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Welcome Wolf Moon and a Free Moon Tracker

~ Vicki Oliver ~ Leave a comment

Its the first Full Moon of the year and a Wolf Moon. To celebrate I have created a Lunar/ Moon tracker.

Get your tracker here:

moon-trackerDownload

The tracker contains all 28 phases of the moon from the New Moon, through the Full Moon and full circle towards the next New Moon. There are three circles in the middle for you to track whatever you like! fill in each day with your own score using colours, symbols or numerical scales. Some examples of what to track include:

  • Mood
  • Energy
  • Motivation
  • Pain
  • Menstrual cycle

What will you track with yours? Remember to share them with me by tagging @TheresAWolfAtMyDoor on Instagram.

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New Moon Magic

~ Vicki Oliver ~ Leave a comment

You may have noticed that in my last post I began talking about the moon. Moon magic is something that has interested me for a while and I have been experimenting with over the past 3 or 4 years by paying attention to the cycles and growing my knowledge. I thought I’d share some simple New Moon magical activities with you.

As the majestic moon disappears from our skies many of us will feel extra fatigue (is that possible?!), emotional exhaustion, and a lack of motivation. As a spoonie I’ve learned not to fight this but know that it is a natural state for our bodies to be in. Why not embrace the darkest of the days and rest and recover ready for the cycle to start again a new. I find that understanding my energy has periods of activity and recovery both manageable but also a bacon of hope. Here’s some simple things to do (click each activity to jump to the instructions):

  1. Make intentions for the next phase
  2. Create a New Moon Spell Jar
  3. Set up an energy tracker
  4. Spend some time in your journal
  5. Make a moon mantra

Make intentions for the next phase

One of the simplest things you can do for the next cycle of the moon is set up some intentions. These are things you would like to complete using the cycle of the moon’s energy. I like to keep it very easy and pick no more than three, this isn’t about overloading yourself. This month I am choosing to:
1) Make Christmas Presents
2) Increase my daily activity/ exercise
3) Work on making my home my ‘nest and burrow’ (cosy and nurturing)

You could get really creative here too. It doesn’t have to be a list but could be a collage of images that inspire you or just words and drawings. Do what brings you joy and treasure these plans.

Did you know that it used to be a tradition to hold coins under the light of the emerging new moon? That it was done to improve a financial situation or attract more money. This can be transferred to any area of our lives.

Making a New Moon Spell Jar

A new moon spell jar is a simple spell to bring abundance of the things you want into your life. To make a basic jar all you will need is a jar with a lid and a pen/pencil and paper. Each night before you go to bed write down something that happened that day that you are proud of, or grateful for. Try to think of things that you would like more of. Put them into the jar and sit them on the window sill under the moonlight. As the moon’s energy grows, so will the desires you have in the jar. On the full moon (find out your current moon phase here) open the jar and read to yourself all the wonderful moments and achievements made so far. If you want to make it more powerful add a magnet, piece of quartz or some cinnamon to the jar.

This spell is inspired by the brilliant Semra over at Mama Moon Candles

Set up an energy tracker

For those who journal, or who are just interested to see how their energy waxes and wanes with the moon, setting up a tracker can be a powerful tool. A simple tracker could consist of writing the moon phases out, then scoring your energy that day from 1 to 10. Keep it by your bedside table to remind you each night. Don’t worry if you miss some entries, a few times a week over 3 or 4 months will give you a real insight into what is happening. To make it more complex you could add your moods, feelings or menstrual cycle. I adore Natasha from Foraged Botanical’s menstrual moon tracker:

Spend some time in your journal

The new moon cycle marks the point at which we feel the most stress and find it hard to express our emotions. Some time spent with your journal today could really pay off, whether this is trying to identify which emotions we are feeling and why, or working through a problem. I was once told that you can write absolutely anything ‘as the page can take it’. The page won’t judge you or control you, its space just for you to get rid of some of what you’ve been carrying. Ask yourself these simple questions:
1. What do I want to let go of?
2. What is now unimportant?
3. What is no longer serving me?
4. What is holding me back?
5. What has come to an end?

When you have finished feel free to destroy it by burning the page (be careful and do this somewhere you are not going to set the house alight), or by burying it.

Make a moon mantra

Making a mantra is a form of affirmation that that can be repeated to ourselves to increase our positivity, or to understand ourselves. Unlike positive affirmations they don’t eliminate our negative thoughts but reframe them as a way through a challenging situation or mindset.

