Combining the Seasons with the Moon
How I plan and track using the Seasons and Moon Cycles
Happy Wednesday dear ones! In this week’s letter, you’ll learn about…
✍️How I plan and track using the Seasons and Moon Cycles
🖋️ Spring Season Journaling Prompts for Well-being
🧭 My WeatherVane: Weekly mumbles & (personal) updates
📖 The Seasons and Moon Cycles
A few letters back, I wrote about Cyclical living, why I “use” the cycles of nature, and my experience so far.
Please keep in mind that Cyclical Living can be simple and complex at the same time, so I’ll do my best to keep today’s letter as simple as possible. It’s complex because we are no longer used to working, aligning, and flowing with (our inner) nature. It can feel complex and daunting because it has so many elements, cycles, spirals, and much more compared to the linear thinking (and living) we have been brought up with.
As I wrote in my last letters in My WeatherVane section, I’ve been busy creating and working with my first official Seasonal Workbook: Spring Edition where I, for now, only work with one Season and the Moon Cycles for a specific period. My first workbook has 60 pages already and I am not done yet! as I still need to add two more moon cycles and the ending pages for Spring.
I see each season as a big umbrella and underneath this seasonal umbrella, there are three moon cycles. Doing so means I get:
Spring season 2024: March, 20th
1st Spring Moon Cycle: March, 10th, 2024
2nd Spring Moon Cycle: April, 8th, 2024
3rd Spring Moon Cycle: May, 8th, 2024
As you can see the 1st Spring Moon Cycle starts earlier than Spring Equinox and this works fantastically. Why? Because this time gives me bout 10 days to prepare myself and my workbook. I also see March as already springtime - the weather is changing and you can see nature sprouting - so, I see this 1st Spring Moon Cycle as a cycle of Seasonal Transition.
I also use the Gregorian calendar as a reference point but this calendar does not lead the workbook, rather it complements the Moon and Seasons.
I use this period between the start of the new moon cycle and the start of the season as a brainstorming period.
What do I want to do during this season? What are my intentions and goals? What is my why behind each intention and goal?
This is also the period I print all my pages and add dates where needed and decorations. I write the actual intentions, goals, projects, and tasks in this period too so when the season starts I’m ready.
Finally, I decide which tasks I’ll work on during the 1st moon cycle of that season. I, then, move these tasks to the action step page under that 1st moon cycle.
Of course, as soon as the 1st moon cycle starts, I start tracking as well. Down below you can read more about this.
Why do I use these cycles instead of the regular date calendar?
Of course, there are more cycles than these two cycles, but for me, these are currently the best cycles for planning, organizing, tracking, and journaling my life. And that’s exactly the point: organizing, planning, tracking, and journaling my life.
Regular organization and planner systems only include the Gregorian Calendars and work therefore in a linear manner. This type of system has never worked for me. They are dry and boring, to say the least. Also, constantly working in a linear manner doesn't allow us to respect our energy levels, and natural rhythms, to feel & see momentum, to acknowledge and harvest, to rest and reflect. Instead, it expects us to monotonally be ‘on’ 24/7, 365 days a year.
Working with linear planning, linear thinking, and linear living has made me get stuck, unmotivated, drained, burned out, depressed, anxious, and sick just to name a few.
Working and aligning with the Seasons and Moon Cycles has taught me when to plan, when to take action, when to celebrate, when to reflect, and when to rest. More on that, next week!
Tracking is Essential
Understanding the energetics of each Season and the energetics of the Moon signs and phases is incredibly important. However, this is not enough! Tracking is essential. Not everyone feels inspired during Spring, full of energy during Summer, fulfilled during Autumn, or wanting to go inward during Winter. And the same applies to the Moon phases.
When tracking our energy level, our mood, our bodies, our sleep, the days we feel inspired when we are productive, etc, and then, comparing this with the seasons and the moon, after a while, we’ll start to see rhythms and patterns. That’s why I already have 60 pages in my Seasonal Workbook so far.
So, if you’d like to start working with Cyclical Living, I’d recommend starting with tracking yourself and your life each day.
You can track about anything!
