Sacred Void: Use this Double Dark Moon and Dark of the Sun 12/19-12/21 to Choose Who You Become

In today's episode we use this rare double dark moon (micro moon) on December 19th and the days leading up to the Winter Solstice on December 21st as a potent threshold.  Release what’s done. Bless what taught you. Name what you refuse to carry forward. Then claim who you are and what you choose to focus on creating, expanding, and birthing for the year ahead: a practice you’ll keep, a cause you’ll serve, a truth you’ll speak, a joy you’ll protect, the magick that is uniquely yours to bring forth into the world. 

Over these next few days use this portal of exquisite darkness, to slow down, reflect, tune in, and just be.  Expressing your quiet commitment is spell work and this moment is THE TIME TO DO IT.  When the first crescent appears, you’ll already be transforming, aligned and steady, birthing who you have always been in a sacred spiral that remembers you even when you forget yourself.

SO MOTE IT BE!!!

*If you are interested in working with Professional Astrologer, Tony Steele, who is amazing and native Irish, here's his website: https://magickalcreatures.com/horary-astrology-readings.

*If you are local to Delaware, and want to connect with a trusted pagan meetup group for community, organized by my Hight Priestess, Jae Sea, check out https://www.meetup.com/the-wilmington-pagan-meetup-group/

*If you are interested in the pagan tradition with 14+ covens all across the Mid-Atlantic Region, check out the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel here: https://www.sacredwheel.org/

Chapters

• 0:25 Opening And Host Introduction
• 1:08 Astrology Shoutout And Natal Insights
• 3:16 What A Dark Moon Really Means
• 6:03 Yule Ritual And Luminous Darkness
• 8:40 Slowness, Capitalism, And Making Space
• 11:17 Triple Supermoons, Micro Dark Moon, Solstice
• 14:06 Simple Ritual: Breathe, Ask, Listen
• 18:21 Sovereignty, Shadow, And Right Action
• 22:01 Meeting The Self With Compassion
• 26:21 Intergenerational Patterns And Repair
• 29:16 Liminal Becoming And Reimagining
• 33:12 Integrity, Reciprocity, And Mutual Care
• 36:18 Mirror Questions For Radical Honesty

