The Question I’d Never Been Asked Before: “What Are You Doing for the Full Moon?”
“What have you got planned for the full moon tonight?”
I overheard one woman ask another over coffee at Working Women Club, and it stopped me mid-sip. I realised I had never heard that question posed so casually before. I had heard people remark on the moon’s size or brightness, how low it sat in the sky or how unusually luminous it looked, but never what you might do with it.
I listened intently to their conversation of the possibilities of setting crystals outside to cleanse and recharge them, or journalling, letting thoughts spill out uncensored, or practising gratitude by candlelight. Moon-bathing, I learned, was also an option. I admitted to the group that I had been feeling scattered and out of sorts. Without hesitation, someone suggested I go and moon-bathe to cleanse my internal energy. I did it later that evening, slightly sceptical, walking alone under the rising full moon. To my surprise, it worked. Whether through placebo, pause, or something more elusive, I felt calmer. That, in itself, felt like a small revelation.
There is a quietly spiritual undercurrent to this corner of West Yorkshire that I had not fully noticed before. It is woven into conversations, rituals, and ways of being. An oracle card reading recently by Soulfull by Samantha gave me unexpected food for thought. She doesn’t give definite predictions, but gentle prompts for each month ahead: where gratitude could soften working relationships that felt misaligned, and where old patterns were ready to be released. When she suggested a visit to The Crystal Apothecary in Holmfirth, choosing stones to reflect the challenges and opportunities she saw ahead, it was less about the crystals themselves and more about the feeling of being connected to something larger than my to-do list.
Since surrounding myself with women who are open to these practices, I have found myself much more curious, less dismissive, and more willing to sit with ideas that do not need to be proven to be meaningful.
That openness surfaced when a group of us from Working Women Club attended a fellow member’s financial wellbeing session. She blended practical financial knowledge with a softer, more symbolic approach. We wrote notes we were to bury in the garden, intentions rooted quite literally into the ground. Other notes, filled with self-sabotaging beliefs, were ripped up and discarded, an act of release from financial restriction. Some might raise an eyebrow at this or call it “woo-woo” but what followed mattered more than the ritual itself.
The exercise unlocked a conversation about money beliefs many of us had never voiced. What we were taught about earning. About asking for bigger budgets. About charging our worth. About who money is “for” and who should feel grateful simply to have it. The discussion turned, inevitably, to unpaid labour. To women who stay home to raise children and run households while a partner contributes financially. Whose savings are they, really, if only one income is visible but both are essential? It is a debate worthy of its own space, but the question lingered.
Beliefs, like habits, are often inherited rather than chosen. They settle quietly and shape behaviour long before we notice them. Perhaps that is why rituals matter, whether you believe in the moon’s power or not. They give us a moment to pause, to name what no longer serves us, and to consciously choose something different.
Maybe on the next full moon, we do not need crystals or candles at all. Maybe we simply take a moment to cleanse the belief that women should shrink their ambition or apologise for earning well. Under the same moon, after all, we are allowed to want more, ask for more, and contribute back into our communities in ways that feel both grounded and expansive.
Originally posted on Huddle Online.