β¨πππ New Moon Ritualsπππβ¨
I don’t know about you all, but I find that ideas for full moon rituals are much more abundant and easy to find than ones for new moons.
I, personally, love new moons as they mean a fresh start, the end of anything you wish to be rid of, and an opportunity to begin new projects, life phases, friendships/relationships, or to revive old ones.
I know we’re still a little ways off from the New Moon, but I don’t love when I see moon phase posts right on the day of that phase because then I have no time to prepare! So gather your new moon materials now, and maybe keep a little box or shelf of materials for each moon phase.
I like to take time during the new moon to do a lot of my cleansing, banishing, and warding. This means my home, alter space, mind body and soul. I won’t make this a masterpost, but I will link to a few resources that I like to use.
🌒 🌑 🌘 Body
🌑 I generally like to start with my body. Meaning a bath or shower rituals that include things like charcoal, essential oils known for their antibacterial properties (like eucalyptus, tea tree, lavender or rosemary,**see dilution instructions at the bottom**) oats, ginger, tulsi (holy basil) and skin-loving herbs like calendula or plantain.
🌑 I’ve created a Gunk-Clearing Facial Steam for when you’re feeling a bit congested physically or spiritually.
🌑 When I do a bath ritual I almost always do a special facial mask or cleanser. Try to use as many natural ingredients as possible. Go for a clay base with good botanical ingredients. The Black Beauty Cleanser from Nature’s Organics is absolutely perfect. It combines a bunch of really great new moon ingredients like charcoal, lavender, tea tree, and lava salt. 💜
🌒 🌑 🌘 Mind
🌑 When you need a fresh start, mentally, even just doing a space cleansing or bath ritual really really helps. But I do love using tarot to give me a mental boost when I feel like I’m in a rut.
🌑 Some ideas for new moon spreads:
- Setting your intentions by @divinetrinitytarot
- New Moon Tarot Spread by @thewitchofthenorse
- Starting a New Business by Biddy Tarot (you could easily adapt this to a new project or hobby)
- One of my favourites for using any time, but especially when starting anything new, shuffle your deck, split it in two, holding the two halves with the exposed card facing up. The one in your left hand is what will hinder you, and in your right, you hold what will aid you. I’m not sure where I first heard about this technique, but I didn’t come up with it on me own, so if anyone can link to the original, please let me know!
🌑 Self love and banishing negativity is so important, especially for those of us witches who deal with mental health issues. @the-wiccans-glossary has a lovely masterpost on self love work and it includes some banishing negativity spells as well.
🌒 🌑 🌘 Soul
🌑 Any cleansing ritual you do will cleans your soul. Cleans might not be the right word, as souls aren’t ‘impure’ or ‘unclean.’ Revitalize might be a better word. I don’t do anything specific to revitalize my soul as I find that I’m very much re energized after any sort of witchy cleansing activity. But one thing you can do is work on bettering your astral or dream work.
🌑 If you are of age in your area, you could try smoking an herbal blend. @natures-organics-store has a blend specifically to aid with dream work like lucid dreaming and to encourage prophetic dreaming. While I generally like to practice prophetic divination on full moons, I love lucid dreaming (or attempting it) on the New Moon. If dream work is new to you, I suggest trying it without smoking blends first, and then once you get to know how it feels, try it with smoking so that you know how the herbs are affecting you. Personally I haven’t tried this blend, but I have used mullein as a smoking herb and have noticed definitely noticed the benefits. **some info and cautions on smoking herbs is at the bottom** You can also use this herbal blend as a tea if you’re not of age for smoking, but I would still use it with caution and sparingly as it does contain herbs that may effect your mood and state of mind.
🌒 🌑 🌘 Alter Cleansing
🌑 I have written a recipe for an alter cleansing tisane or potion. And I will actually be making this up in large-ish batches, and then freezing it in ice-cube trays (i have specific ones for non-edible things) that way you can save the freshly made tisane for times of the year when the ingredients aren’t available fresh or growing in your garden. Of course you can always dry your herbs and make the tisane from dried ingredients each month.
🌒 🌑 🌘 Home/Space Cleansing
🌑 I use the same tisane as for alter cleansing, diluted by half, for a room-cleansing spray.
🌑 This Room Blessing by @witch-of-color is lovely.
🌑 This is a complete home or apartment cleansing routine by @ghost-nettle if you feel like your space needs a real good clean.
🌑 Here’s another lovely recipe for a room cleansing spray by @honeycoyote
And that’s all for now! Of course you don’t have to do all of these on one night, and I often spread out my moon phase rituals over the night before, night of, and night after the phase.
I’ll be adding to this or at least making new New Moon posts in the future! Send me any questions you might have about the new moon (or anything really.)
**When you’re using essential oils, remember that herbal plant material generally contains 2% essential oils, so you should dilute your oils back to their original 2% strength. 12 drops of e.o. per fl. oz. of whatever carrier you’re using is 2%. **
** Do Not smoke any herb without consulting an herbalist or naturopath. When inhaling herbs, (weather smoke or essential oils) they only have 2 cells to pass through before entering your blood stream. Whereas they have something like 50x that to pass through when applied topically, and when ingested, they have a lot more stages and processes to go through before reaching your bloodstream. That means that you’ll absorb much more of the herb’s essence much more quickly than if you were to drink the tea, apply it in a poultice/balm, or even eat the whole plant **
