From the beginning of our history, back when humans saw ourselves as part of nature, not apart from it, we have been looking to the sky for clues, inspiration, and guidance. It's how we navigated across oceans and trekked over mountains. Long before we had phones, maps, weather apps, or GPS, we looked up.
And in that vein, people, with our penchant for meaning-making, have been ascribing meaning to all manner of natural phenomena for a long time. The moon, our closest and brightest companion in the night sky, has always been ripe with meaning. She changes so visibly as she waxes and wanes, disappears and returns. She reflects light, marks time, pulls tides, and reminds us that life moves in cycles.
Different phases of the moon have been associated with different meanings. The full moon is often connected with illumination, culmination, visibility. The waning moon can be associated with release or letting go, just as the waxing moon is about building and growing. But the phase that most inspired the name of my practice is the dark moon.
The dark moon is the phase when the moon appears to be absent from the sky. It’s during this phase that the stars — those small points of light, guiding us onwards — are much easier to see than when the full bright moon is taking up the sky. So it is in this dark time that we can access greater wisdom and guidance.
The dark moon is often associated with rest, introspection, integration, reorienting, composting the old, and clearing the way for a creative new beginning. It is the quiet moment of silence before the song begins. It is the pause at the end of a deep breath. The place where something is ending, something else has not yet begun, and we can take stock and process.
Our modern culture often has a strong preference for the light: clarity, productivity, certainty, and straight-forward stories about growth. But when light becomes the only acceptable place to be, it turns into pressure. Taken to its extreme, it becomes toxic positivity: "good vibes only," move on too soon, forgive and forget, or pretend that the painful, messy parts of being human are not part of the story.
But in my therapy practice, we are not afraid of the dark.
To me, Dark Moon Counseling means making room for cycles of depth, rest, and transformation. It honors the truth that healing is not always linear, and growth is not always neat and tidy. In this space, the complicated parts of being human are welcome: the grief, the uncertainty, the ambivalence, and the parts of you that haven’t yet found their way into the light.
Oftentimes our work begins in the dark.
If you feel like you're in a dark moon season of your own, I’d be happy to talk with you about whether therapy together might be a good fit.