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Art Journal with the Moon for September 4-10, 2023
This is a summary of the moon’s energy for the upcoming week and the inner work and magic you can do in your art journal to make the most of the opportunities the cosmos is gifting us with.
Every week the emotional and magical opportunities the moon is sending you are different because the energy she is drawing down from the planets and stars changes moment to moment. Planets and stars and moon phases and moon signs each carry their own unique energy. This is my weekly update of the moon’s comings and goings to support you in aligning with her energy.
Get your art journal or a scrap of paper you see lying around, your art supplies or those pencil crayons you have hidden away somewhere and have fun. Spend 10 – 20 minutes focusing on the themes the moon is supporting you to explore that day while you play with colors and shapes and watch what happens over time.
It’s amazing what a little consistent creative time can do.
Virgo Season: A Time of Nourishment and Renewal
My art studio is a mess!
But don’t worry, it’s the good kind of mess. It’s the kind of mess that happens when you’re right in the middle of transformation.
That’s because I was so aligned with Virgo season without even realizing it and woke up one day with a dire need to deep clean, purge, restructure and remodel my home studio. As I mentioned last week, Virgo is placed in my 4th astrological house of my birth chart which means all this Virgo energy we’ve been getting from the moon as it reflects that Virgo sun is activating those areas of my life that the 4th house represents. The 4th house in astrology happens to represent your home and living situation (as well as your relationship to your ancestors, parents and the people and experiences that grew you) so here I am in fine Virgo form purging years of papers I’ve carried with me from University through to all my failed projects then painting furniture and walls, moving things around so it flows better and keeping things fresh and renewed. It feels great!!
That’s because in the height of Virgo season, we’re often inspired to organize our physical surroundings – decluttering our homes, rearranging our workspaces, and curating our environments for maximum productivity.
In the northern hemisphere, it’s a time when the days shorten and a crispness begins to tinge the air. Summer, with its golden promise of endless adventure, sunlit evenings, and that intoxicating freedom, starts to give way to the rhythm of routine. And while there’s a touch of melancholy as I say goodbye to those warm sunny days, there’s also a familiar, almost comforting hustle that accompanies the transition.
If you have school aged kids, suddenly, everywhere you look there are backpacks to be filled, school supplies to be bought, and an endless list of forms to be filled out (I hated filling out my son’s forms). The house is abuzz with the chatter of new teachers, classmates, and all the excitement (and perhaps a dash of anxiety) of a new school year. No more weekday sleep-ins; it’s back to the morning scramble.
And if you’ve had the chance to slip away for a summer vacation (I did this time), coming home can feel like a crash back to reality (and yes, it definitely did for me this year). There’s unpacking to be done, the inevitable mountain of laundry, and let’s not forget the post-vacation grocery run because, let’s face it, all I had in the fridge was some wilted lettuce and questionable condiments.
Despite it all, there’s an unmistakable grounding energy to Virgo season. It’s in the evening routines, the slow re-establishment of order, and the return to the familiar nooks and corners of our daily lives. It’s like slipping into your favorite pair of worn-in jeans after a summer of shorts and flip-flops. There’s a solace in the structure, a quiet joy in the rituals that anchor us.
Virgo season is both a little bit bitter and a little bit sweet.
The sign of Virgo also has a natural affinity with health, particularly the stomach and digestive system. It’s as if the universe is whispering to us, reminding us to pause and ask: “Is what I’m consuming nourishing me? Are there any trapped emotions here that need release?”
In the zodiac, each sign governs specific parts of your body. Virgo, a meticulous and health-conscious Earth sign, is intricately linked to your digestive system. The symbol of the virgin, representing purity and nourishment, gives a nod to your body’s process of separating the pure from the impure – much like your digestive system naturally knows how to discern nutrients from waste.
It takes food and breaks it down into miniscule bits and pieces, diligently sorts through everything you throw at it and chooses only the things it needs, determining which parts will fuel your muscles, which parts will repair your tissues, and which parts will be stored for later. As the sorting continues, your digestive system also works diligently to filter out and discard any unwanted material, ensuring that only the best and most beneficial nutrients are used and distributed to where they are needed most. Throughout this complex process, your digestive system ensures that everything is delivered precisely where it’s needed, when it’s needed. Every element, from the smallest micronutrient to the most vital proteins, is handled with care and precision, making sure your body runs on time and in harmony.
