Dear reader,
It’s a full moon today, and I’ve spent most of my day *planning* my full moon ritual, to the extent that it’s almost sundown now and the weight of the ceremony in my head has tired me enough to reach that stage of Planning a Thing - “You know what, maybe I should wake up early and properly do this tomorrow instead of today. I just wanna lay down right now.”
If you’re a recovering perfectionist like me, I take it you’ve been down this specific slippery slope before, and ended up doing nothing at all - while also carrying guilt about not having done it for a long time after.
We are so in Virgo season right now, and I’m finding some satisfaction in blaming this lifelong tendency of mine on the stars instead of myself for a bit - the perfectionist side of me is on full throttle even though I do not have Virgo anywhere on my birth chart, and I’m out here making everything as pedantic, detailed, glorious and idealistic as it can be.
All my lapping up of astrology conversations, content and newsletters has brought me to a softer place in life, I now have enough awareness to kinda reign it in with my perfectionism shadow, to remind myself that it’s ok to be a mere mortal. These days, I often think about a golden sentence from a post written by Emmie, my most favourite person on Substack, who dropped this life hack - in the inimitable way that only she can - as part of a lovely post on beauty rituals: You ask yourself, during any moment of any day if you would skip over this task, but still have the results.
A few days ago, I’d been reading Psychic Witch by Mat Auryn - which I was told is one of the best books on witchcraft out there. The more I go into this, the more I discover that this is honestly a fucking amazing book for anyone to read - not just witches. It has some beautiful insights, if you love to absorb knowledge about how subtle energies work, manifestation and the unseen yet real forces that we all feel, experience, play and interact with daily.
But, the reason I’m mentioning it right now, is because I came across a part that struck me - so much so that I put the book down and wanted to sit with it for a while. To really feel into it, and to practice it. While spoken by the author in the context of the craft, I feel like this is a reminder that I so needed for pretty much every area of my life right now. From my work to my pleasure, and everything in between.
I quote, and bear with me, I couldn’t resist making it a big quote…
Many witches rush through their basics and their daily practice. Perhaps this is because they're entirely focused on completing tasks for a level of training that they're going through and moving on to the next stage. Maybe it's because they are not taking personal accountability for their practice and growth and are relying instead on the validation of their teacher to tell them that they've mastered a particular stage. Perhaps they've become bored with the work that they re doing. Maybe they assume that something more complex means that it's more powerful and they therefore are seeking the powerful.
Just because something is basic or simple does not mean that it isn't immensely powerful. Magick changes everyone that it touches and everyone who touches magick changes. It's important to understand that all initiations are beginnings and not endings. I have found continual unfolding of attunement and depth in the basic practices that many others may set aside as being part of their past practice as beginners.
There are times when magickal practitioners can lose their love for magick despite engaging in complex rituals and magickal practices. I've had many witches tell me that their magick was no longer working and that they were getting bored with the Craft. This may lead them down other avenues of exploration in regard to spirituality, but in my experience is usually a call to revisit the basics. It is within the basics that we can find new depth. I have seen dedicated and earnest seekers begin to radiate energetically just from grounding and centering themselves.
Though I teach and share, I see myself as a seeker and a student first and foremost. I sincerely believe that an earnest beginner witch lighting a can-de for the first time and making a simple wish with a focused will can be infinitely more powerful than a seasoned witch who is performing a complicated rite from an archaic book of magick for the same goal, if that seasoned witch is just going through the motions without sincerity. It all depends on the level of work that they've put into their path and practice and how much of their heart is in it.
From where I am in my path it appears to me that mastery is not so much about reaching a specific end goal, but instead about seeing how deep you can take practice and striving to better your experience with it. Meditation, for example, is one of the most straightforward techniques out there but it is also one of the most profound and transformative. The simple act of closing your eyes, focusing on nothing but your breath, can seem basic and easily tempting to rush through. But how many people do you know who cannot meditate, who cannot clear their minds or focus on solely one thing with every sense engaged with it?
You can't build a magnificent structure on a weak foundation and expect it to stand the test of time. Regardless of where you are on your path, ensure that part of your daily spiritual and magickal routine involves deepening into the basics. How much deeper can a simple practice element of magick go?
- Mat Auryn, Psychic Witch - A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
Ever since reading these words subtly shifted something inside me, I’ve been wondering about the magic in going back to the basics.
In letting things be easy.
In letting my process be ordinary and simple, sometimes, as an act of sinking deeper into something I’ve already done a hundred times before, instead of chasing the next shiny, new level.
