Full Crow Moon 2018

Happy March and happy full moon. This traditionally may be the month to celebrate lions and lambs, but for today I’m talking crows.

Full moons always carry a number of names, as each culture, each society, chooses what connections are relevant for them.  We often hear this moon called the Full Worm Moon, because now is the time the earth begins to soften as the worms start their enriching of the soil, and in doing so attract the robins.  And soon the cycle we recognize as Spring begins.  But this moon is also known as the Full Crow Moon, and given my great love of the corvoids I’m all for celebrating Crow Moon.

But just as we are all complex and layered beings, I also tend to name the moons additionally with a more personal-to-me appellation, describing what I’m focused on in the moment.

I talk about the lunar cycles, and cycles in general, quite a bit, and I think it’s important. Perhaps it seems indulgent or a bit eccentric, but truthfully I think the more we remove ourselves from linear time the more we can loosen the grip of linear thinking that is so entrenched these days. Everything about our world is calling for us to be innovative and re-orienting, not repeating patterns than have long ceased working.

I believe there’s great power in moving through things with the understanding that they are cyclical, labyrinthine, and spiraling. We are never in the same place as one moment melts into another; we are never the same person as experience imprints us moment to moment; and yet there are markings, touchstones, experiences, things that return again and again as we strive to make sense of them and navigate our lives. I find it so much more helpful to hold these as spiraling cycles.

I think life is a complicated, quite complex and nuanced dance, and it serves us to approach it that way. As a collective we lean into complicating our lives by overwhelming them, seemingly unable to break the chains of cramming more in and both bragging and ruing how busy we are. But this isn’t actually complexity – juggling a billion things. Rather it asks us to operate with less nuance, less awareness, less honoring that we are have the capacity to think deeply and act in conscious integrity with the blueprint our soul carries.

And so every chance I get, I try to remember this. I try to keep in mind that there are always cycles within cycles, layers upon layers, complexity and nuance, and that we are in fact, not only capable of operating with this awareness, but actually invited into mastery of it. We move in spirals.

I like to think of full moons as the beginning of the exhale in the cycle that started with the new moon’s inhale.

And I love associating this Crow Moon with the beckoning forward energy of Crows. They call in no uncertain terms – they know how to have fun, but they’re very intelligent and keep an eye on the big picture; they’re steeped in the mysteries of life and transformations; they bring a bit of their trickster energy to remind us to stay alert and flexible and ready to be surprised.

Donna Iona Drozda talks about this being the last of the three moons in the Winter cycle – the moons associated with the North and with Mystery. She says the work of this moon cycle is to focus our self-care on purity. “To rise above, to see the silver linings. To enjoy the idea of being a visitor, a stranger in a strange land, Innocence is a form of purity.”

I like this perspective as well.

This full moon has been pulling at me for days, both disrupting my sleep and then sending me into realms of complicated dream stories and wild adventures. Last night, I dreamt I was in Ireland looking on a circle of women dressed as crows. When I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, I hunted down a journal I kept when I visited Ireland years ago, and was delighted to find my homage to Crow Patrick.

Croagh Patrick is the English name for a sacred mountain in County Mayo in Ireland, and although there are various pronunciations of the word Croagh, one of the is “crow.”  Somehow that inordinately delights me, and actually when we came back from Ireland a crow began following me around the neighborhood, and I affectionately named him Crow Patrick. It makes me laugh to think about him even now.

Crows have shown up in my reading as well. I’ve just finished Ink by Alice Broadway and have begun Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley.  (How perfect is it that someone with the name Crowley wrote a book with a crow as its main character?)  I’ll likely do reviews of these books soon. It’s hard to tell from my photo, but both books have shiny foil on them which is undoubtedly crow-approved. May this moon bring us a some beautiful bits of shiny wonderfulness!

And while I’ll continue to name this Full Crow Moon, I’m also layering over it my own personal name – Moon of Softening and Compassion.  I know it’s no coincidence that this quote from Paulo Coelho appeared for me today:

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready.  The challenge is not to wait.  Life does not look back.”

That precisely describes how I’m feeling right now.  It seems like life is presenting challenges to so many and my heart is tender. But clearly everything we need is here as well.  What does a tender heart do but soften us, and what does a challenge do but call us forward into new ways of navigating and being? So how is it not perfect that these are the full moon energies here for me to work with?

And seriously, how can you not love that messages of support show up in all kinds of delight ways?

Thank you Crow. Thank you Moon. Thank you Life. I feel softened, I feel called forward, and I’m ready to step into this next cycle of the journey.

What about you?  What is this moon’s energy calling you into?  Where are you softening?  What are you wishing for?  Do tell – you know I love to hear.