New moon rituals are about starting fresh. As the new moon marks the beginning of the lunar cycle, it is primed for self-reflection, goal setting, and healing. This is the time to create habits, start projects, or initiate life changes. Utilize the new moon’s fresh energy, priming you to start something new. Liberate your most authentic self, address and reset boundaries, set intentions for what you want to see manifest in the coming cycle. We can now call our shadow forward on the darkest of nights and shine our light into those darkest parts of ourselves. During the new moon, the sun and the moon share the same zodiac house which provides a concentrated dose of that signs archetype. Remember, the new moon is a time to: Stop, assess, maneuver. Breathe life into your goals, your ideas, your intentions.
The new moon can bring additional energy and clarity to these activities, though it is not recommended to give up something you care about or give time to energy-vacuums. While ridding your life of negative energies, stopping bad habits, and setting aside unhelpful patterns, the new moon is about beginning, about inviting new experiences. This can be looked at as approaching the new cycle from a strengths-based angle. Looking to exit a toxic relationship? The new moon is the time to focus on healing and manifesting personal strength. The full moon could be more apt for banishing negativity, releasing the unwanted. Utilize the power of shining your light into your darkness and focus on what you can grow and achieve. Now is the time to accept the unexpected invitations.
Below are some of my focuses during the new moon, followed by a process for a ritual with a healing spell.
- Intention setting: Intentions should be clear and specific. Try creating a mantra for this moon cycle. The goal of setting intentions is to inform the universe of your aspirations and utilize that to keep yourself focused. Intentions can center on what you want to see manifest during this moon cycle. - Candles and the magic of light: While the moon is all but invisible to our eyes, this is a time to begin looking again for the brightness, i.e. bring light into your life. Candles are a wonderful way to ask the universe for clarification, shine a light into the darkness. - Meditate/yoga Prepare for the upcoming cycle by healing and focusing yourself.
For Healing and Moving Forward
Gather yourself (or with your coven). Sit in stillness and stop. Stretch, meditate, and do some centering yoga. You’re starting into a new, fresh lunar cycle. Feel free to set a protection circle around yourselves to ascertain that no negative energies permeate into your healing.
As your mind clears, I like to do tarot readings or oracle cards to highlight what I/we need in order to heal and focus during this cycle. Discuss and develop your mantras and intentions as you each are comfortable (or on your own, be your light witch!).
Your mantra is growing clearer in your mind and it is time to charge your new moon candle with it. Invite the light of healing and growth into your life. Having rested, stopped, stretched, and assessed where you need to be, it is now time to maneuver. Find herbs or oils that reflect your need/intention, coat your hands and hold your candle before your heart. Repeat your mantra three times, taking a deep breath before each repetition.
Light your candle. If you need additional healing, this can be accompanied by a c
the cure to self-sabotage is to anchor yourself to the universal truth that you are worth it. you are worth the effort. you are worth the difficulty, you are worth the time, you are worth the consideration. there is never a point in your life, in time itself, that you are not worth it. return to this truth when you feel yourself slipping. do not let it go.
Thinking about the death of subcultures. Like I haven’t seen
any goth kids or punks or any obvious subcultural movements in years. And obviously
part of that is just cultural change, but when I think of modern subcultures
the only thing I can think of are those tiktok alternative people, like egirls,
but there isn’t that sense of a real “scene” going on with their own lifestyles
and music and events, like lived experience that’s shared. I feel like what we might call modern subcultures are
all reduced to mere aesthetics and they’re all mostly online, and they all look
way too pretty – their make up is always perfect and their clothes are perfectly aesthetic
and there’s none of that deliberate freakishness going on; literally grunginess
itself has been commodified. There’s none of the real expression of confusion
and anger that came with growing up in a world that you felt on some level was fucked up but you couldn’t express why, so you expressed it by dressing like a
freak, by looking kinda deliberately out of place. I want that spirit back because this
is what subcultures were about. Let’s bring back real subculture, not the alienated
commodified version that’s based on aesthetics and has been reduced to social media, but the kind where you actually
go out looking completely unhinged on purpose to disrupt. The kind where you
meet other people and feel a sense of empowerment in your willing difference
from the mainstream, and by that I mean the kind that is explicitly anticapitalist.
