What the Waxing Moon Is Asking of You Right Now

A letter for the days when you're not quite there yet, but close.

I woke up this morning before the roosters, which almost never happens, and walked out to the rice fields with my tea still too hot to drink. The moon was still up — not full, not new, just full enough to look almost finished, hanging low and gold over the paddies like it was waiting for something. I stood there longer than I meant to. It occurred to me that I have been living in that exact shape lately. Almost there. Not quite finished. Full enough to look like an answer, but still, technically, becoming.

"You do not have to be full to be worthy of the light you're already holding."

We're in a waxing gibbous moon right now — that stretch of sky between the half-moon and the full moon, when the light is building but hasn't arrived yet. Astrologers will tell you this is a phase of refinement. Not beginning, not culmination — the part in between where you take what you started at the new moon and you adjust it, tend it, sand down its rough edges before it's shown to anyone in full. I think it's the most honest phase of the whole cycle, and also the one we're worst at sitting with.

The almost-there feeling isn't a problem to solve

So much of what I hear from women in this community — in the DMs, at the shop, over tea on the veranda — is some version of "I feel like I should be further along by now." Further along in the business. Further along in the healing. Further along in becoming whoever it is we're each quietly trying to become. But a waxing moon isn't behind schedule. It's exactly where it's supposed to be. The light hasn't arrived yet because it isn't time. There's a difference between not yet and not enough, and this season of the sky is a good teacher of that difference.

What this energy is actually asking of you

Waxing gibbous energy is quieter than people expect. It doesn't ask you to launch anything or announce anything. It asks you to refine. To go back to the thing you started three weeks ago, or three months ago, or three years ago, and adjust it with the information you have now that you didn't have then. It asks for small, unglamorous corrections — the kind nobody claps for, the kind that only you will ever know you made. That's the work right now. Not more. Just truer.

A small ritual, if you want one

Tonight, if the sky is clear where you are, step outside and find the moon. Notice that it isn't full. Say out loud, or just to yourself, the thing you're building that isn't finished yet — the business, the relationship with yourself, the body you're learning to live in, whatever it is. Then say: "This is enough light for where I am." Let the moon finish becoming full without your help. Let yourself do the same.

The women who taught me this

I think about my grandmother a lot in this phase of the moon. She used to say that a woman who rushes her own becoming ends up living someone else's timeline instead of her own. She wasn't being poetic — she meant it practically. Rushed things break easier. A dress sewn too fast puckers at the seam. A decision made too early has to be unmade later, more expensively. The waxing moon has patience built into its design. I'm trying to borrow some of that.

Wherever you are in your own almost-there — I hope you can let it be exactly that, without turning it into a verdict on your worth. The light is coming. It's already on its way. You don't have to pull it toward you any faster than it's moving.

With love from Bali,
Myrah.

A Piece for This Threshold

Cha Dao Linen Suka Set

Cha Dao means the Way of Tea — not the drink, but the practice of being fully present with what's in front of you. This set was made for that same quality of attention: 100% linen, cut for the in-between moments that ask for softness and stillness rather than a finished statement. Not a costume for who you'll be. A garment for who you're becoming, right now, mid-refinement.

Shop the Cha Dao Suka Set →