A New Direction: Full Moon Faith

It’s 6 am dark.

I’ve been communing with the full moon from our landlord’s hot tub, which they so generously let us use. Words and images tumble in my mind in their haste to emerge and be seen. There’s always something about nakedness and water that brings deep joy and cleansing to my soul.

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see…” Theodore Roethke’s poem, full of earthy, shadowy complexity, has been echoing through my being since meeting last night with a circle of soulful women from our precious All Souls Boulder community. We spent the evening in candlelight meditating on our experience and understanding of darkness. Frankly, these days, it’s been particularly challenging to identify myself as an active member of a Christian church. For decades now, I’ve doubted and questioned, lost and re-found my path within my tradition. Our brave community on Sundays has been walking through Brian McLaren’s book "Do I Stay Christian – a guide for doubters, disillusioned and disappointed. "

I feel ever more devastated that a preponderance of ‘my people of the Book’ in this nation seem to be living in the shadow of darkness, betraying so many values of the faith of my mothers and fathers. Believe me, it’s tough to say this in love and grief, but:

I will not hide in the whitewashed cave of acceptance.

So somehow, instead of shrinking back into my life-long ‘rebel’ pattern of a quiet and friendly, aggrieved resilience on the outside circle, I feel called to stand up and come out into the world as one who follows in the path of Moses and Sarah and all the Mary’s and, of course, Jesus, and countless others who for centuries have left their imprint of divine love on our Earth. I have been bountifully blessed by generation after generation of people who were kind stars of light in their own worlds of darkness. I’m grateful for generations of goodness that I can name in both my matrilineal and patrilineal line. AND in their humanity, these ones who gave their lives for God are the same people who stumbled and fell in the darkness of their shadows and incurred countless acts of intentional and unintentional trauma on this planet and her beings.

I will not struggle to list all these shadows or strengths today; instead, I’m aware of the Spirit’s ongoing deep Ancestral healing that is working its way in my body and soul, for me, for them, and for all our descendants who follow. My call is to invite this ancient wisdom to keep teaching us to rewild our faith as Earth-beings who live in relationship with All That Is. To reclaim our soulful place as life-forces of both shadow and light— as individuals and especially to come alive in awakened community.

As the moon sets into the dark clouds on the Western foothills, and the sun rises, I pray for courage to live in the darkness of these times. Courage to be vulnerable in being human, in not being right or wrong. To not live in fear but to step gently into the murky shade of the unknown days ahead and plant our seeds of compassion and kindness from all our faith traditions into the welcoming arms of Mother Earth. May we live in beauty as moon energy that waxes and wanes, full of change, yet consistent in power as reflected glory.

Hmmmmm. I wonder how our communities might change with that baptism into divine feminine Spirit? … I wonder!?

The most precious gift of last evening was when four of the women burst into a song that they had sung last Sunday … ‘I Wonder’ from MaMuse. Listen to them sing and let wonder be your guide today.

Ooh, I wonder

Oooh, I wonder

What is to come, out of this darkness

I’ve been moving moving moving moving through the darkness...

I wonder when the light is cracking open…

I thought this candle had long gone out…

But today today today today I can see

There’s still a flickering flickering

Oooh, I wonder...

Burn burn burn burn on the inside

Burn burn burn burning like a bright light

Burn burn burn burn on the inside

This light’s still burning, burning bright

I thought this candle had long gone out...

but today I can see, there’s more than a flickering.

---

Author's Note

It’s time for a change of format here – from dating these posts back to the shocking crash in August 2024, to noting soulful change – in whatever form it comes!

I am committed to personally recording significant winds of change here. Things that move me and are rising up and call our attention in my circles of influence.  Messages from deep in the bones that intersect spirit, soul and body at an individual or collective level.

Can you sense the course correction already happening in my recent posts? How grateful I am for the healing of my individual leg bones and yet I am still so aware how many of us are caught in the cross-fire of change. Let’s together put our ears to the land and listen to the Spirit of Love who calls us to move very slowly and pay attention together.

Who knows where we might be led?

Carol

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