Lunar Abundance

This Book Is For You If…

You are ready to get to know your own cycles, work in your natural flow, connect with something bigger and ride the accelerating waves of transformation and change on this planet.

It is for you if you are open to discovering a grounded, practical way to re-weave the gap between head and heart, mind and body; if you are ready to fully inhabit your own experience.

It is for you if you are ready to prosper and be well, to enjoy our precious time on this Earth, and give back to others from a place of abundance, rather than out of exhaustion, guilt, or fear.

If these words light you up, this book is ripe for your picking. It will help you summon your true potential, open your eyes to a better reality, and show you how to create a better life for you and for those in your orbit.

If you are ready to come home to yourself, and the rhythms of our exquisite world, here is your guidebook.

Lunar Abundance reveals this destination. It also sketches a map to navigate the journey.

To Begin

People often share with me their deeply felt connection with the Moon.

Just looking at the Moon at night ignites our intuition and imagination, and evokes a remembering of sorts: an urge to pay attention.

We feel her ebb and flow; we feel her resonance with our own energy and physical cycles. We are intrigued by the mystique of her darkness and the climax of her light. We may also heed her call to transformation by tracking her rhythms: she offers a stability that speaks to our psyche in the ways she is always changing—ways that seem to be erratic, and yet are constant, cyclical, and predictable. She is elegant, romantic, and subtle. She represents both chaos and stability, a magnetic and mysterious riddle that draws us in with the possible richness in her depths. When we come closer, her links with fertility, bleeding, and creation reverberate in our bodies, hinting, too, at the nurturing and birth of our dreams.

Of course, interest in the Moon is not a phenomenon unique to the current social-media age. As one of Earth’s luminaries, her lineage is ancient. This shining orb has captured the imagination of lovers and makers through the ages, and has inspired literature, poetry, song, and dance: all things creative and artisanal. The mythology of the Moon is found around the world, from the English namesake Luna in Rome to the Aztec Coyolxauhqui to Hina in Samoa. The Moon deities of many European, American, and Asian cultures tend to be female, but this is not exclusively the case, nor is it a consistent portrayal in all cultures. The female lunar archetypes are not all sweet and gentle, either, with goddesses that roar and devour, who are prone to matricide and infanticide and castration, as well as acts of creation and magic. Some are androgynous, some solemn forever-virgins, and others are depicted as routinely involved in incestuous copulation with bacchanalian fervor.

The inability of female goddesses, and even mythological women, to conform to gender stereotypes has long been confounding; Adam’s first wife, Lillith, expressed a desire for equal partnership and the ability to enjoy an on-top sexual position and this led to her flight from the Garden of Eden into the clutches of demons, making way for a (somewhat) more pliant Eve—a patriarchy creation story not appearing in the Book of Genesis, but in the (satirical) Jewish text, the Alphabet of Ben Sirah, dated between 700–1000 CE. As those who come into closer relationship with the feminine know, it is not all flowing dresses in soft pink hues and flower crowns; the feminine can be fierce. Buddhist and Hindu traditions generally portray the goddesses as having both benign and terrifying aspects.² At times, the femme fatale can be the latter—Jane Caputi writes that this archetype “represents an outlawed form of female divinity, potency, genius, sexual agency, independence, vengeance and death power.” The power of this face of the feminine is linked to ancient goddesses who regulate birth, life, death, change, and regeneration—the very cycle of existence.³

Is the Moon really about the “feminine”? It seems to have taken on that meaning in much of the West. “The feminine” is a slippery term to define. It is not the same thing as “female” or “woman”—but is it a concept, an archetype, a polarity, a kind of energy, a combination of these things, or something else entirely? In the West, the feminine tends to be associated with qualities or characteristics of what Simone de Beauvoir termed the Second Sex: feelings, emotion, flow, relationship, connection, nurturing, vulnerability, softness, receptivity, and intuition, to name a few. As essential aspects of the human condition, any person, regardless of gender, can express these characteristics. However, in the West, we allocate them primarily to the feminine, and while we can claim to cherish these, we have also devalued them in subtle or explicit ways—a key one of these being the (lack of) financial value accorded to caring and healing-based work in capitalist societies that equate value with dollars.

