Up from down; feet on the ground, a vibrant new beginning coursing through me. This was the direct experience I had with this recent New Moon.
I feel the energy of the ebb and flow of natural cycles within my body as an inescapable experience. My personal dark moon phase comes about a week before the collective dark moon phase. With this pattern, there is a slow down, then reenergizing followed soon by another downward pull and then a breakthrough new beginning.
While this pattern of cycling occurs each lunar month, some months the pull to rest is stronger than others. The extent to which I am pulled to stillness seems to be determined by the proximity of the New Moon’s sign and degree to a prominent placement within my natal chart. With no direct connection, there is still a pull to rest. When there is a direct connection the pull to rest during the dark collective moon is potent to the power of 10!
Photo by Aureal Williams
In this most recent cycle, there was a compelling call to rest; the New Moon was conjunct the descendant angle of my birth chart. This is an area of connection with others, and I seemed to be pulled into deep stillness during this past dark Moon. Yes, it has been -3 degrees Fahrenheit where I live, always a time for indoor comfort, however, with this dark Moon, my experience was rest, rest and more rest in the three days leading up to the New Moon.
Then, the morning following the New Moon, about 12 hours after it became exact, I bounced out of bed with a strong, visceral experience of New Beginning, energy palpable for a fresh start.
I love these experiences of acknowledging my body’s rhythms in connection with nature’s rhythms. While it is hard to resist the conditioned habit to keep going, I have learned over the years that I am better off aligning with this gravitational pull. When I don’t align with it, I place undue stress on my physicality. I have learned to acquiesce to rest when the pull to rest is strong. This is how I understand self-care.
New beginnings come in many ways; for instance, each time we do laundry, or change our sheets, or sweep the floor or take out the trash, we are refreshing our space to begin again. Aligning our restarts in coordination with planetary cycles helps us renew ourselves and our focus. It is a forgiving experience, to accept a restart.
While it may seem that I am doing nothing during low energy times, my body, psyche, and soul, are releasing and realigning for the begin again moment. This is the cycle of life and death and while actual death does not occur at the end of every day, or lunar month or seasonal shift, an energetic one does. When we allow that release to happen through honouring the pull to be still, quiet, reflective, even, perhaps, non-active, we allow the full cycle of beginning, middle and ending to operate unrestricted within our direct experience.
In addition to the gravitational pull of cyclic living, something else is calling us to slow down, be still and rest. Other people who write about the shift in frequency to the 5th dimension address the body’s need to accommodate the new frequencies and new light in this new time. It seems that we have to allow the time and space for our bodies to adjust to these higher vibrational shifts and that can come through a need to lie down and rest.
These calls to rest are not predictable like a lunar cycle rhythm is, however, they do seem to be occurring now. It feels crucial to rest when we are called to rest. Labels like slacker and lazy and procrastinator can be examined in light of direct physical experience. What does your body, your physicality, soul and Spirit need? If it is rest and times of doing nothing, consider trusting the request and your body and the sacred timing of materializing what you want to create and the full process of doing so. Consider that doing nothing may actually be part of the productivity cycle. Nature lives like this.
Work and family responsibilities may impinge on your ability to make a full stop. In those times, you can get creative in how you minimize commitments and maximize rest. Self talk has value, for instance, telling your body that you recognize it needs sleep, or rest or to do nothing, acknowledge that you hear that need and that you will meet this need as soon as you can. Consider, too, asking for help or offering help when someone near you needs to be still.
This blog is about changing relationship with time; it is about recognizing the body as timer. When the mind tempts to overrun the wisdom of the body, give it a rest!
For readers new to this blog, the Personal Lunar Cycle is determined by the phase of the Moon in which one is born, and the Collective Lunar Cycle starts with each New Moon and continues through the eight lunar phases. Finding one’s rhythm between the Personal and Collective Lunar Cycles gives insight on how to work with ebbs and flows of energy levels in conscious awareness and respect. Individual consultations are available for those interested in working with these natural cycles.
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