A New Life or……

The time is coming when life is going to be different to how it has been. The current coronavirus shut-in is aside, a blip in history that will be a gift for some and something else for others. The question potentially isn’t how will we survive months of being home. (That sounds like my life most weeks anyway) it should be what will we discover about ourselves and what really matters as time passes and we get used to how we are being asked to live.

Lots of people are hoping for an awakening of self and a growing mindset of care will develop out of this time. For some it will. BUT every day is an opportunity for new to occur and awakening to kindness to happen, with or without a virus. It is really a choice of how we pay attention in our lives.

I was at the local post office the other day to send off a wad of paper for some assessment pieces in a course I have been doing. We were keeping our respectful distance with people wearing plastic gloves and surgical face masks to mail letters and collect parcels. In this socially distant world it occurred to me people are doing what they have been asked to do. To consider the implication of their actions on other people.

This mindful moment of consideration that is happening now is nice. I ask will it continue. Will everyday people on everyday continue to consider the implication of their actions on others when no one is telling them to. It’s what would be kind and loving of us to do. Many of us were raised to think that way…. some weren’t. Some choose not to. BUT.

If we are to spend months in distanced spaces from other people, what is the greater good that will come from it? In my life? In your Life? Who do I choose to be today?

New Moon

The new moon shows itself once a month. It is the same side that we see when the moon is full. We’d have to be space traveller to actually see the other side of the rock that doesn’t spin in space just hanging in Earth’s gravity. it has been attributed with all kinds of magic and mystery through centuries of wondering. The one I like the best is that it is the time for setting intentions.

Most people talk about the moon in their days when it is full and bright and seemingly encourages all kinds of wild and weird behaviour. Often it is the time when folk who believe so write lists of things they want to remove from their life and burn it in the night. It’s a good thing to know what no longer serves a good purpose in our lives but removing it is only part of the process for change. Those things had roles in our lives, they fulfilled patterns of behaviour or thought that we relied on. To change is a good thing, it is the purpose of living, to adapt and cause evolution of our beings in response to a world that always changes.

Like New Year’s resolution that trigger change for a day, a week or a month and then are forgotten, if only forgotten. Resolutions which are lamented are the breaking of which is mourned as failure. The don’t work because there is no intention of new behaviour in the place of the things we want to put down. The natural flow of water and life on this planet is for the void to become full.

New Moon is this time, when we know it is in the sky but we can’t see it without sunlight. The time for setting intentions and building from where we are. As gravity bound bodies it is perfectly sensible to build from where we stand rather than try and fill a void that might encompass us. Dark Moon is about hope and gratitude for what has been and what might be. The passing through ritual to allow ‘next’ to appear.

Ritual should allow us to consider what has been and where we are most positively. It is from where we are that we can build or move. If we are aiming for the void/unknown we still need the ability to know how to get there. Stating intention is only the beginning but it is the permission we need to allow ‘next’ or ‘other’ to begin to ‘become’ in our lives.

Dark Moon: The new moon of intention.

In reality it doesn’t matter what day you choose to make a resolution for something to be different in your life. Remember though if there is something you want to leave behind replace it with a new behaviour or thought to fill the void it will leave. Be prepared for the conscious effort it might take to make your intended goal to become a reality in your world. Choose your moment of New Moon in the dark of its presence and walk toward beginning with gratitude.

Happy Day

Sandy

Traveller

Traveller. The image at the top of the page, appeared on a weekend of painting retreat with a group of like minded ladies and a gifted artist who was teaching us. She appeared largely because I had been writing her story for a few months.

Her name is Traveller because in the words of the story that was who she became as she followed the impulse to walk out through the gate and keep going. She heralded the actual allowing of my life becoming different to what it had been. It was necessary. my inner being knew it but my stubborn mind had taken some convincing. It needed to almost break apart before my body and heart could get my attention.

Traveller’s words came in purple…not black on white. Purple was needed as Black linked me to the mode of work. Work was where I learned to type and type reports was how my hands linked to my brain. It’s different now. I am different now. Finding out what allowing life rather than finding life means for me.

Allowing has always been easy in a creative context. If people ask me about where my inspiration comes from I don’t have an easy answer because it is this subconscious reaction to holding a pencil or having paint in my hand. The inner voice that didn’t require words to express and idea or struggle with an image until….. Until is the important word there. Until defines when it is finished. I’m not even sure Traveller’s story is finished I just started writing until I ran out of words. I think I am close to that point.

She felt soft and wise to write. The best parts of myself and my wisdom written down in Purple.

I think there are times for everyone when we reach the point of ‘until’ and then we allow an end or a beginning or a corner to signal a change. Change isn’t actually hard. We do it all the time but there are seminal life moments that we move towards. In the same way the Earth and the Sun slide through space following a path that seems to dictate that they do, there are times in our lives when we do a similar thing. We keep moving toward the thing we need to find.

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