Kin - New Moon Practice
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
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Welcome to the Wild Wisdom Monthly Practice.
Each New Moon, you are invited into a monthly practice designed to support your spiritual life in a grounded, lived way. These practices draw on the rhythms of the Earth and the cycles of the Moon, offering reflection and simple ritual you can return to throughout the lunar month. They are created to help you stay steady and in relationship with your inner wisdom as life unfolds.
Our practice is Kin.
Our prayer is:
The guarding of the spirit of life be upon me,
The guarding of the loving Earth be upon me,
The guarding of my ancestors be upon me,
Each step of the way,
To aid and enfold me,
Each day and night of my life.
Inspired by Carmina Gadelica
Kin might be interpreted as blood relatives, but it has a much larger meaning.
In wisdom traditions, the understanding of kinship extends beyond humans to include animals, land, waters, elements, ancestors and the unseen world. Life is understood as a web of relationship — a living family of which we are a part.
The word kin comes from a very ancient root, meaning to give birth, or to arise from the same source. Kinship is not only about human family, but about the shared origin of all life.
So many people are searching for belonging.
But belonging is not something we need to find.
It is something we remember.
In the modern world, we have come to see Earth as a resource — something to take from.
But Earth is a living communion of life, and we are one strand within it.
A river is viewed as kin by the people who have always lived beside her.
One day, developers who have no ties to the land come along and begin fracking, or extracting water for commercial use.
There is no relationship with the river — no recognition of her life force, or the vital role she plays for all life in that place.
The developers see a resource.
The traditional owners see a living being — an embodiment of Mother Earth, held as sacred.
In the Gaelic tradition, there is a word — dùthchas.
It speaks to a deep belonging between people and land.
A knowing that the land shapes the people,
and the people, in turn, care for the land.
When we understand that all life is kin, we know that we belong.
From this place of belonging, we return to a reciprocal relationship with life.
When we love someone or a place, we take care of them. Robin Wall Kimmerer posed the question — as we practice love for the land, what would it be like if we understood that the land loves us back?
This opens a different way of being in the world — one we can return to.
And I am reminded of a beautiful Navajo (Diné) prayer:
“The mountains, I become part of you.
The herbs, the fir tree, I become part of you.
The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters, I become part of you.
The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen…
I become part of you.”
These words bring me a deep sense of beauty and belonging.
When we access this wisdom we begin to feel that sense of living within the rhythm of life.
We become wayfinders.
Self love underpins this month’s journey through our practice, Kin.
Both self love and balance are part of the journey of life, not the destination.
Certainty lives within us, not beyond us. Self love is our assuredness that we are worthy. That we belong.
When we trust and embody our self love, we find balance between certainty and uncertainty.
The words kind and kindness come from the same root as kin.
In the old ways, kindness meant treating others as we would our own family — as those who belong to us.
Kindness is part of our nature. Kinship deepens and sustains kindness. And this begins with our relationship with ourselves.
Life is reciprocal, and what we can give back is our time — our attention, respect and reverence, tending the life where we live and making offerings, creating ceremony and sharing prayers to nourish the spiritual ecology for the whole.
And we live through our own virtues, which is something we will attend to in our full moon practice.
When I was a little girl, I used to dream about communing with the animals, especially wild animals.
My nan showed me what it is to live in kinship with life.
She used to walk to work — about 30–40 minutes from her home.
Her morning ritual was to set out with a bag full of scraps, leftovers and treats for all the dogs and cats, and even some of the birds, who she met along the way. Her kin.
Every cat and dog would get a little treat, and she gave each of them names. She developed a deep, loving relationship with them all. They knew when she was coming, and would run to the front fences and greet her. There were also magpies who got to know her and would swoop in for her treats.
When I started doing wildlife rescue, I remembered her gift to me — of how to commune with the animals.
The first joey we raised — she was the dearest tiniest little being who wasn’t expected to survive — we were told when we picked her up from another shelter, “don’t be upset if she dies in the night.”
There was no way that baby was going to die.
I’m sure she survived because she was loved so much.
Love is the main ingredient for any healing pathway. To be loved imparts a sense of safety, and safety is critical for any being to heal.
When we feel safe, we know that we belong.
For a wild being, safety is belonging.
The day we let Winnie back out into the wild was phenomenal.
I felt her going back into the whole of nature. That’s the best way I can describe it.
When she ran free, there was a feeling of wholeness — of rightness — of being part of everything. The reciprocity in action was the shared experience — the love for one another, and the sense of that melding into the oneness of life.
THE PRACTICE
Mother Earth gives us everything we need. Every single day.
Life on Mother Earth is based in reciprocity.
What we can give in return is our time — our attention, love, respect and connection.
This lunar cycle, create a soul shrine for Mother Earth and for all your kin — and within it, an earth altar that reflects your relationship with the living world.
A space for reverence, with an altar at its heart.
Include those with whom you feel most connected — people, places, forests, a river, the wind.
I have a shrine under a favourite tree at home, and the beach across from my house is also a shrine — the altar is the sand, ever-changing with the tides, teaching me about certainty and uncertainty.
Yours may be a small space in your home, or a quiet place outdoors. It does not need to be elaborate.
Begin by bringing something that reflects your love and gratitude for Mother Earth — for her endless giving, her fierceness, and the intricate web of life she sustains.
Go out into the nature you hold sacred.
Stand under the stars.
Place your hands in the earth.
Put your feet in the water.
Feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your face.
Remember your source of life. Send your love to all directions of the Earth and to all beings in all places.
Every place, every being, is elevated by the love and reverence offered to it, and by the way its value and bounty is received.
If you can’t go out into nature, look up at the sky each morning and evening. Feel your awareness expand into its vastness — the clouds, the colours, the weather.
Bring something from your time in nature back to your shrine each day.
Find a word, or words, each day that reflect how you feel. Light a candle and say them out loud, or write them down and place them on your altar.
Belonging begins when we remember we are kin with life.
It deepens when we learn to listen and we pay attention.
And it becomes real through the way we live.
With love
