Embrace the Strawberry Moon: Set Intentions and Achieve SMART Goals with the New Moon Journal by Namaste Studios
By Dennis Bluthardt at Namaste Studios
The Strawberry Moon in June signifies Summer Time’s high noon, the climactic moment of natural plenitude. We named it the Strawberry Moon to honor the special moment of the full-bellied strawberry harvest, a celebration of growth and life. This full moon sets the tone for the next season by suggesting themes for reflection and giving us clues about the intentions we want to set for the coming months.
The Strawberry Moon suggests leaning into “primetime” in your life. The energy you might feel during the Strawberry Moon will scream “chart-topper” from within. The energy urges you to take a minute to sit down with a pen and paper and plan out your thoughts about grandeur. It’s that “living my best life,” “I’m on top of the world,” “one with the universe” energy.
It feels terrific to hone in on the opportunities the planets present to us, and it helps you keep your “shit” together.
Use the New Moon Journal we sell by Namaste Studios to structure your thoughts and plan your next significant steps. The journal gives you a step-by-step walkthrough of setting intentions, creating S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals, and even how to select and use affirmation statements. They say that during a full moon, the vibrant moon energy will increase your magnetic manifestation powers, it’s “primetime” to make intentions that dramatize your plans for your future!
When you plan out all of your thoughts, it is gratifying when the experience and your energy match up almost a little too well, it is an experience that feels a little too empowering, a little too profound, and a little too “on the nose” So I would recommend the journal to lead your exciting, profound journal throughout the whole moon experience and unlock your secret senses or secret superpowers you may not know about just yet!
Grounding Exercises and Meditation
Grounding exercises are essential practices that help you “be here now.” Grounding, as it sounds, is of the earth. Of now. You focus on bodily and environmental physical sensations, which helps to “ground” you into a stable moment. Any anxiety you have lessens, and you become more “tuned in” to right now. My favorite grounding exercise is deep breathing, which I always do barefoot, preferably with my feet in some grass. I visualize roots growing from my feet into the earth, symbolizing my connection to “now.”
Why not align it with full moon meditation?! This moon is about abundance. It’s the Strawberry Moon, symbolizing the “fruit” of one’s efforts being ripened and harvested; with this breath, we may think about acknowledging the sweet abundance we currently have as individuals. Or you can use this moon to guide your breath into your abundance chakras to meditate on what your garden should have more of. If you think about it, each type of “thing” on your list can taste differently. A 6-pack of abs may “taste” like sinew and sweat (yum), while a blossoming, sexy relationship may taste like soft, sultry lips for dessert! Get the “picture,” Sweetums?
This journal will help you keep track of the grounding exercises and full moon meditations above and help guide you to BE this person you envision. She has “it,” you have “it,” and now you want to show the world how to do the same while looking fabulous in a great pair of heels, doing handstands on the red carpets of Hollywood! YOU GO AHEAD, SISTER GIRLS.
Energy Healing Rituals
Energy healing uses elements from different areas to benefit your life in various ways. It is all about channeling the healing power of energy in your body to improve your physical and emotional health and other personal and spiritual development areas. Whether you’re interested in stress reduction, emotional healing, physical health, or spiritual awakening, there’s likely a type of energy healing that could help enhance your journey.
Likewise, the moon carries energy that can be channeled, for better or worse. Understanding this and how you can best prepare for it and then harness it for good in your own life will ultimately serve you in countless ways.
Cleanse in the full moon. The full moon lacks the darkness of the self but fills the spirit, the release. All the desire to hang on to what has been let go opens you up to what might be for the future. This is the time to write about (journal your thoughts) what you are open to for the future.
The more incredible energy throughout can pull you along in more significant ways. As it serves as a legend for the start and the finish of each lunar cycle [minor lunar phase], it will also serve you in knowing what type of energy is at play in the world, in your personal life, and in what your clients are likely working through in any given phase.
Practicing Gratitude and Reflection
Gratitude can shift a mindset that focuses on scarcity, gaps, and missing pieces to one of abundance, fullness, and a whole and fulfilled life. By actively searching for things to be grateful for, we are training our brains not to focus on the negative aspects of life continually. This shift makes us feel better daily and helps keep us mentally tough. A bump in the road is likelyn’t going to trip us up.
Gratitude also allows space in the mind. It might sound silly to say that a state of mind makes room for things. But when we tell ourselves that there is room for growth, we are likely more apt to look for new experiences and opportunities. We may be more likely to take on these scary, sometimes weird, opportunities, saying yes to more things because of the new mindset. I certainly have!
I have talked a lot about journaling in this blog. It makes a lot of sense to add a gratitude practice to it. This New Moon Journal serves as a soundspace for that! The dark lecture room and black sky represent a new beginning when the new moon comes in. It’s a great time to inwardly reflect on intentions and say what we are thankful for.
Here are some of my favorite journaling questions. Ask yourself, “What are three things I am grateful for this month?” Or “What are some experiences from this month that changed my outlook on my situation?” These can be about anything, big or small. Just starting the habit. If I always write them in the same place, too, it’s easier to develop a habit.
What is the Strawberry Moon?
“Strawberry Moon.” The name conjures images of indulging in delicious, ripe, juicy strawberries. But where does the quaint condition come from, and what does it mean? The name ‘Strawberry Moon’ arises from the traditions of Native American tribes, for instance, the Algonquin people, who bestowed this term upon a full Moon that typically occurred in June when strawberries were ripe for harvesting, signifying the brief season of this annual event in North America. Various people around the planet have always lived keenly aware of the profound interrelationship of the lunar cycle and their very livelihoods: their plantings and harvestings, as essential aspects of daily life. As such, to one degree or another, the intimate Nature of lunar-tropical ties is recognized in the various cultures of a vast array of indigenous populations.
