“I ate the moon.”
The two-year-old toddler nonchalantly confessed this to her mother and me.
The scrumptious science lesson starred Oreos to illustrate the different moon phases.
Vivian ate the moon before it could wax or wane. She ate the moon whole; the entire Oreo swallowed up by the bubbling digestive universe.
Vivian might have devoured the visible sight of the moon, but the cookie crumbs that remain point to a lunar phase often skipped … at least by me … and that’s the dark moon.
Look to the starlit sky before the wink of a hopeful new moon. You’ll be greeted by a blanket of night, no moon in sight, but trust that is she is there. In the folds of her night she invites us to get cozy and comfortable, to cultivate the courageous compassion to meet our own inner darkness.
Greeting my darkness with graciousness is a new and ongoing practice for me.
I’m an energetic creative with a star-wired leaning toward activity and creation. I’d scan the heavens for the new moon as a green light to seed the idea, plant an intention, celebrate a beginning. I’d rejoice at the potentiality. But the possibilities are enriched and enlivened when we sit with the dark moon.
When I sit with the dark moon, I find that my darkness does not eat me up.
I discover that when I let the all-inclusive Light of my consciousness illuminate and lovingly gather my edges, my pain-points, my jagged-teethed imperfections, I become exceptionally stronger in my softness.
The dark moon deepens my truth-telling, and I can only be clear and honest with the honeyed assistance of radical self-acceptance and complete self-compassion. I can only get real by letting myself be real.
Self-consciousness, irritation, explosive anger (to name just a few) are not shunned, but swept up and swiftly tucked in to the expansive Light that is my heart. Fragments find shelter into a re-remembered wholeness. They speak and I listen. I allow their full-fledged selves to breathe and answers arise or the charge dissolves and self-awareness brightens.
This dark moon medicine weaves into a daily forgiveness practice. I heighten affectionate attentiveness to my judgments and attack thoughts, clarifying that all judgment stems from a false belief in separateness. I discern my pain behind the attack, which typically wants to protect and shield. To see myself clearly while I am in the darkness of my shadow is the ultimate gift of the dark moon.
I often perceive that my hurled hurt comes from the neglected cries of my inner child. She’s like the two-year-old toddler who confessed to eating the whole moon, so refreshingly real and mischievously wise.
I ate the moon, too. And found an infinite kindness in the inky, black night. Even though I was drenched in darkness, I found that I could see myself clearly. This is the gift of sneaked Oreos and the dark moon.