The Mourning Moon

1st Celtic Lunar Month
A Gentle Descent Into Stillness and Soul-Remembering
​
I release with reverence.
I soften into stillness.
What is ready to fall away, I let go.
What is meant to rise, I welcome.

The dark night draws in and the portal of Samhain still gently holds our presence. The full moon that follows is the first moon of the Celtic new year. The threshold moon.The one who greets us not with fireworks, but with stillness, with truth, with the quiet work of tending what remains. Here, under the Mourning Moon, we begin again not by rushing forward, but by honouring all we carry. This moon does not ask for brightness. It asks for honesty. For breath. For hands resting over heart, listening to the echoes of a year just lived. We start the new cycle the way seeds begin - in the dark, in the hush, in the soft underground where roots gather strength. Let this moon hold your ache and your gratitude, your endings and your beginnings, your longing and your courage. May you greet this tender turning with kindness for all you have survived, and faith in what is quietly forming inside you now. Blessed Mourning Moon, first light of the year, guide us inward, and carry us gently toward what comes next.
The Mourning Moon continues to carry the lantern that guides us through the dark half of the year. Illuminating the hidden, ancestral, and inner worlds which become more easily accessible at this time. As the night brings silent contemplation we have space to process grief, integrate ancestral wisdom, and release what no longer serves, letting the lessons of the departed settle within. The Mourning Moon offers her comfort, shining her soft moonbeams highlighting the inner shadow, bringing clarity, and a chance to reflect, embody, and begin planning the inner work of winter.
We begin the descent into darkness of winter, symbolically death and rest. The full moon emphasises the phases of this cycle: endings, mourning, and the gestation of new life or insight. Like the Yew tree, it is both dark and full of latent potential.

At Samhain we celebrated with outward ritual and interaction with liminal forces, the following full moon is ideal for internal work, integrating grief, observing the body’s responses, and anchoring lessons in the nervous system, heart, and spirit.
The Mourning Moon rises as the chill of winter begins to settle in, when daylight slips away earlier each evening and the natural world begins to turn inward.
Within many contemporary Pagan and earth-based traditions, this moon marks a period for release, a time to gently set down what has grown heavy, to honour grief, and to make space by letting go of habits, emotions, or stories that no longer support our path.
It is a moon of thresholds: standing between the last warmth of the year and winter’s stillness, between light and shadow, activity and rest.
Its energy invites not sorrow for what has passed, but a tender kind of completion, a conscious softening and clearing, an honouring of what has shaped us as we prepare to enter the quiet season that follows.

The Mourning Moon rises as autumn exhales her final breath, a pale lantern in the thinning veil, soft as ancestral footsteps and steady as the pulse beneath the earth.
This is the moon of letting go, when the land folds into stillness and the old stories loosen their hold. Here, we stand in sacred pause, not rushing toward rebirth, not forcing light before its hour, but honouring the ache of endings, the quiet dignity of grief, the slow unthreading of what has run its course. Under this moon, the soul learns to soften. We are asked to unclench, to trust the wisdom of release, to name what no longer fits and set it gently down. It is not a moon of despair, but of hushed devotion to the holy work of surrender.

The ancestors draw close now: not as ghosts to fear, but as keepers of bone-memory, guides who remind us that every falling leaf is a vow whispered back into the roots, life returning to life, story returning to silence, seed dreaming in the dark.
We tend the hearth of our hearts. We make space. We grieve,  not to drown, but to clear the waters for what will one day bloom again.

The Mourning Moon is a teacher of thresholds….It whispers…..

To release is not to lose yourself.
To bow to endings is to honour beginnings not yet born.
Emptiness is not absence, it is readiness.

May we meet this moon with reverence, breath slow, body softened, one hand on our heart, one on the unseen thread that ties us to the ones before us and the ones yet to come.
In the hush of this moon’s silver gaze, we remember…
Nothing truly ends.
It only changes form.
And in the quiet dark,
new life gathers its courage to rise.

Journaling Prompts

• What am I being invited to lay down at the threshold of this new cycle?
• Where is grief living in my body right now, and what does it want me to know?
• Which beliefs, patterns, or stories feel ready to soften, dissolve, or be thanked and released?
• What part of my life is quietly asking for closure or completion?
• Where am I sensing space opening, an inner clearing for what is yet to come?
• What wisdom has my grief gifted me this past year?
• Which ancestral strengths would support me in this season of letting go?
• What does rest mean for me at this point on my path?
• If I trusted the wintering process, how would I move, breathe, and tend to myself?

