Exhale: What Will You Release?

Recently, I stood outside with friends and watched an eclipse.

We marveled at its beauty, at the shadow slowly moving across the moon, and at the almost incomprehensible reality of what we were witnessing.

We are standing on a planet hurtling through space.

The moon is traveling around us. We are traveling around the sun. Everything is moving, all the time, in an enormous celestial dance so precise that we can predict the moment when one body will pass in front of another and cast its shadow across the sky.

And somehow, standing there watching it, I felt still.

A friend told me something about the phases of the moon that stayed with me.

After the moon is full, it begins to wane. For roughly two weeks, night by night, there is less of it illuminated in our sky until we reach the new moon.

Then the cycle reverses.

The moon begins to wax. For roughly two weeks, the light grows until the moon is full again.

Release. Receive.

Exhale. Inhale.

I don’t know that the moon itself is telling me what to do. But I love the rhythm of it.

Nature seems to understand something we sometimes forget: life isn’t meant to be one endless accumulation.

We can’t only add.

Sometimes we have to empty.

So I decided to experiment with the waning moon as a season of release.

I started with my house.

Deep cleaning. Decluttering. Opening drawers and closets. Looking at things I’ve accumulated and asking: Do I still need this? Do I still want this? Does this belong in the life I’m creating now?

But somewhere along the way, the cleaning moved inward.

I opened my journal and began asking the same questions about the things I carry inside me.

What am I ready to release?

Fear.

Relationships that are no longer healthy.

Habits that don’t serve me.

Old expectations.

Blocks that keep me from moving toward the life I want.

The instinct to say no to myself before life even gets the chance to answer.

Some things need to be repaired.

Some need to be forgiven.

Some simply need to be put down.

And maybe that’s what I find so beautiful about the rhythm of waning and waxing.

Releasing isn’t the end of the story.

The darkness of the new moon eventually gives way to a tiny crescent of light.

And then comes another season.

A season for asking different questions:

What do I want to welcome?

What do I want to create?

What deserves more room in my life?

Joy. Creativity. Friendship. Beauty. Adventure. Peace. Love. Possibility.

First, an exhale.

Then, an inhale.

First, making space.

Then, filling that space intentionally.

The moon will keep moving whether I pay attention to it or not. But I like the idea of occasionally looking up and letting its ancient rhythm remind me that I am allowed to have rhythms, too.

I don’t have to hold everything forever.

I don’t have to pursue everything at once.

There can be a time to release.

And there can be a time to receive.

So for this waning season, I’m asking myself one simple question:

What am I ready to let go of?

Maybe you’d like to ask yourself the same.

What will you release?