Ritual to the Moon

This piece celebrates my practice of being aligned with the cycles of the moon. Over the last two years, I’ve been doing rituals that celebrate the moon in its fullness and newness. This has taught me to be more attuned with the rhythms of the natural world, and that includes moving with the seasons and moving with the cycles of the moon.

I have found that aligning with the moon’s cycles gives me space to rest, reset and replenish. It also allows me to recognize that death and life are part of nature’s cycle. I've learned that all things die and make room for other things to emerge.

In the past I had nostalgia about what could be. Yet, as I've become more of a gardener and understanding of the patterns of the soil, and how these patterns relate to the seasons and the moon, I have a whole new appreciation for how we might mimic ecology.

One of the most important lessons for me has been to recognize that cultivating relationships is like cultivating seeds and crops in my garden. I have to make decisions around where I put seedlings, thus decisions about where I put my energy. How am I feeding and supporting these new seeds, these new relationships, so that they can grow strong?

In my garden, I take care of many seedlings. And yet some of them simply don’t survive and that's okay. Similarly, sometimes the new relationships that I might be exploring simply don't survive. As they fade away, or compost, they make room for new relationships that may be more aligned. And the compost creates fertile soil for what comes next.

Another beautiful lesson is recognizing that what I put my attention to grows. And so in the same way that I care for a plant, when I care and I nurture a relationship, it blossoms into something that's nurturing for myself and others.