Culturally, many communities host a variety of celebrations, ritual ceremonies, and festivals for the Strawberry Moon, a lovely, traditional ascription to Mother Earth and floral beauty to celebrate Nature’s summer. The tardy ‘Spring Moon’ has finally sprung out in luscious blooms and ripened into queenly Rosaceae and Rubus bounty, mainly offering a (partial) solar eclipse!
The Power of Setting Intentions
The Strawberry Moon is the only full moon in June, the time of abundance, growth, and love. This full moon is all about energy at a peak, and thus, is the perfect opportunity to set your intentions for what you want more of in your life. Whatever you genuinely desire, want to change, or manifest, now is the perfect time to do so, because setting intentions at the full moon aligns us spiritually and universally with what we want to attract more of into our lives.
The New Moon Journal is your guide on this journey. In this journal, we have put together numerous exercises to promote intentions, speaking your desires into the world, and physically writing them down. Create a forward dominance that the desires are, in fact, already here. And whether you know it or not, the universe will move with you, not against you, even when you think it is.
In the journal, we also include two daily exercises: a gratitude exercise and a general guiding writing prompt for the month regarding your progression towards what you desire. I start each day by completing my gratitude exercise first thing in the morning. Then, I will sit and reflect on my intention for the day to come. My favorite way to do this is through journaling and writing, and that’s why I created the property project journal. The non-linear journal is designed to accompany any intention-setting journal or “moon journal” you may already use, or one you should start using!
Creating SMART Goals
SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. They’re a robust goal-setting framework that ensures you have clear, focused goals you can quickly know if you’re on track to achieve. Combined with the energy of the Strawberry Moon, also known as the “Growth Moon”, they positively influence your goal setting.
Start by setting an “S” Specific goal by choosing one area of your life you want to grow and develop. This could range from your career to creative hobbies and personal interests, the sky’s the limit! Just identify an area of your life to focus on and choose a specific way of growing those skills. Make it measurable and define ways to know if you’re successful or not clearly.
Don’t say “I want to be better at painting,” and instead, say “I will complete 10 paintings of varying sizes by the end of the season.” You have control over where and how to set the quality of your goal, so challenge yourself in ways that excite you!
Next, ensure your goals are achievable and relevant, but make sure you’re also not selling yourself short! Deliberately challenge yourself and know that the only limitations to what you can accomplish are the ones you think of and set for yourself. Your goals are 100% doable and achievable if they’re something you genuinely want. If it helps (I find setting my goals with a “T” Time-bound approach does wonders for me), give yourself a deadline. It’s a statement to yourself saying, “I’m going to crush this goal before X timeframe or date.” Let’s do that! I encourage you to set it time-bound to the next full moon. One month is entirely possible!
Affirmations and Positive Mindset
You often repeat affirmations, hoping your negative thoughts about a situation will change. So, many people use affirmations to “grow” in their beliefs about themselves. For example, if you suffer from low self-esteem, you might repeatedly repeat the affirmation “I am worthy of all the good in my life” until you start believing it. You’re trying to brainwash yourself into being nicer to yourself. It’s a form of manifestation because the belief is that once you believe this to be true about yourself, you’ll take actions in alignment. So, it’s not so much that shouting into the void “I’m a millionaire!!” will make you a millionaire, as it is that once you believe that you can become a millionaire, you’ll start to take the actions necessary to accomplish that goal.
If you have a New Moon Journal, set aside a few pages just for affirmations so you can write them down each month. There’s something profoundly interesting about writing out your intentions for not just the person you are today, but for the person you’ll be one to five years from now.
Your affirmation “ritual” might be that after you review your last New Moon Journal entry, you spend some time crafting your perfect life (since a lot of people associate a new moon with new goals) and from there, you write down some affirmations that you’ll say to yourself for the next month.
Releasing What No Longer Serves You
June’s Strawberry Moon symbolizes the rain of peak summer upon us. It is also when Nature is at its full bounty. It is a time for celebration as our growth and the renewal of the season kick in.
It is an ideal moment to consider what we want to release. Think of that release as if you were keeping records of your life on a cassette tape or still using the internal storage in your computer.
I did say, ‘as if.’ You must eliminate something to make space for new and more positive energy to come in. This thought of getting rid of something speaks a lot to natural moon cycles, particularly the moon’s cycles when it comes to the strawberry moon on Saturday, the 12th. In general, it is what Professor Seuss talks about: the life cycle and the ‘green’ Nature of letting go, for release and rebirth. In your New Moon Journal (you do have one, right?), open to last month’s page you were writing in, where we last did this exercise. And then write out those things you have let continue to be written down on that page. What are those behaviors, those looks, those positive events, and those negative emotions that you want to stop feeling from January? By running through this action of going over that list of written-down things, you will start to feel as though your capacity to keep writing decreases.
The full moon is known as the Strawberry Moon because, in the “old days,” that was when strawberries were harvested, and you were a bit more in tune with your surroundings. After all, isn’t the moon noticeable? The full moon is. Look into various cultures; it represents “the harvest” (bearing fruit), being full, and having plenty. If you can see this, you can run your sprinklers. It is a simple task regardless of where you are in the universe. Grog did it.
To learn more, visit our Moon Journal Blogs at Namaste Studios or buy a New Moon Journal on Amazon or our Namaste Studios Bookstore.
For a Limited Time: Get your NEW MOON JOURNAL for a massive discount at Amazon here!
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