Your digestive system is inextricably linked to your emotions. It is often dubbed our “second brain” because it’s home to millions of neurons. These neurons communicate and react to your emotions. Stress, anxiety, joy, or sadness—each emotion sends ripples through your digestive system. Intense emotions can lead to digestive disturbances, be it the nervous fluttering before a first date or the stomach clenching in stressful times or the slowing down of digestion when your trauma response is triggered.
For overall health and well-being, a relaxed digestive system is so important. When your digestive process runs smoothly, your body can efficiently absorb nutrients, giving you the energy and vitality you need.
On the flip side, when your digestive system is in turmoil, your body’s ability to absorb nutrients diminishes. This can lead to fatigue, mood swings, and overall decreased vitality. Furthermore, an upset digestive system can produce neurotransmitters that affect your mood, leading to feelings of anxiety or depression.
A calm and efficient digestive system influences both your physical wellness and your mood. Just as a well-functioning gut can lead to clarity of mind, positive moods, and higher energy levels, a disrupted system can be a precursor to a slew of health issues and emotional disturbances.
Nurturing your digestive health means nurturing your entire being, understanding that every emotion you feel, hang onto and swallow instead of express plays a part in your well-being.
Just like the foods you consume, emotions too need their space for digestion, otherwise they can leave a lingering, unsettling mess for your body to carry and manage.
Emotions are energy in motion. When you don’t process them – when you push away the shame, silence the guilt, or bury the rage – you inadvertently ask your body to store this energy. Your digestive system, sensitive as it is, often becomes the unwilling vault for these unprocessed emotions. Instead of humming along in its task of processing food, it gets burdened with an energy that it wasn’t primarily designed to handle. The result? The gentle rhythm of your digestive system can go awry, the natural flow interrupted by emotional blockages.
Unprocessed emotions don’t just fade into the background. Instead, they linger like undigested food particles, and just as stray food particles can trigger reactions like allergies or sensitivities, unprocessed emotions continually get triggered by events in your daily life. Every time they are reignited, your digestive system feels the heat and carries the pressure of having to manage those emotional triggers. It’s like a gentle stream constantly being disturbed by unexpected splashes. Over time, these splashes, these emotional disturbances, affects the tranquility of your digestive system.
Facing emotions, especially the challenging ones, is akin to giving your digestive system a deep cleanse. Delving into the depth of your feelings can be overwhelming, but by confronting them, you allow them to move, to flow, and finally, to be released or be transformed into something more nourishing to you and your body. And just as your body feels lighter after a physical cleanse, emotionally confronting and processing your feelings gives your entire being, especially your digestive system, a renewed sense of lightness.
Without the repeated disturbances of unprocessed emotions, your nervous can finally function with calmness and clarity. Signals between your brain and your digestive system become more harmonious, less fraught with interference. Your digestive system, in turn, rewards you with efficient digestion, better absorption, and an overall sense of well-being.
In essence, by giving your emotions the attention and processing they deserve, you’re not just healing your mind, you’re also bestowing your digestive system with the peace it so rightly deserves. It’s a beautiful act of self-love.
As you can see, this Virgo-inspired tidying up doesn’t just apply to your home and routines. It also applies to the deepest corners of your mind and soul and your digestive system. Much like a cluttered room can make it hard to find things, a cluttered inner world can muddle your spiritual insights and emotions – this is one of the reasons we art journal with the moon my friends. It’s not just to practice magic or manifest the changes we want to see in our lives or in the world. It’s also to tend to our souls and process our emotions.
As you can see, it’s a great time to tend to your digestive system and your relationship with food and eating!
Which is why, for a limited time, I’m offering access to a private podcast called the Moon Mapping Virgo Collection.
Introducing the Moon Mapping Virgo Collection.
The Moon Mapping Virgo Collection is a library of 8 powerful audio journeys carefully curated from the Moon Mapping Year that each focus on neutralize memories around food, eating and your digestive system.
Virgo season is a great time to unburden yourself of harmful memories around food and eating. The depth of our food memories makes them powerful triggers. I bet you noticed that just reading the word “food” evokes thoughts, feelings and sensations instantly.
Memories also affect your digestive system.
