Have you ever tried a full Moon ritual?
Honestly… If you’re interested in intentional living then a ritual or ceremony performed under the gaze of a Full Moon is one of the most potent things you can do to supercharge your life!
Let’s talk a little about lunar energy…
Grandmother Moon is an ancient embodiment of the Goddess. Like a crystal, she serves as a kind of memory store for divine feminine wisdom, and also holds the karmic threads that humanity is still working through. Her cyclic rhythms are a model and a catalyst for the spirals of growth we’re moving through on the ascension path.
The Moon is a also receiver. You can see how she receives the light of her twin luminary the Sun, as it shifts and sweeps across her surface every lunar cycle. But did you realise she also receives celestial energy from all the other planets in our solar system? And as she spins on her orbit around Earth, forming astrological aspects hitting specific degrees, she transmits them onto us.
Each lunar cycle lasts around 29.5 days as the Moon waxes from New Moon to Full, then wanes back to the dark Moon and New once more.
So the full Moon is a climax
It’s a peak time, a moment of fullness, culmination and completion. And with this energy of apogee comes powerful illumination and crystal clarity.
This is important. It’s revelatory, meaning Full Moons can show you things you weren’t aware of before.
But what’s also super-important to honour at this Moon phase, is the powerful reversal of energies, as the Moon makes that shift from waxing, to waning. As the axis shifts, a really potent energetic opportunity forms, as there is a stillness: a space opened up that is free from either growing or disseminating lunar charge.
It’s the perfect time for ritual!
There’s no one way to perform a full Moon ritual. Everyone is unique, and bringing your own flavour to the table when it comes to ritual will actually make them more effective. But if you’re a beginner, then a framework can be helpful!
There are many different kinds of full Moon ritual
Knowing that full Moons are peaks in the lunar cycle, you can harness this energy (through ritual) to serve a few different magical purposes. Your full Moon rituals could be:
- A manifestation ritual
- A gratitude ritual
- A release ritual
- A ritual for clarity and/or psychic seeing
- A ritual for healing
- A ritual for creating and/or strengthening boundaries
- A love spell for attraction or bonding
- A wealth spell to attract money
- A ritual for positivity and/or luck.
So you see Full Moon energy can be applied and channelled through many intentions. It depends on what YOU need! But if you also take into account the zodiac sign and/or astrological house that the Moon is in then your ritual will be taken to another level!
HEAD HERE to learn my secrets for activating your innate feminine power through the lunar cycle!
Why perform a full Moon ritual for gratitude?
It’s a good question… why ritualize this feeling? I’ll give you a few reasons:
- Gratitude feels good!
- Gratitude is a frequency that opposes fear. If you’re expressing gratitude, you cannot also contain the vibration of fear. So creating ritual to amplify this feeling is a direct way to fight the fear paradigm from within.
- Gratitude equals manifestation! If you have a consicous manifestation practice then you’ll know that gratitude is top of the list for attracting more of what you desire!
- Mother Earth can feel our frequency. It’s healing for her to know she is loved and appreciated. Do this for her!
First: Grounding and have you asked permission?
Before starting any lunar ritual, first, you need to ground yourself, by connecting to Mother Earth.
Next, you need to ask her permission to perform this ritual on her sacred land.
A lot of people miss this step. But realise that any Moon ritual or ceremony is a partnership between the Moon, the Earth, and YOU. So you gotta get permission!!
You can do this in whatever way feels right for you, but I’ll share my practice with you here:
- I enter into a quick meditation by closing my eyes and taking a few long, deep breaths.
- I feel the love in my heart, which I have for the Earth, grow and grow until it’s strong.
- Then I send it down, down into her core, from my heart, my womb, and through my root.
- Before very long at all, I feel her send it back (I feel this as a sensation of warmth, love, peace, and affirmation).
- Our connection is formed and made conscious.
99% of the time, Mother Earth will grant you permission for this work. If you do this quick grounding meditation, and feel her response to you as a flow of love, then this is an affirmation that you can go ahead. If this isn’t the case, you’ll know.
