First Dark Moon of 2024: Set your intention

Hello & Happy New Year :)

The Dark Moon is upon us on January 10/11 and it is the first one of the year. Dark Moons days are akin to us being in the womb, incubating to explode into light and life. A wonderful time to uncover, discover, marinate, polish what holds most meaning for you at this point in your journey and set an intention to manifest.

AN INTENTION IS DEEPER THAN A RESOLUTION.

IT COMES FROM HONESTY & TOUCHING YOUR AUTHENTICITY.

IT IS DRIVEN BY A STRONG NEED FOR TRANSFORMATION.

THE LOGIC AND ANALYSIS OF THE MIND, COMBINED WITH THE KNOWING, THE INTUITION THAT IS BIRTHED IN THE QUIET IS WHAT GUIDES YOU TOWARDS YOUR INTENTION.

There are two ways you can approach your practice today:

A. If you have no starting point, have no idea of what you need to focus on, I would recommend a guided meditation on my YouTube channel which helps you to uncover your purpose. Start the video at 2.14 minutes. Repeat the meditation over 3 days.

B. If you are a left-brained, structure-loving, method-oriented person who already has some idea of the direction that you'd like to proceed in, the process below will work for you. (Had put this together in mid 2023 and found it to be quite a powerful process.)

How to arrive at, set and work towards manifesting your intention?

1. Reflect | Journal

2. Embrace Quiet - Meditate to tap into intuition & allow insights to surface

3. Revisit Reflection, Set intention

4. Review consistently

1. Reflect | Journal

Once you have set aside some time and space for this Intention Ritual, get right down to it. Centre yourself and let your mind look back at your life, judgements aside. Examine the different areas of life. Here is a little guide that can help you with this. Think & WRITE DOWN your thoughts, realizations, mullings - I say write down because it really channelizes your thoughts and brings in clarity. Be brutally honest with yourself! Where do you see the need for change, fresh energy?

2. Embrace Quiet - Meditate to tap into intuition & allow insights to surface

Now, keep your writing aside and allow it all to settle.

You could either sit with a straight spine or lie down (provided you do not sleep!)

Ask the Dark moon energies to guide you and Mother Earth to support you in the ritual.

Run awareness through your body and consciously relax all parts. Make sure your palms and fingers, feet and toes and the tongue specially are absolutely still.

Use your breath as an anchor and let that be the only focus. All other thinking, ideas, plans can wait. Instead of just a breath focus, you could chant too, if that works better for you. Inhale and as you exhale, chant Om or just the humming 'mmmm' sound (Makara). Do either breath or chant 21 times.

Keep a gentle awareness at the eyebrow centre. Inhale and exhale 21 times.

Sit in silence and stillness for sometime with no expectations, just being.

3. Revisit Reflection, Set intention

When you feel ready, open your eyes.

Open a fresh page of your journal and simply write without thinking, whatever is intuitively coming up for you. If nothing surfaces use a prompt 'I am...' or 'In this moment I feel...'. Write continuously for 3-4 minutes.

Close eyes, take a few breaths to honour this experience.

Open the first reflection page and watch what thoughts you have on the same.

Compare both the writings, before and after the meditation.

Spend some time narrowing down, arriving at your intention.

Write it down as a single statement in the present continuous tense, as it you have already achieved or manifested it. For eg:

'I pause and breathe before responding.'

'I make time for gardening.'

'I ask for help when I need it.'

'I focus on one task at a time.'

I would recommend writing it down on a large piece of paper in big letters to place it where you see it often.

Close the ritual by offering gratitude to the Dark Moon and Mother Earth.

4. Review consistently

This is the most important piece :)

Obstacles are bound to happen! Challenges are inevitable. Self doubts will surface. And this is where we hold space for ourselves with patience, kindness and compassion.

The universe has to be sure that you are sure of your intention :) So you will be tested. Do not give up at the first sign of adversity. Tell yourself - "Ah here is the first challenge, it was bound to come up. Let me breathe, quieten down and see what I can do to overcome this." It is likely that you are in a 'two steps forward, one step back' scenario many times. That is still progress, so don't beat yourself up! Rely on silence for guidance. And if the challenges just do not stop, do not hesitate to question your intention too! This again could be a sign that some resetting is needed - you can then revisit this whole process.

TRUST YOUR JOURNEY, RELY ON YOUR INTUITION, STAY COMMITTED

Wish you all a deeply gratifying practice and year! May your intentions come to manifest and your purpose make you come alive!

Hugs, love & gratitude :)

Sheetal