The January full moon is also a lunar eclipse making it a great time to shift and release. This month’s journal page was created to take you on a journey of shifting and releasing using your seven chakra centers.

Reflect

The journal page for this month was inspired by a vision I received from Spirit. Usually I sit and consider the energy of the moon phase we are entering before I decide what I want to create. This month Spirit took over and told me what to create. The image of a woman breathing roses out of her lungs came like a flash without explanation. I was confused. Why did I have to draw lungs? I knew looking up a few things in my books would help. This is what I learned.

In The Secret Language of Your Body, Inna Segal describes issues associated with the lungs to be rooted in a difficulty expressing yourself or standing up for yourself, a propensity to put other people’s needs first, overdoing things, difficulty being independent and an inability to say, “No.” These are definitely things I want to release in 2020.

Reading more about the respiratory system it struck me how similar breathing is to the moon cycle. The in breath being the building or taking in of energy and the out breath being the dispelling of unwanted energy. When you breathe, you take in oxygen from your environment. That oxygen travels into your lungs and goes into your blood stream. Your blood stream releases what it doesn’t need, carbon dioxide, and your exhale carries that carbon dioxide out of your body and into the air around you.

Breath is an exchange between you and your environment.

What if your chakras operate in the same way? What if your chakras draw energy and information in from the environment around you while at the same time your chakras take energy vibrating from inside of you and radiate it outward? What if there is this constant breath-like movement of energy and information between your body and your environment?

For the purpose of this journal page, we’re going to imagine this is the case. 

If you are not familiar with the chakra system, imagine your body is full of hundreds of energy pathways and when many pathways meet, they create an energy center. The centers where the energy pathways meet are called your chakras. The idea of chakras have been described in different ways in all corners of the globe. There is a Hindu chakra system, a Tibetan model, a Mayan energy model where they speak of the seven powers housed in the body, a Tsalagi (Cherokee) energy system, an Incan model, a Celtic model and probably hundreds more. Many cultures have understood the body in terms of energy for a very long time.

I’ve included a photo here of a picture I drew one day while I was meditating on my chakras. The chakras contain the colors of the rainbow, which if you understand prisms and light, is pretty freaking interesting. The sun shines light down on our bodies. If  you put sunlight through a prism, you would the light the sun shines down on us contains all these same color frequencies. When I soak in the sun, it’s like I’m soaking in all these color energies too!

For this particular full moon, I’d like to take you on a journey with the roses I drew on the journal page and your sacred energy centers (or chakras). I am following the journey through the chakras as outlined by Elen Sentier in her book, “Shaman Pathways: The Celtic Chakras“.

If you are not on my email list and haven’t received this month’s journal page, visit my homepage and sign up. You’ll receive a link where you can download the hand-drawn page I created for this particular moon. Print it, grab a tea and a cozy blanket, get comfortable then follow the instructions below.

If you enjoy my hand-drawn journal pages, then you may also enjoy the free online Creative Moon Circles that accompany these pages. You can learn more about those here.

Create

If moon rituals are familiar to you, prepare your sacred space and invite Spirit to join you in whatever way works best for you.

If, however, you are new to moon rituals, I’ve included a quick guide to the steps I follow to prepare for my moon rituals in a past blog post. Take a look at it before moving forward.

Print out the January full moon journal page and gather your pens, paints or pencil crayons. Make sure you have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and white or gold colors to use.

On the page you’ll see a woman releasing rose vines from her lungs. There are eight large roses each with a large leaf shape beside them. Color one of the roses green. It doesn’t matter which one. Simply choose a rose on the page. This represents your heart chakra, the energy center of your body. Your heart emanates more electricity than your brain does and it beats with a rhythm and sound that connects you to all life. You free your divinity through your heart. Here you break down the barriers between yourself and the world. Imagine your heart beating in unison with the Universe. What memories or experiences are you holding onto that cause you to want to protect your heart from others? What have you been carrying in your heart that has created separation between you and the people you love? Are there stories or beliefs that prevent you from experiencing the kind of closeness and intimacy that feeds your spirit? What, within you, are you ready to release so you can feel safe letting other people close to you? In the leaf shape beside the green rose, write what you want to release so that your heart is able to open and expand so you can let more love in from the world and send more love out into the world.