If you accept that there is a resonance between the Moon and the feminine, it is not surprising that the Moon is experiencing an uptick in popularity in the West in parallel with the growing popularity of traditionally feminine qualities—collaboration over competition, soft power over force, Carol Gilligan’s ethic of care.⁴ Recent years have seen a surge in both leadership language and studies that indicate that we do, in fact, value intuition, emotional intelligence, vulnerability, community-building, interdependence, flexibility, and compassion.⁵ Against the backdrop of both celebration and concern about the feminization of Western culture,⁶ it is worth noting that some query the effectiveness of “feminine” values in a world that still reserves high rewards for reason, intellect, and cutthroat competition, and ask whether women are, in practice, disadvantaged by applying more “feminine” principles in leadership and work settings.⁷ The debate illustrates that we have a way to travel yet, but I believe that harmonizing or balancing “masculine” and “feminine” qualities (and working toward gender equality) are worthy aspirations, and that decades of feminism have built a strong foundation upon which we may continue to build on both fronts.

When you reach the how-to parts of this book, you will find the term “Yin” refers specifically to the human “being” mode of operating (as opposed to the “Yang,” or “doing,” mode). Using these terms is my admittedly clumsy effort to create distance from gendered simplifications. There is a wealth of literature on Yin and Yang in the fields of Chinese medicine and relationships, which I do not traverse in this book—the focus here is on the personal journey, and I refer to the terms Yin and Yang to reflect an inner alchemical process, as well as different modes of being and doing in the world. These terms are known well enough in English-speaking personal development circles to be meaningful, and are one way to avoid the sticky association between the terms feminine/woman and masculine/man, with the too-easy, essentialist claims to gender that accompany them (statements about how men and women “are” or “should be,” often drawn uncritically from cultural stereotypes). Gender is complex,⁸ but I believe we all need to be and do to be effective—and to enjoy life.

What I share in these pages is my personal practice: how to work with the Moon, her monthly cycles, and the eight phases within each. This book is based on the knowledge that I have gained by sharing this practice with thousands of women online, in-depth with women in several countries, and with occasionally interested men. I believe that regulating our lives through observation of the Moon—the practice I call “Lunar Abundance”—contains universal wisdom about the Yin mode of being (and about finding harmony between the Yin and Yang modes of operating) and can offer guidance to those who do not share my identity or experience. I do, though, identify as a cis-gendered woman who experiences the intersection of race, class, and so forth in ways that are to my benefit, and as I was the guinea pig for this practice, I tend to teach and write from my own perspective.⁹

We are all free to look up at night and gaze at the Moon—humans have been working with the Moon for eons. Many of us in the modern world worry about whether we are “doing it right,” and yet there is no one way to do it. I work with the Moon as a natural timekeeper, in the pursuit of peace and effectiveness.

While not the exclusive domain of women, there does seem to be an affinity between the Moon and women’s bodies—most obviously, our menstrual cycle. Notches in bone calendars from 35,000 BCE marked Moon and menstrual phases.¹⁰ Though Aristotle wrote off the connection between the Moon and menstrual cycles as coincidence thousands of years ago,¹¹ many a woman who starts to work with the Moon has written to me in order to share how the practice has resulted in welcome physical changes for her body. Those who have experienced a long pause may start to bleed again; those with irregular cycles may start to experience greater regularity; for some, discomfort while bleeding has even given way to pleasure—something that I personally know is physically possible, if not the stereotype. If you bleed, and you find that following the Moon has a positive impact on your bleeding and associated symptoms, know that you are not alone.

I am not a medical doctor—if you have concerns about your body, please seek professional care. However, I do know that gaining knowledge of your menstrual cycle seems to enhance women’s well-being. On this, I encourage you to explore the work of Dr. Christiane Northrup, Miranda Gray, and several others listed in the Resources section at the back of this book. I also cannot ignore that women from all over the world write to tell me over and over that tuning into the Moon has been impactful, meaningful, and helpful for them in connecting to their menstrual cycle. Given histories of shame, fear, and disparagement around the menstruation process—as with so much to do with the female body—I believe that when women speak their own truth about their bodies, we must listen with openness, and respond with curiosity by asking further questions. Note that the benefits of following the Moon cycle can be felt regardless of whether you are menstruating or not.

