Episode 42

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Published on:

17th Nov 2024

Harvesting the Moon

Ghia – I spent the first half of the November lunation gathering thoughts about gratitude and discovered alchemy, which I am here to share on the November full moon. In this episode, I also share what I have learned from the waning side of the moon cycle.

Web site of Tricia Walker https://www.triciadwalker.com.au/

Transcript
Speaker:

Hooray.

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Ghia here.

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I'm this week.

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So most of the creative, spiritual

journey podcast, where Judy and I talk

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about those things that bring us joy.

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For me, I find joy by

connecting with nature.

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Connecting with Jesus Christ and our

heavenly parents seasonal living.

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And all those bits of magic and wonder

I come across while navigating this

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remarkable journey we call life.

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Here we are at the November full moon.

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And I promise to share with you what

I learned about gratitude during

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the first half of the November.

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Lunation I'm calling this my moon

harvest, As in what I harvested while

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tuning into the cycles of the moon.

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I also plan on diving into what to do

with the second half of the moon cycle.

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I want to start my thoughts about

gratitude by talking about a

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beautiful ritual we have in our lives.

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That is the ritual called prayer.

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Yes.

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I love to think of prayer as a ritual.

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The definition of ritual is a

ceremonial act or an act regularly

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repeated in a precise manner.

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I remember while growing up,

I thought there should be more

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ritual in our worship services.

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I don't know where this desire came from.

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Was it books or movies or

just my own imaginations.

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I'm not even sure what I wanted.

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Incense candles.

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I don't know.

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It wasn't until many years later that I

finally began to see the ritual that was

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right in front of my face the whole time.

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The sacrament, baptism

the laying on of hands.

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It's all ritual.

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No shadows or magic.

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This ritual is sunny, white, and clean.

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So common in my life, it seemed ordinary.

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But, oh, the mystery,

the mystery is there.

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Isn't it.

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What is the priesthood?

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What is the power of God and

how does it play out in my life?

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Hmm.

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I love a good mystery.

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So while I have been gathering

clues, I have learned, I have grown.

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I understand more.

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And I have embraced prayer as a ritual

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If I want to light a candle and

pray next to my crystals, I can.

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I don't generally.

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Still, I do have some significant prayer

rituals, such as connecting with my body

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through breath and yoga before I pray.

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And one of my favorites.

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Writing down my prayers,

long hand in a journal.

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But I'm getting off track.

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Let me get back to gratitude

and my prayer ritual.

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I was taught to pray by opening my

prayer in the name of the father.

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Expressing gratitude, asking for

my needs and wants, and then ending

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in the name of Jesus Christ, who

was our Emissary with the father.

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As part of my gratitude exploration during

this November, lunation I checked with

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the church website about how to pray.

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I love what I found.

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It talks about opening your

prayer and then it says,

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quote, Speak from your heart.

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And share your hopes and desires as

well as your worries and problems.

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You can ask God for help

direction, forgiveness or healing.

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Whatever is on your mind, bring it

to him, acknowledging that his wisdom

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and timing is greater than your own.

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And then it says.

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Express appreciation to God for

all the blessings in your life.

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Even challenges can be blessings.

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Gratitude helps us feel humble.

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Which keeps our hearts and minds

more open to God's answers.

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I love this explanation of prayer.

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Speak from your heart and

share your hopes and desires.

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You don't have to start off with a

list of things you are grateful for.

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As I was raised to think.

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Just start talking about

whatever is on your mind.

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Honestly, I think this is

something I have naturally slipped

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into for my personal prayers.

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I can't help it.

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I just start talking about

whatever's on my mind.

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I always get around to gratitude.

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I just don't know.

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We start with it.

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But I have to say that in

my more formal prayers.

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I still love to start with gratitude.

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To me, it sets the whole

tone and mood for my prayer.

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But the part of this quote I wanted to

specifically talk about is the last line.

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Did you hear it?

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Gratitude helps us feel humble,

which keeps our hearts and

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minds opened to God's answers.

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It's important.

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Wherever we put it to include

gratitude in our prayers.

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To me.

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Gratitude is like alchemy.

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It changes me.

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It's an elixir for life.

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The quote said we moved

from gratitude to humility.

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I call this an alchemic transformation.

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Let's look at that transformation

in a different quote.

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This is a talk by Bonnie D Parkins.

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She says.

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Gratitude is a spirit filled principle.

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It opens our minds to a universe

permeated with the richness of a living.

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God.

