new moon: rest + restore

Luna, star Spica and planet Venus over Port Aransas, TX.

Living in tumultuous times requires taking breaks and building our resilience through rest.

New Moon: Rest + Restore is a monthly circle for practicing restorative rest and gentle self-reflection in a supportive virtual community.

Facilitated by Ronnie Gelman (they/them).

 

This space centers lived experiences of:

• disability and chronic illness
• COVID caution
• neurodivergence
• survivorship
• burnout
• all other forms of marginalization.
  

It is an anti-racist, anti-zionist, anti-oppression and pro-Matriarchy space.

Each month we will meet on or around the new moon, inviting slowness and re-aligning ourselves to natural rhythms that echo lifeways of many of our ancestors. 

Together we will practice listening and tending to our own unique emotional, physical and spiritual needs, getting curious about ways we can restore ourselves while bearing witness to one another. While this is not explicitly a grief space, we can practice meeting emotions that arise with curiosity and love.

You do not have to commit to coming every month. You will need to re-register for each additional session.

Circle Outline:

15 min: Arrival, agreements, accessibility check-in

10 min: Guided grounding practice

40 min: Parallel rest + reflection time (with suggestions for structured rest and writing prompts)
10 min: Bio / movement break

35 min: Group sharing circle via voice or chat

10 min: Closing - a poem/reading + farewells

 

Note: sharing with the group is always optional. If any of the practices don't work for you, you are more than welcome to do something that does.

• We will meet on Zoom with live captions. The meeting will not be recorded.
• You are invited to make yourself as comfortable as possible in your space. Feel free to sit, stand, lie down - whatever your body needs.
• You're free to have your camera off. 
• Sharing with the group is always optional. You're welcome to share in the chat.

My name is Ronnie (they/them) and I'm a griefworker, facilitator and aspiring Unitarian Universalist minister. I was born and raised, and still reside, in Austin, TX on stolen lands once stewarded by many Indigenous Peoples including the Tonkawa, the Apache, the Ysleta del sur Pueblo, the Lipan Apache Tribe, the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians, the Coahuiltecan, and others.

I live with chronic illness and I am a survivor of intergenerational incest and other trauma.

My maternal ancestors are of western European descent, namely Irish and Scottish, English and Dutch, and have colonized Turtle Island since the 1600s. My paternal ancestors were Ashkenazi Jews who fled persecution to the so-called United States in the early 1900s.

New moon circle is a practice that has traditionally belonged to women, femmes and gender expansive people in many different cultures, including my own. My western and eastern European ancestors have strong connections to trees and the moon, and structured their lives around the movements of the sun, moon and seasons.

This space is for people of all genders.

***PLEASE BE ADVISED:***

I am not a therapist and this is not a space equipped for for intense emotional processing. If you are in crisis, please seek other resources. Here is a resource guide that may be helpful.

All participants will receive the Zoom link via email one day before the circle.

Sliding Scale Tickets

Check out the Green Bottle graphic by Worts + Cunning Apothecary to assess where you may fall on the sliding scale. There are 20 spots available, 5 spots in each tier.