Here’s what I do:

  1. Catch your negative thoughts by writing them down when they happen e.g. ‘I haven’t worked out this week and am a lazy person
  2. Begin your sentence with the words “I am’ ‘I want’ or “I need’. Don’t leave room for maybe, we are being definite here. The mantra needs to be about you and not other people.
  3. Use positive words. This may sound fake and feel uncomfortable, but trust me it works. Try to take the negative out of your original statement and turn it into something positive e.g. ‘I am someone who listens to my body and knows when it needs rest or activity’ or more simply “I am in touch with my body and its unique needs’ ‘I need to take time to rest to do more activity in the future’.
  4. Use the present tense. This is about the now, not the past or the future. You are already doing this thing.
  5. Keep it simple, brief and specific. You want to be able to repeat it to yourself.
  6. Making change: If you want to make a change using your mantra try using an action word ending with ‘ing’. e.g I am resting to care for myself. Or ‘I am consciously increasing my activity by a manageable amount each week’
  7. Add emotion: to make the ‘spell’ more powerful add a positive emotion e.g. ‘I am enjoying listening to and looking after my body’

Remember to drop by and share what you are doing this lunar month by leaving a comment. If you have enjoyed reading this post please visit my Patreon and buy me a coffee. It helps towards the running costs of this blog and fuels my writing.

Moon Illustrations by Sarie Oliver (my Sister). Please give her a follow on Instagram. We are aiming to add some limited addition prints and personalised trackers to Patreon soon.

Creating a bedtime routine

~ Vicki Oliver ~ Leave a comment

When the clock struck midnight on 2017 I decided to not make a New Years resolution. In fact at the time I was probably drinking a glass of bubbly and wishing I was in bed already 😂. I decided that this year I would focus on my physical health, which as you may know, is problematic. Instead of overwhelming myself I decided that each month I would set one focus to work on. For the first two months l’ve done Veganuary, and tracked my water intake.

For March the focus was sleep and here’s what I learned by tracking and focusing on it.

Medication

In 2016 I wasn’t sleeping for more than 3 to 4 hours a night due to pain and mental health. Being that sleep deprived does bad things to your wellbeing and even worse things to a body coping with autoimmune. When I went into crisis I was prescribed quetiapine which was great as it knocked me out and calmed the mind. The pay off was sleeping ten hours, not being able to wake up, and being in a constant fog. I’ve had huge meds changes over the past 3 months and dropped down in dosage on tablets that help sleep. This means I’m sleeping less but naturally so this focus has really helped me focus on natural sleep.

Undisturbed sleep

So one of my worst habits is waking up at 3am and staying awake till 7.30 am. When you then want to be up by 9 this is no good. I often need to wee in the night and have a terrible dry and painful mouth. This combined with pain in my knees and ankles due to Behcets, or bursitis on my hips that creates painsomnia, means I just couldn’t get 8 hours sleep. The meds above helped but without them I am the most restless sleeper.

Waking up

So I always aim for the average 8 hours to get up around at about 8am daily. I’d usually use the iPhone bedtime alarm on the clock app but often I wouldn’t fall asleep in time, or I’d not feel refreshed from sleep when I did. I have restless legs syndrome so would find I couldn’t get off to sleep in time. I also used my Fitbit this month to track my sleep and found that my sleep was so restless. Not really a surprise, as I mentioned above, my sleep is so disturbed. But I also realised I wasn’t helping myself as when I woke up I would be tempted to watch something on the iPad to help me get back to sleep but it was doing the reverse.

So after all this trying to focus on the problems I’ve decided to try a different approach. I wanted to make a change to the way I get ready for bed so that I set myself up for a good nights sleep and feel more in control of the individual elements. So I created a bedtime routine and thought I’d share it with you.

Making your own personalised routine

So the first thing I did was to pick a bedtime. I chose 11pm so I could aim to wake up at 7.30am ish. Then I worked back in half an hour blocks to create a plan.

10.30 pm

As this is the bit right before bed so you want to be winding down. Take these moments for a last minute tidy, but nothing rushed or intense. Turn your bedroom back into a tidy sanctuary. I put my clothes in the laundry bin and make sure everything is hung back in into place. My clothes are sorted Marie Kondo style so it’s great to keep it this way. I also tidy away any beauty products and clutter from the day. It’s here I take my bedtime meds and then hop/ into bed with a podcast playing. Oh and I found the best thing for right before you settle down, a pillow spray by Feather and Down that helps you get off to sleep. It makes me breathe deeply to inhale the incredible scent which helps with relaxing. Set up your beside table to make this easier.

10pm

I chose this time to try to empty my head. I try to keep it simple and uncomplicated. In true bullet journal style spill your mind out onto a piece of paper > check your journal > make a to do list for the next day > fill in any habit trackers and memories/ gratitude journals. Finally I pack my bag with any books or letters and post needed for the next day. Set up a place to keep your things for the morning including a charging station for your phone and battery packs etc.

