The night before a New Moon crescent when there is no moon appearing in the sky, the Balsamic phase, or Dark Moon, is a potent time for inner work, Shadow work, and powerful healing, cleansing, and purifying.  A dip in the ocean or a salt bath can be magical purification.  Cleansing and emptying are called for to clear heavy energies from crystals, tools, and keepsakes.  Of course, powerful drains of this kind that “wipe the slate clean” will need recharged or uplifted follow-up at the New Crescent (likely the next day) and the Full Moon.
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The Dark Moon energy reminds us of a “hidden phase”, which is also the external mystery.  The empowering, cleansing, and uplifting illuminations of the Full Moon shows us the power of lunar reflective properties – beaming streams of delightful negative ions to us from the flip-side of the sun’s potent positive ions.  The Dark Moon has no such reflection.  It is the covered-over weight of the illusory material of the sun’s positively charged rays.  It is the “hidden in plain sight” wisdom of the inner-knowing of the mysteries of creation and destruction entwined - birth, growth, death, rebirth.

This energy is the time of deep cleaning the residue left behind of that was.  And, more importantly, the wisdom of integrating it into the whole as it is the surface which magnetizes and then reflects.  If the Moon symbolizes inner knowing and inner consciousness, and thoughts and feelings and memories are the current of that stream of consciousness, then we can see the Full Moon’s illumination as the reflection of that stream bringing to fruition, fullness, and enlightenment what the vibrational current of that inner knowing and inner consciousness has magnetized.  Likewise, we can see the Dark Moon’s secret mystery as the bed of the stream of consciousness, mineral-rich and magnetic, over which flows the streams of current thoughts, feelings and memories (the current of the stream of consciousness).  This is where all the silt settles, where all the everything gets stirred up when we go panning for minerals, where all the votive offerings of our trinkets of power lay, where all the charms of our buried and lost powers settle.

The Dark Moon is noted as a wonderful time for cleansing & healing, storytelling, meditation, private journaling, and inward focus.  It is true, that solitude and hidden alone-time is powerful to recharge.  But don’t shy away from opportunities for storytelling, group meditation, a group swim in the ocean or a saltwater pool, or taking turns clearing one another’s homes.

When working by yourself at the Dark Moon, you can still bring “storytelling” as a means to focus with your own inner work and Shadow work.  Often, we work with at least one other person to assist, facilitate, and help us process our Shadow work, explorations of Past Lives, or reclaiming of soul parts, etc. because they can prompt us to process and integrate or offer reassuring support or actually assist in certain techniques like hypnosis and past life regression or soul retrieval.  One powerful practice that you can do on your own is to journal or write your autobiography. 

It’s not necessarily for anyone to read or to publish, rather it’s an exercise in you exploring, identifying, remembering and reframing how you see the events, characters and storyline of your life, how you came to be where you are, what’s important to you, and what was influential in how you think feel and act.  While it is helpful to sometimes have a mentor, advisor, or therapist to help during the process (which could take days or weeks) – especially for integration purposes and a reminder to come back to the present – this exercise can help us sift through thoughts, feelings, and memories and find a sense of cohesion, release, expression.
 
The key is not to just journal or diary your life story per se but, rather, to share it as if you were telling a story – essentially, telling a story of you.  Perhaps imagine yourself as an elder sharing the tale of your life and times with a student, apprentice, scribe or biographer.  Or, you could even think of it as the tale or drama of another character whose main life theme has been woven into a short story.  In this instance, you can translate the power of your emotions and emotional memory into the drama of an objective story about “someone else” which can allow you the opportunity to cleanse resentments, heal hurts, or at least open a space for that to happen by putting a little distance between you and the thoughts, ideas, or memories. The technique of writing about yourself in third-person (and not changing names, dates, or places) is another useful way to objectify your subjective story, turning your autobiography into a biography. 

The entire process, no matter which experiment you try, is a means to express to yourself that you understand and know you.  It’s a way to clear the mental clutter of our perceptions about who we are, where our values came from, how they have evolved, and how we came to be here now getting ready to move forward.  This process can show us our fears, limiting beliefs, deepest desires, truest values, revelations from this life or past lives, reveal habits or patterns that operate without our deliberate intention, and sometimes exorcise a heavier thought-form from our energies. 

Even the writing process, the experience of a kind of “writer’s block”, or the purge of reacting to old memories with laughter or tears, or the avoidance of topics skipping over that person or that year, are facets we can roll with because they are the sign-posts showing us what’s going on – how we draw the map (what we include and omit) is as important as the route we are highlighting with the map we draw.   

