Goddess spirituality is all about the moon. We are Moon-gazers, moon worshippers. We moon around under the night sky mooning at passers by. (Well. Maybe not the last bit… often.)
But why? Why all this moon nonsense?
And what the fuck are we supposed to do about it?
Moon be a Lady
The moon represents the sacred feminine, the reflective, meditative, shadowy yumminess of the archetypal feminine. Where the Sun’s all like “YEAH! Let’s get to it, stuff to do, things to grow, quick before I go away!” the moon’s all “Hold it, my love, it’s time for rest. How do you feel? What’s going on in there? What’s changing and shifting?” The sun is externally focused, thus archetypally male, and the moon is internally focused, archetypally female.
I think the best analogy, which is very crude and uber basic, is that the Sun is a bloke all externally focused, and you can tell because he’s got his willy swinging on the outside and creates new life by jizzing into things and fighting off bears and stuff , and the Moon is a lady because this lady has all her sexy bits on the inside where she does all her growing and life creating and changing – they only come outside at the end.
(I have a funny time with this archetypal stuff: a huge part of me wants to stubbornly dig my heels in, put my chin in the air and proclaim, no girls can be everything boys can be, so there! This inner part of me is definitely a 7 year old girl with ringlets who plays astronaut Barbie and has a brother who she feels she is better than, and really hates defining things by gender. I have to remember that archetypes are a tool, not a blueprint for how Men and Women and Everyone Else should act.)
So why should we pay attention to her?
Well, connecting to the rhythms of the moon is a way of bringing balance. Our whole life is solar focused: we are supposed to be creating and doing and accomplishing, metaphorically jizzing away till we are spent. Focusing on the moon, on the internal, gives us a balance: it helps us penetrate (hur hur) deeper into the things that we think we know until we truly understand them. To remember that we get to decide where to direct our energetic solar jizzing, and checking we are doing it in the right places.
The moon is a symbol of the feminine, and through honouring and paying attention to her shifting nightly face, we let that symbol have an affect on our lives. She slows us down, encourages us to go within, to contemplate, to look for that edge of life that is denied in our solar, patriarchal culture: the quiet, the psychic, the loving, the non-material, the deep-feeling – the grief, the shame, the sadness, the shadow, the things we are only brave enough to express under cover of darkness.
There is immense power in symbols, which I feel like I am only just beginning to understand,so I believe that the simple act of tuning into the physical symbol of the moon (by this I literally mean super low commitment tuning in, as in going “Hey where’s the moon at?” for a few seconds when you are outside in the dark). brings greater balance and brings Her influence into our life.
Symbols are mystic and weird. I’ll talk about them sometime.
So why should YOU pay attention to Lady Luna?
I dunno. Why should you?
This is the thing. We get caught up in all the old school liturgy of Wicca, all the Drawing-Down-The-Moon stuff and the idea that we need to do something high effort and high relevance each moon. We get caught up with the hipster hippy brigade on Facebook and Instagram who write their New Moon Wish Lists and talk about how they are all coming true yay! every month. We forget the whole freaking point of tuning in to the Moon, of tuning into the Goddess:
Looking Within.
Finding the answers from inside you.
Trusting yourself.
So what does the Moon mean to you? What does Goddess mean to you?
What would be of value to YOU during the lunar month?
How can you honour the wisdom of the Moon by looking inwards and having the balls, nay, the ovaries, to do what your inner voice calls for?
This might mean an end to the idea of high ritual you were schooled in from all those wicca books in your teens.
It might look more like, “Well, it’s full moon, and I’ve been a proper fucking ADULT this month, so I am going to celebrate by drinking tequila at my mates house and playing Hungry Hippos.”
Or perhaps “Jeez last month sucked ass. I’m going to journal about it and then burn that fucker under the dark moon.”
Maybe your Inner Knowing knows you should be doing more exercise, so your full moon ritual is dragging your ass to a Yoga class and holding your post-class coconut-water (they always sell that at yoga studios) up to the sky and saying Cheers.
Or maybe you just need to create the space to look within, using whatever familiar rituals and practices get you in that zone -creating an empty peaceful field of chill and connection in the ocean of emails and toddlers and carpools that is your life.
I can’t tell you what you need, what you desire, what fulfils you spiritually. You are not me.
The only way to find out is listening to yourself and playing with different stuff.
That’s Lady Luna’s message for you.
Listen to You.
I definitely need this, it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time – thank you! I was abused (in every way possible) when I was a child, but as I reach the pinnacle of my spirituality & reclaim my power & remember who I am / have been in previous lifetimes, I’m finding the most difficult part is going within myself & trusting myself. Because when I was younger, not only did I lost trust in others by their abusive actions, I was constantly told I was wrong and thus I have a hard time trusting my inner wisdom & intuition. It’s no wonder I have a crescent moon, plus the triple goddess tattoos! I need to start honoring the moon by honoring my inner self. *nods*
Great insight, I always thought that the sun was the spirit (outer), and the moon was the soul(inner) I was born right after midnight, so I know the moon energy dominates my life experience, and I’m cool with that..