At the most recent Winter Solstice I made a commitment to myself to deepen my understanding of and relationship with the Moon.
I don’t really remember when I first met the Moon. She has just always been there. I don’t remember when I learned that the Moon orbits the Earth and that the Moon controls the tides or when someone taught me about the relationship between the Moon’s cycle and the one happening in my younger woman’s body each month. All of these pieces of information have been in me for a long time; however, at Yule I committed to deepen my understanding of Her movement and energies, with a special curiosity about the reason for and the effects of the darkening phase of the Moon in each month.
I realize now - although I wasn’t aware of this consciously in December - that this desire to have a deeper, more aware relationship with Mother Moon is part of a larger process I’m always and will forever be a part of: the process of deepening my knowledge, understanding and experience of embodiment.
I have to admit, I have struggled in this particular cycle of the Moon that started as New on January 14th after a two day period of Darkness and then reached its Full face of light and brightness on January 29th.
My feelings of struggling have increased as the Moon has darkened. The struggle has manifested in multiple ways. Poor quality of sleep. Sheer exhaustion by early evening followed by waking fully in the middle of the night. Intense dreams. Unusual lethargy in the morning. A lack of motivation to explore my regular practices that, usually, I approach with fondness, if not actual glee.
And through all of this struggle I’ve been doing my best to explore the lesson that I believe the Moon offers us in this particular cycle: the experience of Grounded Uplift.
I was quite excited to begin this cycle of exploration. I remember thinking, as we wrapped up the last Dark Moon Sister-Circle, that grounded uplift was gonna be my jam! And for a bit it was. I even created a video for my Youtube channel about Core Awareness and moving from the Core that was inspired by my ponderings of this concept of grounded uplift. And then the Full Moon passed and since then life has felt challenging. At first I thought it was simply the normal winter season blahs that I usually feel in late January/early February; however, I realized that this experience has more of a quality of Pull to it. I feel pulled off my center. I feel as if I’m trying to Pull myself into the future more quickly than is possible. Meditating on this sense of Pull, I connected it with the energies of La Luna.
You may have heard people say “We are all connected.” I myself have been using the tagline “Remember, we are all in this together.” as I end most of my Embodiment videos I create for Youtube. I realized Interconnectedness was what I needed to slow down and give attention to: it seems so simple now that I have realized it
“Of course…I am connected to the Earth and the Moon is connected to the Earth and so…oh yeah, the Moon is connected to me. Interconnectedness. Wow.”
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To help me explain to you a bit more deeply how all this fits together I am going to shift focus and share a bit with you about my studies in movement, somatics and embodiment. If this isn’t of interest to you, I invite you to jump down to the next line of asterisks!
Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a observational framework to help me observe, experience, language and explore the body in movement (my own body, other bodies, bodies moving in their environment). I have been studying this framework at a very deep and high level for over a decade.
BodyMind Psychotherapy (BMP) is a “simple, user-friendly approach to working with the body in psychotherapy.” I have been self-studying BMP for more than a decade and am currently in the Level One Certification program. In BMP I am deepening my understanding of the value of and the practices of being fully present in the energetic physical sensory system I recognize as “my body”. I am exploring this work for my own personal deepening as well as to expand my capacity to be more fully present while in relationship with all of my different type of clients.
I realized just this morning that in my commitment to be more present and aware of the Moon, I am calling on facets of both of these frameworks. I use LMA when I am actively observing the ways She moves in Her own rotation as well as how She moves in Her orbit through Space around Earth. Like in both LMA and BMP, I am also being invited to pay attention to the way that Her presence and energy has effects on the environment as well as on Me as a part of this interconnected ecosystem.
In my studies in LMA, I have learned a “whole, part, whole” approach that allows me to have a better understanding of movement in any given context. This involves having a big picture idea of what you are exploring, observing or learning so that as you explore and learn about and from the parts you can then bring this awareness back to the whole so that, ultimately, you are in a dynamic spiral of deepening your understanding of both the whole system and the parts involved!
In BMP, we actively explore the Body Systems from an anatomical, physiological and psychological perspective. We use the “whole, part, whole” approach to bring our attention to what we experience as we attend to our Whole selves from the perspective of each body system as it relates to itself and to the Whole.
