This New Moon is less about new beginnings and more about getting ready for a new future. In order to do that, we have to be willing to look at the Truth.
Some questions for contemplation:
How do you make choices?
Do you choose from fear, faith, or confidence?
Do you make the choices that are best for you or best for others?
Do you make choices because you want to or because you have to?
Do you seek to create a balance between the push and the pull, between the expansion and contraction, or do you let yourself drift unconsciously into extremes? In other words, how is your self discipline and self awareness?
Are you taking equal care of yourself on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels?
What do you put into your body and how do you move your physical energy?
Are you striving to learn something new every day?
How is your meditative practice?
Do you check your spiritual alignment on a daily basis?
What beliefs about yourself, about your self worth, and about how the world works are you clinging to out of a yearning for safety and familiarity, even though you suspect that they are holding you back?
Are you letting your fear make you look for outside validation and instruction, or are you listening to your small, still voice that tells you the Truth?
Are you getting caught up on drama and stories, or are you sitting in silence?
A prayer from the Benedictine Monks at the Weston Priory, in honor of my father.
Companions,
The wise tell us that God abides
In silence –
That God speaks in the silent serenity
Of the heart;
Let us not speak of silence;
Rather, let silence speak to us
Of God.
Together,
Let us enter, through the door of serenity,
The silence of our heart.
The chatter of our fears, our anger, our anxiety –
The chatter of our desires and curiosity,
Of our projected plans and unfinished work –
Falls away in serenity
And makes space,
For a new heart,
Created in the silence of prayer,
Created in the prayer of silence…
A heart that is free,
Peaceful, quiet and calm;
A heart that is one…
A heart so large and wide
That it embraces the God of All
And the All of God
The God who in silence speaks all languages
The God who in silence speaks in all creatures
The God who in silence speaks one word
The God who speaks of love.