Moonpath: Week 2

I love to long for my future, and I love when
my future longs for me. It feels as good as dancing
to the most kickass song, when my body predicts beats and breaks
and rhythm changes, when it's all tight and suave, like all I've
been waiting for is right here, and I'm drinkin' it down easy.
Dawn Serber

Week 2 of the Moonpath is here, clever friends! Also, a very blessed Imbolc to the northern hemisphere folks and very blessed Lughnasadh to my southern hemisphere readers!

How was week 1 for you? Did you create goals? We're they just the right size? A bit big? Or did you finish them up quickly?

After the first week or cycle of a new practice it's important to look back and reflect on what worked and what didn't, improving, discarding, and adapting as needs dictate. Along with your goals for the week, post below about what did and didn't work for you, tricks that you think are pretty useful, and ways that you're planning on following through or adapting your practice for next week.

Just like last week, you're invited to do the following:

• Prioritize your 1 - 3 herbal study + practice goals for the week.
• Pursue these 1 - 3 herbal study goals by choosing what you will do to accomplish them. Then do them!
• Make Pleasure in your practice.

Check out tips for success on our original post!

So how are you walking your Moonpath this week?
Post your goals below!

The Moon transits into the sign of Leo at 9:41 AM/PST.
She sits in the Tenth Lunar Mansion - a place of restoration.
Tomorrow is a Full Moon in the sign of the Lion.
Courage and brave ambition are her energies.

Quickening: An Imbolc Tarot Spread

While pulling a card is a common affair in the Apothecary, throughout the year I take time to pull a full spread that helps me to connect with the current energies of the seasons (the mighty macrocosm) as well as my own rhythms (the mighty microcosm). Checking in with myself helps me to be able to check in with others better. I am a better member of my relationships, my communities, and my family when I take time to know what is going on in my world. Tarot has been one of my oldest tools of sorcerous accountability - the 78 ever-changing paths of wisdom help lead me back to myself again and again. As the wheel of the year turns, I invite you to make time for tarot, some tea, sacred songs, maybe some dancing, and get tucked into your story and the truths it tells.

Imbolc is a time of quickening. The word Imbolc is from the Gaelic for “in the belly” and speaks of the promise of spring, even when winter lingers. Think of the earth stretching before arising from her winter bed and her blood warming beneath her skin of soil. Our Quickening tarot spread for Imbolc is about paying attention to those seed dreams we discovered within ourselves in the dark of the year, focusing on how we can nurture our dream into reality.

1. SEED. What is the dream seed that I hope to grow in the brightening year?
2 + 3. QUICKENING. What energies are stirring awake within me? What part of myself that has been slumbering is slowly awakening?
4. FIRE. What aids and inspires my dream seed?
5. ICE. What blocks and challenges my dream seed?
6 + 7. FORGE. How can I support and shape my dream into reality? What are my best tools for the job?
8. SURFACING. What part of my dream is currently emerging and what should I seek to support right now?

Want to learn more about the herbs and essences of Imbolc? I'm glad you asked! Check out my post Quickening: Herbs of Imbolc.

Looking for more magickally inspired Tarot spreads?

You're invited to peruse my tarot + divination series. Or do you want to learn about herbalism and tarot? Check out The Tarot Apothecary. Find all the tarot spreads in my Wheel of the Year series via the links below:

• Hallowing: Samhain Spread

• Darkest Night: Winter Solstice Spread

• Quickening: Imbolc Spread

• Brightening: Spring Equinox Spread

• Fire + Fields: Beltane Spread

• Bonfire Offerings: Summer Solstice Spread

• First Harvest: Lammas

• Balancing: Autumn Equinox Spread

Blessed Imbolc, sacred ones!

background photo by ales krivec

Moonpath: Week 1

The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is above all else a variable. With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.

Margaret Halsey

Welcome to our first week of Moonpath! For the full details of why I'm doing Moonpath and how it works, come this way, but mostly all you need to know is each Monday you are invited to the following:

• Prioritize your 1 - 3 herbal study + practice goals for the week.
• Pursue these 1 - 3 herbal study goals by choosing what you will do to accomplish them. Then do them!
• Make Pleasure in your practice.

Check out tips for success on our original post!

Our inspiration for this week is inspired by Halsey's quote above and the name of our very adventure - Moonpath! Halsey's quote points out a key component of pursuing a path of study, a path of life, a path of enchantment that reflects what you love and believe in - that reality is malleable and we have a central roll in shaping it. So what does this have to do with the meaning behind the name Moonpath? I'm glad you asked!

The Moon is a changeling in the sky - but only because we perceive her to be so. Even though we know that the Moon is a rock that maintains its general shape night after night, our perception of her changing and the waxing and waning of her light, holds power for many of us. It represents change as a dependable constant and the ability to shed and reshape ourselves and our world as we need to. The Moon can represent renewal, trying again, and learning to ebb and flow. I think that is powerful, reality-shifting magick.

