Tag: New moon

Slowing Down with May’s New Moon

A story by Calista Moon on .

Hello my darlings! I want to touch on the New Moon that’s coming up on May 30th. This one is going to be in Gemini! Associated with Mercury, who is currently in retrograde, they rule over transportation, technology, communication, and contracts. If you’ve been having trouble expressing yourself lately or finding a lot of inconvenient mishaps making you late, we generally chalk that up to Mercury being in retrograde. That being said, I think that this New Moon may be a good time to cultivate some patience. Patience with ourselves, others, and general circumstances of any given situation.

Keep in mind that Mercury will be leaving retrograde right after this New Moon on June 2nd. Giving ourselves and others the grace to be fallible and human during this time will resolve a lot of misunderstandings before they even become an issue. If you’re entering into any legal agreements at this time, don’t be pressured to move quickly. Take your time to read the fine print and make sure you understand what you are agreeing to.

I know now that the weather is becoming more amenable to playing outdoors we all tend to overbook ourselves and we wind up not feeling rested or relaxed at all. My suggestion for this New Moon is to slow down. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been feeling a little disconnected lately, from my craft, from the earth, and from a lot of the things I enjoy. So here is how I intend to reconnect with patience and quiet on Monday.

Since I’m lucky enough to have Memorial Day off of work, I’ll be spending the majority of the day with friends, but once I’ve returned home, I want to gather some materials at my work space and cleanse it. Namely Bay Leaves, my cauldron, a lighter, a marker, a piece of paper, salt for cleansing, Lavender for calm, peace, and to represent Gemini, Chamomile for abundance and health, Calendula petals for joy and stability, Clover Honey for a lasting effect and sweetening stressful situations, and a chime candle. I’ll also be grabbing Rose Quartz (which I’ve been drawn to lately) for universal love, Clear Quartz for clarity and grounding, and Blue Lace Agate to calm stress and anxiety.

Once all my items are gathered, I will ground myself by setting out my stones, then making a list of frustrations I face regularly that are out of my control. As I write them, I will envision the frustration leaving me through the ink. I’ll fold the list up and set it aside, and bring forward the herbs, honey, and chime candle. First I’ll carve the word patience into the side of the candle with my thumbnail. That’s what we’re creating here, a sense of peace and living slow. Next I’ll put a thin layer of honey on the outside of the candle. A little goes a long way, so don’t feel like you need to slather it on. Then I’ll sprinkle the herbs over the candle. I usually work over a small plate to avoid large spills. This also helps if the herbs have trouble sticking, you can roll the candle on the plate to help adhere more onto it until you’re satisfied.

When you’re ready, light your chime candle. Allow it’s light and warmth to roll over you, before lighting your list of daily frustrations and letting it burn in your cauldron. Remember, guys, fire safety is incredibly important. Use common sense! As the candle and my frustrations burn, I am going to meditate on the path I want to walk and the patience required to do so. If I find a few revelations during the meditation I will journal them. If not I will probably do a tarot reading or scry in my mirror for clarity.

And there you have it! A quiet easy way to add a little peace to your life. Slow down and breathe. Tomorrow will come, today will leave, and the small things, while inconvenient, are only that; small. I love you, my darlings! I hope you enjoy the long weekend if you’re able, and don’t push yourselves too hard.

Where Passion Meets the Mundane

A story by Calista Moon on .

Hello, hello my darlings! It’s that time again. We’ve got a New Moon a couple days away, and this one is sitting in Aries. As the ruler of ambition, passion, action, and desire, Aries wants us to make a move! What better time than April Fool’s to firmly plant some seeds? That’s right, this New Moon comes to us on April 1st, but don’t be taken in by the lighthearted nature of the day. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac year, and much like the Fool of the tarot, it starts us on a long term journey. If you don’t know what I mean, go check out my other blog series called Tarot Tuesday.

