What up, starshine? The Libra new moon is coming! This Thursday, the 19th, ushers in a new cycle of symphonic, synergistic subliminal vibes! It’s the perfect cycle for mending fences & cultivating loving kindness; for clearing up the static in your heart chakra & learning to cut people some slack. The Libran moon cycle is perfect for activating the kind of intentions that put the shine in your eyes as well as for taking on the kind of tasks that will reset your karma.

I’m excited for this moon cycle, because I’ve got a ton of peace to make!

About 3 years ago, I “walked out” on my life: out of my super plush apartment in the glittering San Francisco Bay Area, walked out on my ooh-la-la university, & didn’t show up to any of my jobs. I changed my phone number, deactivated my social accounts, & moved to the middle of the continental United States. I abandoned friends, beloved faculty advisors, & left many of my peers holding the bag. (I left without passing on critical info, like, administrative passwords / records for the campus society I’d founded, &, um, maybe also some research notes from a bigass project I was collaborating on.)

Yeah. In the past, I have been a total asshole. And though I have definitely not been at peace, I have been so, so grateful for the new, wide open space to detangle my psyche.

Blame it on a quarterlife crisis. Blame it on Saturn Return. Blame it on a Goddess Awakening.

But now, the time is nigh: I can no longer delay making reparations. I don't need to focus on myself so much anymore--the tough integrative work is over. Now, my inner peace 100% depends on making things right (as right as they can go) with the people I bailed on.

And for realizing this magical intention, the bodhisattva Kuan Yin is going to be my Patron Goddess. She's got enough Divine grace to light my path & enough Divine compassion to bear hug even Voldemort. I'mma channel some of that...

...& hope some of the people I apologize to have summa that, too.

Keep reading for a little insight into the Libran new moon aesthetic & to find out my tips for creating a totally plush new moon ritual to invoke Kuan Yin!

MOON IN LIBRA: the hypnotic EYE OF THE STORM

© Zeng Hao. Find more of his gorgeous artwork over here!

As a Patron Goddess for Libra new moon, Kuan Yin is Enlightenment in action. She symbolizes an instinctual need for peace & harmony.

The Cardinal Air sign, Libra governs communication, idea exchange, & the relationship protocols. Cardinals are all about action, so when the equilibrium of any situation tips, this sign lurches off her meditation cushion & dives headfirst into the melee.

Kuan Yin is smooth, sweet, & gracious. She’s principled without requiring anyone around her to live up to her standards. With natural aplomb, she acts on her sense of rightness without expecting you to demonstrate anything back at her.

Kuan Yin’s special talent: creating rapport. In junior high, Kuan Yin’s claim to fame was brokering peace between rival cliques & to this day, she’s still a minister of peace & coming together. In some cases, Kuan Yin’s diplomacy rankles her recently separated or divorced girlfriends, who prefer she treat their exes with aloofness if not outright nastiness. But Kuan Yin is not that kind of girl. She will still send holiday newsletters to the exes who’ve by & large been cast out of their groups. She has a smile at the ready for any social pariah.

Kuan Yin’s other talent: making beauty. She’s a natural with aesthetics, knowing the precise patterns of symmetry, balance, & harmony to manifest beauty.

Kuan Yin has mastered the perfect ballerina bun. She’s poised & everyone swears she’s taller than she actually is. She has even white teeth & ooey-gooey melty chocolate brown eyes. A fashionista, she glows in icy pastels with classic cool silhouettes. Her signature: ballerina pink satin. Her signature scent: bright lemon with notes of confectioner’s sugar. She smells like a walking lemon sugar cookie. When she’s nearby, you unconsciously take deeper, longer inhales. You feel… calmer. And delighted.

Libra is the season of grace: where total opposites can be appreciated alongside each other, like the heat of an Indian Summer juxtaposed with the chilly breeze of an oncoming winter. She’s a bundle of apparent discordant elements artfully contoured into a pleasing composition. Her voice is high, childish, but unwavering; it emits like a smooth ribbon from her diaphragm. Kuan Yin sounds 100% like herself, whether she’s dishing about her current obsessions on the phone with a friend or delivering a presentation in the boardroom at the office.

Kuan Yin practices zazen meditation, hosts formal dinner parties, & is addicted to televised singing contests. She’s a devotee of The Body Ecology Diet, which is all about balance: balancing the pH levels of the body by proportioning the acidic & alkaline foods on your plate. Her best friend is a gay guy she dated in high school; they were halfway through college before he finally broke her heart. (Crying harder than she did when he came out to her.) They still love each other.

In the past, Kuan Yin has slogged through bad matches, desperate to keep a relationship from disintegrating, even though the relationship threw everything else in her life out of whack. She demurred. She played passive aggressive mental card tricks. As a young, fresh romantic, confrontation & assertiveness mortified Kuan Yin. Her greatest fear: being disliked.

Now, Kuan Yin is committed to relationships built on free flowing give & take. She will always be that sweethearted girl who used charm & reason to de-escalate slumber party witch-hunts that targeted the odd girl out. She’s the ambassador for bringing out the good in others.