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

Hello and welcome back. Get ready to dare together, Truth Seeking in the Depths, with your host, Erin O'Brien. That's me. I am a licensed psychotherapist in practice for over 20 years. I'm an intuitive healer, a shadow worker, and I'm a relationship counselor. And also, dare I say which. So I'm really excited about this episode and getting into the lunation that's happening today. But before I get into that, I want to share that I had my first Natal chart reading with a fellow pagan and magical practitioner who happens to be in the same larger community and tradition that I'm a part of, Assembly of the Sacred Wheel. And his name is Tony Steele, and I've gotten his permission to reference him and link his astrological professional services in my uh notes here, my episode notes. And he was wonderful. And I learned a lot. And I learned in particular, because we are still in Sagittarius season, that I have a lot of significant placements in Sagittarius. So that was really exciting. And if you've never had your natal chart read, I highly recommend it. It gives you a snapshot of this particular incarnation and what some of your significant placements might indicate or mean about your path and purpose during this lifetime. So I will link some info if you're interested in getting a Nadal chart reading or any kind of astrology service with uh Tony Steele is his name, and he's a part of a sibling coven. And he does Zoom readings and phone readings and all that good stuff. And he and his partner have a company called Magical Creatures. And I'll link that in the notes as well so you can get a vibe for their services and offerings. And Tony is Irish, he's um from Ireland and is a musician and magical person and practices astrological magic. And we're just very excited to have him be a part of our larger community. So anyway, talking about the Lunation today, because that's where we're going. Today is very significant, it's really powerful. And we are in a dark moon. And the dark moon is in Sagittarius, and we are still in Sagittarius season. And I want to speak a little bit about you know dark moons in general. And I also want to give a shout out to my incredibly brilliant and supportive high priestess of my coven, which is Grail of the Birch Moon. We're a local coven here in Wilmington, Delaware. And my high priestess, Jay, gave me and my coven mates an email, you know, guiding us through this particular illumination and giving us some suggestions and how to work with it. And it's really, it's a powerful, potent dark moon. And it's happening up until 8:44 p.m. Eastern time here on Turtle Island, the United States. And I want to just speak a little bit about the energy there. So the dark moon, it occurs about two days before the new moon. And people use the dark moon and new moon interchangeably, but in fact, there is a difference. So the dark moon happens two days before the new moon when the sky is completely dark with no visible lunar illumination before the slight crescent new moon reappears. And this marks the end of the waning crescent phase and the beginning of the waxing crescent phase. So the dark moon is actually still a part of the lunar cycle that is coming to its full completion. So it marks the ending. And the dark moon is a phase of quiet reflection, inviting us to embrace the darkness as a natural part of life's cycle. It's a time to let go of the past, discover hidden truths, and get ready for change and new beginnings. And it is a vital part of our process, right? Because we need the balance of all the things, the endings, the darkness, new beginnings, and light. And, you know, I want to just pivot for a minute and speak about a powerful event that I had the privilege of attending, which was with another one of our sibling Covens, Coven of the Mystic Path, which is a Coven uh local to Springfield, PA in the Philly surrounding area. And they had a really awesome solstice Yule celebration last Saturday. And the ritual was all about exploring the luminous darkness of Yule's light of the uncreated. And the ritual had us moving through a pathworking of the prior year and reflecting on lessons and allowing slowness and stillness and that sacred pause to integrate what we wanted to carry forward with us into the path ahead and into the new year and the returning of the light and us, you know, connecting to our own light, our own inner, inner sun, and you know, discerning how we want to shine that that inner light, that inner sun, especially in these times now, when we need to remember our power of creation and love and influence and truth, right? Light illuminates what is hidden and brings in a deep confrontation of discerning truth from lie. And there's a lot going on in the larger uh dominant culture and world around us that wants to keep us, wants to keep things hidden, does not want us to be awake to the realities. And, you know, as spiritual practitioners and people on a personal path of wanting to heal and transform, and as we know, the micro influences the macro. So as we transform ourselves and our own shadow and with our unconscious and bringing things into our consciousness, which then we have more sovereignty, sovereignty over. We're not uh reacting and re in in reflex mode, we're in our kind of choice and intention and consciousness. So being able to slow down and be aware and notice because when we are moving too fast, we cannot notice and tune in our body's subtle signals and energy. We aren't able to integrate experience and be able to process what we've just moved through, right? We have to slow down and be still. So for all us spiritual practitioners, during this time, we might perform rituals to release what no longer serves us or alchemize things that have been in our shadow. Um, we might move into emotional realms or work through trauma patterning or patterns of, you know, colonizers and oppression that, you know, we all internalize and lives in our lineages and in our in our bones in our body and you know, in our breath. So we want to exhale and release that. We want to set intentions for growth and transformation. So this darkness is a sacred void where where both can happen at the same time. And it encourages us to connect with our intuition and our the wisdom of our body and rest and reflection and stillness and silence are required for that. And, you know, we don't really make space for that in our day-to-day. We are busy humans, and you know, capitalism tells us that we have to keep moving and keep producing and keep earning and keep, you know, oh, and also, you know, 'tis the season of consuming and buying and and all of that. So it's a lot. But so slowing down and uh, you know, this dark moon today is a part of the previous lunar cycle. So in that beautiful void, that beautiful, you know, pause, the moment where something is closing and being released to make space for the new lunar cycle that is going to happen, you know, as the new moon starts to reveal itself in the sky. So uh the sky is completely dark