Under the light of a super moon
On allowing yourself to just be
Tonight is a full moon, the Beaver Moon. I also heard it is a supermoon, one of the last ones we’ll see on Earth until late 2025. According to The Farmer’s Almanac, the name is tied to early Native American culture and is a nod to the season when beavers begin their hibernation for the winter.
“This Moon has been called the Frost Moon by the Cree and Assiniboine peoples and the Freezing Moon by the Anishinaabe—for good reason, as winter is right around the corner,” shares The Farmer’s Almanac.
We are moving indoors, too, into our homes and warm places. Like the beavers, squirrels, and other animals who stay around for the season, we draw inward as the darkness creeps in and the frost sends shivers down our spine. This past week, I’ve looked up from my desk and see that it is dusk outside at 5:20 p.m. The skies have been heavy with clouds, and rain has welcomed a chill to the atmosphere. All I want to do is be inside, put some shocks on my purple cold toes, cozy up with a blanket, maybe drink some tea, and go to bed early.
My body tells me to rest, but my mind is busy. My mind tells me I shouldn’t let myself fall asleep at 8 p.m. Instead, I should be up and making progress toward my next goal, and I’m running out of time. My mind tells me that the least I should do is the dishes or throw in a load of laundry. We are all too familiar with the feeling when our minds are on overdrive and our bodies crave rest.
This season, the word I’ve been carrying with me is allow. It has come up in many separate conversations, specifically once with my therapist and once during a Reiki session near my birthday. When I hear a similar message in two very distinct places, I know I must listen to what it is telling me.
I must allow and trust the timing of my life. I must surrender the grip I have on my dreams, to-do list, and worries. My constant doing won’t make my dreams come true any faster, or my worries subside any less.
I was listening to an author talk where Kendra Adachi, author of The Plan: Manage Your Time Like A Lazy Genius, shared her thoughts on the current time-management paradigm that is focused on achieving greatness, hustling, master your body, winning, and having a mindset of a champion. While those concepts are not terrible things, she gave a different way to approach our time and life, and it doesn’t have to involve forcing or gripping our way through anything.
Her approach is to start where you are. Allowing yourself to be okay with who you are right now and where you are in life. She goes on to share that life is a painting, not a puzzle, and we don’t have to ‘figure things out’ all at once. Instead we can follow intuition, live in fullness, then prepare, notice, and adjust depending on what we need in each day, month, or season.
If any of this resonates with you, I encourage you to go pick up her book. It has many principles and suggestions for living a wholehearted, integrated life. Hearing her speak was a breath of fresh air.
This instance and so many others have washed over me recently, acting as permission a slip to let my body rest. Letting myself be content exactly where I am right now, even when things aren’t quite perfect, or how I hoped they would be.
I’m allowing myself to be okay how I am… where I am… I’m allowing myself to feel a sense of dread when the darkness comes, but also knowing it’s okay for me to slow down and draw inward. I don’t have to do/strive/complete a goal every waking moment. I don’t have to grip my questions so tightly that they lose shape and morph into a worry I need to control. I let go of my grip, lift my head, and open my heart, whole and content.
I wait in anticipation for this full, super, beaver, frosty moon, and all I hope is for it to shed light on what I can let go of this winter; where can I relax into being just a little more than I already am? How can I let my body love what it loves… even when it’s just my bed’s warm sheets on a cold morning? Where can I find pockets of light when and joy among the darkness?
I open the invitation up to you, too. If you resonate with any of this, allow yourself to be okay where and how you are. Know that you are allowed to be exactly as you are, no matter what happened today, this week, this month, or year. Whatever you did or did not complete, you are good and whole and loved exactly how you are right this minute.
I invite you to bundle up and sit in the magic of the full moon tonight; let it shine through your cracks and tiredness. Let it strip you bare. What can you allow to be as is this season? What can you let go of that will make you feel a little lighter moving into these next few months of wintering? What grace can you gift yourself and others?
