A New Moon Ritual for Sovereignty Seekers

There’s a section in The Sovereignty Knot called Dark Moon Love.

It describes one of the loneliest, most important moments in my marriage:

One dark night, years after the vows were said and the babies born, I stood alone, pressing my face against the bathroom window, looking up and hoping for the impossible. It was a new moon night. There was nothing to see, but I longed to find some measure of comfort in the light I knew I wouldn’t find. I sought confirmation in the shadow…

That particular new moon happened several Aprils ago. Now, our marriage is strong and I know a lot more about what it is to stand Sovereign in a relationship.

On this new moon night in April 2020, the entire world seems to be staring up to the empty sky, hoping to find truth and solace in the shadow.

Here’s the thing… there is confirmation and solace to be found in shadow. We are called to find our way in the dark, to trust our footing, to hold hands, to remember that the sun will rise and the moon will grow full.

And, we’re called to remember that once we get through this dark stretch and come out on the other side and reenter the light, the sun will inevitably set and the moon will invariable wane again.

Dark Moon Wisdom

Elsewhere in the book, I tell the story of encountering the Celtic goddess Morrígan. If ever there was a new moon goddess, this phantom warrior queen of the underworld is one of them.

I was in an Irish cave when, “the Morrígan whispered to me that she knew I had spent a life enamored by the light, with appearances, with the demands of seeing and being seen. She needed me to become as comfortable and nimble in the depths of the otherworld as I was in the spotlight of the everyday.”

My wish for you, sweet Sovereignty seeker, is that you find comfort in the shadows as well as the sunshine. I hope that you can learn to sway beneath an empty sky as surely as you know how to howl to a full harvest moon.

And so, I offer this new moon meditation to you.

We’re called to stand strong under the glory of the sun, taking the throne and wearing the crown, yes, but it’s just as important to lay quietly in the dark, calling in the guides and quietly releasing all that does not serve.

Deepest gratitude to my mentor and teacher, Eleanora Amendolara, the founder of the Sacred Center Mystery School who taught me a version of this meditation many years ago.

And thanks to my clients and members of the Sovereign Writers Circle who inspired me to pull this practice out of my own interior spiritual archives.

Your Personal, Creative, and Spiritual Sovereignty

And then there comes a day when you can no longer say "someday" and you laugh into the fresh spring air and tell the singing birds, the blossoming trees, and anyone who will listen: it's TODAY.

Every creative being has a soul-deep passion, some kind of unique magic that is just waiting to be expressed.

It might be art on a canvas or words on a page. It might be the way you fill a home with good smells and even better energy. It might be an idea, a lived philosophy that you long to embody and share with the world.

For me, it's this whole idea of personal, creative, and spiritual sovereignty. It's the desire to empower other women to say "I am the one I have been waiting for. I choose myself. The time is now. I am here to make the world more beautiful, bearable, and bold. I do this by first grounding into myself and then into the earth and then reaching out my arms to heal, help, and start a revolution."

Want to find you magic? Want to discover how to free your princess, crown your queen, and embrace the wise woman within you?

The new nine-week workshop series, Your Sovereign Awakening begins Monday, May 13. Will you join us?

Returning to the Elements of Writing After Long Silence

This year, I had promised myself, this year would be different. I wouldn’t keep looking over my shoulder as I waded through my beloved Cape Cod Bay. I wouldn’t feel like I was waiting for a bus as I sat on the shore and watched the tide spin out.

I’ve been to this beach every day for more than a week, but I’m still having trouble arriving. But finally, the moment or, should I say, the magic finds me.  I remember. I connect back with that elemental spiritual practice that centers me when I’m hundreds of miles from the ocean, when I’m trying to get work done at my desk or trying to keep from snapping at the kids over breakfast.

The Ritual of Remembering

Sending roots deep into the belly of the earth, through the wet sand beneath my feet and down to the bedrock that anchors this fierce and fragile peninsula, I trust that this land will hold the fierce and fragile me. I was born of this place. It knows me.

Reaching arms up into the limitless blue sky, through those fast-moving fair weather clouds and all those layers of protective atmosphere that hides the intensity of the stars, I trust that I glow with an invisible intensity of my own. I am made of stardust too. It illuminates me.

Steady earth and fiery star. Flowing water and swirling air. I come back to myself when I spool beyond my frenzied thoughts and my too-tight skin. I find myself when I step out of being so tragically, infernally, obsessively ME.

This is a truth I’ve heard in a hundred thousand ways. I know you have too. But how do you stay in this expansive place beyond the bounds of ego, mind, and form? What do I do right now?

Write.
 

Writing Holds the Realization

Scraping the bottom of my sand-filled backpack I find a scrap of paper and a long-neglected pen.

It’s been ages since the world disappeared and I heard the voice of my own public writer whispering in my ear. For well over six months I have been filling my journal and cranking out copy and chatting away on a podcast, but I haven’t had the focus or the drive to produce an article I’m proud of.   

Six months. Eight months. Back to sometime before the election and the launch of the Practice of Being Seen.

It took more than a week to arrive here, to get the ocean to remember me, to truly taste the salt in the wind and feel my veins thrum with the tides. I forgive myself. It has taken much, much longer to find my way back to the page.

I’m back to myself. It’s unexpected. It’s time.

There are new stories to tell, stories I have been hoarding and neglecting and allowing to wither away while I was busy striving and coping and growing and losing myself and slowly getting found again. I invite you to travel with me and write with me.

