i've got my rhythms
and north stars
Wow! This living is HARD right now. (and beautiful!!! but also very hard…)
Many of us have big changes happening on the individual level, and ALL OF US are living through something that is very difficult to digest psychologically/emotionally on the collective level.
I am just like you. In fact, we are all one another, mirror images on the inside-out disco ball of life.
I’m sensing that in July 2025, our inverted disco-ball collective will spin so fast and reflect so much that is hyperbolic/extreme, it will give new meaning to the concept of “being extra”.
Which makes me want to make sure everyone knows how to work with the moon. If we work with the moon, month over month, we create a rhythmic structure that angles us closer to our dreams.
Working with the moon is one of the sturdiest magical practices I know. It helps us set our “north stars” and know what we are aiming for. Having clarity on our north stars - using them as goal posts or anchors - is especially necessary in de-stabilizing times like these.
When the rhythms of the world get chaotic, out of sync, we can still rely on the rhythms of the lunar cycle. When the world makes us forget what we are doing and why we are doing it, the lunar cycle reminds us of the power of our vision and intent.
If you have been here a while, you’ll know that one of my favorite things about the lunar cycle is that it is just 28 days long. If you miss the mark the first time around, you’ll likely get it on the second or third time around. And it perpetually goes around, because that’s what cycles do - every ending is a new beginning.
DARK MOON - this is today - June 24 - the tide is out, the outlook is dark, a good time to rest, declutter, expect people/things/vibes to be strange or off in some way
NEW MOON - this will be around 3:31 am LA time on Wednesday 6/25 - this is the envisioning/imagining seed planting time, the beginning before the beginning
FIRST QUARTER - a week after the new moon - by now, the new moon seeds you planted are growing and you need to water, weed and feed them (metaphorically)
FULL MOON - two weeks after the new moon - harvest, celebration, illumination… fullness abounds in every way - you get to enjoy the fruits you grew
THIRD QUARTER - three weeks after the new moon - take stock of what has grown and consciously imbue intent into either more growth OR starting to let go
DARK MOON - four weeks after the new moon - the cycle continues, see above…
Let’s take today as an example. Working the lunar cycle today is dark-moon coded. Meaning, we do well to declutter, to surrender, to let go, to say no, to rest.
And, by tomorrow morning, working the lunar cycle looks like doing a new moon seed-planting meditation and then starting to work on growing those seeds to fruition.
And, maybe one of the seeds we plant in that visualization is the seed of peace.
And, maybe if enough of us do that - and then live the next few weeks actively cultivating that seed of peace - we might move some invisible needle in the cosmos turning earth from a planet of mostly fear to a planet of mostly love.
Until next time,
Jess
“The disparity between what’s actually happening in Los Angeles and the way it’s being mischaracterized is one of the biggest stress tests of modern media in recent memory.”
- Mina Kimes
“Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon.
The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent person would not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help you cross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don’t hang onto it as your property.
Do not become caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
“But, unless you were born a fool, there are gifts that you do have, many or few, and your task, then, is to nourish and perfect those gifts. Your reward will be some measure of achievement and greatness—not, perhaps, in such things as wealth and position, but in something far more precious; namely, greatness as a human being.”
—Richard Taylor
MY NAME
One night when the lawn was a golden green
and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials
in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed
with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass
feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered
what I would become—and where I would find myself—
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.
- Mark Strand
"Food, fire, walks, dreams, cold, sleep, love, slowness, time, quiet, books, seasons - all these things, which are not really things, but moments of life - take on a different quality at night-time, where the moon reflects the light of the sun, and we have time to reflect what life is to us, knowing that it passes, and that every bit of it, in its change and its difference, is the here and now of what we have.
Life is too short to be all daylight. Night is not less; it's more."
- Jeanette Winterson
"A mind fed on words such as heaven, earth, dew, essence, cinnabar, moonlight, stillness, jade, pearl, cedar, and winter plum is likely to have a serenity not to be found in minds ringing with the vocabulary of the present age - computer, tractor, jumbo jet, speedball, pop, dollar, liquidation, napalm, overkill! Who would thrill at the prospect of rocketing to the moon in a billion-dollar spacecraft if he knew how to summon a shimmering gold and scarlet dragon at any time of the day or night and soar among the stars?"
- John Blofeld
“I suppose you know the meaning of the pyramids."
"I do."
She halfway believed him. "Then will you please enlighten me? How come you found the meaning when so many others have failed?"
"Simple. It's because others—like you yourself—have looked at pyramids wrong."
"Looked at them wrong?"
"Yep. You've looked at a pyramid as if it were a finished product, the whole item, the thing itself. But a pyramid is just a part of the thing, and the bottom part at that. Pyramids are pedestals, babe. A pyramid is merely a base for something else to stand on."
"Are you serious?"
"I am."
"Well, Jesus, Bernard. What stood on the pyramids?"
"Souls. Souls like you and me. And we have to stand on them now. The pyramid is the bottom, and the top is us. The top is all of us. All of us who're crazy enough and brave enough and in love enough. The pyramids were built as pedestals that the souls of the truly alive and the truly in love could stand upon and bark at the moon. And I believe that our souls, yours and mine, will stand together atop the pyramids forever.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
I’ve come to the house of the Immortals:
In every corner, wildflowers bloom.
In the front garden, trees
Offer their branches for drying clothes;
Where I eat, a wine glass can float
In the springwater’s chill.
From the portico, a hidden path
Leads to the bamboo’s darkened groves.
Cool in a summer dress, I choose
From among the heaped piles of books.
Reciting poems in the moonlight, riding a painted boat…
Every place the wind carries me is home.
—Yu Xuanji
(I CARRY YOUR HEART WITH ME)
by E.E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- e.e. cummings