Prompt: the moon is my calendar
Braveheart, everything cycles like the moon.
And yet … we tend to resist change (new cycles); we resist 🚫 living differently and daring to explore new phases. We default to what is familiar to us.
Braveheart, living the same life over and over is a form of death. 🪦
If we keep repeating the choices and habits of our past, constantly seeking distractions to keep us numb, it leads to anxiety (hopelessness and depression).
- This particular cycle of choices and habits literally 🚫 blocks us from the capacity we have to change—to live differently and to live what we desire.
For over three decades, the moon’s phases have served as my calendar. This evolved into the creation of a mixed media, visual art journal-planner (Right Brain Planner) that features the moon’s phases as a rhythmic way to mark time during a calendar month.
- Instead of a “weekly” focus, I prefer to align with specific lunar phases as starting points, points of progression and concluding.
- This enables me to notice + honor my own phases of energy and focus.
- The moon is my visual reminder that there is an entire side of ourselves (other people and situations) that no one else can see.
- And, Braveheart, it is best to release assumptions about what we cannot see. 💜
- The moon is my visual reminder that I am cycling, that everything is merely a phase.
- Life itself is a series of phases moving from dark to light to dark.
This alignment system has empowered me to practice self-compassion and trust my phases within the cycles of my life and work, studies and discovery.
I can trust my phases even in the dark times. After all, darkness is the moon’s beginning phase.
We can begin again—and Life can get brighter. 💖
About every 28 days the moon rotates on its axis to complete one full orbit of Earth. We witness this cycle through the moon’s phases of visibility, as she reflects varying amounts of the sun’s light throughout each lunar phase.
Everything cycles; phases represent the incremental times in between beginnings and endings—cycles of opportunities to review and assess, determine and decide, detach and move on.
Today is Day 10 of Twelve Days of Christmas (and the moon 🌕 is full!). The ideal day to offer you a download to help you track the phases of the moon (as you also track your own phases).
There is something about seeing the ever-changing views of the moon, paired with the prayerful meditation of creating art reflective of the moon transitioning from phase to phase, that grounds me and helps me to face forward.
“We need to keep our minds prioritized on rooting out the messages of our old stories and focusing instead on the new, rewritten ones.” -Dr. Gail Saltz
➡️➡️➡️ As we honor the tradition of Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25, 2025-January 5, 2026), I invite you to face forward and practice rooting out the messages of your old stories and focusing on new stories (phases and cycles). ❤️
- A practice is merely a task or ritual we repeat over and over to move forward.
- “Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.” -Julia Cameron
➡️ Right brain planning begins with self-compassion and expression. It is a creative way of holding space … especially when you are holding yourself together. (Frankly, it proved to be my way through a lengthy, profound depression ➡️ and into the proverbial ✨ light.)
Life can get better, Braveheart.
➡️➡️➡️ As a daily prompt I have been posting oracle cards, content + free downloads here to offer ideas and resources for self-compassion + expression + attention + reflection.
- P.S. Here is today’s oracle card …