I promise words and magic. I promise to dive deep into the elements it takes to remember the stories that hide within. 

Begin here with the Magic Words Guide and discover the words that will help you tell the stories that matter.

This is when you ask for help

I just made a cup of coffee without the cup. A great brown countertop and a smug looking Keurig machine didn’t photograph well so you’ll have to take my word for it. There’s no use weeping over spilled caffeine - I tossed some towels over it, firmly placed a cup beneath the spout, and asked the coffee gods to give me one more hit. Instead of collapsing into exhausted tears, I’m resorting to prayer.

Note that this coffee incident happened at noon during my first of two solid work days this week. There is no time to get on my knees or pull out a meditation cushion. All I can do is sit at the keyboard and say the prayer that a red-haired Celtic Mary Magdalen named Maeve has given us:

Help, I prayed, help.

(Help, help is one of the best prayers I know; you just have to be prepared for some bizarre responses.)

Another line from this fabulous Maeve creature: “A story is true if it’s well told.” That means that this character in Elizabeth’s Cunningham’s brilliantly told novels are a kind of truth we can tuck into our hearts and swirl into our coffee to get us through.

Ask for help and, somehow, the universe will send you what you need.

When I prayed and typed and clicked and sipped, I wasn’t exactly sure what sort of help I was asking for.

House cleaning. Toddler sleep training. Webinar advertising.

I’m willing to take help in any form it comes, really. Since you probably can’t come over to clean under the coffee pot and my kid won’t let anyone near her but me at 4 AM, I’ll ask you for help with the last one.

I’d be honored if you would share the news about Connect with Readers & Clients: Discover the Story Triangle webinar I am teaching on Tuesday, April 5 at 1 PM ET.

Will you please come too?

Save my seat!

Crafting Vision Into Story

“I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.” ― Jeanette Winterson, The Powerbook

A fresh green force thrums within me. It’s at once the rush of the ocean between two rocks and the ecstasy of spring in the narrow passage of a daffodil stem.

It is life. It is creation. It is the riotous movement of energy in a conscious, interconnected world. It is peace and wildness, a great force and wisest surrender.

There’s a hint of death and the inevitable cycle renewal in this celebration of aliveness too, but I’m not lingering on that right now.

This great movement and power, it terrifies me as much as it excites me. Despite my dreams and my ambitions and my yearning to leave a creative, benevolent mark on this world, I fear this great force. To give this much, to be capable of so much would disrupt the relatively quiet, predictable existence I have become so used to.

This vision of an internal sea and rising spring is just that: a visualization thrown against the screen of my mind. And yet, it’s also very real. Or, at least it can lead to very real things.

When I agree to allow that green swell of energy to be real enough to move me, life will expand and grow and change. It would be inconceivable that I could continue to eke out my life like a resource in short supply.

What a lovely picture. Now where’s the reader’s story in all that?

Alone, these musings paired with a Jeanette Winterson passage don’t have the force of story. If I’m lucky, I may offer up just enough poetry and inspiration to keep you interested, dear reader. In this noisy world of clickbait, the emphasis on “news you can use,” and ad copy structured to appeal to the bits of the brain that can be manipulated into action, I’m not counting on it. Especially because you come to me for stories of entrepreneurship and motherhood and writing advice, not abstract snapshots from my meditation cushion.

To really make you care, to make this into a story you can see and feel and find yourself inside, I would need to anchor you in something other than the rushing river of universal life force energy. You need to follow my journey, but how?

Slip that vision into a real life context

To feel like my story matters to you, perhaps you need to watch this vision interrupt my daily life. You need to see this experience loom larger than all my excuses about sleep deprivation and the incessant interruptions of children and the madness of trying to run a family and a business and a creative existence.

The story’s conflict might come when I realize I can no longer collapse into my limitations - not if I want to honor this magical energy and live abundantly. You could accompany me as I fight against my old ways of numbing myself - red wine, chocolate, and a good Netflix binge. The big climax may be an argument with my husband since we tend to escape to the couch together and it’s always hard on a marriage when one partner commits to transformation.

And the resolution of my story (hopefully!) comes in the form of a creative triumph and a deeper dedication to this brilliant life force.

As always, ask yourself if this story is even worth telling (on your blog, in this moment)

That sort of story I outline above is more complicated to tell - at least if you want to make it a worthwhile read! And anyway, in my case, it would be fiction rather than memoir because I haven’t lived the story and earned the right to tell it all.

Then again, there’s a risk in waiting til there’s a beginning, middle, and end. The transcendent moment that started it all may start to fade. When I juxtapose the mundane details and the marital discord and the spiritual download, the whole thing may seem artificial and forced and even irrelevant.

Today, I’m describing this flash of insight because putting it on the page makes it real for me. I am publishing it because this #365StrongStories project gives me a platform to share something that’s personal and a little bit outside the lines of what I am “supposed” to write about as a writing coach.

Depending on the nature of your work and the goal of your own blog, however, your own a storyless story might find a better home in a Facebook post or in an email to a friend.

But please, don't hold the best of yourself in reserve

That said, if you’ve got something tremendous bubbling up inside, don’t hoard it and save it until all the magic leeches out of it. Even if it feels merely curious, give it a chance to become something that matters.

Dare to birth your big, brave, “this one burns the old script” ideas. Otherwise, we're left to wander mostly comatose in the world of dull, safe, useful blog posts. The forces that keep us small and miserly will win.

Do remember: “The only selfish life is a timid one.”