Here we are, the Aries new moon, the lunar astrological New Year, just past the Equinox and the solar astrological New Year, marked by the sun entering Aries. Spring has sprung—and yet, in these strangest and most disconcerting of times, it hardly feels like spring. It hardly feels like regeneration and rebirth. And yet… it’s important to remember that birth is not always easy. That the most well-laid of birthing plans often goes awry. Birth is always bloody and messy and on its own schedule—and it’s often also painful, and mixed with its fair share of grief and loss and even death. But in the midst of all the ripping away, all the forms being shredded and reformed—life emerges, life continues.

It’s been helpful to me in the midst of the pandemic to go for walks and hikes. To get into parks or even out of the city onto trails, to even go into my own yard, and watch spring continue, unabated, to unfold. To watch the daffodils poke their yellow heads, unencumbered by quarantine, oblivious to the human tragedy unfolding around them. It is a reminder that while the problems may feel big and insurmountable (the crisis itself, but even more so all the issues it uncovers and throws in our faces, about healthcare and economic inequity and structural privilege and oppression, about the systems we do and don’t have in place to care for one another and especially our most vulnerable)--even still, spring lumbers on, the world spins, the sun rises, the days get longer, the flowers bloom. We matter, and also we don’t. We are not always the center of things, even in times of struggle and tragedy.

What I find myself wrestling with this new moon, is both the smallness and largeness of my life and my purpose here on this little blue planet. Insignificance can be reassuring, or it can be existentially terrifying. I feel so small in the face of a pandemic sweeping the world—and at the same time, I feel acutely aware of my role in my community, in my family, in my friend and work groups. And it’s this I want to honor and tap into—and I want to use this energy to do what I feel called to do, to stop worrying about whether it makes sense, whether all these disparate pieces I want to connect go together in the first place, to stop worrying about what everyone will think and whether anyone will care about what I have to say or offer—and to just do it. (A very Arian sentiment.)

This Aries new moon is conjunct Chiron, the wounded healer, which adds an interesting (to put it mildly) flavor the warrior charge/recharge energy of Aries/Mars. It’s a time for looking at our personal and collective wounds, especially those which may seem (or indeed be) un-healable, unfixable, the wounds that guide our lives (on a personal scale) and our times (on larger, collective ones).

And that’s what I’m sensing and sending out this new moon. Channeling this energy to do, to offer, to be in service—toward personal and collective wounds—in the midst of this enforced containment. Containment and constraint not only of ourselves (our physical bodies, our day-to-day lives), but also of our energy and our output, what we have to offer.

And as I always say in my creative writing classes, constraint is generative.

So I’m looking for ways to channel all this spring, regenerative, birthing energy into projects and containers that fit the constraints of this time—focusing on ways to support myself, my loved ones, my friends and colleagues and communities, in the ways I know how, in the ways I have to offer. Offering up my own relationship to wounds and wounding, to healing when it’s possible, and to allowing for decay, destruction, and death, when it’s not.

That feels like the message right now. To be both inward and outward at the same time. To hold space for healing and for deterioration. To recognize and honor both. Finding creative ways to hold that shape and that space.

With this message as my general guide, I offer you this new moon ritual to perform (and modify as desired) in the next couple days. (The new moon is Tuesday 3:28 am MST at 4 degrees of Aries.)

Ritual for New Moon in Aries Conjunct Chiron’s

(Before performing this ritual, please read through it and make sure it feels comfortable and safe for you, as it does work with some material that may feel triggering for some people at some times. Above all, take care of yourself.)

1. Light a candle. Red (for Aries/Mars), green (for spring energy) or white (for purification) would be lovely; any candle will do. (If you don’t have a candle, just imagine one in your mind.) As you light the candle, set the intention for it to represent and create a safe and protected ritual space, container.

2. Think of a wound, personal or collective, that you have or experience or have relationship to. It may be an event that happened to you, a physical or mental pain, disease or imbalance you deal with, an addiction, a toxic emotional pattern you repeat, a generational pattern in your family, a larger social structural inequity, or any other personal or collective wound that resonates for you, and that feels especially difficult or even impossible to heal.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Be gentle with yourself. I DO NOT recommend jumping right into a major trauma. If you’re getting too close to triggering material you’re not ready to deal with (or that would be better to deal with in the care of your support system such as a therapist/mental health professional), ease back, and work with a less intense and more manageable wound.

Chiron, a centaur from Greek mythology, was a renowned and lauded healer (he became a healer despite [or because of?] being abandoned by his parents; his conception being a result of Cronos’ rape of the sea nymph Philyra, [because, Greek mythology loves a good rape story])—until one day he himself suffered a wound that could not heal (he was hit by an arrow dipped in Hydra’s monster blood). Chiron’s own wounding became a medicine he offered others—but it also was undeserved, unearned, unfair. Often our wounds are just that, unfair and inequitable. Sometimes, they can still become medicine for ourselves and others.

3. Just for now, just for today, perhaps for these next two weeks, we’re going to look at this wound of ours, this flaw in our history or our character (or the world around us), and just let it be okay, just let it be. We’re not going to try to fix it or change it or topple it or make it something new. We’re just going to hold it. Hold space for it. Hold it.

4. Write down the wound, name it. Recognize that it is part of you, part of this world. We don’t have to appreciate it, to give it credit for making us who we are, for giving us strength or anything else. All we have to do, for now, for these two weeks, is recognize it, see it, witness it.

This does not mean to hold or witness the person or systems that perpetrated this wound. It means to hold the wound itself. And the affect it had and has on you.

5. Imagine, if you can, the wound as a physical entity, maybe it is an actual gash somewhere in your skin, a break somewhere in your body, a gap in your heart or liver, maybe a great crack down the center of your city, a gaping hole in the earth.

6. Now imagine that you can physically hold the wound, put your arms around it, cradle it, swaddle it in gauze or blankets or white light. Again, we’re not trying to fix. We’re simply holding. Wrapping it in something protective and safe. If the wound does change or adapt, allow that, but no need to push or guide. Just allow. If it starts to feel overwhelming, or you just want to, you can imagine shrinking the wound down, making it pocket-sized, or even tinier.

7. When you’ve spent some time envisioning holding this wound, however that shows up for you, come back to the room and your body, and write, for ten minutes, on anything that comes up for you. Anything you felt or thought or remembered. Anything the wound seemed to communicate to you. Any memories or experiences it brings up, any ways these may have shifted, or not. Again, be gentle with yourself. Please do not take on more than you are safe and comfortable with.

8. Set the intention to hold space for this wound for the next two weeks. Not with the intention to heal or fix it, but with the intention to simply hold it, witness it, allow it to exist. To keep it wrapped and held.

9. After writing, snuff out your candle and close your ritual space. I recommend taking a bath or stretching or taking a nap following this ritual.

10. In two weeks, on April 8th, check back here for a full moon in Libra ritual to close the container and culminate our work with Chiron and our personal and collective wounds.

Sending love, peace and community during this difficult time.

Photo by S H on Unsplash