Harvest Moon & The Art of Transmutation a Full Moon Devotional

As the Full Moon rises, we walk the Via Transformativa feeling the call to justice, to transformation, to healing, and to celebrating.

Invocation

Holy One, Fire at the heart of all things,
we gather beneath the fullness of the moon,
lamp of silver, mirror of Your light.

Into Your crucible we bring our burdens,
the heaviness of sorrow, the raw ore of injustice,
the leaden weight of fear and longing.

Ignite within us the flame of justice,
refine us with the light of compassion,
bind us together in the gold of love.

As the moon shines without shadow,
may we shine with Your transmuting power
turning pain into wisdom,
anger into courage,
and brokenness into wholeness.

We open ourselves now to the alchemy of Your Spirit.

Amen.

The Sacred Moment

Today, the Harvest Moon rises full, pulling tides and truths alike to the surface. May we feel the call to justice, to transformation, to healing, and to celebration. In this sacred brightness of the Full Moon, we walk the path of the Via Transformativa: the way of change, the march of justice, track of living love into form. The world aches for healing, and transformation begins not just in systems, but in souls.

This is a moon to act, to bless, to become.

Theme: The Art of Transmutation

This season, under the light of the full moon, we're going to perform a great and mighty work that can happen within us or around us: the art of transmutation. Transmutation is the alchemical art of transforming one thing into a different thing. It is a power that we all have deep within us we second guess, that we ignore, that we let others tell us is just an illusion or something that happens in our mind. But that's its actual power. Whether transmutation is an artifact of the mind, or whether it is an energetic force that we put out into the universe, it influences us, and in changing us, we become an agent of change in the cosmos itself.

We are in this beautiful world which is often broken by the anger, hate, and greed of others and ourselves. We feel deep down within us: this pain, this loneliness, this ache to make the world better. This is a wonderful fuel for transmutation.

Justice burns within us like a fire that refines our selves and the world immediately around us. We are each embers in this flame, and as we join forces, we build into a titanic wildfire that goes through the land, scorching away all that need not be there, and leaving behind fresh, revived, restored land, ready for fresh growth.

Whatever is currently bothering us, or that is currently on our minds, we can take and hold it within, just hold it on the inside of us. We don't think about how to change it, not yet. Don't think about what we want it to change into, not yet. We just hold it, letting it sit in the crucible of that fiery justice within us, so that it can melt down. We see the injustice within it dissolve off and rise to the top, becoming this thick, mucilaginous slag on the top. In this act, we see the justice buried within the injustice, in other words, we see the thing we are actually wanting to preserve.

This step is vital if we are actually going to make the transformation we want to see. All too often, we follow our easy first guess, which is often wrong. We need to discover, to the best of our ability what the change is that we need. It takes mindful attention under the heat and pressure of justice to burn away all the impurities to see what we need to be left with in the end. This process glows with the luminous heat of compassion which arise from the fires of justice. Through this alchemy we discover love.

We talk about love like a feeling, and it can be a feeling. It has an emotional component ordering how we treat one another. Love is the affection we feel deep in our bones, and it is a chemical process that happens in our brains. Yes, all of this is true, but love is also the tie that binds us together. It is the simple affection for the One Life in all things, as well as the acceptance that all beings deserve a good life: free from fear, from want, free from deprivation, pain, and suffering. To the best of our ability, love drives us to rid those toxins from our environment so that the pure love, the pure state of the thing that we love can be revealed and allowed to grow and flower.

As we sit with this crucible, allowing it to burn in the heat of justice, in the light of compassion, held together by the bonds of love, this awareness of the ties that bind us together, we find what at the heart needs to be preserved. What are we actually fighting for? Now there may be steps along the way. There may be things that we have to get through to get to that point. But the end of a war is not a solution. Yes, wars must be ended, but the right of every individual human being and community to live without fear and deprivation and prejudice is important.

We let it sit within us and we look for those core things. If we don't understand the innate sovereignty we operate in and the agency that that it gives us, if we don't respect the sovereignty and agency of others, if we don’t see the ties that hold us together in this tension between our agency and their agency, between our sovereignty and their sovereignty, between what we want and what they want, we'll never get to a real solution. Imposing our will on others is just another form of violence. Violence is just removing the agency of another, be it through threat or force or hostile act.

In the end, if we want true peace, true justice, then we have to bring this fire, this light, and these connections together in a way that allows for a new stable union to arise. A new homeostasis, a new balance, a new harmony.

If we're looking at a conflict, what are they fighting over really and what does each party really need? This is a hard act to do. This is hard to do within ourselves when we focus just on the pains of our own lives, our health, or our relationships with others. But it's in this honesty, it's in this crucible where the fire of justice, the light of compassion, and the alchemical ties of love are allowed to mix and mingle that we can see what it is we really need, what it is we really want. Because only then can we get to real solutions and real problems.

We transmute the impure, problematic state, the problem that we threw into the crucible itself, into the life-giving solution that will empower and vivify everyone involved. It's hard, and sometimes based on the hardness of our own hearts, impossible to get to that level of balance. But in the end, as we come together under this crucible of the full moon, our goal needs to be to transmute that lead into gold. To remove all the impurities and to bring together all of the necessary energies to make something precious that everyone will want to preserve going forward. It's not an easy task, but it is the one we are called to.

Practice: The Crucible of Transmutation

1. Prepare the Crucible

Find a quiet place where the moonlight can touch you, or light a single candle to stand in its stead.

Sit with your spine straight and your feet rooted to the earth.

Imagine a small cauldron or crucible glowing inside your chest: this is the fire of justice burning within you.

2. Select the Matter to Be Transmuted

Bring to mind something weighing on you: a conflict, fear, injustice, or wound.

Hold it gently. Do not judge it or leap to fixing it. Place it in the crucible of your heart.

3. The Refining Fire

With each breath, imagine the fire of justice growing hotter.

See the problem or wound begin to melt, its hard edges softening.

Picture the impurities, the pain, bitterness, rage, despair, rising as dark smoke or slag, separating from the purified metal.

4. The Glow of Compassion

Let a cool light of compassion shine into the crucible.

This light doesn’t erase the pain but shows you what within the situation is worth preserving: the dignity, the hope, the need at the heart of it.

Stay here until you sense at least one clear truth about what is good, beautiful, or necessary to protect.

5. The Binding of Love

Whisper: “Love is the tie that binds.”

Imagine golden threads weaving through the crucible, drawing together the fire of justice and the light of compassion.

See the matter transmuted into something new: an insight, a resolve, a way of being that supports peace, justice, or healing.

6. Seal the Work

Hold your hands over your heart. Say aloud what has been revealed: “From this lead, may gold arise. From this pain, may love endure.”

Blow out the candle, or lift your face to the moon, knowing the work is sealed.

Closing Blessing

Divine Alchemist,
we have entered the crucible of Your light,
bearing the raw ore of our fears, our wounds, our hopes.

Through the fire of justice,
through the glow of compassion,
through the bonds of love,
You have begun the great work in us.

Seal now within our hearts the gold that has been revealed.

Give us the courage to carry it into the world,
to live as agents of Your transforming power,
to honor the sovereignty of each soul,
and to build a harmony that endures beyond conflict.

As the full moon fades,
let its radiance remain within us,
a steady lamp of transmutation,
guiding us to shape a more just, more loving world.

Amen.