In the path to self-knowledge, self-mastery, and self-love… may you reveal your story to yourself and allow it to be okay.  Your Akashic Records are not wrong, so write the book thus far and close the chapter on yesterday and everything before.  You and the life you have lived is valuable.  The Universe wants you, and the world needs you, to be okay with you – because the Universe is within you, and deep down you know that you want you to be okay too. 

And, after the Dark Moon nights, with the rise of the New Crescent, you get to be refreshed, empowered, and rejuvenated.  Absorbing our Shadow and giving it its assigned seat in the living-room of our compassionate heart, integrating the past and its pearls of wisdom – cleaned of all the mud from the bottom of that riverbed of consciousness – and redirecting our focus, attention, insights, and appreciation is how we move forward toward self-mastery.

There is that precept in many spiritual and esoteric traditions, I believe all sourced from The Emerald Tablet, that states, "As above, so below.  As within, so without."  It describes the mirroring principle of the Universe and, in total context, encourages us to work from the inside out in that whatever we say or do we should first "do the inner work" or engage with it energetically, even prior to the rational-planning stages.  The idea and practice of this concept is something many of us aspire to accomplish in our self-mastery process, it's fundamental and basic... and often taken for granted.  The experience of this concept is quite different from understanding it, knowing it, and practicing with it.  And, to experience it consciously & conscientiously, on purpose, at-will, presently, while operating from it... that's the magic.  

One meditative visualization that has served many well is during a grounding and centering practice, which is when it consciously dawned on me that this is what was happening.  It may seem rudimentary and basic, but did you ever learn something or have one of those revelations that hit you like, "Oh! That's what I've been doing this whole time!"  And that is exactly what prompted the writing & sharing of this article.  

A common visualization for grounding and centering is to imagine Divine Light streaming in through the top of your head, filling your body, radiating out into your aura, and pouring from your feet down into the earth.  This is commonly used when calling in healing, protection, magical power, or connecting with Angels and Spirit Guides, etc.  And, that's true whether you are doing it for yourself or channeling in the service of another, such as before doing energy-work, healing, or a psychic reading.  Everyone one is different, but that's the basic visualization many learn first.  

There is also another technique, often used for healing, self-care, and nurturance.  It may also be taught as a technique for grounding and centering, spatial awareness, and protection.  This technique is not about calling in Divine Light from an outside source or the Universe "out there".  It's all about going within and finding that point of connection, the source of Divine Light, within your own Spirit-Mind-Body.  Usually the meditator will then sit with their personal ball of Light energy somewhere in their belly and feed it love and watch it grow until it fills the whole body and every cell.  It can be a powerful experience of Divine love & connection & well-being... literally, a Light feeling. 

Tantric Buddhism teaches a practice of following your body sensations and just observing them - like when you're focusing on your breath and your nose starts to itch, and then a twinge pinches your side, and a tickle dances on the top of your foot, then a shoulder-blade itches.  This Tantric technique teaches to let your awareness follow your body but without responding to it, just observe the energy moving around and use these jumping points like you would the breath as a focus of awareness.  You can then learn more what it's like to observe-without-reacting to thoughts and feelings that wave through you as you sit to quiet yourself and focus. 

Similarly to the Tantric technique, when we put our awareness deep within to or own personal Source of Divine Light, we are presently Spirit-Mind-Body -- grounded, centered, & emanating.  I had a teacher who once said (I'm paraphrasing), "Stay in it. Don't journey back from this energy-space.  Don't close down the visualization."  Usually, we think of closing a meditation or journey with a return to our physical senses and grounding our Spirits back into our Bodies, etc.  Her point was that we went within, we didn't go off anywhere "otherworldly".  We were right here, right now, and the purpose was to shine our light, to bring the Divine out into the world and our lives through this Spirit-Mind-Body system.  It's not like opening the treat, taking a bite, and wrapping it up to hide it away again - like it's a secret stash that would somehow dissipate if revealed.  So, she encouraged us no to force it but to practice just "going there and saying there" or operating from there for as long as we were aware of it.  Practice really does make progress...  

The highlight of all of this really is, that moment of awareness that -- "Oh, this works because I AM it, not because I called it.  I don't ever have to be 'ungrounded' unless I am operating the system manually instead of automatically."  It was a big moment because I experienced it - simultaneously aware of the feeling of it, action of it, and intellectual understanding of it.  And, so, the words that rang through the experience were, "As within, so without".  

Peace & Lughnasadh Blessings, Everyone!