If you need some inspiration here are a few elements you can track:
Mood
Energy levels
Productivity
Inspiration
Sleep Hygiene (including dreams)
Workouts
Ideas
Body check-in (sick days, discomforts, menstruation cycle)
Aphephanies
Symbols, messages, and totems
Besides just tracking and working with a few keywords I’d also recommend diving deeper, especially if you feel something is important. This is when journaling comes into play. If I have an idea on a certain day, I make sure I not only track it but I also will write what the idea is. Otherwise, I’ll definitely forget about it.
Expecting to be inspired and have ideas every day or on command leads to disappointment. Instead, knowing roughly when ideas hit, will make preparation and planning ahead possible.
Where do I find all the Seasonal & Moon Cycle dates?
It is important to know when each season starts. Then, I look for the Moon Cycles. Keep in mind that moon cycles follow their own shorter cycles, and as mentioned earlier, they often start earlier than a new season.
I search all of these data on astro-seek.com. Here, you can go to the tap “Moon Phase Calendar” and the tap “Astro Tool”. Next, select monthly and annual astro calendar. The great thing about this site is that you can add your location and it will calculate all the dates and times they have for almost everything including moon phases and seasons.
Next week, we’ll pick up this further, and I’ll tell you how to use the moon phases when working on goals or specific life areas.
Some additional reading:
Embracing Cyclical Living
https://yourweathervane.substack.com/p/embracing-cyclical-living
The Art of Journaling in a Holistic Manner
https://yourweathervane.substack.com/p/the-art-of-journaling-in-a-holistic
It all started with the Moon
https://yourweathervane.substack.com/p/it-all-started-with-the-moon
Entering Spring Season
https://yourweathervane.substack.com/p/entering-spring-season
🖋️ Spring Season Journaling Prompts
What does your body crave right now?
What are your needs?
Do your needs align with your current priorities?
What does self-care mean to you?
Feel free to share your theory/hypothesis and reflections in the comments:
🧭 WeatherVane’s Flow: Weekly mumbles & (personal) updates
Today I want to share a bit of my own experience with tracking.
I’ve been tracking on and off for many years, but since my body has made a huge reset with all the treatments, I had to start all over. And yes, there have been some big changes so far.
Not only seeing and understanding my inner rhythms and patterns but also learning to respect myself. You see, I kind of always prioritize what’s happening outside of me because this is how I was brought up and some habits are really hard to shake off.
And there I was this last week planning and creating several to-do lists accordingly to the moon phase, last week’s phase being the Waxing Gibbous Moon Phase, which is a phase of acceleration, gaining momentum, and taking action at full speed. However, I found myself having my MoonTime - aka getting my menstruation - and finding out an old colleague two years younger than I, had passed away from a short but heavy illness. Both were not only on the same day but actually at the same time - maybe 15 minutes apart - while the moon was still in the sign of Cancer.
The news shook me to my core, feeling so sad for her and her family and at the same time triggering my own traumas. These emotions together with my Moontime, which are by themselves already filled and fueled by emotions, my energy levels came to practically zero. Not only that, but I was also feeling weird and dizzy for days. I had no choice but to surrender to what I was feeling, not only mentally and emotionally but physically as well.
I cried and rested a lot.
And I had to abandon all my plans and endeavors for the entire week
Cyclical Living Lessons:
Your inner rhythms may not match the external natural rhythms and when this is the case, listening to your own needs and respecting yourself is a priority.
Sometimes life happens, and life doesn't always respect the nature of cycles or the phase we are at. Sometimes things happen unexpectedly and it’s okay to pause and recover even though we are not ‘in the right phase’.
The trick to Cyclical Living is soft anticipation and therefore creating a way of planning that is not rigid, but actually fluid in nature. By this I mean, we have a clear picture of what needs to be done and have a clear time frame but we also feel and assess ourselves first every single day and then see which of our tasks we can do on that day.
I hope you enjoyed today’s letter. Please feel free to leave a comment down below. Your love and comments mean so much to me.
📩 Upcoming Letter
✍️ Diving deeper into the Moon Cycles & Phases
🖋️ Moon Journaling Prompts
🧭 My WeatherVane: Weekly mumbles & (personal) updates
🌬️ Sending you magic & healing your way,
-Vane