Next, choose a rose and color it yellow. This rose represents your solar plexus chakra. This chakra is associated with the element of fire and I like to imagine it is a bright yellow sun in the middle of the body. The energies here manage the digestive process and organs but also the nervous system and immune process. This center determines both the health of our bodies and minds because energetically, digestion is the ability to process your thoughts and what happens to you. If you are like me and have experienced early childhood trauma, you might have issues with these areas because your mind couldn’t effectively move through or process the information it was receiving – it couldn’t digest what was happening. In this center is your personal power and hints to fulfilling your greater purpose. When you clear this energy center, you start to move in the direction of living from your spirit instead of living from the pain in your past. In the leaf beside this rose, write what needs to be burned away from your past so you can feel free to move in the direction of your dreams.

Move your attention up to your throat center while you color a rose blue. This center carries energies around speaking your truth. We are not taught how to speak up. As children, we are most often taught how to obey and so we lose our ability to express ourselves – emotionally and creatively. If you are holding yourself back from saying what wants to be said because you are afraid of conflict or rejection, this energy center can experience blocks. When you feel blocked here, your connection to yourself, your heart and your psychic connection to Spirit is affected. The image on this journal page is most connected to the throat chakra center. The woman is opening her mouth wide to let her truth out. She is expressing herself freely and her life force energy is pouring out into the night sky. How have you been holding yourself back from expressing yourself. How can you give voice to your deepest, most divine self? on the leaf beside this rose, describe what you need to release so you feel free to express yourself emotionally, spiritually or creatively.

Now choose a rose and color it orange. This rose represents your sacral chakra. This energy center carries your need to develop your own personality and your need to reach out and connect with others. It is located at your sexual organs. This is your creative center. It is also connected to your desires, passions and dreams. When you feel stuck here, you feel disconnected from what brings you joy and makes you feel alive. You have an inherent need for love and sweetness. These are natural things to want and pursue. Can you allow yourself to receive them? On the leaf beside this rose, describe what you suspect may be stopping you from experiencing deep joy in one or more areas of your life?

Color your next rose choice with white, violet or gold. This represents your crown chakra which is located at the top of your head. This is the chakra that reminds me of oneness because it is where your energy dissolves into the essence of all life. Here you are connected to the Divine. It is where we enter the higher planes and access our highest wisdom. I like to imagine it is the place within my energy system where I draw energy from the moon and the stars. If your energy is blocked in this area, you may feel disconnected from the Divine or experience a lack of connection to the loving spiritual energies wanting to support you. In the leaf beside this rose, describe any thoughts, beliefs, memories or emotions that are preventing you from connecting to the Divine in the way that you most want to.

Color the next rose of your choice red. This rose represents your root chakra which is found at the base of your spine. This energy center is connected to the center of the earth and carries your stories about being in a physical body. It is the doorkeeper of the physical realm. It is symbolic of the life you will live in this particular body. It is associated with our physical survival. If you do not like your body or do not like being in a body, the energies in your root chakra will most likely be holding that information. Those who have experienced violence or traumas that make them feel unsafe, usually feel disconnected from their bodies. When you do not feel safe in your body, the energy is all chakras is affected. In the leaf beside your red rose, describe what you need to release in order to feel safe in your body.

Now color the seventh rose purple. This rose represents your third eye chakra which resides in the middle of your forehead. Energy from both the sun and the moon mix and meet in this chakra which combines earth energies with divine or spiritual energies. I like to think of this chakra as the bridge between the physical world and the world of spirit. This is also the chakra where you get to know your true self. It is the center of higher sight. It is the place where all the energies from all the other centers meet and weave together to create the essence that is you in this lifetime. What stories, memories or beliefs do you carry that block you from receiving spiritual insight or knowing who you really are? Write your answers in the leaf next to this rose.