OK. Here goes… below is a super simple framework for the gratitude ritual I often perform at the Full Moon phase of the lunar cycle.
The Full Moon Ritual of Gratitude
If possible, go outside and sit under the Full Moon. (She may not be visible in the sky in your part of the world at the actual point of Fullness, but this doesn’t matter. You can also perform this ritual for up to a couple of days, either side of the exact astrological opposition).
1. Create sacred space
Light a candle. If you like, light some incense, and/or use a dried native plant to clear the space and your own energy field. (I make bundles of mugwort and yarrow from the land I live on in late summer, and use these throughout the year). You may want to call in the directions or any Spirit allies, but you must do what feels right for you.
I usually call in my Spirit guides and of course, the Spirit of the Moon.
2. List what you’re grateful for
Grab a pen and some paper and write a list of all the things in your life you’re grateful for.
Think about:
- Qualities in yourself
- The people in your life
- Your health
- Your home
- Achievements or attainments connected to your New Moon intentions for this lunar cycle
- Material security and abundance you’ve manifested (think long and shorter timeframes)
If you’ve been struggling with your life during the Moon cycle (or before) then don’t forget that this too has a purpose. Times of contraction and resistance are usually HUGE opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. So try to express your acknowledgment (and appreciation) of this. The point is, you don’t need to create any restrictions on what goes onto your list. Be free! And if you find it really too hard, then go back to basics!
- The air you breathe
- The food you last ate
- The birdsong you hear when you go out for a walk
3. Connect to the full Moon
Sit on the ground (or a chair) and connect with the Full Moon energy.
Imagine your crown opening up like a flower, and virualise the light of the Full Moon streaming down through it, filling up your body with a silvery, white light. Let this light go wherever it needs to go – in your physical body, your emotional body, your light body…
4. Read through, and ponder your gratitude list
Read it out loud, or silently inside of your heart.
Take your time and allow appreciation for anything else to rise within you too.
Your words may be as simple as: “I thank you, Grandmother Moon, for enabling / supporting / showing me……” Or you may want to thank Mother Earth, Great Spirit, or yourself!
Thanking and feeling proud of yourself is something great to practice and if you feel uncomfortable doing this, then you probably need to try.
The key to this part of the ritual is to feel the gratitude.
The words are really just a framework holding together the energy contained in the ritual, and a tool to help your mind focus. Really, conjuring feelings of appreciation, and making them present and real, creates the magic and lasting effect. By expressing genuine gratitude, you’re opening up the energetic channels for more movement through your lives. It’s impossible to generate or manifest positive change, if you’re stuck in the mentality of lack, so giving gratitude is one of the most powerful agents for change. And it feels so good!
5. Sit with this feeling
Let it tip over into joy, and move from your heart to your whole body. Stay there for as long as you like, sitting, lying, or dancing in the moonlight if you feel the urge! This doesn’t need be some somber or serious occasion – let the energy of celebration move through you!
6. Set an intention to hold onto the gratitude
To complete the ceremony, I always like to set the intention to hold this vibration of gratitude and joy in my heart. For it to stay there and be there whenever I need to find it again.
Don’t forget to blow out your candle and incense
If you have friends, create a full Moon ritual together!
Take it in turns to talk about what you give gratitude for.
Speaking your words aloud, in the company of others is incredibly powerful as it manifests your feelings, giving them form beyond your reality. (Do this with your intentions when performing your New Moon ritual too).
Perform this Full Moon ritual with your children.
Kids love rituals!!
Creating rituals with your children is so much fun (and tend to be super creative!) and this is such a great way to connect kids to their own hearts. A simple full Moon ritual will help them to realize what they have, and connect them to both the phases of the Moon, and the larger cycles of nature.
I hope you have fun with this! It is such a simple and fluid ceremony, so please adapt it as you like.
Here’s an invitation to keep a regular practice!
Marking the cycles through simple repetition of ritual can be transformational. And this work can also deepen your connection to your own cyclic nature, so intimately connected to the many cycles of nature. There is hardly anything more beautiful. K x