Being a New Moon, this is a perfect time for bringing in fresh energy and I know I’m ready to focus on something that makes me feel passionate, something that gives me energy and sparks my inner fire. Aries is a fire sign after all! If you’ve been lacking in the motivation department, maybe it’s time to channel the stubborn, hard headedness of this ram as the moon prepares to fill with light and opportunity. If you want to harness this drive, some stones you can include on your altar are Bloodstone, Topaz, and Jasper. If, like me, you enjoy burning herbs, some Aries herbs to add to your cauldron on Friday are Basil and Eucalyptus. If you’re more of a beast master or mistress, try putting a tiger or ram likeness on your altar to honor Aries and welcome their energy into your life. Keeping it simple is always nice, though so if you just want some colors to add, Aries’ colors are blood red and black. Or, for the gardeners among you, add some geraniums or daffodils. Dogwood branches or Alder branches are a good representation as well, if they’re available to you.

Now I know I’m getting heavy into this Aries energy, it’s coming in hot this month in my opinion. That doesn’t mean we should forget the lady of the hour; the Moon. Mugwort and Cinnamon are good moon herbs for awakening psychic gifts and bringing in abundance, respectively. New Moon stones are Selenite for cleansing, Clear Quartz for grounding, Labradorite, the magic gem, Tiger’s Eye for manifesting, and Tiger Iron for commitment to choices, and her colors are violet and purple, the colors of a moonless night. What else is out thriving on moonless nights, animal lovers? Owls and bats, soaring through the darkness with precision and focus.

When it comes to jump starting ambition, I have some specific desires this month. My health has been very unstable for the last few months, and now that I’m finally starting to feel myself again, I want to maintain my vessel. If you know me, you know I’m a thick lady. That’s thick with a capital T and three C’s. Thiccck. I move my body regularly, I try to feed it good nourishing meals, and overall I do my best to love and appreciate every single cell that works so hard to keep me alive and mobile. With my health being so low these past few months, though, my routine has become much more sedentary as I tried to heal. I want to get back to my movement. I want to have a clean and healthy space in which to live and not only that, but to thrive! So this month, I’ll be doing a lot of mundane magic, which we don’t hear much about in the aesthetic world of witchcraft. As always, this is what my process looks like, but everyone’s craft is different and there is no wrong way to practice. Do what feels good!

Let’s talk about what mundane magic looks like. Instead of a step by step, I’m going to go through how I intend to cleanse my space and what that means to me.

1. Start a simmer pot. You know me, I need good smells for good magic! Since my health problems were respiratory based, I don’t particularly want to burn herbs this month. If you’ve never made a simmer pot before, it’s a fun and easy way to incorporate your herbs. Get a pot and fill it about halfway with water. I’ll be adding lemon slices for cleansing, Rose Petals for self-love, Basil, and Eucalyptus essential oil. The last two are for protection and channeling that Aries determination. If you don’t want to clean a pot, you can also use an essential oil diffuser to get the same effect! Turn that puppy on low and give it the occasional stir to help the scents permeate your home. Changing the quality of the air in my home is refreshing and invigorating to me.

2. Once the simmer pot is going, I’m going to clean up my altar. It’s pretty cluttered at the moment with herbs, tools and stones, as well as wax and ashes. I like to think a messy altar means I’m doing the work, but we’re starting a fresh cycle here. So I’ll remove everything, scrape up the wax, dust and wipe everything down with moon water, clockwise cleaning for manifesting, darlings. My deities will appreciate fresh candles and clean candlesticks too, I’m sure as well as refreshing offerings and organizing all my ingredients and tools. I’ll be adding Bloodstone, Labradorite, and Tiger Iron, as well as Rose Quartz for self-love, a reminder of why I move my body and care for my space. I’m building a discipline. That’s what stays on days when the motivation wanes.

3. When I’m satisfied with my altar space, I’m going to do something I despise. I’m going to dust. SIGH. I probably only dust the whole house once or twice a year. I’m sure that had something to do with my recent respiratory issues, and it’s been a hot minute since I’ve attended to the “magic sprinkles” as I like to call them. So I’ll don a mask, remove all the abandoned cobwebs from the corners (only the abandoned ones, mind you), and wipe down all my knick-knacks and surfaces. Don’t forget to dust your plants too, if you have them! Even though I can’t stand this chore, I am kind of excited to see all my belongings cared for and tended to as I intend to care for myself.