Somatic Practice: Softening Into Letting Go
Intention:
To meet what is ready to release with compassion, and to offer the body safety in loosening its hold.
Time:
10–15 minutes

1. Arrival - Settling the Waters
Find a seat or lie down.
Let your spine soften like a tree entering winter, not collapsing, simply easing its guard.
Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly.
Breathe slowly through the nose, letting your exhale fall long and low.
Whisper inside yourself:
I am safe to rest here.
Allow your weight to be held by the earth beneath you.
Feel yourself as creature, tender, embodied, welcomed.

2. The Softening Breath
Inhale gently through the nose.
Exhale through the mouth like fog lifting from a winter lake.
Inhale: receive
Exhale: release, not forced, just allowed
With each breath, let shoulders melt, jaw loosen, belly expand.
Nothing to fix. Only softening.

3. Palms of Release
Bring your hands forward, palms up, a gesture of offering.
Sense the space around your hands, the air touching skin.
Ask quietly:
Body, what are you carrying that is ready to soften?
You do not need words.
Let sensation answer, warmth, tightness, tingling, a sigh.

4. Gentle Pouring
Turn the palms slowly downward, as though allowing water to pour from them.
Feel gravity as a companion.
Let the exhale lengthen as palms turn, a surrender, a loosening.
What leaves me creates space for what may yet arrive.
Do this three times, slowly, with presence.

5. Returning to Belonging
Place palms on the body, anywhere that calls.
Thighs. Belly. Heart. Cheeks.
Let contact be comfort, not correction.
Whisper:
I honour what has been. I make space for rest. I am held.
Take three quiet breaths into the place beneath your palms.
6. Closing
Gently blink the eyes open.
Notice the room, the season, the stillness.
Offer yourself gratitude for meeting this moment with softness.
The Mourning Moon asks not for effort, but for permission to ease.

Mourning Moon Ritual - The Threshold of Release
Purpose:
To acknowledge what is ending, honour what has shaped us, and create space for winter’s stillness and inner renewal.
Time:
20–30 minutes
Items (optional):

• A candle (preferably white or deep purple / dark red)
• A small bowl of water
• A stone or piece of natural material to represent release
• Paper + pen (optional)
• Soft blanket or shawl

Setting:
Somewhere quiet, inside or outdoors.
Dim the lights or sit near twilight if possible.
1. Opening the Space
Sit comfortably, feet or seat grounded.
Place one hand on your heart, one on belly.
Breathe slowly, deep in, long out.
Whisper:
I stand at the threshold
Between what has been and what wishes to rest.
Light the candle.

2. Naming What Has Ended
Take the stone in your hands.
Close your eyes and feel its weight.
Ask:
What am I carrying that is ready to lay down?
What season in me is closing?
Let one truth rise, no force, only listening.
You may speak it aloud or silently.
If writing, place the words beneath the stone.

3. Water of Mourning and Memory
Dip your fingers in the bowl of water.
Gently touch your heart, your brow, or your hands.
Say:
For what has shaped me.
For what I release with reverence.
For what remains as wisdom.
Allow any emotion to be welcome, tears, calm, warmth, nothing at all.
The body will choose its own way.

4. Offering to the Quiet Season
Hold the stone once more.
With a slow exhale, place it down, on the earth, beside the candle, or in a small bowl.
As you release it, speak:
I lay this down.
May rest come.
May peace root where sorrow once stood.
Wrap yourself in the blanket or shawl, a soft cloak of wintering.
Feel held.
5. Seal the Ritual
Cup your hands around your heart.
Breathe three slow breaths.
Say:
I honour endings.
I honour the stillness.
I honour the seeds sleeping in the dark.
Blow out the candle, or leave it to burn safely as a vigil.
Sit for a moment in the hush that follows.

Aftercare...
Drink warm tea.
Eat something nourishing.
Move slowly.
The Mourning Moon invites tenderness, not urgency.
​
Mourning Moon Celtic Blessing
By the turning of the year, by the shadow and the light,
May your heart be held in the quiet of the night.
By the silver of the moon, by the hush of falling leaves,
May your grief be honoured, your spirit eased.
By the roots of the Yew, old and wise,
May you find strength in endings, and wisdom in what dies.
By the waters of the well, deep and still,
May your tears flow freely, bringing release and gentle will.
By the ancestors’ gaze, watching through time,
May you be comforted, may your soul remember the rhyme.
By shadow and silence, by the threshold you cross,
May you be renewed, finding peace amidst loss.
In this turning toward winter, I honour what has been,
release what no longer serves, and soften into the quiet wisdom of the season

Mourning Moon - first moon of the Celtic New Year