The Moon is quintessentially coupled with our emotional and feeling terrain. I use the term “feelings” to mean physical sensations, and “emotions” to mean surges of fear, anger, love, desire—the meaning that we accord to what we feel. In this lunar practice, I am most interested in feelings, as these are the pathway to embodiment, but feelings and emotions are indeed linked, and the Moon relates to both. Most who pay attention can particularly feel their own heightened sensitivity to feelings and emotions under the Full Moon phase. Workers in the justice, health, or childhood education sectors are usually the first to agree, vigorously, that this Moon phase is a time of intensity; a stirring-up. Several studies document that humans sleep at least a little less under the Full Moon,¹² and a smattering of studies indicate that crime¹³ and hospitals¹⁴ see heightened activity at this Moon phase. Of course, plenty of researchers have set out to debunk the “Full Moon myth,” but in turn, some countervailing studies have been criticized on the basis of specific definitions of what counts as the Full Moon phase.¹⁵

Our understanding of the relevance of the Moon in our lives on Earth is embedded in the English language. We need only return to the roots of the English word “lunacy” to see that we have long known about some kind of relationship between the Moon and our lives down below on Earth. Lunacy did not always have a negative connotation; in Mysteries of the Dark Moon, Demetra George explains that the ancient Greek triple Moon goddess Hekate bestowed lunacy as a temporary quality upon chosen recipients to facilitate vision, prophetic insight, and magical powers.¹⁶ We also know that there is something romantic about the Moon: to be “moony” is to gaze with soft eyes in love.

Why does the Moon have the effect that it does? Do we actually know? In Moonstruck: How Lunar Cycles Affect Life, Ernest Naylor explains how scientists tend to avoid research into lunar cycles for the reason that its links with “irrationality” would sound the death knell on a respectable scientific career. There are theories, though. For example, as the Moon affects the ocean tides, and because we have a significant amount of water in our own bodies, the gravitational pull of the Moon may also affect the human body and psyche. This is often refuted by the scientific community, but those who have been close to the epicenter of a total solar eclipse—occurring when the orbits of the Earth, Moon, and Sun align in a certain way—have spoken to me of the exhilarating and cathartic nature of this experience, which is also documented to affect the environment through changes in wind direction, as well as in temperature.¹⁷ Solar eclipses can be so profound for those who experience them that there is a name for those who follow eclipses from remote Arctic seas to the Australian desert, from bustling metropolises to sites of political instability: umbraphiles.

Or the relationship may not be cause-and-effect after all. Dr. Carl Jung suggested that we experience celestial entities through synchronicity: meaningful coincidence, acausal connection, or—as the ancient Hermetic principle of correspondence would have it—as above, so below.¹⁸ With this reading, the relationship becomes one of correlation, or representation. To see the Moon as reflective is a neat fit: as the Moon reflects the light of the Sun in the sky, it also reflects this back to us on Earth. We experience an illumination of what is represented by the Moon—our own emotional terrain—which can be disorienting if we are not equipped with the tools to respond.

You do not need to closely follow the Moon to experience synchronicity, but greater attention does seem to enhance the effects. Thus, there may be another reason that following the Moon phases has the effect that it does: us. Our very gaze may imbue the Moon cycle with meaning for ourselves. At the edge of quantum physics, scientists have shown that reality does not exist until it is measured: the object of our attention is influenced by the very fact that we are paying attention to it.¹⁹ This may be one of the reasons why the Lunar Abundance practice is effective. In fact, I believe that most things that help you pay attention to your internal world will help you cultivate self-knowledge, which in turn will help you skillfully navigate the external world. This is important, as the inner work is not an end in and of itself.

As there have been many opinions but not comprehensive research, to date, on why the Moon has the effect that it does, I feel most comfortable describing my engagement with the Moon less through blind faith, and more through the act of natural timekeeping and conscious awareness.

Why is this valuable? The more you know yourself, the less you are influenced by external forces; the more you are able to hear your own deep wisdom and embrace your true nature—who you are, where you belong, and which way is the right direction—in order to take discerning action.