In the Tarot, Kuan Yin corresponds with the Justice card. To understand the archetypal meaning of Justice (beyond the crude justice system we live with), you have to deeply, contemplatively, understand the concept of deserving. Deserving implies a certain quid pro quo. Earning. Merit.

If you want z, you've got to x & y. You absolutely can tilt the Divine scales in your favor, but definitely not through prayer or meditation alone. Justice requires an action plan. You tilt the scales by adding more value to one side...

...so, the Divine must add a little more on your end to get it back to center.

Worthiness, on the other hand, simply is. You are worthy of your desires. You are worthy of wanting. And you are free to pursue your desires.

Danielle LaPorte actually spells it out very well in this post. Here's a snippet:

“We’re such hard workers. Hardened, some of us, from working so hard to deserve what we want. Working to earn. Earning more…work. Earning your keep is a vicious cycle, you know. Whereas, believing in your implicit worth liberates you to create more value for the world you serve.”

(You can find more re: the philosophical Q of worthiness & deserving in her new book, White Hot Truth.)

Numerologically, Kuan Yin corresponds with 8, a number of philosophical & spiritual devotion, & concentration of purpose. Kuan Yin is focused. She intuitively engineers everything she needs (on all the planes--the mental, emotional, & physical) to guarantee her freedom to see through her intentions.

KUAN YIN AS A PATRON GODDESS

Kuan Yin, also known as Guanyin (pronounced kwan yin) is known as the jewel of the lotus. She is a Buddhist Goddess of compassion & mercy, who has put off earning her “Buddha-hood” until all human beings are finally Enlightened & freed of suffering. Her name translates to “She Who Hears The World’s Prayers,” because she listens to the cries & laments of all human suffering. That’s testament to her core spiritual strength.

Very worth mentioning: Kuan Yin is a bodhisattva: an agent of wisdom. In a way, anthropomorphizing Kuan Yin for this post trivializes the magnificence of her archetypal power. (You could say that for any of the Patron Goddesses I’ve posted about.) But this particular Goddess is one who has chosen to hang in the balance (very Libran) between punk-ass Earthly drama & total Divinity... for our sake.

I feel for Kuan Yin what many dyed-in-the-wool Christians feel for Jesus. But the critical difference between the Jesus-martyr archetype & the Goddess-Madonna archetype: one died for us while the other lives for us.

Kuan Yin is the Patron Goddess for caregivers & sweet-hearted romantics. The kind of girls who sigh dreamily when they see a sky full of stars, who are in love with the idea of love, who manage to find something they like about everyone--even the villain.

Kuan Yin symbolizes courageous compassion & is the perfect Patron for big-hearted Goddess Girls who are sick of playing nicey-nice: they’re ready for the grace to start collaborating on getting what they want.

Here’s what we all know about nice girls: nice girls are spineless. Nice girls are afraid of saying no; feel too guilty to complain; are too embarrassed to put anyone out by asking for help.

Nice girls are the perfect victims.

If you consider yourself “the nice girl” & want to evolve beyond niceness for niceness sake, Kuan Yin is your Goddess. Compassion is a wholly different animal from niceness. Compassion inspires action that doesn’t hope to temporarily soothe another’s pain, but hopes to renew the individual’s sense of dignity…

...dignity that reminds them they are of & evolving back towards their own Divinity.

If you want to learn more about the mythology of Kuan Yin (such as how she was actually born a man who shattered into a thousand pieces, unable to handle the suffering of the world, & was thus reborn a woman!), check out this article. You’ll find a recipe for creating a fertility talisman, which might not sound appealing, but remember that all femme deities are conflated as patrons for “fertility.”

(Bear in mind, fertility means procreative, as in, the fruits of your labor grow to a point where they can independently sustain themselves & create fruits of their own. Don’t mistake fertility as literally baby-making!)

LIBRA NEW MOON MAGIC

Drape a silky white cloth over your altar. Dress in white or in your faaav date night outfit, even if you don’t plan on going out after your ritual. Polish your nails pearly white--something that will refract tiny rainbow sparkles in the candlelight. (This hella dated blog post showcases a few nail polish brands that carry pearlescent hues!) This is your opportunity to finally wear that pseudo-vintage opal brooch you scored at the costume jewelry shop (which doesn’t go with anything else in your closet, but still looks cool) & to do something creative with that authentic pearl necklace you inherited from your late auntie (pull your hair into a bun & wrap the pearls around the elastic!).

Also decorate your altar in pearlescent objects, like a ceramic tea cup to serve as your ritual chalice. Burn white & pink colored candles. Kuan Yin’s symbols are the lotus flower & rainbows, so gather items that will splatter your ritual space with prismatic color. Burn lotus incense & hang crystal prisms over your altar. Buy lotus-shaped floating candles, then find clear glass cereal bowls (Goodwill or the Salvation Army may have a couple) to fill with water & install on bookshelves, nightstands; other surfaces around your ritual space. Just before your meditation or contemplation, light up the candles, & watch the room shimmy & shimmer in shadows & spectral light!

