Episode 70: It’s just a phase – working with the energy of the moon

Listen to the show:

We cover:

• How the moon can affect you (and the people around you)
• The four main phases of the moon
• What activities align with the energy of each moon phase
• What magick corresponds with each moon phase
• How to align your self-care with the moon phases to ensure all areas of your life are nourished
• How to set up your calendar to make the most out of the moon phases (and what not to do)

References:

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello, welcome to the A Pinch Magick Podcast and a special hello to the Belfast Coven who have inspired today’s topic along with tomorrow’s new moon.

I want to talk about the moon phases and just a reminder that when we did Magickal Summer School, Class Four, it was about Sacred Rhythms.

I go into much detail about working with the moon cycles and the sun cycles and all of the rhythms around us.

If you want to dive deeper into that, go into the show notes. I’ll link it in the comments. It’s free to access it. It’s just in our magical community.

The Moon

So the moon, I’m sure by now you’re very much aware of the moon and how it can impact you.

The first time I really consciously became aware of this, was I was at an Anti-social Behaviour Conference. Yes, in a previous life I used to manage community housing, and where I was, there was quite a lot of anti-social behaviour so I was at this conference learning how to manage the community better, to make them safer, etcetera.

It was quite interesting and a little bit stale. And then this, I can’t remember his rank, but he was very high up in the Brighton police force, he came on stage and started talking about the full moon and how they set their rotas according to the full moon.

Their anti-social behaviour team will put more police officers on the ground during a full moon.

And you can imagine all these professionals sat in this auditorium and they’re looking at each other going, “Is this person for real?”

And then he explained it, and he showed all the data that there is this real correlation between anti-social behaviour and the full moon.

Then when people got over the initial laughter. It was like, people started thinking about it and I started thinking about it. And I was like, “Oh my goodness, this makes so much sense.”

I used to work with, let’s politely say, mischievous children, and every time it is a full moon something extra mischievous would happen.

Sometimes the children would end up on the roof of the buildings. There would always be arguments, tears, emotions, heightened at the full moon. And it was always said as a bit of a joke, but actually behind that joke people really understood this.

A friend of mine, she works in mental health and the only time she’s ever been attacked by one of her clients was during a full moon, and that kind of got me thinking back to when I grew up in Cornwall, a very small fishing village.

And I was thinking, “Oh, yeah, of course I know this… the tides.” The moon is affected by the tide because twice a year, spring tide, the neap tide. When there was a full moon, that’s when my hometown could be flooded.

It often flooded twice a year, particularly if the wind was there too. And you’d see the fishermen pushing their boats back into the river because the river would burst and the boats would come up on the quayside, which was okay until the water receded again, and then the boats would remain on quayside. So they will be there pushing their boat back in the river.

I’ve always been influenced by this. I remember once my mum telling me that when we lived in Cornwall, we owned like bars and restaurants there, and my mum saying always at a full moon, she could name a handful of people that she said this is where the word ‘lunatic’ comes from. They will be playing Skittles with bar stools, the behaviour would just be different. You know, not violent, but just a little bit different from usual.

And I was like, “Oh my goodness.”

I’m sure if you think about these anecdotes, too, you probably notice the full moon energy, bringing out the heightened state of awareness and depending on whether you pay attention to this, you might notice but if you talk to people in a hospital, they’ll tell you there’s often more births during a full moon or there’s more accidents during a full moon.

And so, when I started putting all these pieces together, I was like, “Oh my goodness, we really are influenced by more than what we can see.”

Yes, I can see the tides, when I was younger, and I kind of knew that if it was a full moon, we were at risk with more flooding. But it’s like allowing us to really look deeper, to look deeper at how the rhythms around us, impact us.

Now, when we look at the moon cycles, it really is that first natural calendar that we would have had before clocks and timepieces. It just gives us that natural rhythm to life.

In summer school, in the Sacred Rhythms Class, I talked about how those cycles, we have those cycles in us too, particularly if we have a menstrual cycle.

I’m not going to talk about that today but if you are interested in that, the link will be in the show notes.

So, tomorrow is the new moon, this seems like a perfect time to start talking about the new moon.

I love working with the moon phases in particular, because it’s a really great way of setting our intentions, taking action, celebrating our action, reviewing our action and starting again.

Instead of waiting for the new year, instead of waiting for your birthday, instead of waiting for that significant time, we can just every 28 days, every 30 days. Between 28 and 30 days, we get a chance to check in with ourselves.

It brings great moonmentum, if I may, to our lives.

It’s really great to align our self-care with these areas.

(1). because it naturally fits in with that energy and

(2). because it makes sure we’re looking after all aspects of our self healthcare.

