"Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy." - Julia Cameron
Remember, remember the Fifth of November… and here we are! Guy Fawkes and his companions may have failed spectacularly in their gunpowder plot, but the rhyme lingers on. November’s Full Moon – the Beaver Moon – rises tonight, illuminating this traditional night of fire and gathering. It is the second of three consecutive Supermoons and the closest to Earth this year so may appear both bigger and brighter than usual.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the elements recently, particularly after watching my son weather Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica. I’m relieved to say he came through safely! It also reminded me that there’s something in our need to balance the elements: earth, air, water, and fire in right proportion. November asks us to tend our fires, literally and metaphorically, as we prepare for winter’s arrival.
The Beaver Moon – 5th November
Tonight’s Full Moon takes its name from when beavers were most active preparing their lodges for winter – those industrious creatures knowing instinctively when to build, when to gather, when to create warmth before the deep cold arrived.
In ancient northern cultures, this moon marked the last full illumination before winter’s stillness. Communities finished gathering what was needed – physically and spiritually – for the months ahead. Fires were tended, stores secured, and people turned inward toward home, hearth, and reflection.
Gate 1 - Creativity: Creative Self-Expression
As the Beaver Moon rises, the sun illuminates Gate 1 – Creativity. This is pure creative self-expression, and Line 1 carries something radical: creativity without motive.
What does that mean? Creativity that doesn’t need external validation, doesn’t require applause or recognition, doesn’t depend on being “good enough.” It’s the creative impulse that arises simply because it wants to – like a child drawing for the pure joy of moving crayon across paper.
The shadow is entropy – scattered, unfocused energy that dissipates before becoming anything. The gift is freshness, and the ultimate expression is beauty.
Gate 1 aligns with the natural expansion of the Universe itself. You’re invited to expand creatively within, through, and beyond mundane expressions. This isn’t about forcing creativity or manufacturing inspiration – it’s recognizing that creative expression is as natural to you as breathing.
Bottle 1 – The Sun (Yellow/Yellow) amplifies this beautifully. Yellow is intellect, brightness, light, and joy. This bottle acknowledges your “I AMness” – that fundamental truth that you exist, you matter, you have something to express simply by being here.
Gate 2 - Receptivity: Guidance
Here’s where November offers something special. While the Sun sits in Gate 1 (masculine, yang, creative expression), the Moon inhabits Gate 2 – Receptivity (feminine, yin, inner knowing). Perfect balance: giving and receiving, action and allowing, fire and water, sun and moon.
Gate 2 speaks to natural connection with unseen inner guidance. Line 5 teaches strategic timing – riding time until action is merited, knowing when to wait and when to move.
The shadow is dislocation – that untethered feeling. The gift is orientation, and the ultimate expression is unity. Bottle 2 – The Moon (Pale Blue/Royal Blue) brings peace and protection, connecting you with your own inner knowing.
So here’s the dance November offers: Create from that pure, unmotivated place (Gate 1), while staying receptive to inner guidance especially about timing (Gate 2). Express your fire (Sun) while honouring your intuitive wisdom (Moon). Build your winter lodge like the beaver, in rhythm with what wants to emerge rather than what you think should happen.
Working with November's Energy
Trust your creative impulses: What wants to be made, written, built, expressed through you right now? The Beaver Moon says: gather your materials. Gate 1 says: let it be playful. Gate 2 says: trust the timing.
Prepare your foundations: What structures or habits will help you feel grounded through winter? Morning pages? A creative corner? Regular time for making things with your hands? These aren’t luxuries – they’re your winter lodge.
Balance doing and being: The sun and moon don’t argue about which is more important. They dance together. So can you.
Honour your rhythm: How can you deepen trust in your own inner rhythm as the outer world slows? What if your creative energy naturally ebbs and flows with the seasons, and that’s wisdom to honour?
Find delight in preparation: What small acts of care for yourself and your creative life bring you quiet joy? The beaver doesn’t begrudge building – there’s satisfaction in doing it well.
New Moon – 20th November
After the Beaver Moon’s call to prepare and tend our fires, the Scorpio New Moon invites deeper transformation. This is the season for composting what no longer serves, acknowledging what needs to die so something new can be born come spring.
Scorpio asks us to go beneath the surface, to be honest about what we’re really feeling, needing, becoming. A powerful time to set intentions around authenticity, intimacy, and personal power. What are you ready to transform? What old creative blocks or beliefs are ready to be released?
Book Corner
This month I’m sharing “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I was fortunate to hear Julia speak a few years ago, and what struck me most was her absolute conviction that creativity is our natural state, not some special gift bestowed on the talented few.
The Artist’s Way is a twelve-week program for creative recovery built on two practices: Morning Pages (three pages of longhand writing first thing each morning) and the Artist Date (weekly solo time devoted to nurturing your creative consciousness).
Morning Pages clear mental debris so something fresh can emerge – pure Gate 1 energy: unmotivated, unedited, for your eyes only. The Artist Date is receptive, open, allowing guidance to find you – Gate 2 energy.
Cameron writes about creativity as spiritual practice, which feels apt as we work with both the practical (building our creative foundations like the beaver) and the transcendent (trusting that something wants to express through us). She dismantles the myth that you need to suffer for your art or wait for inspiration. Instead, she suggests that showing up consistently creates the conditions for creativity to flow.
Her concept of “creative recovery” speaks to those who may have abandoned their creative selves, convinced they weren’t good enough. November’s Beaver Moon energy supports this: it’s not too late to prepare, to build, to create conditions for something new to emerge.
Final Thoughts
November asks us to be both industrious and intuitive, devoted to our work and trusting of natural rhythms, balancing fire and water, sun and moon, action and receptivity. It invites us to prepare our foundations not from fear, but from quiet knowing that we’re part of something larger, something cyclical, something that knows when to build and when to rest.
Your creativity doesn’t need permission or validation. It just needs you to show up, like the beaver shows up to build, like the moon shows up to illuminate, like the fire show up to warm. Whatever you’re creating, preparing, or tending right now – trust that you have everything you need within you.
With warmth from the water’s edge,
