Today is a full moon, the Full Pink Moon to be specific. Every month on the full moon, Jamie Ridler hosts a full moon dreamboard practice. There’s typically one theme to contemplate, a single question to consider, and I make a dreamboard that is a visual and textual collage of my heart’s answer, with a poem of sorts as a way to further interpret it. This particular full moon there are more questions than just that one, sent by the Universe for my consideration.

Always there is Rachel Cole‘s question, my mantra, the question underneath every other question.

From Julia Fehrenbacher on Judy Clement Wall’s blog: “What has stood in the way of you being your most empowered, loving self, and what are you currently doing to be more of who you really are?”

From Jamie’s Wishcasting Wednesday: “Where do you wish for healing?”

From Jamie’s Full Moon Dreamboard post: “What are you dreaming under this Full Pink Moon? The name represents the pink flowers that so lavishly bloom in the spring. What an invitation to let yourself luxuriate in your dreams, embracing them passionately, sharing them magnificently and enjoying each precious bloom. Let’s share our dreams and make beautiful magic together under the Full Pink Moon!”

Full Pink Moon asks: “What dreams is it time to tend?”

All of these questions circle around a single answer: The way to health and wellness, the path to peace and strength, the key to freedom is radical acceptance. As Tara Brach defines it, “the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is,” and “clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart.”

I have to fall in love with myself. I have to see myself as I am, a precious and brilliant and passionate mess. I have to honor my truth worth.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns…We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small. ~Tara Brach

Like a mermaid, I have to dive deep, swim in the dark water. As the Hopi elders said in their prophecy,

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

As Pema Chödrön suggests, I have to make friends with myself, be honest and kind and gentle.

Be fully present.
Feel your heart.
And engage the next moment without an agenda.

Find peace.
Flexible strength,
health and wellness.
Arching, reaching, stretching, opening.
Light, water, ground, and space.
Breath, muscle, bone, and blood.
Balance.

Sometimes balance is stillness, quiet.
Other times moving brings balance.
Balance is never a fixed point,
the center of gravity is always shifting.

Journey
filled with curiosity, exploration, growth, and expansion
through practices
(meditation, breathing, asana
writing, love, dog)
that align with the highest within me.
In this way, I feel balanced and energized.

It is a process of letting go
of habits of rigidity
and things that no longer serve me.

Relax.
Let go.
Surrender to what is, as it is, as I am.
Move into balance.
Effort matching my ease.

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. ~Agnes de Mille