dark moon rituals newsletter
May 2024
Last weekend I drove to a memorial tree-planting ceremony, my first of the year, in whiteout snow conditions.
Here in Colorado, spring always brings volatile weather. And although we know this, having lived it year after year, we always stubbornly hope that the sunny days will prevail. Maybe it’s because the first buds of spring strike such hope and joy into our hearts, that we forget the possibility of storms. But as climate change intensifies, spring weather is only getting more unpredictable and severe - we have raging winds, late spring snowstorms, tornadoes, and damaging hailstorms.
For the ceremony, with true Colorado community resourcefulness, we put our bad weather back-up plans in motion to host a marvelously cozy gathering inside, complete with a drum circle & a toast with scotch to honor an incredible man. And then, in the wet ground, we planted his ashes alongside a memorial tree, blending his body with the soil and the tears of the sky and the handwritten notes of love from his community. There was laughter mingled with tears, joy alongside pain. Just like spring. Just like truth.
I have been feeling this paradox of spring in my body so acutely this year.
Watching the lilacs and crabapples blooming, underscored with a pang of sorrow - I can’t help but remember that these fragile blooms could be destroyed by a late spring snowstorm.
Hearing the oft-repeated advice to wait to plant our gardens until after Mother’s Day, in case we get more overnight freezes that kill our little starters before they get a chance to root.
And personally, feeling a yearning to be more present & open in my life, but weighed down by the ever-present undercurrent of fear and despair and overwhelm. Can I be courageous enough to open, to be vulnerable, to feel, in such an uncertain and heavy world?
To plant something in the ground requires hope, and to allow a bud to open and blossom is such a tender, vulnerable thing. To live and to birth always comes with acknowledging the possibility of pain, and the inevitability of ending, of death.
When we have lived through many springs and seen many blossoms withered by frost, or seen the tree branches torn down by windstorms, it is so tempting to close up and refuse to bloom in the first place. And when our nervous systems have experienced trauma, grief, pain, and loss, over and over again, it can become self-protective to close up.
This is one of my closest-held survival strategies - collapse, dissociation, and numbing, shutting down my highly sensitive parts so that I don’t have to feel. And this is a very valid way of moving in a world that is often actively harmful. Daring to be open and to bloom, to be intimately present in the moment, with the world, attuned to my own feelings and the feelings around me, means being open to pain & grief. Sometimes, this is too much, and our bodies are wise to shut down our sensing ways, to protect us.
Feeling is so vulnerable. Opening the heart, breathing into the hurt, is terrifying. And yet we lose so much more when we live our lives shut-down and numb. When we do not open ourselves to feel our grief, we also keep ourselves from opening to feel pleasure, joy, and love. And when we move through the world shut-down, we miss opportunities for building love and power with all the other living persons around us. Relationships depend on openness & vulnerability, which is inherently risky.
But there always comes a time to open again. Spring re-emerges with the audacity of new life, of starting again, of blooming. I look to the example of the plant ones when I am struggling with remaining present to my own self and present to a suffering world. Year after year, they open, despite the risks.
In the early spring, the peonies unfurl their delicate petals when it is time, despite the chance of being torn by the coming hail. What bravery. What beauty.
Remaining present, even in the pain.
Remaining open, even in the grief.
Remaining in love, even in the heartbreak.
This is the challenge that the plant ones gently nudge us toward, that our breath guides into, that our grief holds us in.
Our Dark Moon Ritual for May is to Risk Unfurling. To allow ourselves to open, like the curling petals of the flower, even if only for a moment.
Find a bloom - whether this is a flower you purchase from a flower stand, pick from your garden, or gather in the wild. Make sure to ask the flower for consent to be part of your ritual before picking it, and honor the Yes or No you hear. Once you have a yes, bring this flower-one home with you. Find out their name, if you do not know it. You may also work with a flower blooming on a plant you have in your garden.
Sit with your flower. Hold them in the palm of your hand, and breathe with them. Allow yourself to tap into the vibrant, hopeful energy of a bloom. And then allow yourself to feel the tinge of sadness at the temporality of the flower, the knowledge that it will wither and die. Practice toggling between those two feelings. Allow yourself to feel in your body that you are capable of feeling both sorrow & joy at once.
While holding your flower, ask yourself these questions: Where in my life have I shut down out of fear? Where in my body am I numb, cutting off sensation? What am I afraid to feel right now? Could I risk opening to that feeling, breathing compassion into it, for just a few moments? Place your hand on the part of your body that is feeling shut-down, protecting you from a feeling, a grief, a hope, a fear. Speak tenderly to that part, and breathe into it, while you allow yourself to open, ever so slightly. Feel what comes. Breathe into what comes. And allow the flower to model, with courage and grace, how to risk unfurling.
with deep love,
Summer