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I always like it when my human affairs line up nicely with natural cycles and seasonal change. There was a full moon on October 29th that marked the height of the Sorting Moon, the last month of the lunar year, and also happened to fall right at the end of my Outdoor School session. As the last week of the Sorting Moon came and went so did the last week of Outdoor School and right as I was packing and getting ready to leave the coast for the last time, winter showed up. I honestly felt like I left the coast in the autumn and arrived in Portland in the winter with cold air, cold rain and bare trees.
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| Smith Lake during the last week of camp |
The end of the Sorting Moon also the end of my fourth year of blogging at The Wheel and the Disk. Holy cow! Really, four years? As I look back over my work this year I see that the 2011-2012 lunar year was a busy (er, totally crazy) one, but there is a lot here that I am very proud of.
At the beginning of the year I was struggling heavily with my work as a student teacher. I struggled with that hard work and other hard work that came up over the winter. At the beginning of the lunar year, I set the goal of working with material from Jessica Prentice's book Full Moon Feast and some of my best writing this year came out of my engagement with that material. The posts about the Wolf Moon and the Sap Moon are shining examples of the kind of writing I do best - an eclectic mix of explanation, spiritual musing and connection making. In the deep winter I did some gwishing and set a theme for 2012 - Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail - which has manifested itself in all sorts of ways I didn't even imagine were possible. The craziness of the rest of the year was foreshadowed by my messing up on the naming of my moons in the winter and having to realign the posts and dates months later. As the spring waxed my focus shifted outward and my posts tended to get shorter, more full of poetry, and more full of pronoic epiphanies. It simply was not a season for digestion or self reflection. It was a time for adventures! In the summer I told you about my adventures in dogs, men, soccer and theme parties. Man, I sure had fun this summer. The fun didn't end, though, as I moved to Outdoor School and enjoyed autumn
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| Wondering what tha? |
I'm not sure what I see in the future of this blog. It is clearly a very important tool for me in my self reflection and continued spiritual practice. I look forward to spending the winter really digesting the work (and play!) that I engaged in over this last warm season. I would like to continue to incorporate stories and poetry to help illuminate my findings as well as to highlight the science of the seasons as they come and go. I expect to have another very fruitful winter of blogging and hope that I can sustain that into the spring and summer next year. Again, I promise to post for every moon and every festival. That commitment keeps me on track in a very real way.
I have been enjoying this change in the season and the beginnings of this season of dark. This soli-lunar calendar that I follow allows for a generous season of end before the birth of the new year and I have grown accustomed to using it for all it is worth. Reviewing, putting things to rest, sorting through and making ready to let go or spend the winter working of what needs to stay. It is a fruitful season for inner work and I need some of that brand of medicine right now. How is the year winding down for you? What have you accomplished since last fall? What of that is worth keeping and what of that is ready to be transformed into something worth keeping? How is winter beginning to show itself where you live?
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This post is labeled Old Sorting Moon because it was written so late in the month. Here are previous Full Sorting Moon posts.
Full Sorting Moon 2011: Snow Moon: Connecting with our Food
Full Sorting Moon 2010: The Rains Have Come and Year Two Complete
Full Sorting Moon 2009: Full Sorting Moon
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