Finally, color the last rose with all seven colors. Think about your journey through all seven chakras. Can you find a word or a phrase that summarizes what you most want to release as you start this new decade? In the leaf next to this rose, write the word of phrase that comes to you.

If you end up completing this spiritual art ritual, 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,

Pinterest pins:

The December new moon is the last new moon of 2019. It’s a great time to consider the seeds of intention you want to plant for the new year and for the new decade.

Reflect

Thinking ten years ahead isn’t easy. It takes time to ponder what’s important to you, how your life has changed and the direction you’d like to see it grow. I have never thought ten years ahead. It’s taken me until my thirties to even consider thinking a year ahead but now that I’m in my forties, using my imagination to consider what I want my life to look like ten years from now appeals to me.

The gift of conscious creation is you get to invent yourself anew whenever you want. Life automatically forces new roles upon you as you age but the older you get, the more those roles seem like something you get to choose – at least this is how it has felt to me.

This morning I woke up and the snowflakes that fell during the night were so big and so abundant that everything was coated in white frosting. I live in a forest and I have never seen it quite this magically white. I imagined myself walking in this wonderland with a big red cape with thick furry boots drawing my dreams in the snow. I had the morning all to myself. I shared it only with the lights on my tree and my sleeping dog laying next to me. I realized how happy I am and how many moons ago I dreamed up this life for myself…this life of writing and drawing and healing heavy hearts so we could all live with more magic and less pain.

It’s time for me to dream of more. Ever since I learned how to use my subconscious mind to heal (with the MAP treatments I use which you can learn more about here) my life is so wonderfully different. 2019 was a complete game changer for me. For so many years, I managed my life while coping with anxiety, chronic stress, panic attacks and social anxiety. It was exhausting. I managed to wake up every day and put one foot in front of the other and I even had miraculous moments and magical conversations with Spirit and the angels but it wasn’t what I would call easy. I was carrying around a lot of baggage and although I was always learning how to set aside one big bag after another, it wasn’t until my treatments with MAP where I felt like truckloads were carried away effortlessly for me.

I didn’t know what life could feel like without the emotional heaviness I carried. It had always been with me. Yes, I was constantly lessening my load but looking back now I see how slow my process was. I have a lot of patience when it comes to emotional healing and spiritual growth. I am dedicated to learning to fully embody my Spirit no matter how many lifetimes it takes. I’m not in a hurry but boy oh boy how I enjoy leaps forward and 2019 felt like a giant carried me on his back. In three paces we arrived at a place that, with my own tiny feet, would have taken me three decades.

Now that I’m here, at this place where I feel less burdened, I have all this energy and time to dream up new experiences for myself. It’s so exciting!

This new moon I’ll be pushing myself to imagine the beauty I want the next ten years to hold for me.

Life is unpredictable and we live in uncertain times but let us never stop dreaming! We deserve to stay open to magic and wonder. We deserve to believe we can create miracles and with those benevolent forces of love walking silently beside us in Spirit, truly anything is possible.

I created this new moon’s journal page with the intention of inspiring you to push yourself to dream up more for yourself and your life. Look deep in your heart. Ask your Spirit to speak to you so you can see the magnificent possibilities you couldn’t see before. Trust me, if you take the time to ask, your Spirit will help you imagine fantastic things that light you up and make you feel alive and like you are walking a path perfectly made just for you.

If you are not on my email list and haven’t received this month’s journal page, visit my homepage and sign up. You’ll receive a link where you can download the hand-drawn page I created for this particular moon. Print it, grab a tea and a cozy blanket, get comfortable then follow the instructions below.

Create

If moon rituals are familiar to you, prepare your sacred space and invite Spirit to join you in whatever way works best for you.

If, however, you are new to moon rituals, I’ve included a quick guide to the steps I follow to prepare for my moon rituals in a past blog post. Take a look at it before moving forward.

Print out the December new moon journal page.

