How to: New Moon + Full Moon Ritual Guide
The moon has a powerful energy that we can harness to help us manifest new or release old. By tuning into the cycles of the moon - New Moon, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon + Waning Gibbous - we can harness the energy of each cycle to help call what we desire into our life. If you think about it, by living more in rhythm with the natural world, we naturally start to live more in rhythm with ourselves. This can help us connect to our truth, our soul’s purpose and our intuition.
Both the New + Full Moon have very different properties, so it’s beneficial to sync your goals and ideals with the phase of the moon that’s most aligned to help harness its natural energy to your benefit.
The New Moon
The New Moon happens when the sun and moon come into alignment. This is when the yang (masculine) energy of the sun merges with the yin (feminine) energy of the moon. This is a powerful time to plant seeds, set goals or intentions and start something new. This is the time to manifest, to birth new ideas and to create magic.
A New Moon Ceremony can involve meditation, visualisation or writing affirmations (check out our New Moon Manifesting Guide). The focus is on dreaming up your goals or intentions for the next phase of the Lunar Cycle (28 days) or beyond.
The Full Moon
The Full Moon is a time to bring things to a close - a cycle is completing and it’s time to tie up loose ends and shed the past. Full Moons are full of feminine (yin) energy - the energy of receptivity, surrender and introspection. This is the time where our intuition and creativity are high as well.
A Full Moon Ceremony should involve releasing the past and completing the cycle, rather than manifesting anew. This can look like writing down all the things that caused you trauma over the last lunar cycle (or however far back you want to go) and burning them while repeating a mantra like “I release these thoughts from my consciousness and no longer feel attachment towards them”.
You can write a reflection over the last few weeks - What has happened? What were the opportunities? When did you feel most aligned/misaligned? What can you let go of? What did you learn?
Think about offering the Full Moon anything that you don’t want to take with you to the next cycle and offer this to her to clear and take away.
Smudging
Smudging is an important part of a ritual as it cleanses the old, stagnant energy away and refreshes the energy in the room or of yourself. Smudging involves lighting Palo Santo, Incense, Sage, Rosemary, Lavender, Cedarwood or other “smoking” botanicals or even candles if that’s what you’ve got. I love to smudge myself and my ritual space prior to the ritual so that I have fresh energy to think clearly and connect within. You can also smudge yourself after the ritual to reinforce your ritual and cleanse any old energy that came up during the ritual - this is great for a Full Moon Ritual as you’re clearing things from the past. You can shop our beautiful + ethical Palo Santo + Selenite Bundles for your smudging rituals.
Always ensure you are sourcing sustainably harvested smudges as the increased demand for these botanicals lately can be devastating to local Indigenous communities around the world who have honoured these plants for centuries in rituals and ceremonies.