It makes me happy when the universe collides in little ways. This week as part of my interest in The Natural Year I have been reading up on the effects of the Moon on feminine energy, and today I received a parcel of books from my sister-in-law – on top of the pile was The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley. I started reading the Seven Sisters series last year and The Moon Sister is Book 5 of 7. If you haven’t read the series, it is delightful – seven adopted daughters who are named after The Pleiades and each book is the story of their search for their identity. The books journey back in time as each girl discovers her roots.
Anyway, today (7 October) in NZ it is the beginning of the lunar month – this is when we see the New Moon and astrologically it is a good time to set intentions and goals. Last night I completed two pages, one about Intentions in my Seasonal Journal, and today I have set my goals for October. I had been concerned that a week had passed since October started, and that I had not had any fire in my belly to decide what I would like to do this month, but today I know. I have three goals for October. The first one is to gain consistency with my exercise habits and try to achieve a minimum of 30 minutes exercise per day, the second goal is to take a photograph of four parts of my body and write about why it is important to me.
Week 1 is a photo of my face. As we are still in lockdown I have not had photos printed yet (and also out of coloured ink), so sharing that first pic here – but will write about it in my journal and try to get photos printed this week. This certainly captures how tired I feel with the bags under my eyes!
WORKING ON VALUES
I completed an analysis of my values for the year, using a book called The Life Plan – Simple strategies for a meaningful life by Shannah Kennedy. I had bought this book some time ago, but had put it aside. One of the exercises it offered was to determine you top values in order to make decisions that gel with you. I selected 10, then narrowed it down to my Top 5, which I will use as a guide for the decisions I make during this year.
This week I also joined an online group called Get Messy. Get Messy is an art journaling group which shares challenges each month. Their challenges are known as SEASONS, and each season a word is used to inspire creativity. I have followed their instagram for a wee while and when I noticed that the Season of October was RENEW, I felt it was a sign to join in. For the first challenge set by Kristy Kensinger I have created a journal page about renewal based on the moon. I did this one in my 8 x 8 self care journal rather than the seasonal journal, as I felt I needed more space.
Update – I have been busy and another week has almost passed before I have managed to push publish on this post. It’s now the 12th October and Day 55 of our Auckland lockdown. Yesterday I missed the 4 pm announcement that was to say we have at least another week at this transition stage of Alert Level 3. It was kind of as I expected as the last couple of days the cases in NZ had increased with one day being over 60 new cases. The Government has now made a mandate around vaccinations for both teachers and health care workers – that they will need to have their vaccinations to work with the children in schools, hospitals etc. I totally endorse the need for this with our own situation, but as always there is a reaction about not being allowed the freedom of choice. However, if our professionals in these caring industries choose not to vaccinate they can put our most vulnerable at risk. I wish it was easier than this to encourage our community to look after everyone and while I can respect that we promote our independent thought in this time I wish we did not need to legislate to make the world a safer place.
In our own environment, the majority of our support workers had undergone vaccinations, but with the risk getting higher we have had to make the hard decision to stand down one member of our team who has not yet vaccinated. That’s going to make it harder for us the longer we stay in lockdown and schools are closed – but our need for safety is more important.
Yellow Azalea 