Welcome to the first new moon of the decade!
New moons are a time for planting the seeds, plans and intentions for what we hope to grow in the next two weeks, six months and the year.
This one, opening our year and our decade (and falling on the Chinese New Year as well), is a great one for evaluating and envisioning what we are ready to let fall behind, and what seeds we truly want to sow and invest in in the coming years. It is here we mark our future—and Aquarius, the visionary, the innovator, is a perfect sign to do it in.
The new moon is also squaring Uranus, the planet of change, upheaval and lightning-strike inspiration. Please use (&/or adapt as desired) the following new moon ritual to tap the electrical charge of Uranus and utilize it to shape your next two weeks (and year, and decade!).
1. Carve out some time for quiet, for meditating, contemplating, and just sitting with yourself. Light a candle and incense/herbs if that feels right.
2. Think about your plans, goals and dreams for the next year, the next ten years. You can freewrite these, or just daydream. Allow these ideas to grow and expand. Don’t play small. (If it’s scary or anxiety-producing or just sensational to think big, then allow yourself to take the pressure off. You don’t have to do this, it’s just day-dreaming. Take deep breaths—breathe into the anxiety or fear—feel the excitement roiling in there too.) Allow new ideas to come in and take the stage—make space for that Uranian lightning zing.
3. In this soup of possibility, what does feel the most charged? The most excited? Where is that electric jolt (even if it scares the shit out of you)?
4. Write this down. The one most exciting, most scary, most charged thing on the list. Write it as if it’s already happened, in the present tense. (I am a best-selling author. I’ve completed ten new paintings. I am running an artist retreat in the mountains.)
5. Take the paper (or notecard or even sticky note) you wrote it on and, holding it, really imagine this thing, this event or goal, as having come to pass, as existing already. Imagine a giant bolt of lightning strikes down from the sky, and suddenly you’re in the future, and this thing you wanted is here, is real. (If it gets scary, anxious, icky or weird, try to stay with that; you have room for that too, that’s life too.)
6. Once you’ve really imagined it, really felt it in your bones, take the paper and put it somewhere in your living space, but out of sight (in a drawer, in a book, behind a dresser). Leave it there. Let the seed you’ve planted unfurl in its own way, on its own time.
Photo by Ryan Phillips on Unsplash