Awe Practice #1

Start with tonight's full moon!

This practice should be easy, especially if you live in a place where skies are likely to be clear tonight. For tonight is the full moon! So, you could begin this practice of awe by just looking at the full moon. And letting her beauty make its way through your sense of sight into every cell. Do this by breathing in the beauty of the moon.

Now, involve your other senses. What’s the temperature of the air where you’re doing your moon gazing? How does the air feel on your skin? What does it feel like to inhale it through your nostrils? Take in any scents the night presents. What do you hear if you listen closely? Draw all this sensory info into every cell, imagining your sensory intake like food that is nourishing you. For if you take the time to let it imprint, it is nourishing you.

Think of how much you’ve probably allowed all the negative, horrifying things going on in the world imprint on your system. Can you let the beauty of the night have a turn? Even if the moon isn’t visible where you are, you can imagine her, and then experience awe at your ability to imagine what is really there, but currently invisible.

You are a creature whose imagination is a gorgeous gift. The animals out there in the night probably don’t have the same abilities you do. Give a breath of gratitude. Gratitude and awe are sisters.

For those who follow astrology, the moon is in Leo, which can lead you to believing in your radiance, your creative abilities, and your leadership. And it’s reached its Gibbous phase, which means whatever you’ve been developing is reaching fullness. Take in whatever fullness, whatever sense of completion you can muster and simply feast on that mini-harvest. You might contemplate on whatever has been particularly fulfilling this month, and where you’d like to make refinements.

So far, this practice has been about the senses and the mind. If you want to take it deeper, go inside and really feel whatever awe is present in your heart. What is reverberating in your heart about this moon, this night? What emotions are present? There might be a mixture. And can you dare to go deeper into those? And simply be with them without judging? This would be a great act of self-acceptance and self -love.

That is where we must begin if we are to stand for love, for peace, for harmony and beauty. Now see if you can walk into your next activity and into your next days, walking in Beauty. Beauty before you, beauty behind you. Beauty all around you, as the Dine prayer says.

And, if you have a dinner date or stormy weather and can’t experience the full moon, other nights count too! The energy of the full moon will be with us for days. And her beauty is always available to take in if we only take a moment and a breath.

That is awe-some.