Full Moon: Tending the Interior

In this time between this Full Moon's illumination and its waning towards Imbolc*, I am dreaming deeply—I am tending to the dreams the Dreammaker shares with me and the ones I carry from my childhood, the ones my Soul helps me remember. These include dreams of the Magic Earth, of Creative Wholeness, of Equality and Unity. 

The Earth is teaching me that this is the time to tend to the heartwood of what wants to come forward in the fullness of Summer. This dreaming is mostly quiet, and introspective——and sometimes I worry that I will get lost here. . . that this place of interior connection will turn into a place of vast aloneness, inescapable abandonment, of a despair chasm I cannot climb out of. Where none of us can hear each other. Where we find ourselves permanently separated from the promise of connection with each other. 

Breath. When this part of me speaks loudly, I forget that the Wheel keeps turning—that Spring does come. And usually I remember now, because honoring the Wheel of the Year, as I’ve begun to, helps me remember, helps me accept change, helps me understand myself as a verb. So I remember the Solstice Child who was born in late December—the return of the Light. And I remember that they are still new, newborn. They need lots of naps and dreamtime, love, milk, nurturance, holding. This Child is Us, and it is is also every Living Being on this Earth. You need to get up close with them to feel their luminous presence. They don’t go anywhere yet.

During this time, it feels like the Land is asking for a part of itself to be seen that we can’t feel in the Summer. To remember and reclaim essential pieces of who we are, as individuals, as a species, as part of a complete ecosystem. And I am asking for the same thing: to feel what becomes hidden when the leaves and fruit of myself are out. The sap is not yet rising in the trees, Spring's waters are not yet pulsing to the surface. Change is afoot yes. But right now, the Earth tells us (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) to rest, to dream, to nurture and sing lullabies to innocence. It asks us to be together in our interiority—finding what connects us. It asks us to notice the interiority that we share—the bridges that are unseen to our eyeballs.

My call right now is to have a robust, deeply quiet relationship with myself, with the connections I want to foster, with Dreams I want to grow, and especially with the Earth. Though I love to sing to and with Her, I often sing the songs right now in my heart, rather than out loud pounding my drum. And, while there can be a lot of chatter in my mind right now about this challenge and that opportunity—this broken place and that one—this anger and that anxiety, She asks me to “Hush, hush” to tend to this newborn with the quiet deserved of them.

Some of myself resist engaging in a great discussion about loss. The part of me that doubts the return of Spring competing with the part that understands the task now is Winter’s sage acceptance of my grief that releases unseen locks, where I find myself able to move in ways I could not before. I try to feel the mythos of my Heartwood, of Hers, of my fellow siblings. I ask for Helping Spirits to be present, for Compassionate Wise Ancestors to share their wisdom. On Monday when the Moon is Full, I wonder what it will be like to ask Martin Luther King, Jr., or another Ancestor of Peace, Love and Justice to come into my shared interior/exterior space. I am grateful to have a holy day that reminds me how simple it is to ask for such an ally to be present, always.

So Friends, I ask that rather than thinking of this as a ‘Big Wander,’ that it could be in small, frequent gestures of communication and gratitude between your interior and the interior of what, or who we might consider "Other". Let the Other—let Her be both God and Lover, Divinity and Roommate. Let Other, let Her be Your Companion.

This time before Imbolc is a time to be quiet, to laugh and play in the nurturance of the Wise Winter Moon, and to dream, to be interior. And to recognize the overlap, or the unity of what is interior to us and interior to Her. It may be a time for shedding unshed tears with Her—an offering to the promise of Spring’s nurturing waters. A suggestion for this time then is to go inward with Her. Make small offerings to Her that others do not notice. Make small offerings to Yourself. What does your interior love? Walk in silence with both, listening deeply, witnessing and being witnessed. Celebrate the weaving of your interiors—make something celebrating your little person self**. Recognize the little persons in the Others, the other Beings around you.

*Imbolc is the name for the traditional Celtic Festival (Candlemas in Christian tradition) that honors the beginning of Spring, when the clock of the world wakes up. It marks the halfway point of our Solar journey between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. This year Imbolc will fall on the New Moon. It will begins on February 1st and move into February 2nd.  In the US, February 1st is National Freedom Day—when the 13th Amendment was approved, freeing our enslaved siblings. This day was not recognized until 1949. Perhaps when we began to slowly "wake up" as a nation. The US also honors Groundhog Day on February 2—our enduring but sad nod to the deep processes at work through Mother Nature.

**Saturday January 29th, I'm hosting a quiet community playdate with this little person self for those in Moab. Contact me if you're interested to learn more.

Thank you to all those for their reciprocity of comments, notes, and donations. It fuels this. Thank you.

Thank some of my steady human guides and companions on this journey: Annie Bloom, Jacque Gustafson, my Beloveds Andy and Robin Coppola.