I want:

• to know who I am when everything is said and done
• my own space
• to disagree with someone and be okay with it
• to stop censoring myself, especially in my own home
• to define myself outside traditional roles
• to be happy; to laugh
• to be part of something bigger
• to know I can succeed on my own
• to feel beautiful, inside and out
• the ability to just let go
• to inspire others
• to write things that mean something
• to be happy singing
• to not be "just" anything
• to keep doing things that scare me, and stop being afraid
• to just listen
• to be in the moment
• to keep the TV off
• to be thankful for what I have
• to know that I can't be everything to everyone- and accept it
• to stop waiting for others to make me happy
• to make my own decisions; to have an opinion
• to be me all the time, in all my permutations
• to contradict myself; to contain multitudes
• to sit alone in a room and feel complete
• to be moved; inspired
• to just be
• to lose myself in something beautiful
  

Last night was the Beaver Moon, when the animals finish gathering their wood stores and disappear underwater and into their hidden lodges for the winter. I’m not the only person for whom water is a metaphor for emotion and dream, and so I think a great deal of this moon revolves around that, and the home that dwells in the center of it (the physical self).

Given that the two nights preceding carried terrible heavy dreams, I believe this impact has only grown with the moon over her last cycle. The beaver’s internal clock begins to fall out of synch in the winter; it is believed that this happens so that there is time for all family members to leave the lodge to eat, but with heat recovery time between, to reduce the chilling impact of their wet return on the pocket of warmth they all depend on for survival (about 60 degrees).

Taken one step further, I have spent a great deal of this last month more fully exploring my own emotions, psyche, and spirit, both day and night. I have had to be careful, however, to not bring that experience too heavily on the rest of my family and compromise their comfort. In this cycle, I have realized the full impact of my being away gathering resources, and more so the impact of how I re-enter my family’s lodge. It is not hard to compromise the warmth here and leave us all more vulnerable.

For most of the last cycle, I’ve been learning how I fit into a complicated, subtle, and scared professional environment, and have spent a great deal of time bouncing my thoughts (and by extension, parts of me I am and am not proud of) off new people in my life. I have exposed more of my whole self (not just the professional side) than I would normally, through these conversations, and this has given me pause when I’m alone, exploring those same parts of myself after the fact. I’ve spent a lot of this cycle in my head. And like a dip in an icy pond, it’s been refreshing to turn inward again, but also very uncomfortable at times—especially in my dreams. And given that we have only started winter, I believe there is a lot more time left to spend in those icy waters in the coming months.

Like bears and beavers (and other winter averse animals), it is time to turn inward for a little while, and explore the complexities of a smaller and more intimate inner space.

May the goddess walk the sky beside you, if you share this winter journey. Blessed be!