Budding Trees Moon, April 13

The Budding Trees Moon is a time of catalyzing the shift of energies from the Winter resting and rejuvenation to the Spring budding and blooming. Now is a good time to inventory any detrimental patterns in your life, so that you can use energies of Nature to help change them.

The Budding Trees Moon is a time of catalyzing the shift of energies from the Winter resting and rejuvenation to the Spring budding and blooming. What changes do you want to happen in your life now? Now is the time to channel your rejuvenated energies into what you want to have to occur this Spring. Because Spring marks the time of new beginnings, it is a good time to reflect on patterns in your life, so that you don’t continue to repeat patterns this Spring that no long serve you.

Consider what patterns mark your life. Patterns are a set of actions you regularly perform or a way in which energies organize and repeat. Many patterns are useful and helpful – such as, eating regularly, brushing your teeth, cleaning house, doing laundry, sleeping/waking/exercising, etc. Other patterns can be detrimental to your health, wellbeing, and potential – such as alcoholism, drug additions, food addictions, or psychological patterns, such as always fighting with your parents, siblings, spouse, children, incessantly fostering feelings of annoyance, grouchiness, irritation, loneliness, etc.

Now is a good time to inventory any detrimental patterns in your life – and use the energies of Nature to help change them. You may want to radically change a pattern in your life or merely change the current form a pattern takes.

According to Starhawk in The Earth Path: Grounding your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature © 2004, changing a pattern in your life takes four stages (p. 206):

1.     Consciously acknowledge and name some pattern, force, or energy that you want to release or transform.

2.     Do something symbolically to release it.

3.     Identify some positive pattern, force, or energy to replace it with.

4.     Perform some act (such as a small ceremony or ritual) to symbolize the replacement.

Since the Full Moon is a time of culmination and completion, use these energies to acknowledge any patterns you want to release or change and symbolically release them. You can use the elements of Nature to create a small ceremony to symbolize that which you want to change. For example, to symbolically release, you can use:

·       Water (to wash away)

·       Fire (to burn into ashes)

·       Earth (to bury and transform into mulch)

·       Air (to blow away)

Then begin the process to make the changes by identifying and putting into practice your new pattern. You can use the same or different elements of Nature in a small ceremony to symbolize your new pattern. For example, to symbolically replace, you can use:

·       Water (to baptize yourself into a new way of life)

·       Fire (to symbolize the phoenix rising out of the ashes or to recapture your inner fire)

·       Earth (to bury and transform into mulch to fertilize new plans)

·       Air (to seed the winds with your plans)

Remember that patterns take time to change. You need to tend to them every day. Remember it usually takes 21 days (3 weeks) for a pattern to change and that each day during that time you would need to tend to and practice an alternative way of being. Therefore, you may want to repeat your symbolic act of change multiple times until the new pattern is well seated in your life. You’ll also need to control the inner voice in your head that may discourage you or attempt to convince you that you can’t be successful with your plan.

So allow yourself to use the energies of this Budding Trees Moon to bring your rejuvenated energies into that with wants to bud, control that inner voice, and be successful in the changes you want in your life.

Next Month: Frogs Return Moon on May 13