Waxing and Waning

New

Implantation and first trimester - a new moon phase - it’s completely dark and you can’t yet see evidence, but you still know it’s there. A time of quiet reflection, inaction, intention setting, seed planting, a time to exercise getting in touch with the subtle energetic shifts of a new, unknown phase on the horizon. A start. A blank slate. A period of work that is likely entirely behind the scenes, work unknown to everyone else, but you. Newness requires us to be humble enough to admit that in the face of newness, we are no longer wholly known even to ourselves. And newness requires us to get quiet enough to hear the winding new pathways of needs and desires our bodies are subtly trying to communicate to us in a language we’re only just learning as we go. It is the work of the new moon to slow down and get quiet enough to hear these subtle communications, and hone our ability to interpret the foreign language of new.

Waxing

Pregnancy - a waxing moon phase - a time for manifestation, for building, gestating, growing, and an enhanced intuition. If we can take the lessons of the waxing moon to heart during pregnancy, we can honor that secrets can be protection - not everyone needs to know what creative endeavor you’re working on, or how you’re going about it, it’s not the time for sharing any way. Waxing is an active time of putting wheels in motion - while you might feel physically energetically low and slow during pregnancy (by the societal capitalistic standards, at least,) it’s likely that you’re not actually inactive at all. It’s likely that you’re learning/planning/thinking more actively than anything your life has ever asked of you thus far, all within such a brief period of time (not to mention how your body is perpetually active in growing a human for you, without your direct effort.) The work of the waxing moon is to focus on what you’re growing. To practice exercising your intuitive abilities. To develop and hone your ability to question and perceive the world through a different lens than you’ve ever looked at it before - interrogating everything, to make sure the foundation upon which you build your plans is solid. It’s a lovely time to establish new habits that have a better chance of sticking over the long term. It’s a lovely time to lay ground work in the form of plans and implementing structures. The waxing moon phase has a hopeful, optimistic energy about it, and there’s no good reason not to play into that naturally available energy and to attempt to cultivate it during pregnancy - don’t be afraid to carefully curate who is in your orbit if they are contradictory to this energy you’re trying to nurture during a waxing phase.

Full

Birth - a full moon - a time to present what we’ve been working on to the world, to fully express ourselves - our magic is more potent, and our power is more powerful. The full moon is a time when what we’ve manifested comes to fruition and the world finally gets to see what we’ve been working on. The full moon is a beautiful time to revisit things that previously seemed impossible or unlikely, because they might suddenly become more possible in the light of this newfound or heightened power. If we are fully channeling and embodying the energy of a full moon in birth, that includes (but is certainly not limited to) excitement, abundance, sensuality, and even connection to or communication with the divine and/or our ancestors should we choose to reach out and claim those experiences for ourselves. Like anything else that we hope or ask for, it can be frightening or overwhelming when we actually get what we asked for, causing us to truncate or diminish our own power, or call our own intuitive knowing into question (or perhaps to give more weight to external influences who are trying to diminish that power for us.) This is a natural inclination, because it is a big, scary endeavor to be met face to face with what you’re capable of, and to own that instead of deferring responsibility to someone else. However, it is possible to hold the enormity of a full moon - in all its overwhelming power and awe-striking beauty - without playing hot potato with its intensity. To sit with, and hold what’s big, and hard, and gorgeous, and mysterious, and frightening, and awe-some without turning away. As I learned from Tara Burke on The Witch’s Muse podcast - it is possible to shift the reaction of “woah” ✋🏻🛑🚨 into a reaction of “wow” ✨🌝💫☄️🌌 - and the intensity of the full moon, the intensity of birth, asks exactly this of us.

Waning

Postpartum - the waning moon phase - waning is a time to retreat, withdraw, slow down, honor all the hard work you just did to share your creation and manifestations with the world when the moon was full. Our physical energy is low during a waning moon as it is during postpartum - this fact works to help you cleanly decipher what you do or don’t have energy for - to streamline and protect yourself, now is the time for long overdue goodbyes. When waning, socializing can feel like more work than it’s worth - honor that. Help and support are necessary to tend to the requirements of waning, but not if it requires such a social tax that it’s more of a hindrance than a help. The waning moon asks us to recalibrate, go inward, and let go of our need for control and perfection - postpartum asks these things of us as well. Waning has a graceful energy to it that lends itself to forgiveness and letting go - energies that might work beautifully to naturally assist you in coping with and making sense of how your birth story unfolded. Waning and postpartum is a beautiful time to change narratives - noticing how things are done that don’t work, and allowing yourself to do it differently, in a way that does work. We typically think of pregnancy as a time for nesting - bringing in supplies, becoming prepared - but it is the waning moon that carried the energy of getting rid of old things, organizing, and both physical and energetic cleansing. There is a protective element to the waning moon, that also plays logically into what you’ll likely be feeling during postpartum - so don’t let any one convince you that your desire for harm reduction is silly or unnecessary - you are the one who is intuitively connected to your own needs and the needs of your baby, and no relative, friend, or care provider gets to trump that. The work of the waning moon is not work - it is rest, quietude, and retreat. Our lochia is there to act as a barometer for whether or not we are doing too much - we will bleed more when we do too much, and our blood will slow again when we are honoring our body’s need to rest - how convenient. It is likely that you’ll feel more inclined to listen than to speak, and it might feel like more effort than usual to speak your mind and make your needs known at this time - so make sure you surround yourself with people who don’t talk over you, people who make and hold space for you to communicate what you need to with patience. 

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The cyclical correspondences of moon phases to pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum phases are, in my opinion, helpful to note because when you can recognize, honor, and play into the natural energy of any given phase (moon phase, or procreative phase,) you can find more ease within those phases, notice their lessons and their beauty more readily, take their necessary hard parts in stride, and overall experience each phase more richly. All while recognizing that it’s an ever-turning cycle, all of which will eventually pass in their own due time. Some parts we’ll wish to pass quickly, whereas other parts we’ll wish lasted forever - but to rush or bypass one phase is to rush or bypass them all. Or, at the very least, it sets you up for a mindset that will be prone to rushing or bypassing it all. This is a truth I struggle to remember and hold space for every day as I take each moment one foot in front of the other with my precious angel, maddeningly stubborn, overwhelmingly intense, syrupy sweet, heart achingly loving, unfathomably wondrous, loud and demanding two-year-old, Kahlo.

Transformation is hardly ever comfortable, and I think that’s why pregnancy, birth, and postpartum carry with them so many discomforts - either mild or intense - because it is one enormous transformation happening in a relatively short period of time - alchemy dividing cells that will eventually form into and birth a vessel for a spirit that will be just as complex and marvelous as your own spirit and body - the discomfort certainly matches the magnitude. 

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I consulted an old edition of “Many Moons” by gottess to refresh my memory on the meanings and energies of each moon phase as I wrote their correlations to the phases of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.