Happy Astrological New Year and first New Moon in Aries! I’m about one week late for the new year and half a week for the new moon, but as I’m slowly but surely learning, late is better than never. It’s not too late, it’s never too late! Down with the procrastination!! (…my own personal patriarchy >_<)
Anyways, I learned on the first Monday in January–as I was procrastinating doing a “2019 in Review” and setting goals for 2020–that the astrological new year is actually at the spring equinox on March 19th-21st (differs year to year depending on the day in terms of hours of daylight, and this year March 19th was the earliest it’s been since 1896!). I thought that was pretty perfect falling right after my birthday, so I would delay committing to any resolutions or 2020 goals until the astrological new year! Perfect plan!
Welp, here we are, and needless to say, I’m still scrambling to get my shit together.
But, at least making a valiant effort toward committing to a plan for eventually attempting to get said shit together, I am! (Okay, Yoda.)
Plan to Manifest my Dreams with the Moon Cycle
Sometimes, looking at a year out is too overwhelming for me. I had the idea to do my reflection & planning sessions on a monthly basis, and then came across a concept through the Tarot community called “manifesting with the moon” — a mindful and spiritual style of goal-setting.
One of the things I love about astrology-based personal development practices is that everything is so fluid, flexible, and “find what feels good”. The Aries New Moon truly fell on Tuesday 3.24.20, but your New Moon ritual can take place in bits and pieces from Monday thru Wednesday (and now for me, even Thursday… and Friday!) — the point is just to have a natural, visible, regular, and reliable trigger to then spend devoted time mindfully reflecting on your goals so it’s more likely you’ll make progress toward them.
New Moon Ritual
What I’ve chosen to do at each new moon is simple – pull cards for a new moon Tarot spread, mindfully journal about my intentions & affirmations for the month to get clarity on what daily habits I’ll focus on to get me there, and then curate the soundtrack to my life (and my own sort of auditory vision board, as the songs I’ll listen to can become inspirations for what I’m writing) in a playlist for the month.
For the Tarot spread, check out my Instagram! Then for the rest, read on below –
Affirmations + Habits for this Moonth 😉
I’ve decided to pick one habit to get me closer to my dreams (which will be goals to have achieved by the Aries full moon October 1st) in each of the below three areas of life each month. Then, the following month I can add on or pivot as needed, but only after not overloading my focus with changing too much at once.
Body
Dream // Affirmation: I treat my body with gratitude and find what feels good to move to every day.
Goal: Get to my ideal weight of being in the 120s before October
Habit: Move my body 30+ mins every other day
For my physical health, I’ve long had this dream for my ideal self that I’m the type of person who does yoga first thing in the morning and then gets 30+ minutes of cardio in for moving my body every day, but for starters, I’m just going to say 30+ mins every other day, and no requirements of what that 30 minutes must be.
I’ve actually been going through Yoga with Adrienne’s Yoga Camp playlist with my friend for the last 3 weeks, where we do one video together over Facetime and then do the next two videos in the series on our own before meeting back up the following week, and I’ve been keeping up with this throughout March so far! (Although, sometimes I do all the videos within one day to catch up, so I want to get better about sticking to the more regular schedule of activity every other day.)
Mind
Dream // Affirmation: I am a capable dog mom who keeps her collie well-groomed and her husband happy that most dog hair goes in the brush and not all over the apartment. *om*
Goal: Lincoln’s coat at “ground zero.” (Meaning minimal mats and because most of the loose hair gets removed via brushing, can be at a point of maintenance just needing brushing once a week.)
Habit: Brush Lincoln for at least 10 minutes every day until his coat reaches ground zero
For Reid’s peace of mind and my own, I NEED to brush Lincoln like I’ve been saying I would for almost… gulp… 4 years now. Also, this can serve as my “make the bed” habit.
Spirit
Dream // Affirmation: I am a published author who makes my living writing novels.
Goal: Self-publish my first novel by the end of 2020
Habit: A workday routine of 3 hours creative writing in AM, 3 hours blog biz work in PM
To live into what I feel is my soul’s purpose in this season, I commit to write something every day. For a long time now I feel like I’ve been holding myself back from blogging and writing a book, and now that the option/temptation to get a day job again has essentially been tabled by the Universe, I’m going to claim my life’s work as a blogger and novelist encouraging empathy, diarising, and mindful personal development!
I really can’t decide how many metrics I want to commit to writing career-wise, but here’s my plan as of now. My weekday mornings will consist of creative free-writing time, all by hand in my diary, where I write about whatever I want to write about that day. Then in the afternoons, I decide where to best publish the pieces of writing I did that morning. Afternoon time blocks will be for the more “business-y” side of writing. Some sections can be blog posts, some will go into my novel first draft, and others can be Instagram captions. I don’t want to make too many rules for this just yet. I’m trying to see if I can create my own sort of “blog to book business plan” by allowing myself to design my ideal days as I go. But, I do want to make sure to have it as one of my big 3 focuses!
My Feb-March 2020 Playlist
I wanted to have go-to music curated to listen to while I’m doing my morning routine and writing time. I also hadn’t made a playlist in forever, which is a shame.
If you want to listen along, find me on Spotify! I’ll share my updated playlist for Mar-April at the next new moon on April 22nd. 🙂
This moon cycle’s playlist was 3 hours and 29 minutes, including the below songs that I’ve been particularly loving lately:
- “Venice Bitch” by Lana del Rey – especially the lines, “Fresh out of fucks forever” and “Nothing gold can stay”
- “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac – as in, I haven’t worn a bra since… maybe a week ago? and I’m never going back to wearing them again! =D
- Also by them, “Dreams,” “Gypsy,” “Landslide,” and “Rhiannon” are staples on my forever playlist.
- “Chateau Lobby #4” by Father John Misty – I just love the love story in this storytelling song.
- “People are boring, but you’re something else completely.”
- “You left a note in your perfect script: ‘Stay as long as you want,’ I haven’t left your bed since.”
- “Season of the Witch” by Donovan & “Witchy Woman” by the Eagles. It’s just really fun to listen to “witchy” songs while I’m reading Tarot xD
- “Disco tits” by Tove Lo – so fun to walk to when I take Lincoln out
- “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by Jurnee Smollet-Bell. (Black Canary in Birds of Prey, this movie had the best soundtrack!) And, this is probably the best cover of this song I’ve heard. Female empowerment!
- Also from Harley Quinn movie – “Joke’s on You” by Charlotte Lawrence
- “Make Your Own Kind of Music” by Cass Elliot. Maybe I’ll make this my alarm song… maybe not. 😉
