It has been a while since I made a blog post, and honestly, I am not sure why I decided to make one today, but here it is. I began to write the Sturgeon Moon guide for my Living by the Moon group, and in the middle of the first entry, I realized that I was writing more than just a new moon entry. My idea for a New Moon Ceremony for this month was more of a personal ritual than a ceremony. As my business and personal practice have grown and more in more directions than usual (partly out of necessity and partly due to my raging ADHD), I find myself moving into a new space. What that space is, I have no idea.
As I write this, I watch my dog Henry licking his front paw at my feet. As he licks his front paw, his rear paw wiggles. It’s always the same paw that wiggles. Sometimes, he reaches back to lick that wiggling paw, gets angry, and growls, and then goes back to licking his front paw more enthusiastically. The wiggling rear paw was reconstructed after he was hit by a car in 2020. His entire pelvic box and leg had to be rebuilt – it was a bad accident. He fully recovered thanks to a fantastic vet, but at times, that rear paw bothers him, especially on a rainy day like today. So he continues to lick that front paw, while every then and again reaching back and growling at the wiggling paw.
One of my teachers has told me that I need to take some time off to integrate all of the work I have been doing in the last year – she has been telling me this for a few months now, and most of the time, I do what I always do. I journey on it, argue with my spirit guides, get angry with myself for misunderstanding something, do a ceremony, and then rinse and repeat. It has occurred to me today that, in reality, what I have been doing is just licking my front paw. And time off doesn’t mean stop licking the paw; it just means looking at which paw is bothering me before I continue to lick. I have realized today that something deep within me has changed, but I am unsure what it is.
So all of this brings me to a simple phrase – as above and below – overused by just about anyone who does any woo-woo work. It also reminds me of something my teacher, Brandy Winn, always says, “If we are doing something in one area of our lives, we are doing it in all other areas as well.” We repeat patterns in our lives, often in concentric circles around the issue – like throwing a pebble into a body of water. If you want to find where the pebble went into the lake, follow the concentric circles back to the middle.
In my ADHD brain, I tend to overthink and overanalyze. But also, thanks to the gift that is ADHD, sometimes the most minute and unimportant things can give me a clue about something I may be missing, like my dog licking his paw. Things evident to others are lost on me, and the most complex and unrelated things that can be maddening to others are easy for me to see and understand.
So, for this new moon in Leo, the grand sign of self, there is no better time to take a cold, hard look at myself to see what has changed. I can get caught up in my daily stuff, my students, my business, my family, etc. My life revolves around a circle of chaos most of the time. Like most with ADHD, I work best in a chaos storm. However, there is a big difference between productive and destructive chaos – and when you are standing in it – it can be hard to tell the difference. Hence my inability to see where that pebble went into the lake.
And just like Henry, I keep adding to this chaos, licking that paw even harder, thinking that it will help me to find clarity when, in actuality, I am just licking the wrong paw. My epiphany this moon is that I need to start looking for this in a physical rather than a spiritual space. All my work in the last year has been done in the spiritual space. The question now is – how has that manifested in my physical life? I generally race to spirit to find my answers; this time, I must run to the mundane, which feels backward.
One of the places in my life that is a physical representation of my entire being is my altar room. This is a physical microcosm of my life and who I am. It is my private space—not just spiritual space. This is where I keep things related to my business, spiritual life, personal life, animals, new ideas, family, friends, and anything else that comes up in my life. It’s A catch-all space that holds my world. Some people may have a place like that at home or work (for years, this was my work desk). Some have a shelf, a drawer, a closet, or if you are lucky enough – a room like mine.
This is where all of the “I cannot wait to work with this” things get placed, or the “I gotta do something about this” ends up, and even the “I have to find a better place for this” stuff gets stored. If you look in that room right now, it is a total disaster – as I said – a direct representation of my life. Not only is that room a disaster, but it has overflowed into my living room, as I noticed just now looking up from my computer.
What is better work on a new moon than finding yourself and de-cluttering your world? My work on this new moon will be to start working in that altar room to put things in place and see what needs to be “released” and what maybe needs to be dusted off and brought to the forefront or “embraced”. It’s time to stop overflowing into the living room, time to stop saying,” I will deal with that later,” and do it now. And do it without a spell, a journey, or even help from a spirit guide. What makes this more than just a cleaning task is doing it with purpose and intention – I am looking for that pebble. It is a ceremony of the mundane, and we all sometimes forget that ceremonies are not reserved for spiritual endeavors.
I invite you to look at yourself this new moon. Have you been licking the wrong paw? Is your physical (everyday life) growth matching your spiritual one? Are you growing in your career, relationships, and spiritual life while other parts of your life get left behind or sit in chaos? Sometimes, the answer isn’t spiritual but mundane. This new moon, I am following the ripples in the lake so I can finally address where the pebble went in! Who knows? I may even find the right paw to lick!