With the power of the MAP Method, these recordings invite you to neutralize memories, especially those nestled in your digestive system, allowing you to whisper back to your body, “All is well. You are safe.”
All this leads to a digestive system that’s less bogged down by emotional baggage, more relaxed, and functioning efficiently.
For this week only, when you join this adventure, you will have access to all the recordings in this special collection until December 1, 2023 with $50 OFF the regular price. Sign up before Friday and start listening on your favorite podcast app today!
Learn more here.
Monday
The moon is in the fixed earth sign of Taurus today. Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus so the moon is carrying a little bit of that planet’s energy today as well.
Taurus energy is stable and secure. It brings an air of grace, calm, tolerance, tenacity, comfort, pleasure, grounding, safety and security. Depending on the way it affects you or the area of your life it influences the most, it may also bring laziness, inactivity or stubbornness.
Emotionally, Taurus is like that reliable friend who offers a warm hug and a cup of tea when life gets tough. Think stability, security, and sensuality. This energy invites us to slow down, smell the roses, and be fully present. Our emotions might feel a bit more settled and less prone to wild swings. It’s an excellent time to cherish the simple pleasures that soothe your soul—comfort food, good music, or a long walk in nature. But watch out for stubbornness, because Taurus energy can have you clinging to old habits, even when they no longer serve you
Spiritually, Taurus encourages us to anchor ourselves in the present moment, to find the sacred in the mundane. It’s a time to reflect on what truly matters, to nurture your connection with the Earth, and to explore your relationship with the material world. Taurus calls you to dig deep, to discover the emotional ties you have with materiality, and to consider whether they’re helping or hindering your spiritual growth.
To align with the energy of the Taurus moon, create a page that represents your personal definition of comfort. How do you visually express the feeling of safety and stability? What objects, colors, or textures make you feel grounded and at ease? Explore this theme through your art and let it be a gentle reminder of the warmth and security you can cultivate within yourself.
In your art journal, draw, paint or collage an image that represents what brings you comfort.
Tuesday
The moon moves into the sign of Gemini today. Gemini is ruled by the planet Mercury so the moon is carrying a little of that planet’s energy as well.
Gemini energy is adaptable, flexible and brings swiftness and movement. It sometimes can bring energy that feels frantic or unstable as well as scattered, inconsistent, unreliable or unfocused but it is also dynamic, versatile, communicative, multifaceted, friendly and curious with the capacity to change and be interested in many different things which means it sees the good in people and the possibilities in experiences.
Try to think of something in your life you want to move more swiftly. Perhaps it’s a challenging experience that you would like to process or move through more quickly. Perhaps it’s a dream you’d like to draw more closely to you.
With ease and grace, what is one thing in your life you hope shifts or changes quickly and easily?
In your art journal, draw, paint or collage an image that represents something you’d like to move through more swiftly.
Wednesday
The last quarter moon, also known as the third quarter or waning half-moon, is the second to last phase in the moon’s monthly cycle. After the brilliance of the full moon, the moon’s illumination begins to wane, drawing inward once more. The last quarter moon stands as a symbolic crossroads, a time of reflection, release, and inner transformation.
The last quarter moon is viewed as a time of introspection and surrender. As the moonlight diminishes, we too are invited to draw inwards and assess our inner landscapes. It’s a period of letting go, symbolizing the release of old beliefs, habits, or emotional baggage that no longer serve us.
Emotionally, this phase is about acceptance and forgiveness. We are encouraged to make peace with our past, cultivate forgiveness towards ourselves and others, and create space for new possibilities and growth.
To enhance your experience of the last quarter moon, consider these questions:
1. What lessons have I learned in this past moon cycle?
2. What am I ready to let go of?
3. How have I grown and changed over this moon cycle?
4. Who or what do I need to forgive to move forward?
5. What seeds of intention do I want to plant for the next cycle?
The last quarter moon invites you to pause, look inward, and clear away what no longer serves you. As you align with this lunar rhythm, you nurture your ability to adapt, release, and prepare yourself for new beginnings. So, as you look up at the night sky or art journal with the moon tonight, take a moment to remember every ending is a new beginning in disguise.
In your art journal, draw, paint or collage an image that represents what you need to let go of before you consider what seeds of intention you want to plant during the next cycle.
Thursday
The moon is in a tense relationship with Neptune today.