The Moon cycle is what continually guides me home and grounds me; she was my initial inspiration, remains my muse, and provides, via her short, trackable, and observable cycle, a gentle and predictable rhythm and guide to situate myself here on Earth, as well as a mirror back to us to help us know ourselves. The Moon has helped me to cultivate a more intimate integration of mind and body, and to devise a rule-of-thumb guide for living and working in my own flow. With this, I create a better life for myself and for those with whom I share this practice.

I definitely do not suggest that the Moon makes us do anything—how disempowering would that be? Throughout this book, I show you how to work with the Moon cycle in my way, and to explore what the Moon has guided me to learn: our own rhythms and cycles, the contours of our creative power, the natural ebb and flow of work and life, the necessity of self-care and connection with all that is physical and real—as well as the interplay between the night and day, the shadow and the light, the ups and downs inherent in life. We need the Moon to function here on Earth, even if we do not always pay her as much attention as we do the Sun.

In uncertain and changing times, it can be helpful to find our anchor in both self-knowledge and a supportive community. By self-knowledge, I am not referring to fanciful thinking, to compulsive worry, or to “realizations” fueled by commodified sacred arts skillfully marketed to our subconscious vulnerabilities. I am talking about those times when we know something to be true: those times when our heart and gut speak to us—when we physically feel it. That we should not get in that car. That there is something amiss in our body. That our friend suddenly needs help. That he seems so nice, and our friends and family think we are being too picky, but we should end our relationship with that man. Or that we need to make that big change—even though it seems inconvenient at best, and terrifying at worst.

How can you tell the difference? The magic answer: it takes time, practice, and a deep knowing of yourself and your place in the world. The practices in this book are designed to show you how to cultivate the ability to hear, honor, respect, trust, and then act upon your own knowing.

How This All Came About

Lunar Abundance is a practice that will help you cultivate peace, self-knowledge, effectiveness, stability, trust, and flow by following the Moon cycle, in a very safe, contained and gently transformative process.

Are these qualities actually inherent to the Moon? Symbolic correlations exist, but as this is my personal interpretation of how to work with the Moon cycle, rather than a “this is the way to work with the Moon” manifesto, you may like to know more about me in order to understand a little more about how and why I developed this practice.

I’ve always been quietly fascinated by the Moon. I had that sense of something bigger than myself as a child: a connection to other worlds, a fascination with the esoteric and ancient times, with myth and magic. This sense of mystery faded into the background once I decided to go to law school, which I saw as a ticket to a bright future. Once at law school, I found that the clarity of its systems and its intellectual rigor gave me access to bold claims about objective reality. My brain was pushed, pulled, and tested beyond its limits when surrounded day in and day out by kind, thoughtful, and deep thinkers at a school where the baseline was excellence. I was a tiny goldfish among the koi, summoning the A-type elements of my personality to the forefront to succeed.

I was trained to see the law as a powerful vehicle through which to effect social justice, and upon graduation was thrilled to land work in a government agency that reviewed federal laws to ensure that they were modern, effective, just, and in line with Australia’s human rights obligations. My law work was meaningful and enabled me to give back to those less privileged than myself; I worked with inspiring colleagues and leaders.

While I did not know what was absent, I sensed that I was missing something. An accident when I was 22 years old—a simple fall down stairs resulted in a shattered left knee and major reconstructive surgeries—sent me down the path of somatic therapies throughout my twenties and beyond, providing me with the first hints that I was out of touch with my body, both before and after the accident. The busy worlds of study and work had provided a welcome sanctuary from feeling much at all. I slowly went further and found that I was disconnected from my own cycles, as well as the needs and potential of my female body. This is not unusual: Tracy Gaudet and Paula Spencer suggest that many women are “unconsciously female,” with external influences such as a diet culture and cultural objectification of women preventing an early establishment of intimacy with our own physical selves.²⁰

Inhabiting the very heady and intellectual world of the law by day, I would explore the sense of something missing at night by journaling. I started to notice where the Moon was at night, drawing a little picture of the phase in my journal entries. Over some Moon cycles, I noticed patterns emerging: I observed correlations between how I was feeling and what phase the Moon was in. This was utterly fascinating, and from this starting place I began to work more consciously with the Moon and with what was being revealed to me. I started to open up, at first slowly and then rapidly over time, as I began to comprehend that there was more to reality—and life—than what I had perceived up to this point.