Prepare for your ritual with a Metta meditation. I’ve been experimenting with this meditation, because of Dr. Carolyn Elliott’s book Awaken Your Genius, where she suggests practicing Metta meditation prior to any magical work. It’s basically a meditation where you send hella positive vibes at someone you loathe, resent, or feel totally indifferent to. By sending positive vibes their way, you actually free yourself from the bad feelings you have towards them.

It’s like that old chestnut: Resenting someone is like drinking poison & expecting it to kill the other person. This meditation helps detoxify your energy-body of the poison you’ve been feeding yourself.

I’ve been using davidji’s Loving Kindness meditation, which is available through the Hay House Meditations podcast. If you want a Kuan Yin specific meditation, try this meditation: Om Mani Padme Hum. (Pronounced OM Mah-nee Pud-may Hoom.) Meditate while holding pink & / or green crystals, like rose quartz, jade, emerald, or pink rhodonite, which correspond with the heart chakra.

For your offering, brew high quality loose leaf black tea & offer a small bowl of rice. You could even use black tea as the liquid for your ritual chalice. I’ll be brewing one of my favs: Rose Petal Black Tea by The Tao of Tea, because it’s blended with keemum tea leaves, which are harvested from the Anhui Province in China, but you could definitely brew ceylon or even English breakfast.

For your intention during this new moon, consider a resolution. What situation keeps you from feeling peace? I definitely hope you experiment with the Metta meditation, because just wading in will highlight all sorts of soreness. You’ll witness your justifications for why you cling to noxious feelings & all the associative thoughts / memories.

I’m not promising you’ll be cured of anger or resentment, but you’ll finally understand where the feelings have taken root! You can spend this Libran moon cycle (for the next 6 months, until the Libra full moon in March or April 2018) taking gentle actions to dig out the worst of your hate, fear, & loathing. Keep a journal or grimoire, so you can start noting the consequences--like a general sense of peace (it won’t last alllll the time, so you’ll be able to notice when it actually settles in). For more about creating a grimoire, visit this post.

How a journal / grimoire helps: documenting these slight effects creates a feedback loop. Feedback loops reinforce new, positive feelings & behaviors. The more you practice Metta meditation, the better you document the effects, & the more consistently you review your documentation, the stronger & deeper those positive changes root.

If compassion is something you’re curious about, but you don’t think you can shake your straight-up hatred about something out there in the world (there’s a lot to be angry, resentful, & hurt about--even if it’s not happening directly to us), I suggest reading Tara Brach’s book, Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance is basically a way of hacking self-love. (In fact, if you’ve tried & tried to make so-called “radical self-love” happen for you, but it hasn’t had the whiz-bang transformative effect you expected, give it another go after you work on self-acceptance.)

If you’re not much of a bookworm, listen to this episode of Tara Brach’s podcast, Radical Acceptance Revisited.

This is also a great cycle for making things right. Actually, burying old grudges, making peace offerings, or writing a fat letter of forgiveness (which you don’t have to mail off) will help rebalance the cosmic scales. When coming up with an intention for this new moon, you’ll inevitably think of some people or situations from your past that don't sit right with you. (Perhaps you were one of the aggressors at a traumatic slumber party or maybe you’re ready to establish a boundary around your love life to keep your opinionated mother out of it.) You can take literal or symbolic actions to make it right.

Of course, unless you absolutely can’t (& you’ve tried your best): take literal action. Send a thoughtful FB message to the victim of that slumber party (or maybe just ask if you could call her up for just a few minutes). Take your nosy mom out for coffee & tell her about a new boundary you’re putting into effect. (Remember to be diplomatic about it!)

If literal action can’t be taken, write a long letter, detailing the situation that must be righted. Draft it in a ceremonial space, where you’ll feel safe to cry, rage, & otherwise let the emotions move completely through you. (You absolutely don’t have to bottle feelings up in sacred spaces.) You can burn the letter in a cauldron or the fireplace (safely--without risk of mayhem or injury), or shred it into tiny pieces that you dissolve in water. Later, pour the water or bury the ashes in a peaceful outdoor space.

You have 6 months to think about & execute an action plan for rebalancing the karmic scales in your life! That’s simultaneously a lot & not much time to get moving!

And if the payoff is peace… why isn’t that a priority?

I wish you plenty of dreamy, Enlightening Goddess moon magic this week!

Love, magic, & lotus blossoms,

Images via Pinterest. You can help me credit the creators here. The oil painting of Kuan Yin holding the lotus blossom is by Zeng Hao, who you can find out more about over here!

Lotus Blossoms, Metta Meditations, & Perfect Ballerina Buns: Libra New Moon Magic with Kuan Yin!

MOON IN LIBRA: the hypnotic EYE OF THE STORM

KUAN YIN AS A PATRON GODDESS

LIBRA NEW MOON MAGIC