The full moon, Holy Week, and the power of reflection 📿
Seven Sacred Days: The Spring Series #3
Hello you,
I don’t think I ever write much about my everyday life to you - outside of how I move through the seasons. I’d like to share more, but there is much confidentiality surrounded my work. However, just so you might know a little more about me, I work with high school dropouts and at-risk youth/young adults who are trying to find their way back to work or studies. I have built up a program that focuses on helping these youth between 16-19 release what needs to be released and create their own motivation as a way to guide them forward in life. It is a program that is built on personal growth and balance. And one of the things that I teach them in our group sessions is the power of reflection.
First - just stop.
I deeply believe that in order to know what you want, how you want to live, and what path forward you want to create for yourself, then you must first know who you are.
And in order to know who you are and what you value, then you must first slow down and just be.
The first step in moving on is, ironically, to just stand still. And to create space to stop, reflect, listen, and feel. To let all of the experiences, thoughts, emotions, and memories come - the tough ones, the painful ones, the shadowy ones, and the beautiful ones. And, as they arise from within, they alchemize and heal and guide us in knowing who we really are and how we want to live going forward.
I see this pattern in the energy of the seasons of the year, as well. Autumn and winter force us to slow down, turn inward, and sit with all of the magic and mystery of the darkness. But, night and darkness always give way to light and life. Spring is born anew every single year.
Holy Week
Today is Palm Sunday. In the story of Jesus’s life and death, this is the Sunday that Christians celebrate Jesus arriving into Jerusalem - knowing that what lies ahead, in just a few days, is a heartbreaking betrayal and his horrific death.
For those who observe Holy Week, the past 6 weeks of Lent have been a long, inner journey of deep reflection, and today the final act of reflection awaits. Following the example of Jesus, who spent 40 days and nights alone in the desert, facing his own demons and shadows, many Christians have spent these past 6 weeks in prayer and contemplation, reflecting on their own demons and shadows. It has been a time, also like the Islamic holiday Ramadan, of fasting and inner focus.
It may sound depressing and challenging, but back in the day when I also celebrated Lent, it was actually one of my favorite holy seasons of the year. I no longer participate in organized Christianity in the way I did before, but the rituals and sacred days are still an important, solitary part of my seasonal celebrations. Just as winter gives way to spring, so does Lent give way to Easter.
For me, Holy Week, beginning today and ending with the celebration of Easter (who’s roots actually spring from the ancient pagan Ostara) is a week of deep personal reflection. It is a week where the mystery of the rhythms of nature meet the mystical hope that life comes from death.
Darkness comes before the dawn, and winter before spring. And the lesson of the earth and of many of the world’s religions is that just when it is the darkest, hope rises once again. Just when we think that winter will never end, spring arrives once again.
As Holy Week unfolds and the story of the betrayal and death and resurrection of Jesus is remembered, I allow space to reflect on what needs to be healed in me and I commit once again to living the life that I feel called to live. To stay true to who I am and who I am becoming. This is the season of awakening and rebirth. It is time to release the dark shadows of winter and Lent. The seeds that were sown in the past are ready to sprout. And I am inspired, once again, by the dedication ofJesus to the belief that to lose your life is to find it. In other words, to die is to be reborn. To surrender and release is to rise and bloom.
March’s full worm moon | lunar eclipse
This year, Holy Week begins with the first full moon of spring. When the moon is big and bright and full, I can’t help but feel that she is illuminating the path that lies ahead. However, this moon does not signal the time for manifesting or action; she invites me, instead, to follow the slow, contemplative energy of Holy Week and turn inward, for deep reflecting and healing as a way to prepare for the resurrection and rebirth that is waiting for us all.
We have just crossed over the equinox portal and spring is unfolding in her own sweet time. In staying aligned with the waking of the earth and the slow emergence of buds, grass, leaves, and creatures, I intend to also slowly rise to the energy of spring.
This is the perfect time to reflect on the past 6 months (or even 20 years, if you wish - what were you doing and who were you in 2004?). The autumn equinox was 6 months ago for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Just a couple of days after the arrival of autumn, my father passed away. In these past 6 months my whole world has shifted. Everything is different. I feel different. And with the arrival of the spring equinox last week, I felt a stirring and the arrival of a new phase in my life.
I need the coming of the spring and the deeply personal rituals of Holy Week to help me stop for a moment to reflect on where I have been, what has happened, who I am, and how I want to live. I feel the energy of the season of light and life and rebirth rising, but I need to pause for just a little while longer. I know that there is something new waiting to be born from within me. And I am almost ready. But first, one more long, quiet, week of deep reflection on the sacred cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
Blessed full moon, lovely you.
xoxo. liz.
“This lunar eclipse equips you with all that you need to finally unearth what has been holding you back from moving your potential forward and closing the gap between who you were and who you want to become. “
- Laura Durban
This is such a beautiful reflection! Thank you for sharing more of what you do, those young adults are so lucky to have you helping them to find their way. Yes it is an interesting time of year, Easter with its joy and fun but also mournful, melancholy feeling, spring doing its slow thing and the moon too with its fullness but also shadow and eclipse. I am glad to hear that you are feeling the potential in this time for renewal and rebirth and hold this tenderly for you xx
I look forward to your letters. I too have spent most of the winter reflecting as I've had December and January stuck at home with a back injury. I'm now stuck at home again recovering from surgery. I'm trying to take comfort from the energence of spring but feel stuck as I wait for the results of the surgery and a possible cancer diagnosis. So until I can move forward I will try and rest and reflect and prepare for an uncertain future