Promise of the Full Moon

I'm more of a sun person than a moon but I must admit I was very enriched by this month's full moon. Called many different things from Whirlpool Moon to Long Nights Moon, this full moon was particularly spectacular. I observed it carefully Friday night, driving to a Christmas party, and was mesmerized by its glowing and powerful presence. She called to me, “look this way,” “hear my messages,” “see me,” “feel my transformative power.” According to “Witches' Datebook 2011,” this Whirlpool Moon is a good time for communications, especially dispersing information and wisdom. It is a time for tidying this year's affairs and summarizing the happenings of 2011 especially if you are a part of a spiritual group but if you are solitary there are also many ways of to do the same thing. This year I have been searching out groups that are not online. Don't get my wrong, I love my online groups and am a member of about 53 Yahoo groups, numerous groups on MyHoodooSpace.com, PaganSpace.net and quite a few on Soul Cafe as well as some great Meet Ups--my favorite is Chicago Ringing Anvil. I'm signed up to attend Chicago Ringing Anvil's Yule Potluck which should be a lot of fun next weekend. Online groups are a great way of staying connected with people all over the country and those abroad. I get immense pleasure out of the conversations I read and partake in online. Face-to-face groups are equally important, though I find them more difficult to navigate than online groups. I was a member of a local Dream Medicine Circle for most of this year. We would meet monthly, do a ritual and/or ceremony, discuss our dreams, and work with dream energy in writing and through art. It was powerful but for complicated personal reasons I had to quit the group before the end of the year. I see a pattern in myself wherein I am very sporadic. Doing the same thing every day or on a regular basis does not fit well into my lifestyle. I struggled this year when I had a very regular, 40 hour a week office job at an internet start up in Chicago. Yes, I enjoyed my job as a researcher and editor, especially because I was working on a special project about health but the day in, day out slog eventually got the best of me. As I rested and recuperated from being in hospital I made the decision not to return to that job. Now, once again I work 5 days a week but this time part-time so I have a chance to write in the mornings and to go to my studio and paint before and after work. This Long Nights/Whirlpool Moon I am considering continuity and honoring my commitments. These topics are of vital importance but over the course of this past year, struggles with my health have impaired my ability to stick with things I have committed to. Illness has a language and message of its own and mine has spoken to me about what I can and cannot do; what I should and should not do. With less and less of an opportunity to commune with the sun, I am turning towards the power and wisdom of the Mother Moon to help me connect with what I hold dear. The piece featured on this blog today is from the sketchbook whose inside back cover I shared yesterday. It is a collage with cray-pas pastels and it reminds me very much of full moon energy and how that energy spreads and touches the earth.