🌑 Make Sacred Space

it’s a new moon in pisces 🌑

Image ID: vertical collage with a background grayscale photo of a vast ocean with a high cliff with overlayed multiple images including from top to bottom, left to right: a very large b/w tree leaf, an upside down sixties astronaut, a large b/w jellyfish, a human figure illsutarated in glowing green and red colors

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Listen to me read this essay:

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Hi friends

The latest Andre 3000 album is growing on me. And giving very new moon in Pisces vibes (it is called New Blue Sun). I’m listening to it sitting by the window on my sofa. Incense and Camphill candles fill the air with the scents of frankincense and beeswax. Though grey skies cloak the city, I still peek lower Manhattan in the distance. Birds sing here in Brooklyn.

How are things where you are?

When I started a newsletter over ten years ago, I called it make space. Thank you for making space to read my moonly missives. I appreciate that you show up for these astrologically timed emails. As you probably know, each Ancestors to Elements is connected to a lunar phase (see subtitle above). You may not know that each post reaches your inbox when the moon phase is exact. To the minute. You’re welcome.

Astronomically, a new moon is considered the first phase and occurs when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun. The side of the Moon in shadow faces us, thus, we can’t see it. In approximately two weeks, the Moon will appear fully illuminated because Earth will be located between the Sun and the Moon. From today, the Moon will orbit us counterclockwise, waxing in visibility to fullness and then waning to newness again – a cycle of approximately one month/moon (same root). Astrologically, this is why new moons are considered times for beginnings, for setting intentions that manifest with the full moon as we witness this dance of developing and dispersing.

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Image ID: chart depicting the phases of the Moon with Earth in the center and the named pahses surrounding , including on the right running counterclockwise: new, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, third quarter, waxing crescent

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I say astronomically and astrologically as if they are separate, but that’s a fairly recent division of western culture. Both astronomy and astrology involve computational observations of the sky (i.e. cosmic math — the word geometry means Earth measurement). It was all one discipline for the ancients and into 1600’s Europe (oh, you know, until around the height of the witch burnings 🤔). For intersecting reasons rooted in the delusion of separation (from which all terrible things stem), astronomy emerged as a verified science. Astrology remained the realm of witches and weirdos. Weirdos and witches are my people. Obviously! Yet, I’ve written to you (plenty of times) about my own fortress level rational defenses — the conditioning to not show myself to be a weirdo or witch (oh, you know, perhaps connected to the fear of being burned alive 🤔).

My rational defenses feel deep. Even though they are completely fake, I often use scientific justifications to assuage them (see above). However, I actually have absolutely no issue believing in the inherent ensoulment and enchantment of the world. I know magic is real. I just have a hard time trusting that I myself am all that magical. Also, I am scared to talk about any of this outside of whispers within my chosen coven (i.e. you). My rational defenses are stationed in the territories of self-doubt and self-censorship.

I have magic imposter syndrome. I underestimate my own capacities in relation to the numinous. I always think other (special) people have access to enchantment and that’s why they’re out there boldly being all magical and shit. First of all, this thinking diminishes the hard work they may have done to be out and proud. It also turns sacredness into a limited, elitist project rather than recognizing it as the inherent truth of all reality.

I’ve made huge progress with my self-doubts by simply practicing prayerful, magical things every single day — all towards cultivating soulful, sacred space. Especially before I meditate, teach or write, I may do any or all of the following: honor the elements, make offerings, acknowledge land, light candles, smudge herbs, pour libations, invoke ancestors, talk to the planets, write intentions, voice gratitudes, speak blessings. I engage each of these as actual agents of change.

My other rational defenses center concerns around what the larger world will think — conditioning which is pretty standard for anyone educated through modernity. I, like almost all of us, spent decades in spaces (even spiritual spaces) that exalt the extremely rational and denigrate intuition and imagination. Magic can’t work because it can’t be measured. Again, the programming feels deep, and it is false. I practice shifting this too – by teaching and writing with the moon.

Invite the truth of the inherent ensoulment and enchantment of the world into every aspect of your life is an instruction I gave in my Ancestors to Elements class last fall. I forgot I said this until someone reminded me this week. If you’ve been in class with me in the past year, you know I have no problem proclaiming witchy, weirdo truths and instructions when I teach online. Something about writing it here freaks me out a little. Maybe it’s the large numbers of readers or posting it to a platform that seems constructed upon rational defenses.

Still, I’m a little embarrassed to admit all this to you. Not my witchy habits. I have no doubts that witches and weirdos are totally right. I’m embarrassed that I am certain about the numinous and live my life accordingly but somehow still have a hard time typing that out. Embarrassed because I understand how imperative it is for us to wholeheartedly (re)engage with the sacred, and feel like I’m not living up to the task. Maybe you can identify. Maybe you too know the truth of the inherent ensoulment and enchantment of the world, but sometimes have a hard time letting yourself feel and say so. Maybe you would like to join me and burn down the fortress walls (or compost, dissolve, diffuse or alchemize them — depending on your element of choice).

I’m working on a new website and the other day I wrote this for it: this mess requires our spiritual maturity. Me. I’m the mess. I require spiritual maturity. I aspire to make sacred space. Starting here.

May we each discover our own way into the truth of the inherent ensoulment and enchantment of the world.

With love

Sebene

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If you’d like to practice with me in person:

I’ll be back at Omega Institute three times this year. In May, with my friends Jeff & Dan for Meditation Party. In June for The Greatest Love of All with Dawn, Kate and La. And in October for an encore with Dan & Jeff. Scholarships are available for all three programs.

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