Full Moon Alakoa

Full Moon Alakoa

119th Edition

Happy Spiritual Monday

Today, the full moon sets in Capricorn, it’s a beautiful day, life is grand. Having spent a beautiful weekend with my family, I reflect on what gratitude I hold for all the beauty in my life, and how easy a switch it can be to throw between gratitude and despair in the world today. The subjectivity of all things really is evident today, now and now only.

My Card

As we regularly do, but have been off track with since uprooting a few months back, we decided to pull an oracle card after dinner last night as the full moon rose in the crisp night sky. We have a favourite deck we use, and it’s the only one we have not packed in boxes in our interim moving schedule.

This particular deck is actually the inspiration for my son’s name, Alakoa, as we pulled the card with his name mere months before he arrived in his body and it piqued both parents attention as a good fit.

We asked him (the 21 month old legend that he is) if he would like to pick a card with us and joked that he would pick his card like the last time he held the deck… but in his new custom, he simply said “no.”

So I picked first, and as I turned my chosen card over, there I saw my son’s name: Alakoa.

In his resistance to pick anything, I picked up his card for the first time. The name Alakoa roughly refers to the cultivation of the warrior spirit, which is fitting for the young man he is, yet this was the first time I had read the meaning as directed toward myself.

I’d be almost certain that many of us would have an assumptive stance on what a description might play out for the cultivation of the spirit of the warrior… strength, wisdom, power and the like. But there was a striking element to the reading that I didn’t expect or remember from the last I had seen it.

Joy

In cultivating the spirit of the warrior, joy is tied as one of the most powerful forces. One of the most necessary. I don’t feel the need to dive into it here in detail, for it is quite long and only so much space here to fill, but I will share my reflections on it and how it struck me.

One massive piece is something very obvious but often overlooked in any discipline. We often aim to cull out any desires - namely those insinuating joyful endeavours - when we embark on a spiritual path. We stop listening to certain music styles, dressing certain ways, eating certain foods, associating with certain people.

But this act is constrictive in its nature. There is no expansion into full warrior mode with a thematic sense of limiting. Refining is necessary, but refining of certain specifics, not the underlying emotional character.

I have found myself very much in the space of eliminating joy in pursuit of spirit, many times, such that it becomes habitual for me. There appears almost an element of needing to suffer a little bit, like I have bought into the hard way ethos of those who sell it.

While work is necessary, play must be essential, for we learn and absorb more in the state of play than most other forms of action.

And how lucky am I, that my days are currently filled with playing with my little warrior. I always thought that fatherhood would be about having to know everything to teach and instill my son with tools to live better than I have… Turns out he has come here to teach me, and my role is to literally play along.

As sometimes occurs, this little glimmer has been divine spark for me in a transitional time. Full moons can often be said to signify a closure of a cycle, a completion of work or task or some such object of our being. I choose to close off the parts of my character which resist joy and play.

It is definitely better to be a warrior in a garden than it is a gardener in a war, but the best warriors also are artists, poets and make love to life.

So this week, I simply want to share some of the words that come through this reading, and leave you all with the wish of a joyful day.

The Process

The enemy shall never grip me. I shall not be overcome. I am led and protected by the great and true spiritual warriors who lead love’s army. My steps in the world are fierce with compassion and love in action. I waiver not, for I am a conqueror over darkness, spirit-born, and empowered by the sacred. I embody the truth for which I fight. I am defended, uplifted and renewed. My hands are ever open to the replenishing power of grace. The Divine delivers all necessary might. Divine love's prophecy is read, spoken, enacted in all realms. If love has not yet won, then the battle is not yet over. And so I rise with love, courage and wisdom!

Have a joyful day, be warriors in the world and serve the will of love in all that you can.

And so it is, with love.