You’ll notice the page features three magical symbols; an eye, a giant set of angel wings and a collection of roses. The eye is featured high on the page in the center of the angel wings to represent the Great Architect of the Universe. As we imagine what we’d like to create in the new year and the new decade, having the Great Architect of the Universe overseeing our dreams seems like a wise choice. Let us invite the force that can blanket the winter ground with intricately designed water mandalas and paint the evening sky in golds and purples to work with us as we push ourselves to live with more passion and creativity.

The center of the page holds a blank space to write, draw or collage your dreams onto. I wanted it to look like a mirror but instead of a mirror that reflects the world around you, I imagine this mirror faces your internal world and reflects back to you what’s inside your heart and Spirit. This precious reflection should of course be protected by your angels and Spirit Guides, which is what the wings that cradle the mirror represent. The roses represent Divine Mother. Divine Mother carries in her heart an infinite source of compassion. She will teach you how to receive because she knows your true worth even when you don’t. She understands how very deserving you are of more magic and love than your mind can conceptualize. She will silently walk beside you whispering your worth as you walk toward your dreams.

If you end up completing this spiritual art ritual, 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,

Pinterest pins:

The December full moon offers the opportunity to reflect on the last year and the last decade. Below, I share a few reflective questions to help you review the year and the last decade. I also share a journal page created specifically for this moon to help you release what you do not want to carry into the coming year.

Reflect

This December is unlike any other December in my life. I’ve experienced a lot of changes this past year…a lot more than I expected to and they weren’t these big external changes like moving to a new city or getting a divorce or changing careers. I’m still happily married and I love where I live but my internal landscape has changed so much I feel unfamiliar with this new me.

This new me doesn’t live with chronic stress anymore. Nor does she experience panic attacks like she used to. She doesn’t have social anxiety. Her body is relaxed. She’s calm inside more often than not. I’m finally experiencing who I am without the trauma I carried around for forty years. The sad thing is, because I’ve been living with the effects of trauma since I was a young girl, I thought I was normal. I had no idea how messed up my system was. I had nothing to compare it to so how could I know any better?

Our nervous systems have a few natural settings. The first of which is safe and social. If we perceive danger, we switch over to fight or flight feelings and if we continue to perceive danger, we fall down into freeze mode where our bodies literally start to shut down. Survivors of trauma get stuck between the fight, flight and freeze states more often than is helpful or healthy. We all deserve to spend most of our time in the safe and social mode but most of us don’t live there. We visit that place from time to time but far too many of us are stuck dancing between fight, flight and freeze.

“Trauma is the most avoided, ignored, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.”

Dr. Peter Levine

I don’t live stuck dancing between fight, flight and freeze modes anymore. That’s what happened to me in 2019; I healed something that was such a big part of me and now everything and nothing has changed all at the same time.

Sometimes I’m shocked at how no one can see the difference in me. If I were to lose 100 pounds, people would most definitely notice but with emotional and spiritual change like this, so few people understand how different I am. I shared with a friend the other day how sad I was that it took my until now to get here. I should have felt like this when I was twenty and I had my whole life ahead of me but then again, I still have life in front of me. Who do I want to be now that I have the internal resources to live with more ease? I feel like my future is stretched out in front of me and I have so many more choices now that my time isn’t being gobbled up managing stress and anxiety.

So this December, more than any other year, I’m sitting in gratitude. I’m not sure what I want to release or let go of before I move into another year and another decade but I suspect it will have a lot to do with limiting thoughts. I want the coming year to be a year of wonderment. I want to be in awe of the beauty and perfection that is my life. I want to witness more miracles. I want my heart to burst with joy. I want to celebrate. I want to push my imagination to stretch so I can visualize and believe in the kind of life my soul wants to live.

I’ve compiled a list of questions to help me review the last year and decide what I do not want to carry into the coming year and the coming decade. I’m sharing it here in case you are like me and need a little help reflecting on the last twelve months and the last ten years.

End of Year Reflection Questions

1. Did you set goals for yourself last year? If you did, how do you feel about them now?

2. If you could wave your magic wand and drastically change one area of your life, which area would that be and how would it be different? Family? Relationship? Finances? Career? Parenting? Health? Spirituality?

