I had written many words in a journal by hand while I was traveling a week ago. They were good words about the importance of receiving. They were about harvests and abundance. They were about how I was on a trip where my friend had planned everything, where all the details were figured out, where food was made for me, where people told me all the best places to go—such an incredible gift for someone who lives alone and must make many endless decisions at home and at work. I wrote about the gratitude I felt and still feel in the wake of that gift and how it restored me the way nothing else has been able to in recent times. I wrote about capitalism and how it is warping our ability to perform the receiving end of reciprocity. I wrote about reframing dull, daily tasks like “taking a shower” as “receiving a gift of water” and how, when I can remember to do it, my experience changes and my shower becomes both shorter and more fulfilling. I wrote about how during the dark of the moon, it is the perfect time to focus less on doing, and more on receiving.
And now, running short on time to get this post out on time, I could stay up late, type up the words, refine them, push myself to get this done, or…I could just lean into less is more.
So the short and sweet of it: Let us all spend the day of the dark moon focusing on what we receive. It’s similar to listing things you’re grateful for but a little different. To receive something usually requires that someone or something has bestowed it, placing you in relationship with the world around you, both animate and inanimate. You can be grateful for sunshine, but why? Because you are receiving light and warmth from the sun. The sun is giving you a gift; you are in relationship. Reframe your day in light of what you receive and watch your joy elevate, your energy return, and your fulfillment come sooner.
If you wish to read an insightful and inspiring essay on receiving and reciprocity, read or listen to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s article “The Service Berry” from Emergence Magazine. She has a book by the same title coming out in November.