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Through it, we become spiritually

aware of the wonders of the smallest

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things, which Gladden our hearts

with their messages of God's love.

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This grateful awareness, heightens

our sensitivity to divine direction.

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When we communicate gratitude, we can

be filled with the spirit and connected

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to those around us and the Lord.

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Gratitude inspires happiness and

carries divine influence and quote.

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I think those are beautiful words

and they sum up part of the reason

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I've even been doing this podcast.

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To open my mind to a universe permeated

with the richness of a living.

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God.

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And I love that the smallest things

are messages of love from him.

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But did you hear the alchemy?

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Gratitude transforms to happiness.

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The more grateful we are

the happier we will be.

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Let's see what kind of alchemy we find

in the words of Dieter F Oop, Dorf.

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He says.

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How blessed are we, if we

recognize God's handiwork in

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the marvelous tapestry of life.

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Gratitude to our father in

heaven, broadens our perception

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and clears our vision and quote.

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See.

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More alchemy.

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Gratitude broadens our perceptions

and clears our visions.

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And how about this one?

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This is what David Steindl-Rast

a Benedictine monk learned

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during world war two.

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He says.

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It is not joy.

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That makes us grateful.

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It is gratitude that makes us joyful.

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There you go.

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More alchemy.

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Gratitude.

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Turns to joy.

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I believe our daily ritual

of prayer and gratitude.

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Alchemizes our lives.

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here is another idea about

gratitude that I want to share.

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This is from Robin wile Kemmerer,

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who was part of the whole people and

wrote the book, braiding, Sweetgrass,

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indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge.

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And teachings of the plants.

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She says.

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Cultures of gratitude must also

be cultures of reciprocity.

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We are bound to each other

in a reciprocal relationship.

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All beings have a duty to me

and I have a duty to them.

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If an animal gives his life to feed me.

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I am in turn bound to support its life.

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If I receive a stream's

gift of pure water.

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Then I am responsible for

returning a gift in kind and quote.

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I love this idea because I am

so often grateful for food.

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But am I grateful for the plant

or animal who produced that food?

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Am I grateful for the stream or the

cloud that provided our drinking water.

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How much more powerful

would the alchemy be?

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If I could deepen and

reciprocate my gratitude.

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And here is a part of the book.

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I really love.

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Robyn explains that when we experienced

gratitude for the natural world, we

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will realize that we are provided

with everything that we need.

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In fact more than we need.

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That's the alchemy.

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Have you ever dreamed of

having everything you wanted?

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You can, we all can.

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It's called gratitude.

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When we are truly grateful, we become

full and don't need anything more.

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But more keeps coming.

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I love this alchemy.

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That changes.

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My constant wants into fullness.

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The alchemy of gratitude.

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That is what I harvested from the

full moon while exploring gratitude

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during the first half of the November.

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Lunation.

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Now as.

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promised, I want to talk about

the second half of the moon cycle.

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This is where it gets fascinating.

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you will recall that I talked about

the new moon as a time to turn inward.

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Uh, time for introspection,

a time of new beginnings.

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And contrast the full moon.

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Is a time of peak illumination.

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It is a time of high energy.

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This might be when we feel the most

social or when we finally have the

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motivation to clean the drunk drawer.

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It's easy to discount the

energy of the full moon.

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It doesn't really do anything.

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Let me tell you that my husband,

who was an ICU nurse for 25

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years will swear up and down that

the full moon effects people.

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On the full moon, there were always

more patients in the hospital

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and they tended to be more crazy.

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I don't know why, but the full moon

brings out the crazy in people.

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So, depending on how crazy

you are, you might want to be

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cautious around the full moon.

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This is why some people say the full moon,

isn't a good time to make big decisions.

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I think all of this is

interesting to know.

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But I want to focus on the

time after the full moon.

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the time of declining light as the

moon approaches its dark phase.

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This is the time when we use a bunch

of rewords reflect re evaluate,

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recalibrate, reframe, revisit, rethink

renew recharge, rejuvenate, rearrange,

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reduce recede return revert, redeem.

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It's super cool to note that the meaning

of re in Latin is again, We do it

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again and again, the cycle of the moon.

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Can you hold that in your mind, this

idea of rethinking and reflecting

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during the time of declining light.

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This time of rest and introspection.

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I just gathered together my

recent thoughts about gratitude.

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The thoughts I generated during

the time of growing light.

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And here I am on the full moon.

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Sharing those ideas with you.

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Now.

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As the moon begins to darken.

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It's a time to reflect.

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Hm, alchemy.

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Great.