Today we’ll look at physical self-care, mental self-care, social self-care and emotional self-care, when we can look at all of those areas of our life, they make it much richer and more nourishing experience for us.

And then also, it’s just really good to check in to notice how you feel.

I talked about having that sacred pause. When we check in with the moon, we can just take that moment to go, “Oh, yeah. How am I feeling today?”

And sometimes that is enough, just to go “Oh yeah, how am I feeling today?”

So, let’s start with the new moon.

Now, I apologize in advance because I’m likely to want to go off and keep talking about how our inner cycle correlates with the outer cycle but like I said, I don’t want to do that today because I just want to focus on the moon cycle. But as within, so without, etcetera.

Tomorrow is the new moon.

I want you just to notice how you feel, archetypally, for all of this I’m going to talk in archetypally, this energy of the moon phase. You may or may not experience the moon that way.

I want to give you the archetypal energy of the moon phase so you have a moment to check in and said “Is this how I’m feeling right now?”

If it is, brilliant. Listen to all the anecdotes I give you. The ways to use energy and embrace it.

If you’re like actually, “No, Rebecca, that’s not how I feel right now.”

Brilliant.

Notice how you do feel and choose the activity that aligns with it.

What is most important is that you give yourself a moment to stop and check it with yourself.

Because like I said, we’re looking at the moon phases.

You also have, if you have a menstrual cycle, that menstrual cycle will be having an impact too.

Just as one piece of this, the new moon, corresponds to the actual bleeding of your menstrual cycle. So, if you are in the new moon but you’re ovulating, you might have a very different energy going on because ovulation relates to the full moon and the most power of your physical body.

So, if you are experiencing that on the new moon, you might not you might not be feeling the new moon archetypal energy or feeling like needing to rest and move inwards.

We always have different rhythms at work.

But what’s really nice about the lunar calendar, is that on the new moon, waxing moon, full moon and waning moon, it just gives us, like once a week to check in with our self, to notice how we are feeling and that allows us to notice our own natural rhythm, how we move through the world.

It allows us to structure our calendar, our work, our creativity, our intuition, our action and our rest along with some rhythm.

You may find your rhythm naturally aligned with the moon cycle.

You may find that it’s aligned with something slightly different.

But what’s important is you find out what your own rhythm is. Okay.

The New Moon

So let’s start again with new moon.

So just notice how you’re feeling right now.

If you’re listening to this … I’m recording this on the 26th of August, tomorrow, the Saturday is the new moon.

Notice how you feel.

Typically or archetypically, the New Moon is a time of the lowest energy of the moon cycle.

If you look at the sky tonight, you won’t actually see the moon reflected back to us.

It’s a time when we typically set intentions with the new moon.

While some people do it today, some people might do it a couple of days time, but we take this time right now to rest, to dream, to tap into our intuition.

It’s a great time for journaling, to get your favourite tools of divination and ask those deep questions.

“What is it that you’re doing?

What are you focusing on?

What is your biggest dream and desire right now?”

It’s not a time for taking bold action.

It’s a time to rest, to be nourished, just to allow yourself to step into the darkness.

One of my favourite things to do is, get your room as dark as possible. Get noise cancelling headphones, earbuds in, anything just to cancel out the noise, a little eye mask on and wrap myself up in a blanket or a duvet and just surrender into the darkness, that deepest, deepest most nourishing rest.

It’s a time, as you may imagine, of looking after your physical self.

So that might mean exercising, stretching, eating foods that feel really nourishing to you. It might mean going to bed early.

It means rest.

You might want to do some dream magick during this phase of the moon cycle.

And that might look like, getting a notepad and pen before you go to bed. Having that intention to remember your dreams and then noticing what you dream the next morning.

It might mean journaling, quite a dim light and just really tapping into the energy of turning inwards, the energy becomes very introverted.

This is that New Moon energy.

I like to think of this energy, all of this as a cycle of growth, which is basically what we see in the sky.

So right now, we are setting the seeds of our intentions. We’re allowing ourselves to rest. “We’re asking ourselves, what is it we want?

How is it we want to show up in the world over the next month or the next lunar calendar?” “What is it I want to be focusing on?”

We give our self that time to rest.

It’s like that energy of winter.

When you look around and the fields, there’s nothing really going on, they look empty. But actually, all of nourishment, all of the growth, all of roots cracking beneath the soil ready to step into the energy spring, which then correlates with that Waxing Moon energy, the energy of growth.

The Waxing Moon

As we step into that energy of growth, into that spring action. It’s very much that time to take big bold actions.

The energy is growing.