Neptune wants to help us connect to source energy and experience what its like to reach our divine potential, feel unconditionally loved and feel our interconnectedness. It also wants to open our psychic gifts, help us receive divine inspiration and dissolve barriers so we experience wholeness and unity. It also wants to help us expand and use our imagination and see the unseen or know the unknown.
It’s a planet of intuition, psychic abilities, imagination, spirituality and dreams but it can also represent our delusions or our desires to escape, including our desire to escape our uncomfortable feelings.
In this tense relationship with the moon, Neptune can cause you to feel unsettled and uncertain. It can especially blur the line between your experience and someone else’s – which for empaths and highly sensitive people means you might be more prone to absorb other people’s feelings today, so much so that you get confused about what is yours to carry and what was never yours to never pick up in the first place. It’s a good day to protect your energy field.
In your art journal, draw, paint or collage an image that represents your protected and happy energy field.
Friday
The moon is in the water sign of Cancer today. Cancer is ruled by the moon so the moon is in a sign it feels most at home in.
Cancer energy is nocturnal in nature. It is sensitive, sentimental and carries the wisdom of cycles. It is connected to your ancestors, your roots and your feelings of home. It walks alongside your subconscious realm. It is the wise and whole mother within who knows how to wrap and protect and care for all your inner parts. It is calm, compassionate and nurturing but it is also emotions that move up and down and all around. It wants to help you meet your emotional needs and teach you have to feel emotionally safe. It can help you change and transform your inner landscape but it can also amplify your defensiveness or resistance.
Think about where in your life you could use some nurturing and tender loving care.
How can you take care of your body today?
How can you take care of your emotional self today?
How can you take care of your spirit today?
In your art journal, draw, paint or collage an image that represents nurturing energy that lovingly cares for you.
Saturday
The moon is still in the sign of Cancer today.
Like the moon, the sign of Cancer is connected to our emotions. It’s also like the thoughtful friend who always remembers your birthday and shows up with tissues and ice cream when you’re feeling down.
Emotionally, Cancer is all about family, home, and those cozy comfort zones. It’s like a warm blanket that wraps around you, offering a sense of security in an uncertain world. Cancer’s energy can also be a bit moody and prone to emotional waves. It’s a time to honor your feelings, even the messy ones, and to nurture your inner emotional landscape.
Spiritually, Cancer invites you to dive into your own psyche, to explore the depths of your emotions, and to connect with your intuition. It also encourages you to seek solace within yourself and to create a safe inner haven. Consider the ways you can offer yourself the love and care you might be seeking from external sources.
Today, in your art journal, create a visual representation of your emotional sanctuary. What does it look like? What colors, textures, and images resonate with the idea of emotional security for you? Allow your art to be a reminder that you carry your safe haven within, no matter the storm outside.
In your art journal, draw, paint or collage an image that represent your emotional sanctuary.
Sunday
Today the moon is in the balsamic phase.
The balsamic or waning crescent phase of the moon, just before we plunge into the darkness of the New Moon, is a deeply spiritual time, ripe with opportunities for introspection and release.
Emotionally, the balsamic moon phase is like your spiritual guardian, whispering, “It’s okay to let go.” It’s not the time for launching new projects or making big decisions. Instead, it’s a time for tying up loose ends, letting go of what no longer serves you, and giving yourself permission to rest and recharge. The balsamic moon phase is a little like a detox for your soul.
Spiritually, this phase is your invitation to dive into your inner world and tend to what emotionally and spiritually needs tending to. It’s like a spiritual retreat, allowing you to explore your dreams, fears, and the stories you tell yourself. This energy encourages you to let go of old emotional baggage and release patterns that might be holding you back. It’s an opportunity to make peace with the past and create space for new beginnings.
Imagine you’re decluttering your emotional closet. What do you need to let go of? What emotional weight is dragging you down? In your art journal, create a page that represents the things you’re ready to release. It could be a collage of images or words, or even an abstract representation of the emotional baggage you’re letting go of.
In your art journal, create an image that represents the emotional baggage you’re ready to release.
Have fun with your art journal and the moon this week.
with love,
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hi i'm dana...
This is a space where art and spirit come together. On the blog, I share art rituals for working with the magic of the moon. I also work with the subconscious mind to lighten your emotional load and follow your creative dreams.
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