New Moon Ritual: April 2024

You know that meme about the witch that forgets what day it is and then scrambles to put together their ritual with whatever is laying around the house? That wasn’t quite me for this new moon, but it was close. I totally lost track of time and didn’t realize the new moon coincided with the eclipse. Suffice it to say, this was a very interesting experience.

I cant quite explain the experience I had because it very heavily relied on my own personal memories to pull visuals, sensations, and feelings that I would be able to understand and translate, but overall there were two key themes:

First, the forced illusion of limited choices. Oftentimes we are presented with false binaries or limiting options that tend to be the result of scarcity mentalities, patriarchal over-culture, histories of conquest and erasure, or other forms of control. It’s important to see through these false boxes. Part of this is gaining a deeper understanding of what is and is not within our control, what we truly want versus what we are told we should want, and reimagining what “success” looks like. Sometimes the best choice we can make is the one not offered.

And this leads to the second theme, breaking patterns. Sometimes the choices we are given are just the echoes of decisions in the past. Our parents and communities may be locked in by trauma - self-imposed or the legacies of violence done against them - which they force onto us. Living in trauma, in fear, in states of constant survival-mode limit our ability to imagine and see other ways of being. Disrupting these patterns can be painful. It can leave us feeling isolated, and it can trigger fear and anger in those who have come to rely on these patterns. But breaking them is one step in collective liberation and creating space for new ways of being.