Full Moon Practice — Express Yourself
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
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Welcome to the Wild Wisdom Monthly Practice.
Each full moon you will receive a practice to help keep you on track with the lunar cycle and your new moon practice. These practices are crafted to keep you spiritually nourished, and to help you continue to expand your spiritual growth.
Our practice this month is: Express Yourself
Our mantra is:
My intuition guides me
To rely on my path
My medicine
My way
I embrace flow
To truly express ourselves, we must know ourselves.
Cultivating inward clarity brings us into alignment with our true nature — with what we love, what we know, what matters to us, and what we are capable of becoming. There are things we know we are capable of, but fear can keep us from experiencing them. Then the opportunity appears.
We find ourselves at a threshold. And when we cross it, inevitably, we are enlarged.
The things that scare us
One thing I've learned about myself is that the things I know I need to do can be the things that scare me most. And somehow, the day inevitably comes when I have to do them.
Like my singing. Singing in front of people isn't something that I want to do, but it certainly helped me to become a more confident speaker. And I know my voice is my gift, or my strength, because I speak from deep within.
I'm inherently passionate about the wild.
The more I experienced the vitality, beauty and magnificence of the wild — how awe-inspiring it is — the more I knew I couldn't just look at that beauty and do nothing when our world is changing so rapidly and people are willing to sacrifice the very thing that supports life.
The Wild
Even as a child, my dream was talking to the animals.
As we walk our pathway, our way of truth, we peel away what really doesn't belong to us and come into harmony with what does. For me, it's joeys. I just resonate with them. I absolutely adore them.
But there are aspects of wildlife rescue that strike terror into my heart. Giving injections is one of them.
When my first husband was dying of cancer, his doctor couldn't cope. One day, close to the end, she literally ran out the door and left his medication behind. One of the district nurses gave him the injection and then turned to me and said, “You need to learn how to do this. Let's practise on an orange.”
Gary was listening to this conversation. He was no longer able to speak, but the look of horror that crossed his face said it all. We practised on the orange, but Gary was too sick and died before I ever got to inject him.
Fast forward 40 years
Here I am raising joeys, and I've never injected them in the 15 years I've been doing it, let alone doing what we call subcutting. When a joey is really dehydrated or sick and can't drink, getting fluids into their body can become a matter of life or death.
The thought of doing it is absolutely terrifying. It's not just putting a needle in. You're responsible for this tiny being in front of you. You have to know what you're doing, stay completely present and do it even though every part of you is trying to go into freeze mode. That's the fear for me. Knowing I have to be the one to do it, and knowing how painful it is, even after administering pain meds.
Following the Signs
I believe one thing always leads to another when we follow our path, one step at a time. And there are always magical signs.
My magical sign — my big fat, magical sign — was meeting a woman who is an absolute legend with macropods, especially kangaroos and wallabies. Her passion is kangaroos. So one thing did lead to another, and I followed the magical signs to her because I needed somebody I could trust to care for my joeys when I had to go away for work.
She lives in a remote area on a huge, beautiful property in the mountains. My joeys fitted in really well, and in the end we decided it was a really safe place for them to stay and be released.
Not long afterwards, I got a message from her asking if I could take a swamp wallaby joey. Monty weighed just 1.2 kilos.
He wasn't drinking his milk and he was really cold. We realised it was likely to be pneumonia and sprang into action. Listening to his lungs with the stethoscope confirmed it.
Pneumonia can be deadly. I've gotten a couple of joeys through it before, and it takes a lot of work and time. I ended up staying there for a week, and with her expertise, we got him through it.
During that week he had to have antibiotic injections. And he had to be subcut.
I watch closely to see where and how she injects the antibiotics. It's day two and she hands me the syringe. I take it along with a deep breath. Thank God, it's such a tiny amount.
I position Monty. I put the needle in and push the antibiotic through. He flinches, but it's fast. My heart is pounding, but phew, I've done it.
But then he has to be subcut. I'm her assistant the first couple of times. She puts the needle in and I push the fluid through. And it's not easy. It's really not easy, and you have to trust. You start pushing, and then it almost goes on its own. You're just directing it.
But next time I have to do the hard, scary part. First I've got to load up the syringe. Even that is daunting, and it's the simplest part.
Then: don't think about what could go wrong. Find the right spot. Put the needle in.
The right area is at the back of the ribs. He's so small, there's hardly any flesh anywhere. I've got to be so careful that the needle doesn't go out the other side, that it's in properly, that it doesn't pop out. I'm acutely aware of the pain I'm causing. My friend and mentor gently pushes the fluid through.
It can't go into him cold, so we've warmed the syringe, the fluid and the line. There are all these little nuances involved. You've got to be onto every detail. You can't go on autopilot. You've really got to be on.
And I do it. Perfectly.
And in that moment, everything combines into one — the fear, the responsibility, and the realisation that I'm actually doing it. Then I place him in his hanging pouch, warm and supported, keeping his head up while the fluid disperses through his body.
I've heard so many wildlife carers say, “I must learn to subcut.” Nobody in my area can do it. We have to go to the vet, an hour's drive away, and they're not open on the weekend. And I'd always thought, oh, I could probably learn to do it. But I really don't want to. I'll never be the one to learn to do it.
And suddenly there I was.
Doing it.
Oh my God.
So full on.
Of course, doing it a few times doesn't mean I've mastered it. Every time is different. Every animal is different. Things go wrong and you have to be right on and deal with what's happening as it's happening. I've made extensive notes, step by step. I know I'll need someone to help me. And if I need to, I'll get my friend on the phone and have her talk me through it.
I'm still terrified of it. But I know I can do it.
The Gateless Gate
There is an old Zen teaching:
The Great Way has no gate; there are a thousand paths to it.
— The Gateless Gate
Every joey I have cared for has brought me to the Gateless Gate. There is always something I haven't done before — something that asks me to trust what I know and go further than I have gone before. We arrive at these thresholds in unexpected ways. We follow what matters to us, pay attention to the signs, and one thing leads to another.
And suddenly, we are there.
Sometimes what frightens us isn't only the possibility that we might fail. It is discovering what we are capable of. Fear doesn't necessarily disappear when we take the step. It just doesn't get to make the decision.
To know ourselves is to cultivate inward clarity. The old Irish expression Slí na Fírinne — the Way of Truth — has long held a deep meaning for me: to follow what we know to be true, even into the unknown.
And when we cross that threshold, our experience of ourselves is enlarged.
The Practice
This Full Moon, choose one thing you already know you want to do, express or experience, but have held yourself back from because it scares you.
During one of the nights of the Full Moon or the creative waning gibbous Moon, go outside beneath the moonlight. If you can't, light a candle and place it on your windowsill. Bring what you have chosen clearly into your awareness.
Behold it.
Irish writer and mystic John Moriarty calls this Silver Branch perception — a way of beholding the world that recognises the physical and spirit worlds as a seamless continuum.
This Full Moon, turn that way of seeing towards yourself. Behold what you know without letting fear diminish it.
Tell the Moon what you know to be true about yourself. Give voice to what you have been afraid to do, express or experience.
Then cross the threshold. Take one real step towards what you know you can do.
Notice how the experience enlarges you. Celebrate the crossing — light candles and incense on your altar, write yourself a note, give yourself flowers.
The old Zen teaching tells us that when we pass through the Gateless Gate, we walk freely between heaven and earth.
With love