3. Which thoughts circled over and over again in your mind this year?

4. Which thoughts would you prefer to occupy your mind in the new year?

5. Where in your life do you need to show yourself more compassion?

6. Where in your life do you need to slow down?

7. What experiences were emotionally heavy for your body to carry last year and the last decade and how can you lighten your emotional load in the new year?

8. If you could whisper a wish for the coming year in your angel’s ear, what would you whisper? What about your wish for the coming decade?

9. If your angel told you that in order for your wish to come true you would need to let go of this one thing, what do you think that one thing would be?

Now you’re ready to complete the journal page for this full moon.

If you are not on my email list and haven’t received this month’s journal page, visit my homepage and sign up. You’ll receive a link where you can download the hand-drawn page I created for this particular moon. Print it, grab a tea and a cozy blanket, get comfortable then follow the instructions below.

If you enjoy my hand-drawn journal pages, then you may also enjoy the free online Creative Moon Circles that accompany these pages. You can learn more about those here.

Create

If moon rituals are familiar to you, prepare your sacred space and invite Spirit to join you in whatever way works best for you.

If, however, you are new to moon rituals, I’ve included a quick guide to the steps I follow to prepare for my moon rituals in a past blog post. Take a look at it before moving forward.

Print out the December full moon journal page and gather your pens, paints or pencil crayons.

On the page I’ve included magical symbolism to help with your intentions of release and letting go. In the top right hand corner hangs a strand of garlic. It’s potent energy is included on this page to symbolize warding off unwelcome energy. The broom that rests against the wall below it represents sweeping away what you no longer want around you. The black on the candles absorb and diminish any energy you do not want to carry into the new year. The color black also represents endings and leaving behind old pain and suffering.

The focal point on the page is the hearth. There was a time when the hearth was the center of the home. It provided light and warmth and a gathering space for friends and family. It is where the element of fire lived in the home. Fire symbolizes the Divine light we carry in our hearts and souls along with the spiritual light we carry into our every day lives. Fire is also a strong purifier. It burns and transforms but instead of showing a raging fire, this page uses the softer, more gentle flames that dance upon the candle wicks that sit around the hearth and along the mantle. These smaller flames represent a slower, more mindful release.

Around each flame is a glowing circle of light. In each circle, write or draw an experience, a thought, belief, memory or habit from the past year you are ready to let go of. You do not have to write in each circle. Fill out as many as you want or need. If you would like to take the ritual further, when you are finished, light a candle, reflect on each circle you wrote or drew in then burn the page slowly and safely with the candle’s flame. As you watch the fire burn each circle on the page, think about how you will feel when that experience, thought, belief, memory or habit is no longer part of your life.

If you end up completing this spiritual art ritual, 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,

Pinterest pins:

The November new moon has potential to help you see a truth about yourself you’ve been in denial of. Sometimes truth isn’t the easiest thing to face, especially in areas of our lives we are struggling with.  I collaborated with a friend to create a journal page to help you ask Spirit what it is you need to see.

Reflect

This new moon offers the potential for great and wondrous Aha moments. You know, those moments when you come to an awareness so magnificent and life-changing your whole world pivots and shifts ever so slightly a few degrees to the right or left. The kind of Aha moment that points you in a direction you were not previously going…a direction that will lead you to experience far more of what you actually want.

That’s the power and joy of a truly great Aha moment; it has the ability to reach deep at the root of your misery and change a destructive belief or thought you’ve carried for years while not even realizing how much damage it was causing you. Moments of revelation have the ability to set you back on course to your truth.

This is necessary since we all carry blind spots. Our minds are these amazing, fantastically powerful instruments but sometimes they get stuck. This is one of the reasons I love working with Spirit. Spirit has this unique way of stretching me to see more than I can currently see. For instance, when I work with Divine Mother, I am inevitably led to look at life through the lens of compassion. Everything looks a lot clearer through the lens of compassion but my mind doesn’t always go there on its own.

On its own my mind gets stuck in stories I tell about myself and other people. I wield these fantastic stories of blame or guilt and they often feel very real and valid. But with a little patience and a willingness to be guided by Divine Mother, my stories of pain and suffering shift and change. The characters in my stories become kind and warm. The way I see myself softens. I see a way out of my suffering that I did not see before.

