Samhain and the full moon...
prepare yourself and your mind.
Saturday 10.28.23
As we’re coming up on Samhain and a full moon weekend, it’s been an almost overwhelming week. I’ve been paying attention to the moon cycles and how I feel within them for the past several years. It seems during the New Moon I’m very introspective and withdrawn. I’m perfectly happy to stay at home and not see anyone. I can become very emotional during this time as I am reflecting on things. I find it is a time that my body demands rest. I have to hit the hay early on the week leading up to it and take it easy on myself, or by the New Moon, I risk being burnt out.
During the Full Moon, I’m more energetic, talkative, and social. However, my emotions run high during the week leading up to it. It can be extreme joy, anxiety, or sadness. Whatever emotion life is leading me through, the Full Moon exacerbates it. Therefore, I must have a toolbox of coping mechanisms in place that I know will work to bring me back to center. I do a lot of breathing exercises. I turn the harsh fluorescent lights off in my office. Sometimes my co-workers think I’m crazy when I’m sitting in the darkness of my office with only a single window and the computer screen to see by, but I’m just self regulating and calming myself, it’s ok, I promise. I also seek nature. The woods, the river, going hunting, riding down a beautiful dirt road or just opening my window and listening to the birds in the magnolia tree are calming activities. I’ve also found that journaling helps get me through these moments as well. I always say, “Getting it out of my head & on to paper is the BEST medicine for worry and anxiety.”
Sometimes, hubby thinks these things are “lollygagging”, but I assure him they are self care, and I will be 10 times better when I return to the real world. And even if it is lollygagging, we should all give ourselves and minds space to do idle tasks.
What things do you do to keep yourself sane during trying times? Have you ever paid attention to your feelings and emotions during the different cycles of the moon or seasons? Let me know in the comments below.
Writing Class Update
In this week’s writing class, I was introduced to the flash essay. It may be life changing. Since my main writing time during the week is only 15 minutes, my goal is to go back in time and write a memory. Then I can return to the piece later and weave my current perspective into that memory to come up with a good story. Here are a couple of my 15 min free writes from this week. They’ve been shined up a bit but they are not completed essays. They are the framework.
My First Lesson in Loss
The room was stifling, the spirally hot monsters clanged and banged as they gave off heat.
They were fighting again and the baby was crying. A window was cracked and we were playing on the windowsill. Suddenly, she was falling, head over feet, tumbling, arms outstretched reaching for me, orangey-red hair blowing around wildly, down, down, down, to the wet, slushy street below. Cars did not stop, slow down, or even notice that she was there. I started crying. “Annie!” I cried. Daddy realized immediately what had happened and quickly ran down stairs. I was inconsolable. I don’t remember my mom being there, but she was. Daddy finally came back but Raggedy Ann was a matted, dirty mess so he had disposed of her downstairs and told me he couldn’t find her. At least they stopped arguing.
This is my earliest memory. It’s still quite vivid in my mind. I couldn’t have been more than 3 years old, if that. My mom says we were in temporary housing in Germany. We were on the 3rd floor. This was my daddy’s first deployment overseas as a member of the US Army 82nd Airborne. He was assigned to 1/41 Pershing Missile Battalion as a Quartermaster at Hardt Kaserne. He was well on his way to moving up in rank as an officer.
I’m not sure why this memory sticks in my mind so vividly unless it’s because it was my first experience with loss. Little did I know, learning to deal with loss would become my life’s mission.
A Life Changing Gift
I hurriedly unwrapped the present. Getting a present from Aunt Willie was a special treat. She rarely gave gifts. At Christmas she didn’t put up any decorations or give gifts. She lived in a beautiful ranch style, brick home on a hill surrounded by azaleas and caladiums. It was a mansion compared to the 2 bedroom tin can we lived in. It was filled with fine furniture and even a piano, which she never let us touch. She had an immaculate screened in front porch with a swing! I loved hanging out on her porch.
When I finally got all the paper off, it was just a set of books, abridged classics for young readers. I’m sure she could see the disappointment on my face. If she brought my little brother presents it was always something fun like a pop gun or matchbox cars. Books are boring, my 8 year old brain thought. I said, “Thank you” and took them to my room, never knowing they were the gateway to a world beyond the monochromatic world of Rt 4, Swainsboro, GA.
One rainy afternoon, I started reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I couldn’t put it down and finished it that day and then started The Adventures of Huck Finn. These books sparked my imagination and made me see the world as a series of stories & quests, a feeling that lives on in me to this day. I continued reading through the collection of books. Call of the Wild took me a little longer to get through, but now I wanted a dog to be my trusty adventure friend. I started Moby Dick next. Now, I needed to see the ocean. I had only been once in my life and I needed to experience it again after reading this book. The last in the collection was Around the World in 80 days. It was the hardest to get through, in fact, I’m not sure I ever finished it. I want to go back and read all of these again as an adult so that I can relive the feelings and thoughts these books brought to me. I thank Aunt Willie every day for that gift. It set me on a journey for a love of books and wanting to live and tell my own story.
Final thoughts…
Have you been writing? The fall/winter season is the perfect time to start journaling and looking inward. Let me know how it’s going.
Many blessings to you and yours!
Becki ❤️❤️❤️ XXXOOO
I love this! And so happy to know that someone else in our class celebrates Samhain. I'm definitely feeling the call to slow down and be reflective this season.