Lyndall McQuinn

Futures are known, you are creating them. We can be Conscious Creators

Ritual

Ritual brings consciousness to the way we live, think and feel.

It is within ritual that we begin to state to ourselves where we need to make change and how we plan to do that.

We can participate in ritual in many ways.
Also see Working Ritual within the Astrology Wheel

• We can reproduce rituals written by our noble crone mothers and learn from the wisdom of their words and their ways.
• We can choose specific energetic times to perform ritual. These times may be at the solstices and equinoxes or more regularly, monthly with the phases of the moon.
• We can invent and create ritual for ourselves, using our tools of meaning to elucidate situations in our lives.
• Ritual can be done with group or alone.

Lunar Energy

My preferred time for working ritual is based on Lunar Energy. We all acknowledge the effect Lunar lore gives to gardening, and on the oceanic tides. Many of us accept the knowledge that we can see our menstrual clocks are similar to Lunar cycles so why not our emotional cycles?

Our processes towards understanding are like the phases the Moon passes through. We begin in darkness, we grow to lightness/understanding and return again to the dark. If we choose to plot our processes with the rhythm of lunar energy then we are working in harmony with the nature of the night.

Our activity and enterprises are lived by the Solar light, we delve our inner depth by the Lunar night.

Deciding to work the Moons

Working Full Moons : It is really special to work outside under her light if possible, however if not possible, set a space in an area that's comfortable and free of interruptions. Access to her light or round face certainly allows us to experience her energy.

The options are numerous.

It is a good time to take

• inner journeys
• to meet deities,
• or Tarot figures,
• inner characters
• go on a vision quest.

Perhaps the pressure of the Full Moon energy allows us to react without controlling how we wish to respond. Pressure builds, we release more truthfully to ourselves that which lies hidden. The cleansing of the moon's light is about being able to at least be straight and true to self, how that will be dealt with externally can be decided later.

The idea of Lunacy, being moon struck; then takes on the connotation of being bathed in Lunar Rays. It becomes a conscious decision to use Nature’s tides to tune in on yourself. A dance with our inner-sanity; one we aren't afraid of but rather see it as a monthly touch base with truths.

In all these types of journeys, the relevant factor of the Full Moon is access to deeper energy levels and letting nature help open inner windows for us to see through.

Working the Dark Moons :The Dark Moon's energy is equally as powerful as the Full Moon but in a different way. This is the hidden time and often experienced as intense but full of uncertainty. There is a sense of discomfort, some-things are unclear or a dis-ease disturbs the peace. This can be the time when you know something is brewing but are not sure what. Use or feel this energy about 2-3 days before the New Moon.

It is a time to work but the expectation is different. Not all will be revealed. Sometimes extremely deep pieces, about which you had no idea, will surface, other times nothing of relevance seems visible. Pieces are hidden, deeply veiled. We need to know how to split through the veils to find these pieces. The terrain will be unknown, otherwise we would already have what we are seeking in our consciousness.

Even though this energy can be felt as intensely as the Full Moon's, the techniques to work it are quite different.

My suggestion here is to work in two differing modes.

It is easy with the Full Moon to automatically ascend. Arms move upward to embrace her light. The tendency of the journey is to travel out and upwards towards her light.

To work the Dark Moon I descend into the darkness. Working within descent has more fear attached to it. There is a tendency to be afraid of darkness and even more fear of descending down into it .

Ascending practices equate to the concept of Our father who art in heaven. This is a journey to the Greater Spirit realm above. These journeys belong in the air realm, often involving the air spirits such as angels, dragons or birds. For us as human practitioners on Earth this is literally the Stairway to Heaven, complete with both Solar and Lunar. light. Our consciousness moves from our physical form and reaches upward.

The Descent practices move to the Earth's Centre. Our Mother who is the Earth. These practices centre within the body equating to the womb from which the created form nestles to grow in readiness to be born. The journeys are downward into the labyrinths of hallways, tunnels and caves. The power source here is the fire from the Earth's core and the actual physical structures of the planet we all dwell upon. Our consciousness journeys in the night-light, being aware of darkness and learning to probe within it.

Extract from The Personal Planets by Lyndall McQuinn.

Also available as Document: The Lunar Lore by Lyndall McQuinn. Lyndall is currently writing her third book entitled Ritualistic Astrology.

Also see Working Ritual within the Astrology Wheel

Blessed be
Lyndall McQuinn.