love it as a sensation, as a lightness, as an experience ✨
I just fucking love it. I want to slurp it up from a bottomless cup 🥤and never feel satiated.
When I finally quit smoking, the thing that made the difference is that I craved freedom more than anything I could get from a cigarette. I wanted out of the habit, out of the timesuck, out of the feeling like shit because of it. Freedom was such a big motivator for me, and I realize how much I’ve done in pursuit of it, and how much I’m willing to do.
And that’s what I’m exploring this lunar cycle, under the powerful harvest moon* 🌕
I think we can all commiserate with feeling not free enough. We’re bound to schedules and bills and rules and dress codes and other inane containers that we had no say in creating. But freedom — the sweet, sweet nectar of freedom — comes in a variety of forms in many different moments. And isn’t that part of why we do this hard work to begin with? So we can feel more free?
❓But what does that mean?
It’s different in varying contexts and from person to person. I personally have a much easier time explaining how it feels to be constrained, so do I really know what freedom feels like when it’s in balance with the practicalities of how we function in a society? What does freedom feel like in that scenario?
Or a better question: how do I want it to feel? 🤔
I can’t say I know really well, and I want to explore that. Will you join me?
I see a lot of journaling and inner listening happening this month, and I’m mega interested in hearing from different points of view (I mean yours!) 👀
❓When you think of freedom, what are two or three words that immediately pop up?
There’s no right answer, and I think it’s a worthy exercise to figure out what our mindset currently is.
For me, I’m starting with these: ease and uncontained.
They’ve recently popped up in my meditations and magic and curious wonderments. And I can sense how they are in relationship with freedom, but I don’t intimately know them, and that brings me great sadness. I do know I want to embody them more fully, so this is where my personal exploration starts.
What about you? Jot yours down somewhere to get started, and let’s create a production out of it together 🖌️
Keep your eyes peeled for some journal prompts and inspiration, and let me know how it’s going for you by sharing what comes up on the social medias or in an email 💌. And for fuck’s sake, let’s try not to take ourselves too seriously 🤭
🪄May this lunar cycle show us light in dim spaces ✨
*The moon names and phase details given here are as given on the Farmers' Almanac website. 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.
