Earth Renewal Moon, January 14

Everywhere you turn now, you hear about making New Year’s Resolutions or feel the expectation to turn over a new leaf in the New Year. In all cases, the implication is clear: you’re supposed to change those things that you didn’t like about yourself from last year, doing them differently in the New Year. Usually these resolutions represent radical changes: stop smoking, diet, exercise, eat more healthily, get organized, etc. While the New Year and the new calendar with its clean slate potential offer an opportunity to reconsider your life and how you might want to lead it differently, don’t forget to use the energies of the Earth’s season to assist you in any changes you want to make in the New Year.

At the end of December, we entered the Winter season. Winter is the time when the Sun has ended its retreat from the Earth and begins its return to bring warmth and extended light to the Earth. As the Sun returns, the Earth begins to warm itself and regain its vitality and vigor for the Spring. Also during this Winter season, the Earth’s energies have receded completely into the Earth to renew and replenish themselves before the coming of Spring and its new beginnings.

As you enter this New Year in the midst of the Winter season, realize that you too need to renew and replenish your own energies or else you will be running on empty by the Springtime and Summer’s demands. This rest and rejuvenation is a three-month process during which there isn’t ample energy readily available to make radical changes in your life. Have you ever wondered why New Year’s resolutions are not usually successful? Over the next three months, each Lunar Reflections will help you gestate your ideas, reinvigorate your energies, and bloom in the Spring, rested and ready for whatever you want to accomplish. So be easy on yourself, rest, and renew your energies during this Renewal Full Moon time.

The best way to renew and replenish your energies is allow the Earth to assist you. She can hold these energies safe, while allowing unneeded and unwanted or intrusive energies to drain away and mulch in the rich soils of the earth.

An exercise you can practice during this Winter season is to imagine yourself sitting in Nature by a maple tree. Its sweet sap has retreated into the warmth of the Earth. As you sit quietly, imagine yourself merging into the maple tree. Allow your energies to retreat into the tree and down the tree trunk into the deep roots of the tree. From the roots, drain your energies into the soil. Realize how the soil of the Earth is still warm, even while the surface soil and air temperatures are cool, cold, or even freezing. Feel the Earth’s warmth and protection that are available; rest your energies and gather the warmth; plus feel the promise of Spring that lies ahead. Once you’ve rested for a while, bring your energies back into the roots, up the trunk, and back into your body.

In the next couple months, the Lunar Reflections issues will add to this exercise to help you reinvigorate your energies, gestate your ideas, and bloom in the Spring.