and uh you can't see the moon. And I want to also name that this is pretty powerful because there's another rare occurrence happening. If you've been working with the past three powerful supermoons, so we had a supermoon on in October, on I believe October 6th, and then we had one on November 5th, and then we just had one December 4th. So it's you know, a culmination, it's it's an accumulation of that energy if you've been working with those kind of rare triple supermoons. And so this dark moon is actually a micro moon. And what that means, it's the reverse of a supermoon where the moon is closest to the earth. A micro dark moon is when the moon is at the farthest distance from the earth in its orbit. So we also have the winter solstice coming up on December 21st at approximately ish 10.03 a.m. Eastern time here in the northern hemisphere, of course. And the winter solstice is known as the dark of the sun, and it is happening during a double dark of the moon. So listen, this is a potent, potent, powerful next few days here. So if you wish to release the old and reignite your spirit or a passion or intentions, or naming the seeds that you want to plant in the new year. And also, you know, if you've been working with the supermoons kind of culminating in this time of the dark moon, that sacred void of creation and release, alchemy, and confronting truth and doing shadow work so that you can transform into your you know next evolution of potential. This is so powerful. Like this is the moment, y'all. This is the moment of the year to do this. And what is required? Slowness. That's that's literally it. You can do a thorough ritual, you can, you know, get your journal out, you can spend time, and to put it in the simplest simplest kind of form, you can literally sit down, get comfy, close your eyes, and breathe and just be and invite your brilliant subtle intelligence that lives in your body, that lives in your soul, in your spirit, in your mind, in your heart, all five parts of you, and you just invite that intelligence, that communication into your awareness. And you can ask for the support of your higher self, certainly your your guides, your guardians, any spiritual beings that you work with, uh, deities, gods, goddesses, animal familiars and spirits, land spirits, the earth, you know, you can the stars, your your your sacred star that you connect to, and you can ask for information on what do I need to release right now? What do I need to integrate or alchemize? What is the hidden gift of a trauma or hardship or adversity or challenge that I've been confronted with and I've moved through it. And this is not to negate at all or bypass the pain and the struggle and the reality, and also that there are larger systems at play that we are powerless to, that we don't have control over the impact to us, right? And so we're surviving as best we can through the realities of that and and of the world right now and the horrors that are happening to humans and animals and plants and life and our earth and our climate and our oceans and right, it's it can feel enormous. So what do you need to remember about your sovereignty and your strength and your purpose? What did you realize about yourself this past year, maybe that you hadn't known or discovered? A part of you? What from your shadow emerged and revealed itself? And what are the things that you want to focus your beautiful, powerful, brilliant energy, magic, and focus on? What do you want to amplify? What do you want to expand within yourself so that it can expand all around you out there? The work we do internally, it matters because it shows up out there. It does. The collective unconscious, or however you want to imagine it, the as within, as without, as above, so below, the micro, the macro, there's an interconnectedness. The more that we integrate and confront and heal our own internal patterns that we've decided don't work for us, don't aren't aligned with our integrity, aren't life-giving. We can release those. We can say, no more. I'm not going to avoid things and numb and dissociate to escape the reality that I need to see or feel or be with or move with so that I am aware and have energy to decide what my next right move, my right action is gonna be. And maybe that's right speech, right words, maybe it's right energy or devotion that you want to put out there. Maybe it's uh right uh causes or services or offerings, things you wanna bring into the world and create. So with all this, we can use this moment to simultaneously go into the dark, that space that holds shadow and light, death and renewal and rebirth, and be in that void, that sacred void, and meet yourself. Meet the you that is emerging, meet the part of you that has been doing a thing for maybe months or years, and you're like, hey you, I see you, and that is just not gonna work for us anymore, babe. You know, like no. You making yourself small, you deferring, you saying yes, you agreeing, no, babe, no. We're not doing that anymore. Come over here, let me hug you, let me see you, let me tell you. I get it, I know why you did that. You were taught that. That's a part of your, you know. Lineage and no more. No more. Because it keeps us in a place that is stifling and confining. And we're too big for that. Our energy is big. And the world needs that. True life force energy. And it ain't gonna work if we're hiding it or we're we're dimming it or we're making it small or we're afraid of what might happen, right? No, we gotta stop that. Or maybe you meet yourself and you see how you do not tolerate vulnerability. You are not okay with inadequacy or what you see as being dependent or having needs or needing help or not having all the answers. Maybe you see that part of yourself, you meet that part of yourself in the void, in the stillness, and you say, I see you, my dear. I see why you struggle against vulnerability and being a human. And being a human means we depend on others, trusted others. And you take that part of you and you pull that part of you, and maybe you put that part right right on your lap, and you say, My dear, I know why it feels intolerable and shameful, maybe, to have a need, to want to seek comfort from someone, to say, I can't do this alone, because you were met with intolerance or shame or overwhelm when you had needs. And maybe that was how people responded to those needs when you were most vulnerable. And maybe that's how you learned that the community around you and the world around you, you know, tells us that we have to be independent, we have to uh take care of ourselves, all of that individualism, and that there's some kind of inherent defect or shame in understanding that we are actually interdependent with everything around us, and we don't exist in silos, and we impact each other, and we're responsible for how we impact each other, and we are responsible for each other and caring for each other, so you know, maybe you meet a part of yourself in that quiet moment of being still, and you meet your lineage. Maybe you meet a part of you that understands