9.30pm

Stretch and move. I find a last bit of activity before bed helps to firstly make you feel like your body is tired and secondly helps hugely with restless legs later on. I love yoga with Adriene.

9pmScreen free time! Try as much as possible to cut out your screen during your routine. This is the hardest thing for me to do but it is well known that the blue light affects both our health and sleep patterns so I’m trying really hard. To force me off I use the app Moment. This sets bot a daily limit and screen free time. Try to do something enjoyable in place of your phone so you don’t get tempted. Like reading a chapter of that book you’ve not got round to, or grab that colouring book you were given in 2015 and never completed.

8.30pm

Begin the wind down with a little self care. Take your bath now, I like mine scalding hot so I can feel my heartbeat and my skin turns red. Apparently by raising your temperature in the bath it then lowers your body temperature when you get out and makes you sleepy. If you don’t fancy a bath or don’t have time make sure you take your makeup off earlier in the evening so you’re not too tired and give up when you crash into bed later. I’m also trying to get into the habit of getting my clothes out for the morning, the night before so I don’t have to bother in the morning. I use the Cladwell app to help pick outfits.

So that’s my routine. It’s ambitious I know but I’m dipping into it to begin with. I always go for the slowly, slowly habit learning approach. So maybe pick one of the things to do for a week. Feel free to make it your own and find what works for you. I’d love to hear about your bedtime routines in the comments.

Moon Worship

~ Vicki Oliver ~ 2 Comments

Dear Wolf

I, like many others, seem to obsess over the moon of late. For a while I noticed the effects of a full moon. When ever I go a little stir crazy I look at what the moon is doing and there it is in all its glory, the full moon.

“It is the very error of the moon.
She comes more near the earth
than she was wont. And makes
men mad.”
—William Shakespeare, Othello

I’ve done my own little bit of worshiping including the moon phases tattooed on my fingers and my little ‘alter’ for moon spells. You can head over to my Moon Magic board on Pinterest or do a little reading into spells in Diane Ahlquist’s book.

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I wanted to know a little more so I  dug in a little deeper googling words like ‘full moon’ and ‘lunacy’. So it’s not a new thing by far. In fact it’s probably gone on as long as there have been people and the moon.

“ACROSS THE CENTURIES, many a person has uttered the phrase “There must be a full moon out there” in an attempt to explain weird happenings at night. Indeed, the Roman goddess of the moon bore a name that remains familiar to us today: Luna, prefix of the word “lunatic.” Greek philosopher Aristotle and Roman historian Pliny the Elder suggested that the brain was the “moistest” organ in the body and thereby most susceptible to the pernicious influences of the moon, which triggers the tides. Belief in the “lunar lunacy effect,” or “Transylvania effect,” as it is sometimes called, persisted in Europe through the Middle Ages, when humans were widely reputed to transmogrify into werewolves or vampires during a full moon.”

The moon controls tides with its gravitational pull and considering the body is 80% water it may be affected too? This is disputed as its only supposed to work on open water. Apparently there was a search for evidence in 1985 by Florida International University psychologist James Rotton, Colorado State University astronomer Roger Culver and University of Saskatchewan psychologist Ivan W. Kelly. They compared 37 scientific studies to create “Much Ado about the Full Moon” a publication which claimed there was no evidence for the moon having an affect on us. But the moon theories refuse to go away.

So all this may or may not be true but I know it has an effect on me. Here are some of my musings about the moon:

  • HUMAN BEHAVIOUR – The www.scientificamerican.com report that in 2007 several police departments in the U.K. even added officers on full-moon nights in an effort to cope with presumed higher crime rates.

Senior police officers in Brighton, UK announced in June 2007 that they were planning to deploy more officers over the summer to counter trouble they believe is linked to the lunar cycle.[28] This followed research by the Sussex Police force that concluded there was a rise in violent crime when the Moon was full. A spokeswoman for the police force said “research carried out by us has shown a correlation between violent incidents and full moons”. A police officer responsible for the research told the BBC that “From my experience of 19 years of being a police officer, undoubtedly on full moons we do seem to get people with sort of strange behaviour – more fractious, argumentative.”[29]

  • If you fancy keeping track of the moon, its phases, position and affects you can download a moon app. I use this moon app because I love reading the descriptions and the way they have been so obviously translated in a way that makes me smile. I also love the notes on gardening an.d the little moon compass.

