THE MIDWIFE MOON

A Black Moon Vision for 2025

MY INNER ALCHEMICAL SKY (The Sigils of the Fifteen Inner Stars)

The word sacred is an anagram of the word scared. (And the word scarred is not far off!)

Yesterday morning, the day before New Year’s Eve, I woke up from a very intense dream. It was all about a (female) Dark Moon insisting that she was The Midwife Moon and wanted to be known by her correct name! (We give full moons names, but do we give new moons or black moons names?)

A Black Moon occurs during the new moon phase, when the Moon is positioned between the Earth and the Sun. In this alignment, the Moon’s illuminated side faces away from Earth, rendering it invisible against the night sky’s darkness. This year’s Black Moon occurred yesterday (on December 30, 2024). A Black Moon is defined as the second new moon within a single calendar month. The first new moon of December happened on December 1. (This should not be confused with a Blue Moon, which involves two full moons in a single month!) SOURCE

In Norse mythology the sun (Sunna or Sol) is female and the moon (Máni) is male. They are conceptualized as a brother and sister. Ever since I committed to practicing only my ancestral cosmology (not a more eclectic selection of wisdom teachings and beliefs from various traditions, this was a promise I made to the Norse Gods in 2016, when I started my Forest School in Sweden), I have let go of the concept of a female moon and “moon goddesses”.

MOON MAIDENS (older painting when every day of a full moon cycle appeared to me as a Maiden possessing unique medicine)

On a broader (or higher) level I know very well that both Sun and Moon have masculine and feminine characteristics, just the way human beings do. Polarity is wired deeply into the universe and human perception of the cosmos. It is how we can make distinctions and learn lessons, through awareness of (and ultimately an internal reconciliation of) opposites.

A wise human being can hold opposing viewpoints in mind and see the value in both perspectives. A mature human being avoids simplistic black-and-white thinking. It could even be argued that human consciousness projects polarity onto all phenomena, as a way of making sense of things and teasing out story lines. Polarity or Duality provides two points to travel between so a journey unfolds.

The Dark Moon appeared as a black spinning disc (which was like a womb or void space, sacred darkness facilitating gestation). I knew that this fertile mystery space was teeming with life and potential, even if I could not see the contours or shapes of that.

On top of this Dark Moon sat a human skull and a Buddha statue facing each other. Again, the appearance of a Buddha surprised me. I do not practice Buddhism. I asked myself: what could this possibly mean? The first sentence that came to mind was “equanimity in the face of death and destruction”. But I didn’t like that. I found it highly “un-reassuring”, on the threshold of a new year.

Anyway, I grabbed my dream diary, wrote notes and made a quick sketch:

THE MIDWIFE BLACK MOON OF DECEMBER 2024 (Pen and Ink drawing)

If I take this insight to higher spiritual level it might mean that we need to accept the “death” (as in ending) of established ways of doing things (that serve no more). Then this vision becomes (a bit) less frightening. I spent all day yesterday meditating on “endings that I am willing to embrace in my personal life”, and there were a surprising number of them. Many of them related to topics I have written extensively about the year 2024 (scapegoating, narcissistic patterns of relating, carrying other people’s projections and shadows for them - as I was forced to do in childhood, so I continued doing it well into adulthood). I made notes (several pages).

I also made sure to focus on the opposite manifestation of this (within me): for me becoming or being an Elder is about speaking truth, as I see it, even if that perspective (or explicitly challenging popular ideology) triggers negative reactions (criticism, shaming and blaming, ridicule or rejection) in others.

Once you have survived 55 years of scapegoating, doing that is not so daunting, you know that you will survive and find out who your true friends are. There was a precious diamond embedded in those harsh experiences after all!

I have always believed that there is a close relationship between our inner world and outer world. Also that patterns which play out in individual relationships also play out in relationships between tribes, groups, nations, cultures etc. Company cultures and larger global systems (banks, oil companies, health insurance companies etc.), can be narcissistic, or even psychopathic, just as (a percentage of) human beings are. Just look at the levels of greed and short-term gain that rule many decisions made affecting the long-term future of our planet. (And narcissists or sociopaths often become CEO’s of such companies, as an acceptable outlet for their nefarious impulses! They have more power and reach than ordinary decent individuals).

It is a tough fact that those structures are well-established and hold our world in a kind of stranglehold on the road to self-destruction, right now. So maybe my vision is about “the death of the destruction mindset”? And that is a very dangerous time indeed. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and many communist regimes in European countries ended, in 1991, many Western Observers celebrated BUT are we better off now? And are the inhabitants of (all) those countries better off?

UNBORN CHILD DREAMING THE WORLD INTO BEING

“Just” destroying the status quo is no recipe for stability or peace. A gradual move to equitable and sustainable ways of doing things might be a much better plan (history unfailingly repeats itself, if we don’t earn the lessons our ancestors left us). So that is what I think this dream was warning me about. But those in power will not willingly release their power. Historically speaking that invites drastic developments such as coups, civil wars and revolutions.

This is where the Cosmic or Divine Midwife comes in: she does not rush the birth of the baby. She understands the pain of the contractions and reassures the mother giving birth. She keeps an eye out for medical complications and risks.

As a child I made New Year’s Resolutions. I no longer do that. Because of this vision I feel that New Year’s Eve lasted two days in 2024 (!) and as darkness descends here (early in the afternoon) I will walk deep into my personal darkness and the darkness of our world and request realistic spirit guidance (on making a contribution to) making the world a place fit for children (born and unborn) in 2025. Feel to join me if you wish!

I do not share most of my visions (though many of them inspire paintings, so you may have seen glimpses of them!) but I have decided to offer this one up for interpretation by others, as it had “a strong collective feel” to it. Feel free to comment and offer interpretations in the comments. I will read them all with interest and an open mind.

May the year 2025 be kind to you and your loved ones. May you encounter beautiful people, kindred spirits, walking the knife edge of grief and wild joy. One step at a time, in a conscious and sacred way!

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out at least one essay a week (sometimes several), due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). All artwork shown in Substack posts is my own, unless credited differently! If you would like to see regular posts about about Nordic spirituality and my life as a Forest Witch (and of course short videos of all the wildlife here!), please follow me on Instagram or Facebook, thank you!

Imelda Almqvist, Forest House, Sweden

BIO FOR IMELDA ALMQVIST

Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). So far she has written four non-fiction books and two picture books for children. Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020 and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian spirituality of the Low Countries) will be published in June 2022.

The Green Bear is a series of picture book for children, aged 3 – 8 years. The stories and vibrant artwork, set in Scandinavia, invite children to explore enchanting parallel worlds and to keep their sense of magic alive as they grow up.

Imelda has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism.

Imelda is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians (about the runes of the Elder Futhark) and on more books in the Green Bear Series. Imelda runs an on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings, where all classes she teaches remain available as recordings which can be watched any time!

Website:

http://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk/

Substack: https://substack.com/@imeldaalmqvist

YouTube Channel: youtube.com/user/imeldaalmqvist

Online School: https://pregnant-hag-teachings.teachable.com/courses/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imelda.almqvist/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/almqvistimelda/

Twitter: @ImeldaAlmqvist