Wow, THAT was a lot of words. Never fear! I invite you to take a breath and know it is okay if your cognitive brain feels overfull or on sideways (as one of my dear friends describes it!) I invite you to take another breath and read on when you are ready if you’d like to deepen your understanding of all these words/concepts from an embodiment perspective.
If the idea of deepening your understanding resonates inside of you, I invite you to take twenty to thirty minutes to explore this practice:
First, allow five minutes to Check-in with your eternal resources of support. (the blue video link will take you to a guided experience, if you don’t know what this means.)
Then allow yourself five minutes or so to move in relationship with your Skin, ALL of it, every inch! (If this sort of movement feels challenging to you, I invite you to simply imagine the experience of moving with your Skin as if it is the leader of your dance.)
When you are done moving, take a two to three minutes to journal about anything you noticed as you moved/imagined or as you observe the effects of the experience. Possible things you might notice are a change in your vibe, a shift in the awareness of your sense of the size of your Whole or of your Parts. You might have noticed images, sensations, rhythms, stories, emotions, temperature, color or some other experience uniquely your own. Write it down without (too much) cognitive analysis!
Then Check-in again and clear your somatic palate. Settle. When you feel as if you are ready for another experience, allow yourself five minutes or so to move in relationship with your Bones, all the parts of your skeletal system. (Again, if movement does not feel safe or accessible, then I invite you to imagine letting your bones lead the dance.)
When you are done moving/imagining, again take a two to three minutes to journal about anything you noticed or notice as you write.
What did you notice about moving in relationship with your Skin? your Bones? How did the experiences differ? How were they similar? (‘d love for you to share in the comments!)
I have shared this with you because this type of understanding is interwoven in my story of my struggle this month and I appreciate the opportunity to support you in your own experience with my perspective/approach, if this is/was of interest to you.
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To return more directly to my process with getting to know the Moon and embracing the dark in this cycle:
When I started my focused exploration of this concept of Grounded Uplift some three weeks ago (oh my, it seems like months have passed since then!) I understood this exploration to be simply about the balance of energies between gravity and levity. In other words, I initially approached this as an exploration of the physicality of balancing those two dynamic stresses. To allow myself to experience the unconditional loving force of gravity that is essential for me to be in relationship with Grounded Support (as I mention in the Check-in video mentioned in the practice above) while also tending the experience of the kinetic energies that invite me to lift upward and support me to be an upright, moving being.
What I did not take into account in my oh-so cognitive/physical approach to this exploration is that I am relationship with the Moon just as the Earth is. Her energies PULL on the Earth’s fluids. Yes, she pulls on the oceans and lakes of the Earth and this means that She also pulls on the fluids in my body as well. Not only does she affect the blood pulsing in my veins, moving with each beat of my heart but her energy pulls on all the Parts of my entire Fluid system (yet another Body System!)
And whether we consciously realize it or not, our fluid system is intricately related with our Nervous System and our Emotions.
And although I did not realize it earlier in this moon cycle, the Moon has firmly and insistently reminded me of all of this connection in this last week. Was my nervous system affected? Yep. My emotions? Check. My inner tides? Oh yeah. Sleep? Yep. Mood? Yes yes yes!
Mother Moon has guided me to BE in the struggle. She has pushed and pulled me to shift my perspective, to more actively notice all the Parts of my process, parts that were disparate and disconnected three weeks ago. She has guided and continues to guide me (as the process is in no way completed) to, ultimately, have a deeper, richer understanding of all my Parts (Moon, Body, Movement, Spirit, Counseling Support, Therapy, Education, Meditation, Nature, Somatic Abolition, relationships, living life fully, LMA, BMP and and and…) and their relationship with my Whole.
It has been a struggle and yet in this uncomfortable experience She has helped me see that I have a pattern (that I cannot yet verbalize) that I would like to release: a pattern that can deprive me of my capacity to embody, to FEEL the Grounded Uplift dynamic that is always available to me…and to all of us. A pattern that she is inviting me to release (or at least, the parts that I am able) in this Darkening time, even as I write this blog post.
It is with this energy and understanding that I will be joining with you, my Sisters. Together we will blend all of our ideas, energies and desires about Grounded Uplift during this darkening of the moon cycle.
I look forward to gathering together to move, meditate and share in this month’s Embracing the Dark: A Sister-Circle Darkening Moon Meditation.
(If you are reading this after February 7th and feel called to join me in my Embodiment explorations, please check my website for upcoming events that may be of interest.