Minnesotans are using the moon as a guide

“Hi, my name is Hayl. And I’m obsessed with the moon.”

That’s how Hayl Lindma, owner of Haus of Ritual in Minneapolis, introduced herself during at a recent full moon medicine circle.

Lindma uses the phases of the moon to schedule and shape classes, workshops and rituals at her Lyndale Avenue reiki and wellness studio.

“It gives this opportunity for people to come together in community and just kind of have a wellness check-in and learn a little bit about astrology,” Lindma said. “They relax with a sound bath and just kind of connect with one another.”

Ally Webskowski, a Haus of Ritual regular, said she finds the moon’s energy “so powerful, more than you’d expect.”

Attending full and new moon circles, which include a sharing circle, astrology talk, guided meditation and sound bath, has helped Webskowski “mostly when I know I might be feeling down or low energy that it’s a sign to take my time with life and be patient with what’s to come,” she said. “The connection with the moon truly allows you to better understand why you might be feeling some type of way or why a certain topic or idea might be weighing on you a little more than usual.”

Lindma’s studio, which opened two years ago, is part of a rising wellness and spirituality movement that often combines astrology and introspection. She is one of several Minnesota wellness practitioners hosting gatherings to mark the moon’s phases. Activities like “moon journaling” by following prompts that sync with the lunar phases and the moon’s position in the zodiac have also become popular around the world. Card decks like the recently released Lunar Abundance Reflection Cards are popping up for sale in bookstores and online to help people follow along with the moon’s changes and pay attention to their own feelings.

Of course, the moon — waning and waxing in its calendar-keeping patterns and creating the ocean’s tides — has forever been a key part of human life and meaning.

“Humans couldn’t survive without the moon; the world would just go haywire,” said Lindma.

It’s easy to underestimate how important the earth’s familiar sidekick has been since the very beginning.

In her new bestseller “Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are,” science writer Rebecca Boyle describes how the moon’s pull created the tidal pools where the planet’s earliest life began.

She also writes about 30,000-year-old carvings of lunar phases found in France’s Dordogne region and the Ancestral Puebloan home at Colorado’s Chimney Rock National Monument, where the moon is perfectly framed by spires only every 18.6 years during a natural phenomenon called a “major lunar standstill.”

“Since the beginning of evolutionary time, the Moon has sculpted life on this planet,” Boyle writes. “The Moon stabilizes Earth’s tilt toward the Sun, making the Moon the captain of our seasons. The consistency of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate in turn. Life in all its endless forms, from corals to plants to humans, responds to the Moon’s cues.”

Lindma often likes to think about how “throughout the ages, everyone has seen the moon,” she said.

“It’s just this beautiful symbol that’s held so much importance, it literally illuminates the darkness,” she said. “And that’s why it’s such a beautiful practice to call upon the moon when you might be in a darker space, because that’s the energy it gives us.”

For the full moon medicine circle, Lindma projected a giant image of the moon on a wall. A rainstorm shrouded the real moon outside.

After the half-dozen women gathered shared a little bit about themselves, she began that night’s moon circle — marking a full moon in Sagittarius — with an astrology talk. She said that the position in the archer’s sign meant it was one of the “most potent” full moons.

Lindma connects full moons with a time of “heightened energy” and transformation. The full moon in Sagittarius is especially so: “a time of great becoming,” she said.

New moons, in contrast, are when she urges people to let go of old patterns and set new intentions.

“The big question I would leave you with is: If you could not fail, if you could literally do anything, what would you do?” she asked.

During the three-hour ritual, she played gongs and singing bowls for a sound bath. Then, she invited the women to spend time journaling and talking about what they thought and felt during the sound bath. They shared hopes (about a long-distance relationship), plans (about cross-country travel), worries and career quandaries.

Lindma initially got into wellness work as a reiki practitioner. She started hosting moon circles on Zoom during the early days of the pandemic. Now the rituals are so popular that they fill her studio calendar.

The moon, she said, pulls us in, too.

“It’s just this opportunity to come back to what is it that makes us feel the most whole,” she said.