how to intimidate or dominate or influence or talk over or bully or you know, use sarcasm and think you're being cute and playful when really you're trying to shut someone down for expressing something that you can't hold or hear or know about yourself or about the impact you have on them. Maybe you try to convince them otherwise that that thing didn't happen. Uh, you maybe deny their very reality and try to talk them out of it. You know, we internalize all aspects of oppression and trauma. We internalize the places of power and the places of being powerless. We take in all of it, and our lineages are woven into these dynamics, and so it's inside of us, right? I can enter that sacred void and confront the part of myself that can get really distressed in the face of my children's distress, the part of me that can feel really overwhelmed at times and intolerant of their needs to depend on me, of their cries, or you know, upset, or just little child strong emotional currents that move through them, as dyno brain tantrums, things like that. And there's a part of me that I know is from my lineage of overwhelmed and under-resourced and intergenerational trauma patterns of parents, mothers, and I can feel that part of me maybe want to kind of snap or be dismissive or you know react in some way that is just going to repeat all that patterning, right? And and sometimes I can interrupt it and catch that part of me, and I can take some breaths and I can say, Oh, sweetie, I see you. You are overstimulated, and you are tired and you haven't eaten food yet. And oh my, you really just want to, you know, kind of get real sassy with your kids right now and be like, ah, you know, stop saying mama. Um, I heard you, I'll be right there, you know. Um, and sometimes I can't interrupt that part, and that voice comes out, and I'm distressed and I'm overwhelmed, and I and I know it and I feel it. And then here's the beautiful thing. This is where we can meet these parts of us, or you know, we can say, Oh, I see how I just reenacted something here that is not in alignment with my integrity, or I'm not in right relationship with my sovereignty and the power that I hold here over my children, right? And I can slow it down. There is so much that can happen when we slow ourselves down, and you can re-engage and you can say, Oh my love, my love, I am so sorry. I lost my patience, and I don't like when I raise my voice at you. I don't want to do that. And I know that it makes you feel scared or nervous or hurt, right? And I'm so sorry. And I see you and I love you, and the impact I have on you, I'm responsible for, and it matters. And so we're always meeting these parts of us, right? Our lineage, our patterning, our experiences. We are human, we get overstimulated, certainly. If you're someone who has a neuroexpansive brain and being as I do, you you need to manage your sensory experience and and be mindful of that. So, anyway, I went on a whole thing there. And the point that I want to make is this moment between the micro dark moon and the dark of the sun, the winter solstice on Sunday the 21st, is really important, folks. You can do a lot here, a lot in this space of liminal becoming something is being formed, it's not quite taken shape yet, and you can decide. All right, I like the shape of that, but you know, this over here, I think I need to transform this a little. And this is a moment to rebirth, to reimagine. Who are you becoming? What are you transforming into, right? Evolving into what are the parts of you, the lessons, the learning, the patterns that you say, yes, this gets to stay. This, I want more of this. I want more of being honest, I want more of confronting and addressing when someone does not honor our agreements. I want to acknowledge that and address it. And I want to give people the courtesy of being honest with them about the impact that they have on me and our relationship and others. I want to be a true sovereign and be in right relationship with myself and the people around me and the people who are depending on me. And I want to be comfortable with my own vulnerability and need for others. Oh, yes, I need others too. I want reciprocity. I want the exchange of energy and mutuality, and I care for you and I expect care in return because I matter, because you matter, because we all matter. And let's put that out there, put it out into the dark space of calling it in, creating it, making it real, creating the world that you want to live in and create it inside yourself first. And you want more compassion in the world, you want more compassion from others. Do you give yourself compassion? You want to confront the people when they are avoiding something? Do you confront yourself when you are avoiding something? You want people to stop abusing those who are vulnerable or disempowered. Do you abuse parts of you that need care and are feeling vulnerable? Do you shame yourself? You want to stop seeing lies being told, right? People minimizing the horrors or weaving stories of fiction to disown what's happening in the world. Well, do you do that? Do you lie to yourself about the part that you might play at times in numbing out, turning away and avoiding or dissociating from what's happening around you and the things that are unacceptable and downright, downright dehumanizing. And how are you confronting that reality for yourself? So I want to share something that I wrote. And so um I know in my last episode, which by the way was really long time ago, I am just about getting one episode a month uh in this in this last little while. And so my intentions moving into the next year and is to really get a little bit more regular and a little bit more intentional and prepared. And so centering the things that matter means this year as well. So I know that my last episode was a while ago. Anyway, I just totally lost my train of thought. That's like my brain. So, oh right, yes, okay. I shared about how I was doing some work around developing ROSC and working with Word as spell and magic and poetry and all that good stuff. So, anyway, in my work around that, I wrote something and I'm I'm gonna do that thing and I'm just gonna like put it out there because what the heck, right? So this is this is a spell of becoming. Truth is hidden in the quick. Still water sees, the fawn says yes, before she knows, a lineage stifled on silent nose, gagging on agreement, smiles hide dead desires, not even dead, stillborn. Reach deep for your tongue, sparks rise on a current of blood, sealed lips cut free by a black beak, slow no rolls down the mountain like a drum. You remember, and the fawn becomes a wolf. Ow.

unknown: 36:24

Ow.

SPEAKER_00: 36:30

I don't know how that's gonna turn out, but whatever. I just went for it. Um, anyway, thanks for tuning in and take good care of yourselves. Go deep, don't be afraid. The dark is magic and mystery and creation and release, and do it. You got time. So I'm your host, Aaron O'Brien. Thanks for being here. As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul. Bye for now.