The Moon

I’ve never been a good sleeper. Struggled with insomnia for more years than I can count. Some of that was absolutely due to trauma’s impact, but— even after extensive healing work and nightmares no longer stalking me, screams no longer waking me from the bits of sleep I managed—nighttime still brought up a lot of anxiety.

I was feeling flawed and broken because I couldn’t do this whole “sleeping thing” that seemed like such a natural state for so many. But, this past year, a friend invited me to look at it differently: What if, when I would awake for “no reason” at almost the exact same time for weeks on end, what if I took it as an invitation? An invitation to just sit in the Moon’s presence, even if I couldn’t see it. Just to see if anything came up. What a shift it’s made—to no longer view how I operate as intrinsically flawed. But to be curious about what my body, the earth, my folx, the night has to share with me. 

I do my best spiritual/creative work under the watch of the Moon and the stars. Early morning and late night are when I’m most able to quiet my busy mind, to focus, to listen, to be, to receive, to know. When I got my first  Rider Waite Smith deck, The Moon card immediately drew my eye and was one of my favorites. I was surprised to learn that, more traditionally, this was a card that often was associated with “fear, illusion, anxiety, deception, lunacy” as well as imagination and intuition. The Moon’s association with “feminine” energy, with emotions, with inner knowing crashing into our patriarchal society’s fist explains some of it for me. The ways we can be socialized to fear that which we can’t “prove” with “logic” and words. How limiting.

I remember always being fascinated with the stars and the Moon at night—they still take my breath away. Something about the Moon, especially over a body of water—makes me drop deep into my body, lungs fully expanding, a moment of still peace and comfort. Safe. At home.

I think of how long (and I still have my moments now, to be clear) it was hard for me to accept my big emotions and capacity for depth of feeling—fear of going “insane”,  being swept away in a tsunami of feelings and not finding my way back to shore. Fears of being too much, wrong, of getting lost in myself and not coming back. Fears that the intensity of my experiences being too much for people if they really knew me.

This aspect of who I am as a “super feeler” can still be hard for me to fully accept without shame or worry. But, more and more, I’m learning to trust myself, to know that I go deep— but I always come back up for air. And when I do, I’m wiser, more healed, more open and have new treasures from the depths to share. What a gift.

What does nighttime bring up for you?
What parts of yourself are you afraid of?
What relationship would you like to have with those parts?
What are you resisting knowing?
What may be occurring that isn’t exactly what it seems—is there another possibility worth exploring? 

ID: Two Tarot Cards’ depictions of The Moon. On the Left Cristy C. Road’s Next World Tarot: a person with long hair sits atop a rock, head tilted up, a tiny bird on their knee. Behind them is a huge, glowing moon in the center of the night sky. In front of them, a crawfish/lobster and a gray dog. On the Right, from the Rider Waite Smith Tarot: in the center of the sky is a sun; within the sun, we see a face in the shape of the moon. Midground is a body of water with a pillar to the left and right behind a sliver of land that holds with a dog and wolf howling at the moon. In the foreground is more water, with a crawfish crawling from the depths up onto the land.