4. To follow that up, I’ll move into plant care. Making sure they’re all watered and removing dead leaves. Check to see if any of them need repotted or a rotation in the sunlight. This is a normal weekly chore for me, but I feel like it’s important to note here that after doing something I really don’t enjoy, it’s important to spend time doing something that brings you a sense of lightness.

5. Finally I’ll do my remaining normal chores; clean and refresh bathrooms, take care of any dirty dishes in the sink, take out the garbage, follow up on the never-ending chore of laundry, and vacuum. These can feel really boring and daunting, especially after doing several other chores, so if you struggle like me, try taking a few minutes before starting them to rest and meditate. Think about the impact these dirty spaces have on your daily life. How often are you in the bathroom? How often do you see the sink of dishes? How often do you step on a weird crunchy on the ground? You are doing these chores to care for yourself. You deserve a clean floor to lay on and flail around on without wondering what’s down there. You deserve a welcoming bathroom where you want to relax and take a hot shower or bath. Clean dishes help maintain your internal health both physically and psychologically, and you deserve to be healthy in all areas of your life. Tell that inner voice to shut up, you DO deserve it! Mindfulness and intention are the keys to mundane magic.

It’s important to note that you know what you need. If you don’t have the energy or capacity to do all of these things, you certainly don’t have to. This is just how I intend to jump back into a healthy routine after being so unhealthy. Take care of you and do what feels good for you.

This will be a long day for me, that’s true. But when I’m finished I will make some tea, sit down in my clean home, and know that I have worked hard for myself. I know that I will feel good. I will feel deserving of the hard work I put in, and the weekend will be spent in a clean space that I have cultivated for my own betterment. I hope that whatever you manifest this month, whatever drives you, and sparks your fire, that you know you are deserving of all things that are good, my darlings. Because you are!

New Moon, Who Dis?

A story by Calista Moon on .

Hello, my darlings! I hope you’re all feeling open to change and possibility as we come up on the New Moon on Wednesday! Since we focused so much on Imbolc last month and the power of manifestation it gave us in conjunction with the new moon, I wanted to have a special post just for the new moon. My working from last month was wildly successful, so this new moon I’m going to cultivate gratitude. I want to manifest a day to day where I see the good things over the bad. Not ignoring the problems, but not letting them consume me either. So let’s talk about the new moon.


In this state, the moon is considered “empty” since there is no light on her. She’s a dark moon, ready and waiting for all the light to fill her up again. She is drawing it to her little by little, making progress every day towards the fullness we’ll see in two weeks’ time. This particular new moon will be in Pisces, my personal sun sign. Pisces is an introspective water sign, with positive aspects of dreaming, imagination, and intuition. Some of the negative aspects include delusions, deceit, and dissociation from physical reality. 


With the moon in Pisces, you may be feeling more sensitive or perceptive of your surroundings, causing you to act passively. While waiting to see what comes next isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it may come from a place of insecurity. If that resonates, don’t hold yourself back now. Open to the potential and opportunities surrounding you. If that doesn’t ring true, spend this period of rest and calm investing in your creative interests or spending time on your spiritual practice. If you don’t have a spiritual practice, maybe now is the time to build one! Whether that’s saying a little prayer before bed, or taking 5 minutes in the middle of the day to meditate and quiet your mind, the imagination of Pisces will greatly influence these areas should you dedicate time to them.


 Like I said, I’m going to be looking for opportunities to exercise mindful gratitude in the coming weeks, and to build that new perspective, my ritual this month will look a little different. Since Pisces is the water sign of the fish, I’m going to be taking a ritual bath. I promise that this wasn’t coordinated with the post that the Master Librarian made for Fae Friday, but it does seem to coincide well! A ritual bath isn’t something I’ve done before, so everything I share in this how-to will be rather experimental, but a lot of the steps remain the same.


