Lunar Love Letter 🌒 - Apr 20 2023

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Important dates this cycle (in EST): 

Lunar Cycle Duration: 4/20-5/18

New Moon: 4/20

First Quarter Moon: 4/27

Full Moon:5/5 Flower Moon*

Last Quarter Moon: 5/12

Happy greetings to your beautiful heart and soul 💜

How are you feeling in your heart and spirit? What do your toes feel like today? Your fingers? Around your eyes? 

I like these spots because they’re tiny windows into how we’re experiencing the moment. If you’re tense, usually these reflect that 🖐️.

In the last lunar love letter, I invited you to get to know some different facets of yourself. How has that been going for you? Has anything big come up? What about the small nuances?

I can tell you that it's been a profound experience for me. And will no doubt continue to be.

These past few months have been doozies. I can’t not acknowledge that. I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD, met a long lost brother, worked through an episode of depression, planned my daughter’s 5th (I can’t believe she’s growing up so fast!) birthday, and gained some clarity around what fuels some of my deep seated habits. 

One of which is procrastination.

🛑 And I’ve procrastinated writing this.

Partly because I’ve been taking a break from things I’ve been developing for Zenful Mindings in an effort to make the time and space I need for some critical self care. But also because I wasn’t quite sure where to take this love letter until I actually sat down to write.

🪄 And here is the magic in timing and letting the creativity pour through your fingertips:

All of this is giving me some clarity around how I want to redirect my energy. Because I have the power to do that 💪.

I’ve had a lot of low points these past few months. I’ve been a jerky mom. I’ve kept to myself too much. I’ve walked away from situations and relationships that bring chaos and unhealthy negativity into my life. I grieved those. I’ve fallen into some old habits that I thought I had mostly shed. I shamed myself. I felt guilty. 

I’ve been leaking energy. Spewing it in places that aren’t worthwhile for me. And not giving enough to things that absolutely fucking are. 

Cue re-alignment!✊

I've been reflecting on my basic values: What’s most important? Not to anyone else. But to me. What are my values? What are my priorities? What am I doing to honor those and to act from places that align with those?

I've also found myself looking at some things in new ways. I actually left therapy last week with a surge of hope that I didn’t actually think was possible anymore. That’s big AF.

All of this is (of course) still evolving and (of course) doesn’t fit into a neat container of one lunar cycle, but here’s a little of what's come up for me: 

💫

I’m a mom, a sister, a friend, an aunt, a creator, a writer, an entrepreneur, and a teacher. I’m all of these things. 

And. 

I’m not just one of those things at any given time. Not one of those roles defines my sense of wholeness. 

I get to shape those roles and how I embody them in any way that is right for me as long as I am working to act from an authentic place – full of love and vulnerability. 

I’m a queer woman with a wild spirit and a heart that feels both the catastrophe and awe of being alive and loving. Who is too often caging her own self out of fear and habit. Who yearns to grace the edges of the universe with the very essence of her being because she knows that even that’s not a limit – it’s a beginning. 

I am whimsy and responsibility and dance-y and frustrated and overwhelmed and angry and joyful. I am indecision and second guesses. I am resilience. I am power and choice and unbridled life. I am beauty and love and mystery. 

And so are you. 

💫

So. Are. You.

Our bodies are these magnificent containers that provide us a means to experience all of these multitudes, yet we are taught to compartmentalize: be one way at work and another way with our partners and even another way with our kids and our friends, and on and on and on.  

We are not meant to perform life and shift the core of who we are as we transition from labeled role to labeled role. 

These labels, they’re just descriptors of experiences. They are not our essence. 

Confusing these two things leads us to get easily caught up in fulfilling roles for others' expectations, and that prevents us from blooming. It prevents us from seeing how all of our roles can actually synergize to enrich our experience in this life. 

As we shift into this flower moon cycle, I want to dive deep and explore what blooming in all my multitudes can be like, and I invite you to join me. Let your own petals bloom. 🪷

Here are some journal prompts to give us a place to start. My hope is that these will help uncover some areas that we are making unnecessarily complicated and help us see where we can invite in more simplicity and honesty with ourselves 🤗.

🪄 May we all be curious and brave during this bold exploration 💫 

• Your Roles

  • What are some of the different roles you hold?

  • How do you think you approach each of these roles differently? Why do you do this?

• Success and Failure

  • What does success in each of these roles look like to you? 

  • Where did you learn these definitions for success? 

  • What does feeling successful feel to you?

  • How do you feel when you think you failed in them?

• Connection and Alignment

  • In which roles do you feel most connected to yourself and why?

  • Which roles make you feel unaligned with your authentic self and why?

• Action and Change

  • What are some changes that you can make (it doesn’t matter how outlandish they might seem!) to help you feel more aligned with yourself when you're in these roles?

  • Imagine what it could be like to make a couple of those changes. Write about it. Explore it. How does it sit with you? What does it feel like?

These aren't broken out by day or cycle phase because I think this is a great time to experiment leading with your heart 💜 and intuition ✨. Perhaps you work them in order. Perhaps you work with one role at a time. Perhaps you pick and choose questions that make you tingle. Get curious!

My second invitation is for you to notice how you’re feeling as this cycle progresses. You’ve got the notable dates at the top of this email for reference. Maybe you use those as checkpoints for yourself or you create a schedule for a quick daily check in to jot down in your journal or notes on your phone. Your call. Your choice. 

I would love to hear your thoughts and how this exploration goes for you, so don't be shy -- shoot me a message 💌.

From heart 💜 to yours, with all the love and good energy ✨

*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.