Shame and Gratitude Meet on the New Moon of Share Truth

Sara’s honesty in sharing her experience of shame around her personal gifts and accomplishments reflects how a willingness to be visible creates an environment for others to experience their lives more fully.  This kind of sharing with others has the effect of dissolving shame and making space for new growth--for ourselves and for those with whom we share.  In Sharing Our Truth we invite others to do the same.  A new community of trust and camaraderie with others begins to form.  This is the deeper calling of this moon cycle, Share Truth. As this cycle moves toward completion, the emerging  moon cycle brings the gifts of gratitude, strengthening our commitment to Share Truth. 

Shame lives in our shadows

              and feeds our fears.

Shame encourages hiding.

Shame keeps us from living fully,

              from sharing the truth of our gifts, talents, accomplishments.

Gratitude is the antidote for shame.

Gratitude nourishes our gifts,

              grows our talents.

Gratitude is a catalyst of encouragement,

for showing up as our real self.

Self Reflection: My time of daily reflection and contemplation makes a space where my gratitude and shame can meet.  This time creates a sacred space where my gratitude can shine light on my shame. Shame crumbles and loses its' power. In this time of sacred, quiet self-reflection, I experience gratitude for my abilities and accomplishments. I find courage to share my life fully in the world. For that, too, I am grateful.

Noticing Choice

It is important to acknowledge both the light and the shadow in how we live our daily lives.  Our truth is played out in the 10,000 choices we make each day.  When we notice and give ourselves credit for the times we choose alignment with our higher self, we have less need to hide from the shadow self.

Sara's personal share: While I easily acknowledge my gifts and abilities, I find they are often a source of shame:  I feel shame for not living up to my potential, not being as "good" as I "should" be, given how I have been blessed.  My "review/release" circle is filled with choices I made that "could have" been more in alignment with my Truth.  Today, I am reminded that I also need to balance my review with acknowledging the choices I make every day that ARE in alignment.

Self Reflection: Do I carry shame about my gifts, abilities, accomplishments?  If so, how has this affected my ability to align myself in truth? to Share my Truth?

Great Mystery's Truth Hides in the Shadows

Through reflecting on the life we have lived so far, we go from hiding ourselves in the shadow, to coming to know we are already whole.  It is the same for all human beings. We must learn to see ourselves in the Magnificent Wholeness of who we are, and that includes our shadows.  Because we have not known the truth within our shadows, we have not been able to see the Truths of ourselves or the Truth of the world around us. This Truth: We are all magnificent manifestations of Creator/Creation.  We have the ability to learn, know, hear, see and accept this Truth.

One of the easiest, and least scary ways to begin a practice of  loving the truth present in life is through our experience of nature. This is especially evident when we choose to experience a place in nature which we would name unattractive or damaged. Choose an abandoned parking lot where the weeds are growing up in the cracks, or the far corner of your yard, which doesn't get any attention, or a dead tree. Choose one small spot and sit in front of it and just notice it. Look at the detail of the plants. Notice little bugs, or lichen, the detail in a stone. Really, see the colors present, the different textures.  If you look long enough, you will begin to see a miracle a creation in the new life insisting on making it's way, or in the process of decay giving way to what will come next. If we take time to experience the miracles within this little piece of Creation's process--a 'less than ideal' place in nature-- how can we not experience the magnificence of ourselves, even when we experience our self as 'less than ideal'?  We are all magnificent!  We can embrace and love this as Truth. We can come to love traveling even the shadowed paths of our life journey.

Self Reflection:  Make a commitment to sit in nature. In your nature sitting, what small magnificence showed itself to you... nature has shared with you? Find this magnificence in your own being and reflect it back. 

A Call to Keep Loving Through the Terror

Carolyn shares: "The slaughter throughout the world continues. With the grief that rises from within, I can barely center myself to hear any guidance inviting me to post tonight.  I know in my heart love and truth will prevail, but I think it will be long journey." 

