The Hero’s Lunar Journey: Why Releasing on Full Moons is Wrong

My original system that connects the Hero’s Journey with the Lunar Cycle.

It’s time to stop trying to do releasing work on Full Moons.

I know, it goes against everything you’ve ever been taught about how to work with the lunar cycle! It’s sad but true: the Internet’s favorite manifestation advice is actually setting you up for burnout and emotional whiplash. The most common piece of advice in the entire spiritual community… a community that touts alignment with nature and the beautiful cycles of the moon healing us… is structurally out of alignment with the actual mechanics of nature. The “Full Moon Release” is just a myth!

Pop astrology has had us believing since the New Agers of the 1970s made their specific brand of astrological business skyrocket public attention to practice a yin (inward, feminine) activity during the height of the yang (outward, masculine) part of the lunar cycle. When the Moon is illuminated in full, that is the culmination of maximum energy in the month. It is about expression, emotion, exposure, and seeing things for what they are, sometimes starkly, sometimes uncomfortably. It is absolutely NOT about releasing.

How is it healthy or correct to expect yourself to have a grounded, emotional release of some old pattern or conditioning during an energetic storm? That’s a recipe for trauma.

We need to learn how to time our letting go in the lunar cycle when it is actually appropriate. Correcting our understanding of how the cycle actually works involves adjusting our timing to align with the reality of nature. Letting go can’t happen during a peak shockwave or a climactic moment in the journey. That is a point of pure energy, not release. To co-create with the lunar cycle effectively, we need to decode and deeply understand that there are two distinct points of release on either side of the Full Moon.

BEFORE THE FULL MOON: LETTING GO OF THE ATTACHMENT TO THE OUTCOME

The first type of letting go is the release of your attachment to the outcome of your intention coming to fruition. The manifestation gurus are actually right when they say the law of detachment really works. The adjustment moment before the Full Moon is all about TRUST. If there is one time to have the most faith in the unknown, it’s this point in the cycle. This is when the Moon is in the sign that is quincunx where it was at the New Moon. Use this time and the energy of that sign and any aspects to the Moon when it is in that sign as guidance on exactly what the nature of what you must let go of in relation to outcome is.

AFTER THE FULL MOON: LETTING GO OF THE PAST TO RESTORE BALANCE

This quincunx point on the other side of the Full Moon might be the most important release valve point in the entire cycle. It is when the energy shifts rapidly from Yang back to Yin. The realization we had, the culmination we experienced, has been delivered. The dust of the experience is settling. NOW is the time to let go of what has served its purpose thus far. Rest assured, if you have had an experience where you didn’t get to your “let go of what does not serve me” ritual until AFTER the Full Moon, you likely were met with better results, as you were more in alignment with the true rhythm of the cosmos.

UNDERSTANDING THE WANING MOON PHASES

You may be tempted to see the last half of the lunar cycle as a blank space where nothing happens. The truth is that this is where all the purging, refocusing, healing, and preparation for the next cycle occurs. Imagine throwing a party and leaving all the trash and party decorations lying around for 2 weeks afterward, then trying to plan a new party in the wreckage. It just doesn’t work. We’ve been conditioned by decades of dumbed-down pop astrology to ignore the most important half of the lunar cycle: integration.

A REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE THAT BEGINS WITH YOU!

Give yourself permission to change the way you work with the Moon. We are not meant to treat ourselves like constant self-improvement projects. We are all part of the miracle of nature, and our modern society has been out of sync with natural cycles for far too long. The revolution starts with you!

THE RETURN OF THE JOURNEY OF THE WOLF DECK

This is the puzzle piece that was holding me back from continuing my work on my oracle deck: Journey of the Wolf. I have been working on cracking the code of the parallels between the cycles of the Moon, the Zodiac. the Tarot, and the Hero’s Journey for YEARS now! This overlap and dot-connecting is the core of the messaging in my oracle deck. Cycles are everything: we live and die by them. We should use them as they were intended to be used, not how some manifestation coach says we should use them when they don’t know a thing about astrology and are just trying to get you to buy their next $333 course. I am so excited to get back to working on laying out all the card meanings with a true framework that is backed by traditional witchcraft, evolutionary astrology, and the natural cycles of our world.

Until next time,
Tova, The Wolf Witch