This new moon I collaborated with a dear friend to create a journal page to help you seek guidance from your own angels and/or Spirit Guides.

Before you follow the instructions below, I encourage you to ask yourself a few important questions. Where are you not happy? What do you want to be doing that you are not currently doing?  Is there an opportunity to be found in whatever unwanted experience is currently showing up in your life?

There is gold to be mined in the uncomfortable and unpleasant circumstances we find ourselves in.

When I find myself experiencing something I prefer not to, my initial response is usually to desperately desire for things to change so I don’t have to feel all the yucky feelings that hang on the coattails of my unpleasant circumstances. If I’m not desperately wishing for things to change than I’m trying to run away and avoid them as much as I can. It takes me a while to remember that being curious is far more effective. What within me can I change to make this experience easier or more pleasant? What is this experience showing me about myself?

Instead of desperately wanting someone or something else to change or choosing to run away to hide, I’ll be using this new moon to heal my wounds and face my shadows so I can walk into the upcoming new year ready to expand and grow toward the life that best reflects my magical spirit. I welcome you to join me.

If you are not on my email list and haven’t received this month’s journal page, visit my homepage and sign up. You’ll receive a link where you can download the hand-drawn page I created for this particular moon. Print it, grab a tea and a cozy blanket, get comfortable then follow the instructions below.

If you enjoy these new moon journal pages, then you may also enjoy the free online Creative Moon Circles that accompany these pages. You can learn more about those here.

Create

If moon rituals are familiar to you, prepare your sacred space and invite Spirit to join you in whatever way works best for you.

If, however, you are new to moon rituals, I’ve included a quick guide to the steps I follow to prepare for my moon rituals in a past blog post. Take a look at it before moving forward.

Print out the November new moon journal page and gather your favorite Tarot or oracle deck.

There are two pages included in this new moon package. The first page is a hand-drawn depiction of a woman laying out some tarot cards on the table. I created this image for Marlene Chapman of theurbanmystic.ca

Marlene asked me to create a cover page for her upcoming Tarot class. Marlene has been reading cards for almost 30 years. She is the most talented card reader I’ve ever met. If you are interested in learning more about Tarot cards, her online Tarot class will definitely be a great investment.

Marlene chose the three cards on the page I drew for specific reasons. Here’s her explanation of why she chose these cards:

The High Priestess embodies the archetype of the Mystic and Psychic. The ability to sense and intuit that which is hidden is strong in the the High Priestess.

The Fool tarot card is helpful when embarking on a new journey (like a new moon cycle). Whether its studying something new, implementing a new regime or really, anything we are ‘new’ at, being willing to look silly and appear naive can be tough for adults. Moving forward, following our inner guidance without expectation and simply enjoying the experience is the wisdom the Fool embodies.

The third tarot card lies flat on the table in the image and it speaks of the ability to rise above our earthly situations which gives us the perspective we require to see everything as perfect in its own way. As the last card in the Major Arcana, it represents the conclusion to our journey of enlightenment.

I love the collective energy these cards hold and will be coloring my page then placing it on my new moon altar.

The second hand-drawn journal page shows four empty boxes, each with a corresponding question from Marlene. Marlene created this spread especially for the new moon in November. The intention on this page is for you to pull a card from your own tarot and/or oracle deck after asking each question to Spirit. There are four questions so in the end you will have pulled four cards.

I like to do this kind of spread in a mindful way by first following the steps to open my moon ritual then spend time in quiet contemplation as I color before I pull my cards.

In the empty box beside the question, you can choose to either simply lay down your card onto of the page or gather your pencil and crayons and draw words and visual elements from the cards you pulled into the corresponding boxes. When I have the time, I prefer drawing elements of the cards I pulled onto the journal page rather than just placing the cards onto the page. I am able to travel deeper inward as I draw and color which allows me to see more about myself and the messages I am receiving from Spirit.

If you end up completing this spiritual art ritual, 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,

Pinterest pins: