Art Journal with the Full Moon to Release Unhealthy Habits

On the new moon, I started a journey in my art journal to deepen self-love. Every time the moon changes phase, I create a new page in my journal to further explore this theme. These are my thoughts for the page I will create during the full moon. 

The Journey Begins

Oh self-love! What a life-long mess that is to unravel.

On the new moon, I embarked on the journey to deepen self-love with a page in my art journal that represents my intention of becoming more confident and believing in myself and my worth. I created the image of a pink moose in the sacred circle of the new moon and blessed the sides of my painting with moose tracks. I use the imagery of moose in my moon art rituals when I want to increase my self-esteem, recognize my worthiness and honor the gifts I bring to the world.

I believe radical self-love includes reparenting yourself. For this reason, during the waxing crescent moon, in the Creative Moon Cycle Guide I sent out and in which I listed out all the journal prompts for the moon cycle journey to deepen self-love, I asked us to create a page in our art journals that validated a difficult childhood experience we lived through but for which we never received the emotional care we needed. My subconscious must have really taken that prompt to heart because I actually ended up having a dream on the first night of the waxing crescent moon that was exactly in alignment with this prompt.

In my dream, I was five years old alone and scared in my bedroom, which is when and where a traumatic sexual trauma happened to me. In the dream, I called out to my three year old brother but he refused to help me. Normally, in my memories, this is when I would collapse and freeze. I’ve never been able to NOT freeze in this moment but in this dream my little inner child self thought to herself that if no one is going to save her than she was going to save herself so I screamed!

I screamed such a loud, high-pitched scream that the predator sitting on the edge of my bed disintegrated from the inside out and became white light. I woke up absolutely flabbergasted that I could feel so powerful.

When I sat down during the waxing crescent moon, I tried to capture the transformation and healing that came in my dream from using my voice.

On the first quarter moon the prompt was to show the unhelpful thoughts that swirl around my mind in the shadow of the moon and show the way I prefer to speak to myself in the light side of the moon. As I created my page, I remembered that the mean, judgmental voices are usually just trying to keep me safe but, nevertheless, I made a declaration. I declared that moving forward, I will be governed by a belief in myself and possibilities NOT in my need to play it safe.

On the gibbous moon, the prompt was to use my imagination to explore the qualities and strengths I might have had in a previous life and create a page that shows what I imagine some of these qualities to be. I had fun with this one. I LOVE the imagination. I allowed myself to believe I am far more than I think I am. I imagined I lived countless lives where I experienced a million different adventures and gathered limitless skills and gifts. What if I could call all these gifts back to me now in this life? So I painted me in the middle of the moon calling my ancient abilities to me on the web of life.

The Full Moon

I am now at the full moon part of my journey.  The full moon prompt asks me to create a page in me art journal that depicts an unhelpful habit or pattern I would like to release or surrender to the divine for healing.

Whew! That’s no small order.

But do not worry, according to the astrologers I follow, there are some really great astrological aspects to this full moon that support releasing a destructive habit.

For one, there’s an aspect with the planet Pluto and Pluto is associated with power. Pluto can help us see where our personal power is strong versus where we feel powerless in our lives. Destructive habits definitely feel like they zap me of my personal power so having the planet Pluto lending its supportive energy to this full moon is a welcome addition.

Secondly, there’s an aspect with Ceres. Ceres is considered a dwarf planet but I’ve also read about it referred to as an asteroid and I’m not an astrologist or an astronomer plus I don’t bogged down by details that don’t interest me so I can’t tell you what Ceres technically is referred to as but I can tell you what did interest me about it. The mythology is deeply meaningful to me as is the way it magnifies the mother archetype of this full moon.

I associate the mother archetype to the full moon phase plus the sign of Cancer is deeply connected to the mother archetype. The fact that this full moon in Cancer also has a relationship with Ceres – another mother archetype – has me paying attention to how the energy and symbolism of my inner mother along with the gifts and power of the Great Mother can support my moon art ritual for releasing an unhealthy habit.

The unhealthy habit I personally want to release during this full moon is feeling overwhelmed or like there isn’t enough time to do the things I want or need to do. This feeling brings with it a constant low-level anxiety that I notice runs in the background of my everyday experience. I’m highly sensitive and easily attuned to subtle energies. I don’t need my anxiety to run on high before it affects me so even a low-humming anxiety is worth tending to.

The relationship this full moon has to Ceres allows me to get curious and explore how my childhood relationship with my mother affects this unhealthy habit of feeling overwhelmed.

This full moon relationship to Ceres also allows me to embrace how I might call upon my inner mother or the Great Cosmic Mother to support me in releasing my unhealthy habit. When it comes to feeling overwhelmed, having a divine guide who can help me notice when it is happening would be helpful. In my moon art ritual, I want to invite the energy of the Great Cosmic Mother by painting imagery associated with Ceres.

I also think having divine support helping me to shift my perspective when I’m feeling overwhelmed will be helpful so along with helping me be attuned to my emotional and energetic experience, I’m going to ask the Great Cosmic Mother to lovingly reassure and encourage me with thoughts that soothe and comfort my anxious thinking. When I’m overwhelmed and anxious, I think things like; “There isn’t enough time.” “I won’t make it.” “There’s too much to do.” “My plate is too full.” “I’ll never finish on time.”

Finally, I’m going to ask for the Great Cosmic Mother to gift me with the powers of discernment and the ability to prioritize. I want the Great Cosmic Mother to help me discern what I must keep on my list of things that must be done and what I can let go or release so I don’t say yes to more than I can manage peacefully. I would also love her help in learning how to prioritize my time and my tasks so I don’t feel pressured when I create.

If you follow along in my monthly Creative Moon Cycle Guide and are also creating a page in your art journal to release an unhealthy habit, consider the following questions to help you use the most of this full moon magic:

• How does your unhealthy habit make you feel powerless?
• What inner power can you call on to help you break this unhealthy habit?
• How did your childhood relationship with your mother affect the unhealthy habit you want to release?
• How can your inner mother support you in breaking this unhealthy habit?
• How can the Great Cosmic Mother or your spirit guides and angels support you in breaking this unhealthy habit?

Create

If you want to join me on these spiritual adventures using your art journal, sign up to my email list and every new and full moon, I’ll send you the Creative Moon Cycle Guide. Each guide enters around an emotional or spiritual theme and includes art journal prompts for every phase of the moon cycle, color inspiration, tips for what plant, animal or astrological magic to include in your art and notes that explain the important points about the new moon and the full moon in that particular moon cycle.

If you end up completing a full moon page to help you release an unhealthy habit, I’d love to see what you created. You can even post the finished piece on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #danasartrituals or email me at support@danadaponte.com and share with me how it went for you. It’s fun for me to know there are others out there enjoying the moon with me.

with love,

Resources

Intuitiveastrology.com

Foreverconscious.com

Darkastrology.com

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