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  • FERTILITY – Again there is no factual evidence but many females swear that their menstrual cycle is affected by the moon’s cycle. I have always slightly believed this.  If like me you want to sync with the moon check out Mind Body Green’s article. I’m going to give it a go. And if it works maybe invest in the aptly named Moon Cup. Screen Shot 2017-04-01 at 17.05.39
  • PLANTS – Another unsubstantiated but thoroughly worthy and rewarding past time is ‘moon gardening’:

“In a nutshell, people who garden by the phases of the moon believe that its gravitational pull on the earth’s water (i.e. tides), has a bearing on plant growth. They never plant anything when the moon is waning in the last quarter because it’s believed that the earth’s water table is receding.”

I tried it recently and drew up my own plan for gardening.

IMG_5173If you want to create your own there’s a heap of info over at www.gardeningbythemoon.com.

Well there’s my 2 pennies worth. I’m not always sold by science and remain a little planted in magic. I’ve been recommended a new book on the subject by Yasmin Boland . Its on my amazon wish list so you know if you ever fancy getting me a little something… I’ll go ask the moon.

Happy New Year with Bullet Journaling

~ Vicki Oliver ~ Leave a comment

So last year I made New Year’s resolutions then as you may know ‘life got in the way’. I have a habit of starting things and not finishing them, I carry a lot of guilt about it. Partly it’s my personality and getting excited about the next new shiny thing that comes along, dropping the old boring thing I started. It’s also having multiple chronic illnesses which tend to dump on everything. Oh, and then that life bit, I’m not the luckiest soul and 2016 was an absolute shocker!

So this year I debated on whether I should do the whole resolutions thing again. I thought about making things realistic, or achievable. But that’s just not me, I need to be interested and excited and reach for the sky. The difference is how I react when I come thudding back down to earth.

Last year I dabbled with some Bullet Journaling and wanted to continue with a brand new journal for 2017. For various reasons I’ve always shied away from journaling ing and committing to paper. A Bullet Journal was the ideal balance between a to-do list and a diary for me. I began with a basic journal based on this article and bulletjournal.com.

So on the 1st I made an Amazon list of fancy pens and a new Moleskine notebook, and then realised I was falling into my old habit of overspending. So I raided my art materials and as predicted had lots of beautiful materials already to work with.

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So here is what I did:

  1. I left a page spare at the front for my index/ contents. Every page is numbered in a bullet journal and every entry is logged on this page.IMG_3635.JPG
  2. I turned the page and thought about 2017 and brain dumped all the hopes and needs onto the page. I didn’t limit myself, I just poured my heart out…IMG_3638.JPG
  3. Next I looked at the ‘cloud of words’ and put them into categories. I wrote them as a list then made these into columns on how much time and effort I wanted to put into them. ‘Being secure’ is at the top of my list, unsurprisingly, as at the moment I feel so insecure. I colour coded them so I could later see how much time per week I was dedicating.Processed with VSCO with t1 preset
  4. I took each category and thought about how I could achieve them. Theres lots of cross overs and you’ll see in the pictures one category feeds another.Processed with VSCO with t1 preset
  5. Into my life, which is chaotic at the best of time, I wanted to introduce a routine. So I began with an easy morning routine to follow everyday. I aim to create a bedtime one soon to go with it. 
  6. I then divided the activities from earlier on into my first to-do list of 2017. This I divided into ‘one off tasks’ and ‘repetitive tasks’ that happen daily or weekly.Processed with VSCO with t1 preset
  7. I then added a year planner to be able to see the whole year month by month.Processed with VSCO with t1 preset
  8. Finally I delved into January. One page for the whole month day by day. Then I transferred items from the 2017 to-do list into the monthly one
  9. Finally I drew out the week by week journal and added a key. I also included a space for tracking my health and daily gratitude. My key is the same as the standard bullet journal key
    • X = Task Complete
    • > = Task Migrated
    • < = Task Scheduled
    • o = Event
    • – = Note
    • * = Priority
    • ! = Inspiration
    • Eye = Explore

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  10. It sounds complex and labour intensive, and in a way it is. But I think it’s worth it to have a practical journal that works for me. I already love and treasure my 2016 journal, as painful as the moments were that fed it. 

I know there are many prettier examples out there, but mine is mine and works for me!

Finally I read a chapter today about beginning a new project or learning something new:

‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in an experts there are few.’ Suzuki Roshi in Pema Chodron’s ‘The Places That Scare You’.

Chodron goes onto say that we all begin somewhere and at every stage of learning or activity we should  be ‘open, flexible and kind’. Resolutions should not be absolute but ever shifting guides to help us learn or steer us. Our life is an experiment and we are not born as experts. She concludes:

‘At the end of activity, whether we feel we have succeeded or failed in our intention, we seal the act by thinking of others, of those who are succeeding or failing all over the world. We wish that anything we learned in our experiment could also benefit them.’

So I’ll be doing just that, learning from the process and not judging myself on the results. I will also share this latest adventure with you…