New Moon — Express Yourself
Prefer to listen to this as a podcast? You’ll find it on Spotify and Apple Podcast
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 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 express yourself is to give birth to new ideas. To allow your true nature to emerge without changing yourself to fit in with others’ expectations.
Expression is creation
When we give expression to what we feel, imagine, know or believe, we enter into the creative flow of life. Expression isn't limited to words or art. We express ourselves through our choices and actions, through our relationships, through what we love and protect, through the dreams and intentions we act upon. What lives within us enters into relationship with the world and something new can emerge.
It’s a warm early afternoon. As we pull up at the hall, I feel a sense of trepidation. I’ve been preparing for this moment for the last four months.
I take a deep breath and open the car door.
I reflect back to when I first decided that I was going to challenge myself for a full year to do the things that scared me the most. The things that I really longed to do, but that I was afraid of.
Speaking in front of people had always been really confronting. And after the death of my first husband, I found myself in a strange limbo. My life had been interwoven with his for 12 years. Now I was finding out about me on my own.
I wanted to express myself through the things that I found scary, because that’s where I perceived I was holding myself back.
More than speaking in front of people, singing in front of people was like death of the soul, and yet singing was something that I’d always loved.
When I was a child, as soon as everyone went out, I would put one of my favourite records on and sing at the top of my lungs. I always felt so good, so elevated, so in a flow state — just me, the music and the spirits of the house.
So I decided that I was going to have singing lessons. That was my first challenge.
I found a wonderful teacher who had a reputation for helping people with their confidence. The lessons were marvellous, but at the end of the third session she said,
“Well you know, to be a singer, you’ve got to sing harmonies. So beginning next week you will be part of a group where you’ll all sing harmonies together, because the only way to learn to sing harmonies is to harmonise with others.”
I felt terror strike my heart, but I took a deep breath because I knew she was right, and I agreed.
The following week I joined four other perfectly lovely students and we began doing round robins and different kinds of harmonising exercises. It was actually really beautiful!
A few weeks later she announced, “Today we’re going to practise a song that we’re going to sing at the student concert. Of course you’ll all be singing your own song in the concert, but we always begin as a choir and sing the one song together.”
It was a beautiful South African song, really uplifting, but something in me stalled.
At the end I told her, “I won’t be able to come. I’ll be away.”
And she said, “No, you won’t. All my students perform in our concert.”
I went along with it, telling myself I could always cancel at the last minute.
After a few weeks she asked us to bring the song that we wanted to sing solo. Again I went along with it, even though the thought of it was beyond stressful.
The day drew close and the teacher told us, “If you want to bring a family member or a friend to be in the audience, that’s perfectly fine.”
I invited my friend, who was my yoga teacher, because I knew she wouldn’t judge me.
Someone gave me a piece of blue stone and told me that it was the ultimate throat stone, a piece of kyanite, and said, “Just hold it in your hand, and it’ll give you power or energy or something like that.”
I quietened my nerves as the time approached… how many students can any one teacher have?
I thought that maybe there would be 30 or 40 people there.
How wrong could I be?
As we walked into the hall my mind was blown!
It was packed to the brim. There were at least a few hundred people in there. I didn’t really want to know exactly how many because, well, that would be even more terrifying and my legs were already jelly. I don’t know how many students were singing, but when we stood together as a choir there were quite a few rows of us.
And it was awesome.
All of us singing together was one of the most uplifting experiences I’ve ever had. And of course nobody would know if any of us sang out of tune.
But then it was time to sing individually.
As students got up and sang their songs, I was mesmerised. Some were absolutely fantastic, some simply beautiful, some were tone deaf and couldn’t hold a tune, and some performed like pros.
It didn’t matter what you sang like. What mattered was getting up and doing it.
The courage it took people to express themselves in a way they’d yearned to was so heart opening. Everybody was cheered, clapped and appreciated.
Then my turn came.
My palms are sweating. I’m clutching my piece of kyanite, and I sing my song.
The blood pounding in my ears prevented me from hearing the soft piano in the background — my teacher playing, just for my benefit, offering rhythm and timing.
It wasn’t until I sang the last note that I saw the sea of faces before me.
For a moment you could have heard a penny drop. Then as one, everybody clapped and cheered. People came up to me afterwards with compliments. A few people even said what a beautiful voice I’ve got.
And you know what? To this day, I wouldn’t have a clue what I sounded like.
At first I thought, Oh, they’re just being nice to me.
But it didn’t matter. I’d done it.
After that, I never looked back.
I travelled around the world giving talks to different audiences and groups, big and small.
And for a long time, I was still really scared. The first few words would come out really shaky, but then they flowed.
I knew what to say.
It was just coming through me.
The Great Way has no gate; there are a thousand paths to it. — The Gateless Gate
We find our way by acting on what we know to be true and following what inspires us, even when we don’t know where it will lead. We trust the voice of our heart, let imagination light the way, pay attention to what appears, and take the next step. This is the practice of spiritual wayfinding. We don't need to see the whole path. We need enough trust to begin.
Inspiration asks something of us. An idea, a dream, an intuitive knowing comes to us with its own energy and momentum, but if we don't act, that energy can disappear. When something matters, give it form. Write it down. Make the call. Begin the work. Take the first step while the impulse is alive.
Then keep going. Confidence grows through experience and repetition. As we act, we discover what helps us enter the creative flow and how to find our way there again. We become more capable of moving beyond what we thought we could do. And somewhere in that flow, effort can give way to grace. We just know what to say or do. It comes through us.
THE PRACTICE
Express Yourself
For this New Moon practice, choose one thing that you want to express, create, change or do. Something that matters to you, but that you have been holding back from because it feels challenging or scary.
It might be making a call, applying for a job, sharing something you have created, having a conversation, signing up for a class, beginning something you have been dreaming about.
Begin by trusting yourself. You don’t need to know where this will lead or how everything will unfold. Pay attention to what you already know, listen to the voice of your heart and imagine what might be possible.
Then decide: do you need to prepare, or do you need to act?
If you can do the thing now, do it. Make the call. Send the application. Speak the words. Take the step.
Pay attention to what the experience reveals. What had been holding you back? What helped you move beyond it? Notice how you felt before you acted, while you were doing it and afterwards. Let what you discover become part of your practice. Keep working with whatever has been holding you back, taking actions that help you cultivate greater confidence and trust in yourself.
If your challenge needs preparation, decide what you need to practise. Make it achievable and repeatable. You might need to develop a skill, rehearse, write, make something, move your body, use your imagination or simply keep showing up and doing the thing until it becomes more familiar.
Choose a large votive or long-burning candle for your practice and place it on your altar or on a table where you will practise. Each day, light it as you begin. Let the flame mark the time you are giving to yourself and to what you want to bring into the world.
You might say:
I trust what I know
I trust myself to take the next step
Let your candle burn while you practise — for an hour if that feels right, or simply for the time you are engaged in your practice.
As you continue, pay attention to the conditions that help you enter the flow. Where are you? What are you doing? What helps you feel open, inspired and fully engaged? Learn how to create those conditions for yourself and how to find your way back to them.
And when inspiration comes, act on it while it is alive in you.
Keep going. Through repetition we cultivate confidence and self-trust, and learn how to enter the creative flow more readily.
With love
