The October Full Moon & Water Essence
Canwápe Kasná Wi — The Moon When the Wind Shakes Off Leaves
Happy Full Moon.
In Lakota cosmology, this is the season of Water — the season of fall and of the life stage when we reexamine our values and the integrity of our walk. We ask ourselves:
Are my thoughts, words, and actions aligned with what I hold most precious?
Am I living from what I believe in?
In the medicine wheel of life, this is the initiation from adolescence to adulthood, the time when we pick up our medicine bundle and begin to live what we’ve learned.
From Fire to Water
For weeks, the teachers — those unseen ones we might call ancestors, spirit guides, or divine wisdom — have been speaking of this journey.
In my mind, I see it as a crossing from Fire through Water to a new Earth.
Let me roll with this metaphor, rooted in Lakota ways of seeing.
We have been living in a time of Fire. The world, in many ways, is on fire — driven by passion, reaction, creation, and destruction. Beneath the flames, anger rises. And if we look deeper still, we might find fear, desperation, or grief.
Perhaps, much of our purpose and medicine has been shaped by that fire — by learning who we are through the heat of survival and the pressure to transform.
Standing at the Water’s Edge
Now, imagine yourself standing at the edge of the Fire Land. The cool water laps at your ankles. Someone — perhaps your higher self, perhaps the ancestors — is there, holding a canoe. They are not merely inviting you; they are insisting that it is time to get in.
The current of love — the current of surrender — is ready to carry you toward another shore.
The teachers call this place the Loveland.
But it isn’t an instant arrival. You must sail through fog, untethered from what has rooted you in fear, toward unseen shores.
You are not alone — there are many canoes in the water — yet only you can paddle your own vessel. It takes bravery. It takes grit.
The Season of Water
This Water time will ask you to confront your own reflection — to see beauty and shadow intertwined. You may feel tender. You may feel wild. You may feel undone.
Water asks for surrender. It is not The Shift in some esoteric sense; it is the humble work of being human — of learning to move through emotion, relationship, and life.
How long will this crossing take? I don’t know. Water is a ritual of letting what must die, die — and trusting that the new will come. What I do know is that every season ends, and each one returns us to ourselves a little more whole.
Medicine for the Journey
The Water Formula — a flower, stone, and land essence — was made to accompany you on this passage. These plant and stone elders steady your inner waters as you move between worlds.
They are the companions who remind you that surrender is strength, that tenderness is courage, that the current of love will not abandon you.
As you travel through this Water season, may you trust your own reflection. May you drift toward the unseen shore that is already calling your name.
You can meet the Water Essence Formula in the Shayne Case Apothecary — and let it join you in your canoe.
With love,
Shayne