Nox Amicus

Wow – this one is late. On February 9th at 5:59pm the moon was New. I believe this is the first time I have written one of these during the waning crescent phase.

The focus for the last cycle was Understanding – where I had attempted to Understand myself better and apply a similar effort toward Understanding people around me. The focus also incorporated a level of acceptance along with that Understanding; acknowledging that the way my brain and personality work are not always aligned with my perception of ‘normal’. Part of the Understanding became the realization that this dichotomy exists only within myself. I establish the parameters of normalcy, but then I violate those parameters? Why isn’t my behavior my own normal?

The seeds for this cycle’s focus were planted with the last New Moon — actually, at the hour of the New Moon, if I am not mistaken — and the chosen theme was going to be Wonder. I was guided toward the realization that I was not approaching my life with a sense of Wonder – and I was going to dedicate the cycle to recapturing that.

As with all things Magickal though, it is very important to be specific about your intentions.

My goal had been to explore why I wasn’t living more in a spirit of Wonder and amazement at the beauty that life can offer. I had felt like I had become too mired in the mundane and was taking some of the joy that surrounded me for granted. Shortly thereafter though, different flavors of Wonder were revealed.

It has been a very, very stressful cycle — brought by stresses that were fundamental to moving fluidly through this particular world. Instead of reveling in the Wonder of amazement, I began to Wonder what I had done wrong, or Wonder what I wasn’t seeing, or even Wonder if there were nefarious forces working outside my sphere of control.

This self-blame morphed quickly into self-loathing — which surprised me — I thought I was well beyond that. But I guess it just shows that once something is in your nature, it can lay dormant but isn’t always gone. It was in watching myself move through these emotions, confronted with my stressors, that I realized that acting from a place of emotion — anger, frustration, or sadness — was only perpetuating circumstance. It was through stopping, taking stock, and acting from a spirit of determination and working toward specific goals that I was able to find clear sky again.

All of this brings me full-circle back to the focus. We can retrospectively Wonder “what-if” all we want, and there can be valuable lessons learned from deconstructing past events, but perseverating over them can only do more harm than good. Perseverating over ANYTHING often does more harm than good. Instead, when I was able to accept and rejoin the sentiment that the Universe is beautifully complex and blended with an abundance of both light and dark, I was able to see that the stress I was encountering would be fleeting, and that there were new possibilities to be borne from it.

So the theme has been Wonder. Wonder that is visible once we step beyond whatever clouds our vision or dulls our senses. The Wonder borne of the simple yet profound question, “What could happen next?”

The song for this cycle is tangentially related. As I was moving through the month, I knew I needed to break the cycle, to stop the merry-go-round, and to find a different field of vision. I have always loved this song, and it speaks to all of those things. Let go of the stress, let go of the expectations — live in this moment. Live in Wonder.