New Moon — The Heart of Belonging
- 3 days ago
- 5 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 this month is: The Heart of Belonging
Our mantra is:
I look into my heart
And I am at home
“The river is sick.”
She turned towards me before sweeping her arm across the broad expanse of waterways.
It was late in the dry season, the build-up to the wet. The water was low, revealing thick clay banks along the edges. Birds gathered on the shoreline while crocodiles drifted silently through the still water. Mats of invasive weeds spread across the brown surface.
“The river is sick,” she repeated.
There was an edge of authority to her voice.
I stood silently beside her, looking across the wetlands.
I had seen the weeds.
I had noticed the low water and its colour.
Now I saw it through her eyes.
“I remember when I was a girl, running across the waterlilies to the crocodile nests to steal the eggs while those crocs were away hunting.”
She fell silent for a moment, looking across the brown water.
“And there are too many boats going out every day. The water is so low. Yellow Water — Ngurrungurrudjba — can’t sustain this. It needs to be left alone. There’s no respect.”
She wasn’t simply describing the condition of the river. She was speaking from a relationship of deep respect and reciprocity, sustained over a lifetime. She had grown up on this Country. She knew its seasons, its rhythms, its waterways. She knew its life. She was speaking from a living relationship with Country.
That moment has stayed with me.
It deepened the way I understood belonging.
Belonging is already woven into life
We are not separate from life. We are participants in it. As we deepen our relationships—with ourselves and with all life—our sense of belonging naturally grows.
Knowing where we come from is part of our identity and our sense of safety. In the modern world, many people have lost or been separated from that connection.
At the heart of belonging is the understanding that all life belongs, including ourselves.
Every being — every river, forest, bird, insect, mountain and person — exists within a web of relationships that sustains life. Relationship is the foundation of life.
Reciprocity is how those relationships remain in balance and life continues to flourish.
Many of us today carry a deep longing for belonging and healing. Beneath that longing is often a desire to feel safe, grounded and at home within ourselves.
We live between two worlds: our inner world and the living world around us. Our lives express the relationship between them.
The spiritual heart is our inner home. As we become more at home within ourselves, our awareness of our belonging to life deepens. It is the place within us where trust, presence, wisdom and love reside. The place where all our inner resources come together. As we tend this inner world, we cultivate a deeper sense of belonging within ourselves.
And this inner home naturally reaches towards an outer home.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of the rock pools of Cornwall. I can still smell the fresh salty air and hear the cries of the seagulls as they soared on the air currents or fought over chips and bread crusts. I will never forget the feeling of wonder as I explored that shoreline.
Soon afterwards we came to Australia, where I first encountered the Southern Ocean. My heart was lifted in wonder. I recognised it immediately as the place where I belonged. It was a knowingness. A feeling I couldn’t yet articulate.
Perhaps you have a place like that too.
A river.
A stretch of coastline.
A mountain.
A forest.
A garden.
A place where something within you settles, where the world feels familiar and where you experience a deep sense of ease and belonging.
Perhaps your heart recognised something there that words could not yet express.
Wonder often opens that doorway, deepening our relationship with life and, at the same time, opening us more fully to ourselves.
Belonging is not something we search for. It is something we cultivate.
As our sense of belonging deepens, so too does our desire to care for and protect the life around us.
Through deep, respectful and reverent relationships—with ourselves and with all life—we become active participants in its flourishing.
This relationship is never one-sided.
Every breath reminds us of that.
We receive life with every in-breath.
We give ourselves back to life with every out-breath.
Giving and receiving.
Receiving and giving.
Participation.
Reciprocity.
Belonging.
This month is an invitation to deepen your relationship with life. To cultivate belonging through attention, reverence and reciprocity. Not by searching for somewhere else to be, but by recognising the relationships that already sustain you.
Reflection
Take some time to journal with the following questions.
What is my earliest memory of feeling captivated by life?
What place has given me the deepest sense of belonging?
What relationships nourish my heart and strengthen my sense of being at home in the world?
Where am I being invited to deepen my relationships—with myself and with all life?
What does reciprocity look like in my life at this time?
THE PRACTICE
Creating an Earth Altar of Wild Beauty
Create a simple Earth altar that reflects your own wild nature.
Find a place outside where you feel part of the life around you.
Gather treasures over the next few days, during your walks and time outdoors — a feather, shell, fallen leaf or flower, stone, seed pod, piece of bark, branch. Let your heart lead you rather than searching for particular objects. You may discover something entirely different from what you imagined.
Before taking anything, look carefully. Is it still supporting another form of life? Is it sheltering insects or already becoming part of another cycle? Ask if it is okay to take it, then listen for a yes or a no.
You may wish to include your handprints, footprints, a weathered fragment of clay or pottery, or another natural object that expresses your own relationship with this place.
Allow the altar to reflect your own wild beauty as well as the beauty of the Earth.
As you place each piece on your altar, spend a few moments acknowledging where it has come from and the relationships that have sustained it.
You may also wish to make a simple offering to the spirit of the land — a prayer, an act of care, a moment of gratitude, tending the place, leaving a bowl of milk and a little honey, or another gesture that expresses respect and reciprocity.
When your altar feels complete, leave it as it is.
Return to it over the next few weeks leading to the full moon and simply observe.
Wind, rain, sun, insects, animals and time will all become part of its story.
Nothing needs to remain unchanged for it to be beautiful or meaningful.
Each object is precious because of the life it has lived, not because we possess it.
Appreciating things exactly as they are, without needing to hold onto them, brings a profound sense of freedom, presence and belonging.
We do not need to possess what we belong to.
With love