1. First we’ll cleanse our workspace. In this case, it will be the bathtub. (If you don’t have a bathtub, that’s okay. You can take a ritual shower too. Or even just take some extra care in a face wash. There’s no wrong way, guys! Seriously!) I would suggest cleaning the tub/shower like normal, and then if you feel so inclined, burn some incense or wipe some moon water around the tub in a clockwise motion. Remember, clockwise for welcoming in energy, counterclockwise for banishing energy. 

2. Let’s dress our workspace. A couple things to keep in mind if you’re a crystal lover like me: First, Selenite represents the moon and is a powerful cleansing and purifying stone. Second, DO NOT get it wet. Keep those shiny beauties on the sink counter or on a shelf nearby. They don’t play well with water. Other stones that represent the new moon are Clear Quartz for grounding, Labradorite, the gem of magic, and Tiger’s Eye, a powerful manifesting stone. If you want to represent Pisces, their stones are Fluorite, Amethyst, and Aquamarine. All of these stones are fine to be near water, so I’m planning to put them on the edge of the tub or on the shower shelves. I also intend to burn some herbs, so I’ll have my cauldron on the counter with Rosemary for cleansing and protection, Mugwort for awakening the third eye and banishing negativity, and Sage (a Pisces related herb) for wisdom and blessings. I’ll also have a couple of candles for my deities and a lighter and charcoal for the cauldron. I’m going to have a cup, some dried sunflower petals, bath salts, and lavender essential oil for the bath as well.

3. Charge and cleanse your vehicle. For this particular ritual, I’m going to be my vehicle, since I am the one seeing the opportunities for gratitude every day. I plan to start drawing the bath, light my candles, and then light my charcoal to burn the herbs in my cauldron. I’ll fan the smoke from the herbs around myself with the following incantation:

I quiet myself with the Black Moon. As she is now empty, so too do I cleanse and open myself to that which I have overlooked. As she fills, so too will I become stronger in the positivity surrounding me.


During this portion I’ll be envisioning the smoke attaching to the dark parts of my mind and body that have been overwhelming my day to day. I envision this as a black sticky tar like substance. The smoke will encapsulate the tar and separate it from my energy. I’m going to put a large amethyst on my third eye in the middle of my brow bone and visualize it opening like an eye to see the objective truth of reality.

4. Bath time! When the bath is full, I will add a few drops of Lavender essential oil for calm, bath salts for cleansing, and sunflower petals for peace and clarity. I like to listen to music in the bath so I’ll be starting some gentle music before adding the last ingredient; me! The cleansing portion of this can look however you like. I will be pouring water over my head and visualizing the water connecting with the smoke covered tar and washing off of my person, safely into the water where it will be cleansed and neutralized. I’ll repeat my intention three times as I do this:

I cleanse myself so that I may see more clearly the world around me and the path before me.

Then I’ll set the cup aside and quietly submerge and meditate in the water, thinking on all of the abundance present in my life. 

5. Closing the ritual. When you’ve finished your bath and are draining the tub, envision all the black tar that didn’t neutralize in the bath going down the drain, back to the earth. Mother earth neutralizes all. (If you took a shower, you can visualize this while you are cleansing instead of seeing the black tar neutralizing in the tub.) Before putting out candles I’ll say: 

Thank you for listening and assisting me in this working. I have all that I need while working towards what I desire to have in my life. I welcome gratitude, joy, and silver linings. I open myself to that which serves my Highest Good and aligns me with my Highest Self. And so it is. And so it is. And so it is. Blessed be.

I’ll thank my deities for joining me and invite them to stay if they wish before extinguishing their candles.

And there you have it! A new moon gratitude ritual bath! Once I’m dried and dressed, I’m going to make a list of things I’m grateful for and post it up in the house so I can see it every day as a reminder. Like I said, this is an experimental spell for me, so let me know what you would change or what you intend to manifest in the comments. Happy manifesting, my darlings!