Coming Home: A New Moon Reflection on Creativity, Community, and Beginning Again

Tomorrow's New Moon falls in Cancer, my sign, and I cannot help but feel like the universe has impeccable timing.

Cancer is the sign of home, belonging, intuition, and emotional safety. It invites us inward, asking us to nurture not only the people we love, but ourselves. There is something especially powerful about a New Moon falling in your own sun sign. It feels like a quiet return, an opportunity to reconnect with the parts of yourself that may have been overlooked while life carried you in other directions.

Adding another layer to this is Mercury retrograde, also moving through Cancer. In my birth chart, Mercury is in Cancer in my 11th House, the house of friendships, community, belonging, and shared dreams.

Mercury governs the way we think, communicate, learn, and process information. When it appears to move backward, it asks us to slow down. It invites reflection rather than reaction. We revisit conversations, relationships, old stories, and sometimes even old versions of ourselves. In Cancer, that reflection becomes deeply emotional. We find ourselves asking where we belong, who feels like home, and what kind of community we want to build moving forward.

If there is one theme that has quietly followed me over the past year, it has been exactly that.

• Who are my people?

• Where do I truly belong?

• How do I cultivate relationships that feel reciprocal?

• What dreams are still mine, and which ones belong to a version of myself I have outgrown?

This New Moon feels less like setting intentions and more like becoming curious

Creativity Looks Different Than I Imagined

That curiosity has followed me into Awaken the Wise Woman.

Over the past week, we have been exploring the relationship between the Sacral Chakra, our reproductive hormones, dopamine, serotonin, and creativity. We often think of creativity as something artistic, something reserved for painters, musicians, writers, or dancers.

If I am honest, I have carried that belief for years.

• I do not paint.

• I do not draw.

• I do not play music.

Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that creativity belonged to other people.

But as I have been teaching this month, I realized I was teaching something I still needed to learn myself.

The Sacral Chakra is not simply about creating art. It is about creating life.

It is our ability to adapt, imagine, nurture, build relationships, solve problems, experience joy, and say yes to something new. It is fluidity. It reminds us that we are not meant to become rigid. We are meant to move, evolve, and create a life that reflects who we are becoming.

Creating Space for Relationship

That realization became unexpectedly tangible a few days ago when we welcomed a kitten into our home.

If you know me, you know Berkley.

He is my heart and soul.

We have been together for ten years, making him the longest relationship of my life. Bringing another little soul into our home was no small decision because, if Berkley is being honest, he believes this house, every bed, and certainly every morsel of food belongs exclusively to him.

Moss (new kitten), however, did not get that memo, he thinks Berkley is fascinating.

Berkley is still deciding whether this tiny gray creature deserves a place in his kingdom.

The first few days have required more creativity. We have developed separate feeding plans because Berkley remains convinced that everyone's dinner is actually his dinner.

Despite the logistical challenges, something beautiful is happening.

Moss is endlessly curious and Berkley has moved from complete indifference to quiet acceptance.

The distance between them gets a little smaller each day.

Moss is being neutered this week, which means his scent will change, and we may find ourselves taking a few steps backward before moving forward again.

Relationships are often like that.

Progress is rarely linear.

Trust is not built overnight.

It grows through consistency, patience, and creating enough safety for two nervous systems to slowly learn one another.

As I have watched the two of them navigate this new relationship, I have wondered if perhaps this is my creativity this month.

Not creating something that hangs on a wall.

Creating trust.

Creating relationship.

Creating community.

Creating space for another heartbeat inside our home.

Creating a New Way to Serve

Around the same time, another opportunity quietly arrived.

I recently began training to become a Forensic Interviewer.

Interestingly, I did not seek out this opportunity. It found me.

The organization reached out to ask whether I would be interested in joining their team. There was something deeply affirming about that. To have someone recognize qualities in you before you have even imagined the next chapter for yourself is an incredible gift.

Of course I said yes.

For those unfamiliar with the role, a Forensic Interviewer meets with children when there are concerns about abuse, neglect, exploitation, or trauma. The interview is carefully designed to create a calm, developmentally appropriate environment where a child can tell their story in their own words.

The role is not to interrogate or investigate through pressure.

It is to listen.

Every question is intentional. Every pause matters. The goal is to gather information while minimizing the need for a child to repeatedly relive what may be one of the most painful experiences of their life.

The interview often becomes part of a multidisciplinary investigation involving medical providers, law enforcement, child protective services, prosecutors, advocates, and mental health professionals. A well conducted interview can reduce the number of times a child must tell their story while helping ensure they receive the protection and support they deserve.

It is meaningful work, work that carries tremendous responsibility, and its own form of vicarious trauma.

Yet when I look back over the last twenty five years ofnursing, public health, death review, grief work, trauma informed care, and sitting beside families during some of the hardest moments imaginable, I realize this path is not entirely new. It feels like another expression of everything I have spent my career doing.

Listening. Witnessing. Holding space. Helping people feel seen.

Perhaps that is creativity too.

Not becoming someone different, but allowing everything I have experienced to take on a new shape.

A New Moon Invitation

So under this Cancer New Moon, I am not making a long list of intentions.

Instead, I find myself sitting with quieter questions.

• Where can I soften?

• Where can I trust myself a little more?

• Where can I create deeper community?

• Where can I become more fluid instead of holding so tightly to who I think I should be?

• And where can I finally let go of the story that I am not creative?

Because maybe creativity has never been about painting a canvas.

Maybe creativity is the way we build relationships.

The way we welcome a frightened kitten into our home.

The way we allow an old dog to adjust in his own time.

The way we say yes to a new career.

The way we continue to show up for one another, even when the work is hard.

The way we allow ourselves to begin again.

Perhaps that is the invitation of this New Moon.

Not to become someone new, but to come home to the person we have been becoming all along.