We must keep loving. We must love even more than we think is possible.  We must keep looking for the light which is there, waiting to  burst forth from these dense dark shadows.  We must Keep the faith by holding fast to our commitment to Love. 

Self Reflection:  Do I commit to 'keep in loving'?

Releasing Old Patterns-Waning Moon

As the Waning Moon moves to the space where only a sliver of her full self is visible, I recognize that I am also revealing only a sliver of my full self. In my case, rather than being comfortably in the rhythm and flow of life, it may be my hiding and shielding of parts of myself that result in 'my sliver'.  

I ask my question where and how I am in shadow? Listening to Guidance that comes, I hear these three simple words in answer: "Dis-ease, In-jury, Dis-order"

Dis-ease:  Where am I not at ease in my life?In-jury:  Where am I judging, making rulings, giving directives, awarding damages or handing out punishments?Dis-order:  What has gotten out of order in my life?

Self Reflection: What is my 'dis-ease', 'in-jury', 'dis-order'?

Surrendering Seen and Unseen

Fears lurk in the shadows of those parts of our self we are afraid to see and to have seen.
We enlighten our shadow, by slowly bringing our light toward it.
In doing so, our fears will naturally fade away.
We surrender our shadows to the light.
Surrender: to give over; to let go of; to turn in; to stop fighting.
Surrender in our case, about our life, means first learning to
Hand over our struggles,
Then our egos,
Then our successes,
Then our visions and dreams,
Then maybe--everything,
Even our souls.
We surrender everything to Creator.
It all comes from Creator, anyway.
We are just returning the whole of our being,
Most likely by bits and pieces.
We humans do like to hang on as long as we can.
Eventually we give it all over, the good and the bad, by bits and pieces.
Back to where it came from.
Back to Source.

Self -Reflection: Make a list of all you could turn over to Creator.

Shadows and Brilliance from the Same Source

The full moon casts the deepest shadows and shines the brightest brilliance.
We turn and face the shadows of ourselves.
These shadows are distorted images and misshapen reflections of our true Self.
When we turn and face them, we see they are not the 'real thing'.
When we sit with Grace, our shadows reveal for us how we are mistaken about who we are.
Our shadow seen for what it is, we turn toward the light, and see for ourselves the shining brilliance of our being.

Self Reflection: Start by reflecting on the miraculous light of your own hands:
Cupping your hands with your fingers slightly spread in front of you. Let your eyes rest softly on your hands. Breathing gently yet deeply for twenty breathes, hold your gaze on your hands with soft eyes. These are miraculous hands; they can do so many things, caress, comfort, create...
As you breathe and gaze and appreciate, you may see a thin brilliant white aura reveal itself around the fingers.  This is the same brilliance that emanates around our whole being.  It is always there, even if we don't see it.

Full Moon: Learn Truth Is the Light in the Dark

Taken in Carolyn's backyard January 2016

Carolyn's Share: The Full Moon in the winter months always seems to have the blackest of nights as her backdrop.  Every year I am surprised by this, yet it is true that in January I often find myself in a personal shadow of darkness.  I am reminded of January's full moon Moon Circle Journal page where co-author Sara penned the 'shadow words' for the : "...in my heart's shadows, I feel Creator's touch". 

As I stood under the luminescent full moon on the backdrop the darkest of night skies, I experienced my own need and willingness to go into the shadows to feel Creator's illuminating touch.  The black sky is the dark shadow of my heart and the glowing moon shows the miraculous impact of Creator's touch.

As I  Learn Truth, I learn that what I am able to Trust in others is that I can trust them to be who they are, not  to be whom I want them to be, which may be a big difference. That is an initial lesson in Learn Truth.

Self Reflection: When my heart is open and my fear and judgment faced, I receive these gifts:

I remember my source.

I remember who I am.

I can trust myself.

I can live in truth, meaning I can trust life, creator, creation and others.