Gui Mao + The Way of Water
the teachings of water, tea and community entering the lunar new year
As we make the final approach towards Gui Mao (Yin Water Rabbit Year in the Chinese Lunar calendar) and this year’s first new moon, the presence of Water, and her everlasting teachings, are all around me. The new moon is an invitation, and ultimately, a gift, to you. She darkens the sky, making space for our thoughts, emotional curiosity, as well as for the stories of the night - constellations dotting the heavens and lighting a path for our own stories to surface. Within that darkened world, the internal having rotated inwards and the moonlight subdued, we are drawn to the watery elements: mystery, sensuality, birth, healing, emotion, patience, and shadows.
The moon is curiously connected to water - the tides at her mercy, the water within us also paying heed to the movement of the Night Light. It is said that that is why humans feel the change of the moon phases so physically, the moon actually shifts the water within our cells. Her ways are mysterious, and yet, plain for the world to see.
The miracles of water are so tangible and practical that we are constantly forgetting, and even dismissing, the magic. A baby exists for months in her watery shelter, her first home. She does not breathe, but exists suspended, fed by her mother and cradled by pelvis and amniotic fluid, bone and water. The ionization at the shoreline of the ocean actually changes our biochemistry and hormonal composition - meaning that the ocean heals us on a molecular level. The path of water is so patient that centuries of rivers flowing, finding their way, carve the great canyons of this planet. Water nourishes our organs, our food, our food’s food, and provides for the trees that make the air we breathe. Its immense, these miracles. Perhaps their enormity is what makes them so tempting to dismiss. What would the world feel like if we were in a constant state of awe, continually amazed at the elemental magic of water? The overwhelm of our wonder, our curiosity, almost seems incomprehensible. And yet, at the same time, seemingly the medicine we all need.
In my own soul and body this watery new moon season has provided its own medicine, that which I have deeply needed: the ability to surrender joyfully to my own alone-ness, and the energy and willingness to wake early to sit with tea each morning.
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