You know what your intention is, you’re clear on that action, now it’s time to take that bold action. To take that movement to move forward.

It’s a really good time for things like fire and candle magic, something that we are adding the energy to. To work with orange stones, like carnelian or citrine, the yellow stones. Just to add the energy of warmth, that extra humph to anything you’re going to do.

If you ever have to have a difficult conversation or there’s anything that you need to start, you just need that your extra momentum, during the waxing moon is the perfect time to do it.

Also referred to as the first quarter moon, the energy of growth.

During this time it’s very much about mental self-care because it’s a time of growth, it’s a time of expression.

It’s a time of learning of new things.

It’s a time of connecting with other people.

It’s a great time to research things.

To listen to new podcast, get new ideas, stretch your beliefs. Do you still believe those things? Are they still yours? Have you outgrowth those things?

Anything that puts you into stretching your comfort zone, stretching your growth, stretching your beliefs. T

his is the time to do it because it’s bold, it’s courageous. It’s like, “Yes, we’re doing this.” And it gives you the energy of action

The Full Moon

Which then leads us up into the full moon energy.

So this is very much about, I would think of the full moon as a spotlight. It’s very good at shining a spotlight on us.

Some people love the energy of the full moon.

For some people, it’s just way too much.

People love to have parties on the full moon and from a traditional point of view, before streetlights, having a party on the full moon made sense because people could actually see.

If you do it on the new moon you might be tripping over the hedges…

People often say, “the full moon is about releasing.” And other people say, “No, the full moon is about celebrating.”

I think it’s actually about both.

I think the more you celebrate yourself, the more you become, my favourite phrase, ‘full of yourself’, in a really healthy delicious way.

What it does, it naturally helps you to release those things that aren’t yours. Because it pushes them out …

The more you become full, it’s kind of like if you had a cup of dirty water and you kept dripping clean water into it, eventually, that water is going to become cleaner.

It’s going to get cleaner and cleaner and cleaner, until it’s fairly clean, and that’s the same with you.

The more you can keep connecting into yourself. The more you can keep reminding yourself who you are, the more you keep coming back to your home center, the more you’re going to push out the limiting beliefs, the beliefs that aren’t even yours, the doubts, the insecurities because you come back to, your own truth radiates.

So we have that full moon energy.

On the new moon and on the full moon are times when I when I really pay attention to what zodiac sign, the new moon and the full moon are moving through because they give us additional flavours of that moon cycle.

I’ll talk about that again in a minute but the reason I bring it up with the full moon, in particular, is because when that full moon shines with that lens, that flavour, of that zodiac sign, it can really highlight what is too much for somebody.

So for example, we’re in Virgo new moon tomorrow but let’s pretend it’s the Virgo full moon. What it would do?

Virgo represents detail, habits, health, it can be quite picnicky about things, it wants everything in its place.

If that was a full moon and you weren’t overly organized, it could start to highlight that for you and you’d feel a bit disorganized and things would be feeling a bit much.

If you were very organized and that full moon was there, maybe you would love it. Maybe it’ll help you put all your system in place or maybe it would show you where everyone else is disorganized and everyone else’s disorganization was just driving you crazy.

So whilst we have these very clear moon phases, they also come with added lens of the zodiac energy, that is not important right now, the four phases are most important, but I do think it’s interesting at the new moon when we set our intentions, for tomorrow it’s  the energy of Virgo so you might want to use that additional energy of Virgo to bring in systems that are going to help you create your intentions.

You might want to get really good habits in place that’s going to give you the steppingstones to get to where you want to go.

But equally at the full moon, it can really highlight where something is not working well in our life.

So, like I said the full moon for some people is like, “Yes, let’s party.” And for other people they’re like, “Oh my god, turn that light down, will you?”

The Waning Moon

That brings us into the waning moon as we start to travel back towards the new moon.

This is my favourite stage of the moon cycle.

It gets a bit of a bad wrap sometimes because it’s when people can be the most emotional.

I often call it the PMS, the PMT, of the moon phase, because just like if you had PMS or PMT, things may feel like they become too much, but they’re not really.

Maybe people have said things to you in the past if you’ve ever had a menstrual cycle. “Oh, my goodness, you’re on your period.” And it just means that, maybe you seem a little bit more grouchy or on edge, but actually what’s happening is, in that part of the moon phase or your menstrual cycle, is you suddenly notice what’s working for you and what’s not.

It’s a really good time review your life and release what’s not working.

So what’s working for you in your life right now and what isn’t.

What’s aligned with you, your values, your boundaries, your truth and what isn’t?

Because all the things that aren’t, are going to come to light.