So how are you walking your Moonpath this week? Post your goals below!

Today the Moon is in its Waxing Quarter phase in the sign of Taurus.
She is visiting the Third Lunar Mansion.
Sustainable success + pleasure are her energies.
Want to learn more?

Moonpath: Prioritize, Pursue, + Make Pleasurable

You're invited on an adventure!

It's called Moonpath and it's all about prioritizing, pursuing, and making pleasurable your herbal studies. As I continue to work with more and more students online and offline, one of the most common challenges I hear from them is feeling really excited about herbology but also feeling completely overwhelmed by all there is to learn. Not only is the dichotomous feeling of excite!/overwhelm! common for folks who are just starting their studies, but let me tell you, dear Lunas, those of us who have been on the path for a while still get the same feeling.

In my experience and what I have observed from students, the excite!/overwhelm! dilemma often stems from a feeling like they have to learn all there ever was to learn about herbology right now or else they'll learn nothing. Sometimes they buy books and sign up for classes and buy herbs in bulk and change their name to HerbBaby StarBlossom.* They try to learn all of it too quickly, burning out, and then watch as their herbs and books collect dust. And they feel bad. Sometimes they get so overwhelmed by all of their options and where do I even start? that they never even begin. Or they're scared to make a remedy. And, again, they feel bad.

So, I am sharing with you the most successful way I have found of setting study goals, pursuing them, and doing them with an inspired heart and open mind. Let's move beyond guilt and shame in the pursuit of what makes us feel good. It's my philosophy that the work of studying practicing something we are called to do should come from a place of pleasure. Our studies and practice should feel good and nourish the part of us that is green, wild, and tangled. Hence, Moonpath and the simple practice of prioritizing, pursuing, and making pleasure along the way.

Starting on the Moon Day of January 26, each week you are invited to do the following:

• Prioritize your 1 - 3 herbal study + practice goals for the week.
• Pursue these 1 - 3 herbal study goals by choosing what you will do to accomplish them. Then do them!
• Make Pleasure in your practice.

To keep you inspired I'll be posting a blog o' inspiration each Monday - you can see it as a good stopping place along our Moonpath to reflect, connect, and recommit to your heart's desire.

Here are some ideas and tips for success:

• Priotize.
  • I really like the bullet journal style when it comes to
    managing tasks, planning, and getting stuff done.
    • Think attainable, one-week doable goals such as:
      • Going outside everyday and sitting with a plant.
      • Pulling a tarot card each day.
      • Writing a Journal Prompt.
      • Making a new Remedy.
      • Reading one Plant Profile.
      • Do not add any more than 3 items on your list. It is very important to practice restraint. You can always do another project if you finish what is already on your list, so don't worry.
• Pursue.
  • Bite-size projects or do it all at once - whatever style fits your needs is great.
• Make Pleasure.
  • Take time at the beginning of each week to remember why you're doing what you're doing.
    • Why are you studying herbal medicine + magick?
    • What inspires you about what you are learning?
    • How does what you do bring you pleasure in your life?
  • If you like, choose a word for the week that inspires you and reminds you of your goals.
  • When you feel stressed out or overwhelmed or bored about your study, remember pleasure and pursue that which brings you to a place of pleasure. It might be the promise of pleasure knowing that once you have accomplished a certain task you'll have a beautiful remedy or better understanding of a plant ally or something else entirely.
  • Bonus points for checking in with other clever friends on the Moonpath and sharing your three study goals, your weekly word if you have one and commenting below or on each week's Moonpath post.

I'm excited about our new journey together and learning more about you and what it is about herbal medicine and magick that inspires your spirit. 

In wild community,

*Blessed be, HerbBaby Starblossom. What is your magickal herb person name? Comment below! I was thinking I would be Berrytooth Snottlepuff. 

Fires of Peace : Waxing Quarter Moon in Aries

May we know peace between one another. May we find peace when we return from the streets, marching against systems of power that do not value the lives of people or plants or sacred places. May we find peace as we walk away from cruelty into the arms of compassion. May we find peace as we study our privileges and oppressions, recognizing how damn complex it all is, and yet how simple - that we must find peace between each other. May we find peace after our anger is spent, after our joy has expanded beyond the limits of our consciousness, after we wash off another day of surviving, another day of thriving. May there be peace at the bottom of every tea cup. May our hearts fall madly, deeply, wildly in love with peace.

May you always know Peace, blessed friend.
And when Peace is lost, may you find it again.
And when Peace is forgotten, may you always remember.
And when the day comes that Peace is the face of all we meet,
may you recognize it as a familiar, a friend, a lover.

In wild community,
Alexis J. Cunningfolk