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This month's Full Moon brings us a lunar eclipse as well, and arrives hot on the heels of the Spring Equinox. Known variously as the Worm Moon, the Sap Moon, or the Crow Moon, March's Full Moon calls us to seek out the areas of balance and imbalance in our lives. It is very much in harmony with the overall energies of the Spring Equinox -- the time when we begin to turn from the inner work of the Winter to the outer work of Spring and Summer, when we move from contemplation to action. This Full Moon propels us to action, but gently so -- inviting us to examine the areas where we are still in need of nurturance and healing, where we have gotten out of balance and harmony with ourselves and our world. 

We had a bit of a warm snap last week, and all the snow on the lawn melted. Then the frozen ground began to thaw. It was certainly a lovely break, going out in just shirtsleeves, in the middle of Winter. It went on long enough that things have started to bloom—some dandelions on sunny hillsides, a tiny little purple weed in a sheltered bed. And despite knowing that winter was most emphatically NOT done, and that snow was around the corner (it is in fact fall right now as I write this), I took several deep breaths and sat in the sunlight, and smelled new scents in the air.

I could smell pollen and rain, mostly blown in by a strong wind from the southwest. I could also smell the bitter-til-its-sweet scent of hard dirt yielding to water. It was as if the ground was heaving a sigh of relief as it stretched and relaxed. The scent of mud was all around me on my hike, as I squelched down the muddy path to a creek swollen fat and high with melted snow.

a bold Moon in the season of Imbolc

This is the guided meditation I always do on the first full moon of the year:

Close your eyes, sink into your body, breathe.

Christmas has its own unique magick, and this year the light of the Full Moon shines upon Christmas Day. This unusual synchronicity brings forward the many sacred qualities of this season.

The Sun entered the sign of Capricorn on the Winter Solstice. Ruled by Saturn, Capricorn embodies the qualities of discipline, structure, and reason. Protective, cautious, resourceful and prudent, Capricorn represents the Father of the Zodiac. Capricorn sits opposite Cancer, ruled by the Moon, represents the divine feminine's magickal qualities of nurturance, dreams and psychic mastery. The Full Moon in Cancer shines down the Great Mother's divine love, ever-renewing and unconditional, at a moment when much of the world is trying to hold a vision of peace, compassion and generosity that is at the heart of Christmas.

About half an hour before moonrise, we meet up at the coven bench in the park, big enough to hold a whole coven. Well, almost.

We catch up, laugh, dish a little. It's August, almost September, so zucchini bread, curds and apples circulate along with the wine.

When bats begin to wheel, it's time to make our magic: down the hill and around the lake, still high with summer rain, we go. We stride purposively, silent with intent. Cowans clear the way without realizing it. Frog after frog hops along our path as we walk: tens of them, scores of them. Clearly the frogs have magic of their own to make tonight.

We circle, right shoulders to night water. We meet up again where we started, where the three paths join. By Bat, by Moon, by Frog: So mote it be.

"I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world."
What a Wonderful World ~ Thiele and Weiss

The whole-hearted optimism and idealism of this wildly popular song that Louis Armstrong pretty much owned would probably cause it to fall flat on its face were it released today. Cynicism, deep pessimism and hypocrisy are rampant. Just reading the news is an exercise in developing emotional resilience — assuming you can manage to avoid getting depressed.  But as we try to pull back from the edge of causing our own extinction, as we try to figure out how to deal with the obvious insanity of our culture (did you read the one about how they just restarted a nuclear reactor located two miles away from a highly active volcano that is close to erupting?), as we try to keep our own lives on track, it is important to remember that the simple joys, the sacred moments, the acts of blessing and being blessed are experiences inherent to our human consciousness, experiences that connect us with Spirit and bring healing. Nurturing those experiences is the work of the healers of the world -- and we are all healers, if we choose to be.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl (neurologist, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor)

It is only by changing our consciousness as individuals that we can change the world we live in. This month’s Full Moon reminds us that we are being called to a level of transformation that requires leaving cynicism, pessimism and hypocrisy behind as we become more and more aware of the effects of consciousness on physical reality.  The ramifications of the choices we make every day about how we use our minds, thoughts and emotions reverberate through our lives in the same way a plucked string on a guitar sets the other strings vibrating, even though they are untouched.

Unless you are a complete materialist, and believe that there is no existence or awareness separate from what your brain generates, and that brain is no more than the result of a process that began with the entirely random knocking together of atoms in a primordial soup, then you know that consciousness extends not only within and throughout physical reality, but in a reality that exists beyond the borders of time and space. (I am not questioning the mechanisms of the evolutionary process here, BTW, just the “entirely random” part.)

We have considerable and accumulating evidence that consciousness does continue to exist after death, and between lives, and that consciousness — or perhaps I should refer to it as Consciousness — not only exists outside time and space, but is responsible for the creation of it. If you have experienced this reality — whether you believe in creator gods or a single God or simply the non-theistic existence of the Tao —  then you realize that Consciousness is primary, the Source. From there, it is an easy step to conclude that your own consciousness must also be creative and influential, since it is part of the greater Consciousness that is the force behind all creation.