I love ceremony, I love ritual, I love drama, I love the elaborate. Ask me to make a greek salad and you’ll find me seasoning every ingredient individually while giving you a little lecture on why it makes the flavour so much better. I have never watched a ‘quick’ recipe video, ever. I am a creator and curator of slow, handcrafted Indian textiles where one yardage is meticulously, slowly worked upon over 17 layers of handprinting with hand-carved wooden blocks and months of process time, and I revel in being a patron of all kinds of handcrafted, heritage luxury traditions of my land. Sometimes, ok all the time, I love going overboard, it shows.
As a Manifesting Generator, and that perfectionist spice thrown into the mix that created me, I often find it challenging to allow anything I do to be mundane.
And then I come across beautiful words, people and inspiration from life itself that reminds me how beautiful and medicinal it can be to choose to let some things be simple and easy.
I've been feeling blocked, bored and stagnant in my creative life - my sacral - for so long, and this message about going back to the basics, deepening the foundation, seems to have come just for me as I navigate this season (whilst a hundred planets are in retrograde).
I’m feeling like my full moon ritual isn’t just that container of time in which I “sit down to do” a ritual. If I’m holding myself with gentle awareness and observing how I feel during a full moon - my moods, my thoughts, then every moment is like an unfolding of an inevitable cosmic ceremony.
I had a realisation this morning, while simply laying on bed and doing nothing, about a certain tendency of mine - learned from a parent - that’s been a shadow that darkened many relationships for many years. As is typical of full moons, it was gently and swiftly illuminated to me. It simply floated into my consciousness like an “Oh… OH.” when I gave myself a moment of rest.
As though by synchronicity, this lovely video on letting things be easy came to my feed today, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
Instead of the elaborate, complicated, sexy, perfect order of events I’d planned for my full moon ritual to be - a result of way too many IG posts and such - I decided to go back to the basics and let it be simple.
I made me a cup of lavender tea. I lit my favourite candle. I set a ten minute timer to make a list of things I am grateful for, in my Notes App because I was too lazy to go grab the special moon journal in which I typically handwrite my moon things. And then, for twenty minutes, I did that same old, familiar, comforting Beauty Yin mini yoga ritual on The Daily Rest, one that I’ve done a hundred times before whenever I couldn’t be bothered with doing the full length, hour long version.
That’s it, that was my ritual. In 30 minutes, I checked off “Do a full moon ritual” from the list in my Virgo szn addled brain.
It’s nowhere as fancy as all that I imagined I should do on this full moon.
And I’m realising that, as a seasoned practitioner of moon rituals over many, many moons, I sometimes make the mistake of treating the very basics - a gratitude list, a little rest, a ten minute meditation - as too boring, too beginner. And then I overzealously overcomplicate it all, only to end up tired and procrastinating.
I’m beginning to see how this is mirrored in so many more levels of my life - my chores, my relationships, my work commitments, my hobbies. Recently, my bestie said to me how she feels like she’s so bad at doing household chores and can only do enough to survive. I felt that deeply, as someone who has lately been doing more chores than ever, and I also realised - Do we have to be good at chores? Should we even be trying to get an A grade at chores? I feel like maybe I am meant to just get by with chores, do them imperfectly and forever get a B on them. And still live a happy, thriving, beautiful life rather than be The Pro of keeping the kitchen clean and the laundry washed - an endeavour that I’ve witnessed erode many marriages and families, lol.
Honestly, I feel like doing even half of the moon ritual I did today, or just five minutes, but doing it with my whole heart, is starting to make sense to me and seem so beautiful. I’m in a tired, slow season of life. And I just want to allow myself to honour that. To not power through.
Sometimes, letting it be as easy and as basic as it can be is what’s absolutely perfect. And I’m curious to explore where else in my life I can take this.
Maybe, it’s time to let my social media posts be basic, to allow myself to not have to have something absolutely remarkable and valuable to say every time I share something. To go back to sketching clothes in a drawing book with my favourite songs playing, like I did before I had any formal training in a fancy design school.
Where could you allow yourself to go back to the most basic, simple and easy way, and sink into deepening that foundation for a while, today? This week? This month? Share it with me, I’d love to be inspired.
Sending dreamy, floaty, Raveena vibes from a Pisces Sun on a Pisces full moon,
May you do nothing at all, truly nothing, sans scrolling, and let that be your ritual if that’s what you need this week.
Oorja