They’re going to be highlighted and that can make you really quite cranky, and so that’s what gets a bad wrap.

But actually it’s a really, really great time to have a look at your life.

What needs releasing?

What is working?

What are you carrying forward into the next moon cycle?

What isn’t working?

And that might be an intention.

Maybe that intention you’ve chosen, you thought it was a great intention. But actually, it was just the wrong intention for you at that time or you thought it was a good intention but you realize it wasn’t yours, it what you thought you should be doing.

Maybe it’s about actions.

Maybe it’s about friendships.

Maybe it’s about anything in your life…

It’s like what is it that you’re being called to focus on.

And just ask yourself, “What’s working?”

“What am I carrying forward.”

“What aren’t I carrying forward?”

So, it’s a really good time to do any kind of releasing magick.

Whether you’re writing and journaling and then burning the paper.

Whether you’re singing and drumming and shouting, crying and laughing.

It’s like release, release, release because during that time we’re looking at the energy of emotional self-care.

How can you look after your emotions?

What emotions needs to be expressed, need to be honoured, need to be released.

One of the big emotions is anger.

I’ve done a whole podcast on the energy of anger and how that’s sacred and how we can use it.

So, what is it that needs to be released?

Be gentle with yourself during that time and just observe. And perhaps don’t make any rash decisions.

I often joke about this. I always knew when I was coming up to my own menstrual cycle, bleed time, because for one day my partner, he chewed too loudly.

I swear to god, I could probably hear him chewing across the road and it would drive my ears crazy because I’m very auditory sensitive anyway.

And I would be like, “Oh, my god.”

I didn’t say anything because I knew if I had said anything he would suck his food forevermore.

And I’d tell myself, “ If it still irritates me tomorrow I’ll say something.”

But guess what, it never ever did because it was never about his chewing, it was about me and me being more sensitive at that time.

So, maybe no rash decisions immediately.

But if this still an issue, unless it’s like an immediate violation of your boundary, obviously that’s very different, but if it’s just something that’s annoying you, like low-level, low-grade annoyance, just ask yourself or rather say to yourself. “If this still going to annoy me in two days’ time, I’m going to say something.”

But maybe just take a breath, just during that moment.

So, these are really good ways to use the moon cycle.

Overview

So, just as a reminder we’ve got the new moon, which is when we want to look after our physical self-care.

When we want to do things like dream magick, journaling and setting your intention.

And that’s the energy that you’re going to move through for the rest of the month.

We then have the waxing moon, which is the energy of growth, of action.

We’re looking after our mental self-care right then because we’re growing. We’re pushing out of our boundaries.

During that stage, you might want to have a look at fire magick, candle magic … I keep seeing carnelians coming through. And I was like, “Yes, carnelians energy.” That fire energy of growth, of action.

Then we come into the full moon energy, the time to celebrate yourself.

You might want to try anything that feels celebratory or glamour magick.

It’s looking after your social self-care, to make sure that you’re connecting with other people in a way that feels good and healthy to you. Whether you’re introverted or extraverted, it doesn’t matter.

But that you know that you have your support team around you, whether that’s one person or whether that’s a hundred; it doesn’t matter. But during the full moon it’s a time to connect with our energy of social self-care.

And then with the waning moon, that’s your review and release energy – when we’re looking at any kind of releasing magick and looking after our emotional self-care.

I think that’s what I want to say about the moon phases.

Once you start working with the moon phases it’s really interesting just to notice your own energy.

Yes, those are the ways we can traditionally work with the moon phases but like I’ve said, you might not feel aligned with the energy for a host of other reasons.

But just check in with yourself and asked yourself, “How do I feel right now?”

Like I said if you’re listening to this when it goes out, this is the new moon energy.

I always think of the new moon and the full moon, two or three days before the new moon, the day of the new moon, or two or three days afterwards.

So you’ve got like a good five or six days there to really connect in with that energy.

So, we go from that new moon into the waxing energy, and notice whether you do feel into the energy of growth.

To be honest, one of the things that had the biggest impact on my life, of getting to know myself, bearing in mind I’ve  been in the personal development, personal growth world from about the age of 15 or 16. But when I learned more about myself, how I work, like my own rhythms and things like that, it wasn’t until I started charting my energy, which I was checking in with the moon phases, that I suddenly get a grip on my own, my creative style, my own manifesting style and instead of thinking that I had to be constantly always on, always creating, always producing, always, always, always… I suddenly realized like, “Oh, my goodness. The whole moon cycle is a time of growth and production, and then rest, releasing and resting.

And if you think about it, we’ve got the waxing moon and the full moon, which is like a go, go, go, produce, produce, celebrate, create energy.

