Interfacing With The Lunar Cycle
Article by Noelani June, Art by Chelsea Lavelle, & Edits by Georgina Rose
The Moon is a translator and lens from which all the other planets and all their aspects are able to be understood. The messages from the Moon show up in our bodies as sensation and experience, weaving into our mundane lives through the power of the unconscious. They enter our fleshy body, crossing into our material reality from the realm beyond this one. The Moon is our planet, our celestial body. The Moon is our advisor and supporter, our grandmother Moon. This Grandmother Moon is our confidant, the keeper of time, and the waters of Memory.
In a mundane sense, the Moon has a huge impact over waters, but these waters take on an even deeper meaning when you are looking at them in a spiritual sense. They represent Memory, they represent connection with the beyond, the spiritual, the deep tender parts of ourselves. We all come through the waters of the womb. The water on Earth is the same water that has always been here. The water remembers and has only changed shape. This is all under the domain of the power. Through her watery portals, we emerge. She is the gateway between life and death, the unconscious and the conscious mind.
The Moon is the luminary of the night. Night energy is different from day energy. Night is the domain of the Mysteries, the fertile dark ground. The time when the veil is thinner. The time where things are possible and liminality is evident, where everything flows, fluxes, and is connected to each other. The Moon is the champion of this time, the champion of the great night. The Great Night is where our subconscious reigns supreme. The Sun and the Moon represent the conscious and unconscious parts of the self. The Night luminary of the Moon shines light onto the parts of ourselves that we neglect, allowing us to see tensions and needs that we would not otherwise recognize.
For this reason, the Full Moon is particularly special. On a Full Moon, the energy is profoundly different, because you're finally able to see things you wouldn't usually be able to see. There is only one night every single month where the truth is completely revealed, where nothing can hide from the light. Then, as the cycle goes on, we get less and less and less light all the way down, until there is nothingness, just darkness.
If you compare it to the Pagan Wheel of the Year, the New Moon is akin to the Winter Solstice, the darkest night where there is no light. The New Moon is the moment when the crucial, strange things in the dark that wouldn't come out any other time can come out and show themselves. On this dark night though, rebirth happens. From the blackness, new life begins, emerging from the womb of creation. At times, the things we think, feel, or utter the cosmos on the New Moon can begin to bubble up, boil over, and become real, manifesting with both the power of the Moon and the Sun. This is the moment of darkness, void, but also creation. There is no separation.
After this, more light glows from the Moon with each passing day. The Moon waxes all the way up to its fullest point, seeing things as they truly are. The flashlight of the Sun begins to hit the Moon, spreading truth and light in the dark, until peak visibility happens on the fateful Full Moon. Then, with the waning phases, we move closer to the dark point, more and more of what was going on through the story of that lunation can be understood. This is the time to do shadow work, process what is going on, and release what no longer serves us. This is the time of aging and letting go. In the Wheel of the Year, this corresponds to Fall, the period of death where the leaves fall, and everything ages, until it dies, only to be reborn again. Everything moves through samsara, everything.
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Lunar magick can help you create a map for your own inner self, to grasp insight into your subconscious and unconscious. This can help you understand your shadow, know yourself better, and empower you to overcome any troubling situation you encounter. Much of working with the Moon, and esoteric systems broadly, is the process of layering meanings and holding multiple things at once. By combining, separating, and recombining, we do alchemy. Alchemy is not isolated to labs, it exists in our psyche, and this process is what the majority of modern alchemy is built upon. When we look at the lunar cycle, we can look at every cycle we experience, and make sense of them. In essence, spiritual development is going through countless cycles of life, death, and rebirth, of dissolution, transmutation, and unity, until we reach divine perfection.
To do this, sit back into the support that exists from the Moon and from the rhythmic cycles, and surrender to this rhythm. This is an aspect of the divine that you can feel. With each passing month, you will understand these cycles, and how they pertain to the mysteries a bit more. With time, you’ll get to the point where the celestial body is like a friend that you meet but get to know more in each additional setting. How are they at the cafe? How are they at the club? How are they on a walk in the woods? Each of these different energies have opportunities for you to interact with and gifts. Getting to know them consciously has been one of the biggest blessings and leads to profound spiritual benefits.
Each phase will hold you is a good key phrase for working with the Moon and feeling the Moon in your body. The Moon has been and always will be holding and supporting you, in time, in space, in between each one of your relationships, in between you and the voice in your head, in between your conscious and unconscious mind. In each position they are guiding and prompting you through the cycle of time you find yourself in. The signs, the houses, the wheel of the year, and the different astrological seasons, all play into the cycles of your life, but the biggest piece of it is that of the Moon. The Moon is always there, cycling the fastest, and allowing us to truly feel the full gamut of creation and destruction at a regular rate.
Whether you work with them consciously or not, the Moon is supporting you in each one of these arenas, rooting for you. The waxing Moon gives you time to manifest, grow, and learn new lessons. The Full Moon allows you to see the full truth of the cosmos and marvel at the fullness of creation. The waning Moon allows you to release, let go of what no longer serves you, and explore your shadow. Then, you're back to the New Moon again. Lighter and wiser. This is the Mystery of the numinous dark, the poetry of the Moon.
