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November new moon 2020

Dana’s Moon Page for the New Moon in November 2020

Let’s use the new moon in November to claim our power!

Reflect

This month my mind has been on women and power. Women have a long history of being silenced, oppressed, ignored, dominated and controlled. It doesn’t help that children have also been treated this way. Strong, loud, confident women with opinions are still punished or killed in some cultures and in my culture they are definitely still not often embraced and honored.

I think of a woman standing in her power as someone who doesn’t apologize for wanting to earn a lot of money if that’s what she wants to do. She has the ability to make her own choices without feeling obligated to make someone else happy. I think of a woman who claims her worth as someone who chooses to speak or write her opinion and has the guts to share her experience and point of view because she knows it has value. She knows she has value. I think of a powerful woman as someone who values her role in her community and her family and who defines that role herself; she does not take on a role just because other people expect her to. I see a powerful woman as someone who wears pants even though everyone around her pressures her to wear a skirt or who wears a skirt, not because you told her to but because she feels good in it. I see a powerful woman as someone who is hell bent on making herself happy first and expects the people she loves to make themselves happy – not look to her to change or sacrifice something just so they can be happy.

I see power in a woman when she loves herself more than she needs other people to love her. I hear power in a woman’s voice when she speaks truths others ignore or says No! and follows it up by refusing to value your company more than her wellbeing. A powerful woman has taken the time to know herself. She knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like and she trusts herself. She trusts her preferences. She sees what makes her unique. She likes herself. She isn’t afraid of grief or guilt or rage. She’s strong enough to feel because she knows there is power in the heart. She believes in her dreams and will fight for them. She believes in your dreams too and isn’t threatened by them because she’s too busy becoming all that she has the potential to be.

Becoming a woman with power isn’t easy in this world. If you identify as a woman, you have most likely learned to internalize the oppressive, dominant and dismissive behavior to the point where you now have to fight both culture and your own internal programming to claim your power and know your worth. If you don’t see your worth and if you struggle to find your power, know that it truly isn’t your fault. You aren’t weak and you don’t lack something other people have. You are simply seeing yourself as the world has taught you to see women. You can’t be dominated, silenced and punished and expect yourself to easily claim your power.

For most of my life, I didn’t feel powerful. I experienced sexual trauma at a young age and it caused me to dissociate from myself. Disconnecting from myself and my emotions became a habit my brain feel into. Whenever an uncomfortable situation arose in my life or I started to feel something I didn’t want to feel, I automatically dissociated from my body and emotions. Being disconnected from my own experience became all that I knew so it felt normal to me. But it wasn’t normal and it wasn’t healthy and it caused me to feel powerless. How can you see what makes you unique when you don’t even know who you are? How can you trust your feelings when you live in a perpetual state of numbness? How can you follow your dreams when you have no idea what you really want?

The way women are silenced and oppressed causes us to disconnect from our power and our true essence.

When You’re Not Standing in Your Power

Here’s a list of things you might experience when you’re not standing in your power:

  • You feel trapped
  • You think life is working against you
  • You expect bad things to happen to you
  • You believe the negative thoughts your mind thinks about yourself
  • You feel selfish making decisions that make you happy
  • You settle for less than what you want
  • You keep your opinions to yourself
  • You are uncomfortable saying No!
  • You agree to do things when you don’t really want to do them
  • You care more about making other people happy than you do about making yourself happy
  • You place someone else’s opinion about you or your work above your own
  • You make sacrifices in your relationship more often than you want to
  • You collapse when you’re confronted with a problem

If you resonate with a lot of these statements, you may want to learn more about trauma and how it affects your sense of self. I know for me, healing the mother wound and tending to my trauma were the most important steps to reclaiming my power.

I created this new moon page to inspire you to spend some time in sacred space getting to know yourself in a deeper more meaningful way because that is where you will find your power. Your power has always been there. We just have to peel away the lies and let your spirit come shining through.

If you are not on my email list and haven’t received this month’s moon 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 November new moon journal page.

Notice the horse snuggling up to the woman’s hand. I drew a horse on this page because many years ago, I had a recurring nightmare where I was outside and these black horses would run wildly in my path and I would have to quickly get out of the way. In my journal, I had a conversation with my angel Cassandra where I told her about the dream and asked her what I should do. She told me that I was feeling powerless in my life and I should practice controlling my dream and see what happens. I wasn’t able to do it right away but a few days later the nightmare returned except this time I yelled at the horses and asked them to stop. I walked towards them and asked the biggest one if I could jump on his back. He agreed and I rode away with them. I woke up feeling amazing and seeing that I actually could control more than I thought I could.

If you’ve been around horses then you know how powerful they are. There is so much lore and symbolism around the horse but I definitely want the horse on this moon page to remind you that you can be friends with power. It’s important you get to know yourself as powerful otherwise you risk constantly seeing yourself as the victim who has no control over her circumstances and that is not a fun way to live my friend. You have the power you need to make the changes you want to make in your life. The butterfly on the oracle card that sits on the table represents the transformation that happens when you claim your power. It’s such a different experience living like a victim compared to seeing yourself as a powerful woman with choices.

On the moon page, the woman’s hand is holding a paintbrush as she wields her magic into the air. Think of one area in your life where you don’t feel powerful. Think of how different that area in your life would look if you saw yourself as a powerful woman and made choices that reflected that truth. In between the sparkling star dust, write or draw the changes you imagine might happen.

 

Finally, color your moon page as you think about how you will feel when your intentions become real.

If you end up completing this spiritual art ritual, I’d love to hear how it went. You can even take a picture of a part of your process and share it on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #danasartrituals or email me at [email protected] 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,

Dana da Ponte

 

 

 

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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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