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How am I actually going

to apply this concept of

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alchemizing gratitude to my life?

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It's great to think about.

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but if it isn't applied, what good is it?

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I may have to reevaluate and rethink

habits, thoughts and behaviors.

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Let me share some thoughts with

you about the waning light of the

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moon from a wonderful Australian

woman named Trisha Walker.

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I'll include her website

in the show notes.

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Here's what she says.

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The dark doesn't get the respect.

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It deserves.

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All natural cycles.

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Follow the same rhythm.

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Birth growth, full bloom, harvest

decay, death, and rebirth.

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Everything waxes, then it wanes.

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But somehow we believe

ourselves exempt from the cycle.

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We expect ourselves to be

in perpetual full bloom.

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In an attempt to reap

a never ending harvest.

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We don't respect the decay and death

phase, the yin, the retreating.

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Inward focused waning,

dark half of the cycle.

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But the dark half of the cycle

is as important as the light.

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Decay is as important as growth.

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Being dormant is as necessary

as being in full bloom.

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You can't have one without the other.

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By always being busy where working

against nature's natural rhythm.

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And consequently, we are

exhausting ourselves and nature.

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We have limits.

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Nature has limits.

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Nature knows how to pace herself.

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You don't see her trying to

be in bloom all year round.

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Mother nature knows the time we lay

dormant is as important as when we bloom.

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And quote.

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That really speaks to me.

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I do feel like our current world expects

us to be in full bloom year round.

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And of course that isn't good for us.

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I truly want to find ways to slow down.

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Take breaks even if only short pauses

during the dark time of the moon.

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I don't know exactly how this

is going to play out for me.

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I'm still working on the concept.

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But I do have a couple of ideas I

want to implement starting today.

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One is to be mindful of how I'm

feeling energetically and noting

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it on my calendar, along with where

I am in the cycle of the moon.

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I simply want to notice any correlations.

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See if the moon cycles are

playing out naturally in my life.

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And second.

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I walk almost every day,

regardless of the weather.

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And on these walks, I generally

listen to a podcast or book on tape.

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My plan for the indefinite future.

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Is to take three days over the

new moon and walk in silence.

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With only my thoughts as company.

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I will have to be very deliberate

about this, or I know I will forget.

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Woopsies guests.

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I didn't do it this month.

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I don't want to do that.

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So here I am making a public announcement.

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I hope this will hold me accountable.

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So those are my moon cycle intentions.

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In closing, because I talked about

gratitude and the moon in this podcast.

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I have to share one last quote

from braiding sweet grass.

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This is a small portion of

what is called the honed in a

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Shoney Thanksgiving address.

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It goes like this.

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We put our minds together to give thanks

for our oldest grandmother, the moon.

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Who lights the night sky.

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She is the leader of

women all over the world.

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And she governs the

movement of the ocean tides.

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By her changing face.

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We measure time.

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And it is the moon who watches over

the arrival of children here on earth.

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let us gather together our things for

grandmother moon together in a pile.

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Layer upon layer of gratitude.

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And then joyfully fling that pile

of things high into the night sky.

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That she will know with one mind,

we send greetings and thanks

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to our grandmother, the moon.

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And quote.

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Oh, I love that layer

upon layer of gratitude.

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That's how I want to approach the moon.

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This amazing creation of

Jesus Christ and how I hope to

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learn what she has to teach me

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Duty, and I know your time is precious

and that you have many choices.

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We love that you have chosen to

walk with us for a few minutes.

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As we talk about the joy

we have experienced while

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navigating this journey of life.

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If you liked this podcast.

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Thank you for sharing it with a friend.

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And it's my prayer that during this

magical time of the harvest and the

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Thanksgiving holiday, that you will

gather layer upon layers of gratitude

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and joyfully tossed them into the world.

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Nama stay.

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About the Podcast

Creative Spiritual Journey
one small, deliberate step at a time
We are all on a journey—a journey home to our heavenly parents. Any experienced traveler knows there are days you laugh and days you cry.

We aren’t here to tell you how to live—we are here to share how we live—how we survive, thrive, and even find joy!

The journey gets messy with rainstorms and sleepless flights but the hard times—the miserable times—those make the best stories.

And the vistas, the sunsets, the little birds outside the window—those are the reminders that God is in the details, he is aware of us, he has trod the path before.

The Creative Spiritual Journey Podcast is hosted by Judy and Ghia Cooley—two sisters in their wisdom years—who love the savior and are dedicated to making this journey one small, deliberate step at a time.

Join us!

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