Swear By The Moon

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Earlier this month, I attended a group led by one of my mentors, Rick Jarow. The group was comprised of more women than men, with an age range of about 30 to 80. As we passed a talking stick around the room, more than half of the attendees complained of feeling excessively tired this week.

I knew just how they felt, because just a few days prior, I had felt the same pull of lethargy and fatigue. For about 2-3 days I felt like staying in bed, watching mindless television, and ignoring as much responsibility as possible.

Can you relate to this?

In our society, being tired can be a source of shame or a badge of honor. Either way, it’s omnipresent. We work crazy hours, stay out late, spend nights watching television as minutes drift by. We wake up with coffee and drink more as the day goes on, we eat sugary stuff to keep us going, and spend millions of dollars on energy drinks and supplements in the hopes that we’ll make it through our day. In the end, we are left with burnt out adrenal glands and a nagging fatigue that dogs our lives.

I’m not writing this to blame you or anyone. Not at all. A lot of us are pressed with an array of commitments that seem to constantly grow and expand.

But what if we were to take a moment, just a short moment, to listen to our tiredness? What if we asked our tiredness what it was trying to tell us? What if we got into agreement with our tiredness, our right to be tired, and kind of went with it?

Last week, after fighting a losing battle with my tiredness for about a day, I decided to listen. And my tiredness was telling me a few things. It told me that I had had a few ups and downs that I needed to process and that my immune system was fighting something that could get worse if I didn’t rest a bit. I checked my Witches’ Datebook and saw that the moon was in its 4th quarter, a waning moon, which, traditionally, is a time for letting go, going within, and having more quiet time.

So I decided to listen to what my fatigue was telling me. I rescheduled one or two things. I took an extra day to get back to emails. I basically did the work I really had to do and set aside anything that didn’t feel nourishing or relaxing. I watched some silly television shows. I spent some time relaxing with creative visualization. I wrote in my journal.

And within about a day and a half, I felt like myself again. I had revived myself by trusting my body and acting on its messages.

In Romeo And Juliet, Romeo begins to swear his love to Juliet by swearing upon the moon. But she protests, “O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon/That monthly changes in her circled orb,/Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” All subtext and literary criticism aside (and putting aside that Juliet, of course, is a fictional character) her distaste for the variability of the moon always irked me. The moon changes each night but she does so in an understandable rhythm. And just as the tides ebb and flow and the moon waxes and wanes, our bodies’ hormones ebb and flow and our energies wax and wane. Our bodies are more like the rivers than like the rocks, more like the oceans than like machines. The more we can respect the cycles and changes and needs of our bodies, the more we can move with the flow of our lives.

In other words, swear by the moon.  Or, trust your body.

So this week, ask your tiredness what it is asking of you, and act upon it. As always, please share your experiences in the comment section below.

Want to learn more about re-energizing your body?  Then click here.

Get great body love tips and more when you subscribe:

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.


(Listen to this post here, or subscribe on itunes.)

9 thoughts on “Swear By The Moon

  1. @Robert! Thank you! Working with you has definitely inspired me greatly already. And I so agree, rest is almost a dirty word (but not a fun dirty word). I’m glad you enjoyed the article and thanks so much for commenting.

  2. Golda, this article is amazing! As a Moon Magick Witch, I am even more attuned and aware to the Cycles and Rhythms of Mother Moon. In addition, you are most correct: Both women and men in this society are taught to feel bad simply because we want to rest because we are tired. And since the Moon rules over emotional connections in Western Astrology, one may certainly be more inclined to have relationship issues if not getting enough rest.

    I truly look forward to reading more amazing articles by you, and by talking to you about the Magick and Mystery of the Moon in the future.

    Enchanted, Empress-Sized Blessings,

    Robert Alvarez.

  3. Golda, this is a fantastic article. As a Moon Magick Witch, I am even more attuned the to Cycles and Rhythms of Mother Moon. And you are correct: Many people, especially women are taught to feel bad that they want to rest. I look forward to reading more of your amazing articles in the near future, and certainly look forward to talking about the Magick and the Mystery of the Moon with you in the future.

    Enchanted, Empress-Sized Blessings,

    Robert Alvarez.

Comments are closed.