The New Moon made her first appearance for this month yesterday, and as she waxes, she bestows upon those who are open to her energies her creative, generative, 'moist', deeply yin influene.
Right now, those energies are at their most powerful, for the Sun and Moon are in conjunction, bringing together the Sun's forceful, impregnating masculine (yang) energies and the Moon's receptive, generative, liquid feminine (yin) energies...a very powerful combination.
The Light of the Moon
In her aspect as the New Moon, the great Mother of Creation manifests life-giving energy, helping women to concieve and give birth to healthy children. She is represented in very ancient Egyptian mythology as Heru or Hathor, goddess of the sun and moon, the goddess of love, dancing and music, protector of women and childbirth. She is the Pheonician Astarte or Mesopotamian Ishtar, the Mother Goddess, also protector of childbirth, women, creator and protector of living things, whose symbol was the crescent moon.
On the spiritual level, the new moon associated with the Mother Goddess is a symbol of our potential for spiritual growth, the soul's rebirth into a new consciousness, a higher level of being that is open to all, but achieved by a few...hopefully, more and more of us as we become more aware.
Hathor, Astarte and Mother goddesses of other mythologies joined with major male deities and gave birth to sons who were called lights of the world or world saviours. We can recognise this life-giving, Holy Mother aspect of the great Mother in Catholic iconography of the Virgin, who is (not coincidentally) often shown on a crescent moon.
On the material level, the new moon represents the generative energies of Nature, the creative energies of the Cosmos and the great cycle of life, death and rebirth through time. We can draw on those energies to help us as we continually create and recreate ourselves and our lives in the lifelong quest for self-knowing and actualization.
Now is a perfect time to set Clear Intentions, and harness the energies of Sun and Moon to help you to grow and nurture those Intentions into Creative Action!
Here's a simple ritual that I use to issue a clear statement to the Moon and other Cosmic energies of my intentions. Since the moon is associated with water, I like to do this at the seashore, but you can do it anywhere; just imagine the moon's energy surrounding you.
Step 1: I write down on separate bits of paper (or leaves or shells) in as few words as possible the intentions I want to focus on this month (and perhaps a long-term goal as well): e.g. grow vegetables; do my moon painting; one day a week for writing; Sunday meditations in and on Nature...etc.
Step 2: Prepare for the ritual - clear my thoughts of any negativity or concerns; bathed and clean. If at home, you might light candles and incense to cleanse your chosen space and infuse it with radiant energy. At the seashore, I invite the moon and stars to bless my space with their light and energy. I chant a simple prayer to bring my energies into harmony with the Cosmos, God or the All.
Step 3: One by one, I slowly and thoughtfully read my intentions, investing it with the emotional energy of gratitude. It is most helpful to do this in full expectation that your intentions will materialise. (speak in present tense, AS IF it were already happening). Since I know that I do not always know what is best for me, I might precede each intention with something like: 'If it be Thy will' ...(I devote one full day each week to writing/ I devote each Sunday to appreciating and meditating in Nature...)
After stating each intention, I place the paper, shell or leaf in the sea (a large bowl of water at home, which can later be emptied in the garden, or if you can, into the sea).
Step 4: I stand or sit in silent appreciation, allowing myself to feel part of my surroundings, and my connection with the Cosmos. I thank the moon and the stars.
The Dark Side of the Moon
The New Moon represents not only the combination of positive, life-giving, generative masculine and feminine energies; it also combines their darker aspects. As the Cosmic image of the Divine Feminine, the Moon also embodies dark, secretive, death-bringing yin energies.
The ancient sky and moon Goddesses all had their darker aspects, reflecting the darker aspects of Nature and of life itself: death, suffering, pain and loss. As civilizations became more rigidly patriarchal, these darker aspects were sometimes separated from the 'positive' aspects. Instead of the ancient Astarte with both her beneficent and dangerous qualities fully expressed in one being, we got Hathor with her alternate aspect, Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of death, vengeance and unbridled violence, who is sometimes called out to wreak havoc on erring humans; or Kali, the destructive, violent, feminine aspect of Krishna.
Hathor (left) and her fierce other aspect, Sekhmet (right)
With our watered-down image of the Holy Mother as all-good, pure, loving and peaceful, we have forgotten that Light and Dark are complementary, aspects of each other that are part of the Whole.
Death clears the way for change and new growth. It can break the bonds that bind us to our ego selves and liberate us from our blind attachment to the material. As we awaken to greater aspects of our being, our attachment to the small personality with its accumulated misconceptions dies, and through many small deaths, we can be born into an ever larger, more liberated and beautiful awareness of life as it really is.
Wholeness
Contemplating the new moon can help us to understand and appreciate this seemingly paradoxical oneness of Life and Death. Keep your eye on the moon as she waxes from a thin crescent to fullness, then wanes into nothingness, and you may begin to recognise in that cycle the changes of your own life, the cycles of your own being, and in so doing, you might understand that like the moon, your being seems to change, to pass through cycle after cycle of life, but that just as the moon remains inviolate in the cosmos, regardless of how we perceive her, so does your Being.
Your waxing and waning and periods of apparent being are NOT you, but aspects of your personality, which is always changing. No two crescent moons are ever exactly the same. You are always changing...yet beneath all that movement, all that change that is life, is the eternal you, One Being that encompasses all probable expressions of itself.
Learn to recognise this wholeness, the Oneness, and the 'good and bad', 'light and dark' aspects of your being become integrated, and the artificial distinction between them disappears. Your gentleness gains power and strength; your lovingness and compassion are no longer passive but active, assertive expressions of your Wisdom, and you realise that you were always Perfect, but unable, in your fragmented perceptions of reality, to see it.