And then we’ve got the waning moon and the new moon, which is like slow down and rest because when we slow down and rest it gives us the energy and stamina to start and keep going again.

When we slow down and rest, it gives us the time for all of our ideas and creative insights to catch up with us.

There’s a reason most people have their best ideas when they’re in the shower.

There’s a reason people have the most ideas when they’re on holiday, because they have stopped.

Even if it’s just for a moment in the shower.

It’s like, I had one of my best ideas when I was just driving. You’re concentrating but you’re not having to do 50 things at once (well hopefully you shouldn’t be), and that drop of insight comes in.

In fact, I had one of my best ever ideas, one that’s lasted my entire magickal career.

When I was driving. And it’s just like, “Oh, my god, there it is!” And I was like, “Oh, I can’t write it down.” So, I had to keep chanting it to myself until I got to somewhere safe and suitable to do that.

The resting part, the moon phase reminds us that the rest is as important as the creation.

Our society really values production, production, production, production.

And we put our value on what we can produce. But actually we’re not designed to be ‘on’ all the time, so that’s why we have so much burnout.

That’s why we have so many people feeling unfulfilled and frustrated.

That’s why we have so many people feeling like they’re failures because they’re not constantly producing, but you’re not a machine. Okay, you’re not a machine.

You’re not supposed to go, go, go, go.

We have the moon phases telling us to rest.

We have day and night telling us to rest.

We have the seasons telling us to rest.

Everything has a period of growth. It has a period of celebration and blooming. It has a period of reviewing, which would look like autumn. It has a period of rest which looks like winter.

Then it has a period like slowly getting going again, which looks like spring. And then it’s like go, go, go, which is summer.

I’m sure you can see how those seasons fit into the moon phase, too.

That’s why we called it four seasons in a month, four seasons in four weeks.

Because we go through those seasons, we go through those cycles in a much more condensed energy, but we need to rest.

I think when we work with the moon cycles, we start to notice in our own energy, “Oh, yeah, this part of the moon cycle, I feel really ready to go and this part of the moon cycle I need to slow down and rest.”

So, what that allows us to do, is to start looking at the way we schedule our life.

Have you ever said, “Oh, my god, I would love to come to that party.” And in that moment, you absolutely believe you wanted to go to that party. And then on the day of the party or the day before you say, “Why did I say yes? I’m exhausted. How can I get out of this? I can’t get out of this. That would be rude?”

So, maybe you come up with a lie or maybe you go and feel quite resentful. Not a great way to live your life.

Whereas, when you start to notice your own cycle, the moon cycles impact you. When someone asks you to do something, you can check your calendar and be like, “Oh, I really love to, but I can’t then.”

Or if someone asks you and you’re like, “Yes, I would love that”, and you know that your energy is going to be the highest and that’s going to be amazing.

And equally at work, you might not be able to go, “Oh, it’s the new moon, I can’t come in to work for a few days.” But what you can do is try and make sure there are no big presentations that are due, or any deadlines are due during that moon phase.

Or if there is, you support yourself to the best you can.

Supporting yourself might look like making sure you go to bed early, getting the takeout, you don’t have to cook.

It might mean not taking on anything additional and just doing what you know you have to do.

Whereas, where it’s the waxing moon and the full moon, doing the presentation and going for drinks after work, or going to that party, you’re going to have the stamina to do that.

So, working with the moon phases, not only is it great for your magick, great for your self-care, it’s also great for your calendar and the way that you helped to manage your life.

Now, these are not hard and fast rules.

These are just ways I’m suggesting for you to explore, to have a look at your life being more than just go, go, go, go and then feeling guilty for stopping.

The resting is as important as the action.

There’s nothing in the natural order of life that said you have to go, go, go, go.

Everything goes through that phase of darkness, into growth, into blooming and celebration, into reviewing and releasing.

Even our breath. We breathe in, there’s a pause, we exhale. We don’t always notice the pause but it’s there.

Conclusion

So, I would love for you to come over into our community, share your favourite moon story, perhaps I started off sharing all of those ways that I started noticing particularly how the new moon affects us.

Perhaps you work in an industry and you’re like, “Oh, my god. I see that all the time”.

Or perhaps you notice that in yourself.

Maybe you notice it when your children can’t sleep. A friend of mine was like, “Rebecca, is it the full moon? The kids aren’t sleeping.” And I’m like, “yeah, two days’ time”. The kids know, they’re not sleeping.”

So, come and share with us what your favourite experience of the moon was, how you used the moon cycle or what was your biggest take away from today’s episode.

Thank you for joining me and I’ll speak to you again very soon.

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