The Year of the Body: Week 15

in which the body stands under the dark moon and ponders a new year

Friends, soul writers, mystics, and lovers of prayer,

Happy New Year! Today is day 1 of a new lunar year. It is the perfect moment to look back at the wild lunar year that just ended and the perfect day to welcome the year to come.

We’re doing just that today at 2pm eastern in a celebratory Moon Tea with April McMurtry.

There will be tea, of course, some lunar prayers, lots of conversation about our relationship with the moon, and a deep dive into the mystical meaning of this new lunar year.

The new year opens as the Moon enters Aries 23 under this most unusual mystical Chandra symbol: A bottle labeled drink me!

Got that? Of course not.

On Friday night, Emma Kupu Mitchell gave the members of Mother Moon Yoga some rich insights into the mystical meaning of this Chandra symbol.

She showed us how Chiron is working with us right now and through most of April. Life may feel chaotic, Emma said, because Chiron is the wounded healer. Chiron’s presence and purpose in your natal chart matters. A lot. He has much to say about the wound you carried into this lifetime.

After the intense year that just ended, with 382 days of quarantine, you might not feel inclined to open that bottle and take a sip! But the mystical healing that is possible in this new year, is enormous. And that bottle holds your medicine.

Before you take your first sip, you might wish to first look back over the last 382 under the light of this dark moon and ask yourself 3 questions:

1. What am I ready to release?
2. What do I want to celebrate from this past year?
3. During this year of pandemic, what parts of myself did I meet?

I asked myself these three questions in deep soul writing on Saturday morning and was surprised by the answers.

What to release was easy—any doubts or fears about the massive project I’m creating, The Return of the Witches Jeanne d’Arc Novena coming this summer.

What to celebrate was a bit more of a surprise. A lot happened in, and for, and through me as I sat alone inside my house for a whole year.

• For starters, Prayer Artist came to fruition as I said yes in April to embracing and teaching the 5 Original Prayers.
• Then in August, Witch landed in my lap. I wasn’t expecting that. Eventually, witch morphed into Mystic Witch.
• And last summer, working with the dead with Perdita Finn popped up out of nowhere. The dead may well be the most powerful and sacred mystical door I've ever opened.

But then, the third question. It’s a question I’ve never asked myself: What parts of me did I meet?

I was floored by the response.

You might think “witch” would be the part of me that I met for the first time, but it wasn’t that label so much as what happened when my agent told me I couldn’t use that label. A loud visceral cry NO rose from my gut. It was finding and using that big voice that made the miracle.

The part of me I met for the first time was my Voice. With a capital V. I like that Voice.

But then something else came onto the page and I had to suck in my breath. I wrote: I met my sword-carrying, banner-waving restorer of justice.

Oh dear.

Now it’s true that I am getting closer to Jeanne d’Arc with each passing day as she leads the way creating her novena.

But isn’t she the one with the sword and banner?

I didn’t realize until I saw this part of me suddenly emerge on the page, that the beating heart underlying this novena is to restore dignity and justice to the 13 women murdered by patriarchy.

If we can bring those 13 back to life, listen to their stories, and give them the experience of being heard and seen, then we can begin to hear and see all the women, children, and men being silenced and abused by patriarchy, then and now.

Like everyone this week, I have been appalled at what is coming out in the Derek Chauvin murder trial in Minneapolis.

It dawned on me as I was soul writing that George Floyd has much in common with the witches of old. They were all murdered in public. Their slow, painful executions were intended to send a message of terror throughout their communities. Be afraid. Be very afraid. This will happen to you if you speak out. If you stand up. If you demand justice.

You better stay small. Silent. Obedient.

We think there are no witch burnings today. But George Floyd was a public message of who’s in charge. And everyone else better stay quiet.

The most painful testimony in the trial was from the witnesses on the street who were desperate to get the cop off George’s neck. But they were pushed back by the three other officers with Chauvin.

• As I realized how much George Floyd’s public murder has in common with the witches I love so much, I realized just how important this novena is.
• And I realized why I had to find my big Voice last year.
• And why I had to say yes to mystic witch.
• And why I have to use my voice in service to the power of mystical pre-patriarchal prayer.

And so I look at that flask. And I say to myself, yup, I’ll open you. I’ll take a sip. I grow big like Alice. I’ll allow the magic to come through me.

Want to join me in taking our first tentative sips of the magic?

The opening Moon Tea is today, Sunday, April 11 at 2pm Eastern with a fun Moon Tea. If you missed it, don't worry, all is recorded. Our first teaching session is Tuesday.

Through the Lunar Looking Glass Prayer Intensive

to taking the first sip of the sacred medicine in the bottle labeled drink me!

Janet