Inviting the catch + release

On calling in new rhythms

So I have had this idea percolating on the backburner for a couple weeks, which is usually a pretty good indication that it needs more shape or form, if only to get it out of my mind-body.

This idea was borne out of the question, “what if I trusted a rhythm other than the calendar?”

See, I need structure. I am discovering just how MUCH I need structure, as I have let the past year strip away what has come before, which was a lot of overwork, overmeetings, overscheduling, micromanagement — of myself, mind you. I have been self-employed for five years, but when still working mainly with corporations, you learn to live by their cadence. They shape you back as much as you try to shape them.

There is value in strategizing your way to a goal, yes, and there is also the hemmed-in version of strategizing that emerges from a culture of doing too much, too fast, always. Where you literally don’t have the space to step back and do true vision setting because you’re locked into commitments from the board and a growth trajectory that must go up up up every quarter, like clockwork. Ugh. Just thinking about it gives me an allergic reaction, in part due to overexposure. A terrible way to live and design our plans from and we all just…keep doing it.

So fuck that. I didn’t decide to become my own boss so I could replicate these shitty systems of harm that have become the institutional default onto the micro scale of myself, my relationships with others, my tender dreams, my body. And my suspicion is that a lot of us take this rigidly-structured approach to our personal goals, especially if we’ve been conditioned in the rat race for a while. Our nervous systems become organized that way, and we’re taught to think about goals as SMART, which lol, what a name, it’s anything but. A head-centered approach that is alienated from the experience of what it is like, for you, the changeable person living inside these goals, day in, day out. No wonder we give up on so many of the intentions set at new years.

The last year, I’ve found a lot of meaning in noticing the shifts in my experience alongside my menstrual cycle. It’s hormonal, sure, but more than that, it’s the shifts in my capacity for discomfort, my sociability, my creativity, my pain tolerance. There are folks doing creative, compassionate and thoughtful work in this field and I’d highly recommend you explore, if you happen to be a menstruating human.

And, AND I want to find something more communal. A collective rhythm to hold onto, like a trellis of the seasons, like the tulips know when it’s their time to break through the soil and the apples know it’s time the blossoms can fade away. So, I’m landing on the moon.

My strategy for this moon practice, which I’ve been calling Catch + Release, will be:

• For new moons, to speak to what I’m inviting more awareness of. What do I want to cultivate? What seed am I planting, into the dark? Where in my life feels like it needs more tending and focus? 🌚

• For full moons, to speak to what needs less awareness now. What needs releasing? What is illuminated and bright, and has maybe reached its culmination?Where have I had enough? What needs celebration and acknowledgement before it can be let go? 🌝

This is no new wisdom — it is rooting into the traditional knowledge of Indigenous people who timed crops and festivals with the moon, of astrologers who tell stories about our collective experiences with the waxing and waning of our orbiting friend. She keeps us company and guards our promises and secrets when we look out on the sky. She moves asynchronously from the schedules of days and weeks and months and years as decided by some dudes a few centuries ago.

She is constant, the moon. She does her work whether you pay attention or not.

On this night, the moon was so bright I was roused out of a dead sleep. Photo by Amanda Caswell.

Many of the ways we notice and talk about the moon are on a pretty short time horizon, just month to month. One of the things I like in the storytelling of astrology is the length of time horizon for the moon’s themes — six months! For example, today’s new moon is in Sagittarius, and the next full moon in Sagittarius will be in May. In two weeks, the full moon will be in Cancer, the culmination of intentions planted in back in July 2023. This is also the value in having a regular journalling practice, as an act of data gathering so you can see what might have had emphasis for you in the past.

This seems a much more gentle and generative time horizon to be working on, honestly. How much can one realistically do in a month? In two weeks, even, if we’re looking new moon to full moon? It’s a very short timeline, and to expect change in that time period seems rooted in the same extractive issues of sprint life and grind culture.

Because I suspect this is the crux of the problem — we live in a culture that glorifies more, and resists less. That is terrified, terrified, of scarcity and so we are trained to gather up our resources like hungry little dragons and there is not enough, there will never be enough, so more is always better, and that’s just the way it is. Lynne Twist writes so elegantly on this, in her marvellous book The Soul of Money:

Can we recognize that better comes from not more, but in deepening our experience of what’s already there? Rather than growth being external in acquiring and accumulating money or things, can we redefine growth to see it as a recognition of and appreciation for what we already have?… To access that experience of enough, however, we have to be willing to let go—let go of a lifetime of scarcity’s lessons and lies.

We cannot just invite in more. We must be willing to release to create the space for what is here to root, to flourish, to have the resources to grow well, to grow with ease, to become sufficient.

So, for today, for this new moon, I invite in soft structure, changeable structure, predictable structure, like a handwoven basket to gather my noticings. I invite in a practice of more consistent and public writing. I invite in a practice of sharing what I’m learning. I invite in a natural rhythm that is already here, shaping the tides and the tides of my body, it too made mostly of water. I choose to notice more closely how this practice of noticing might shape me.

For you, on this new moon, what are you calling in? I’d love to hear what you might want to draw closer into your awareness over the next little while.

Other things

🎴 My books are open for tarot readings!

I’ve never opened these widely before, so this feels like a vulnerable and tender new beginning too. I’m offering both readings for your year, which are 60mins. on Zoom together, with a recording of our chat, and readings for your moment, which are an asynchronous voice memo + photo walking through your reading. Both come with follow up journal questions to continue deepening into what comes up. Both available as gifts! These will be limited as I’ll be travelling over the holidays, but there’s plenty of space around the new year, and my intention is to offer these both year-round. You can learn more and book at amandacaswell.com/tarot.

🎧 Music for finding flow

One of my favourite things about hosting a weekly co-focus space is choosing what music we’re going to listen to. Recent picks for your focus or chill vibes: Lucha by Y La Bamba, Hijos Del Sol by Hermanos Gutiérrez, Apricity by Aukai.