Balancing Solar and Lunar energies

Jun 8

A version of this essay was originally published in June 2024, and has been edited and expanded.

Next Friday 6/21 is the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, the longest day of the year. For those living some distance from the equator, this is the maximum potency of solar energy. One may associate it energetically with the Full Moon, the peak of a cycle. And yet, what we often see is that the trees, our gardens, and the animal life around us is just getting started. It finally feels like summer, and the harvest we associate with summer’s peak will not come for another 1-2 months. This is an important detail for understanding the effect of this energy: the metaphorical harvest is a release, that occurs after this fullness. The energy builds and can feel as if it is bursting from every pore, but the effects may not be known for some time.

Seeds take time to grow, feelings take time to unfold, and wisdom sometimes blooms in the dark.

I personally am not a fan of gender essentialist terminology applied to energy, even though of course those qualities exist. But solar (masculine) and lunar (feminine) capture it quite well and these terms eclipse the limitations of our bodily forms.

Solar energy and Lunar energy

Maybe some of you remember from a certain They Might be Giants song: “the Sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace— where hydrogen is fused into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees.” Which is to say, the Sun is primarily elemental Fire, but also Air. In working with solar energy we have the metaphorical representations of the elements: transformation, the mind and its thoughts, lightness and free movement. The sun is a literal source of power— it generates and feeds, it facilitates growth, and it can also burn. We can engage directly, such as feeling the sunlight, or through visualizing the manifestations and effects of solar energy.

The moon is a satellite of our earth, and its beautiful light is created by sunlight reflecting off the moon’s surface. One side of the moon never faces the sun, and the other side casts its glow in ever shifting shapes caused by the shadow of the earth, creating the lunar cycles.
As the light is reflected the moon imbues it with new qualities. The tone shifts from warm to cool, from yellow/orange to gray/blue. The gravity of the moon moves and pulls the water of our earth and the water of our bodies. We may feel emotions heightened, and also guided in the dark. The elemental qualities of Water and Earth provide their own form of transformation: steadiness within movement, emotions revealed and released, continued change over time, and renewal/rebirth.

Far from passive, the moon reminds us that reflections are powerful medicine, sometimes we need them to see what cannot be perceived directly.

The complimentary qualities of solar and lunar can be seen best in their relationship to each other:

I could go on! Within these representations, we have all the qualities of (re)calibration available to us. But let me speak to one of them just a little more…

Hemispheres of the body
The physical brain has two hemispheres, right and left, which each control the opposite side of the the body. In general, the right side relates most directly to creativity, emotions, and spacial reasoning, whereas the left relates to logic, math, and language. These qualities seem to be in some opposition with the premise behind practices that engage the breath on one side of the body, but when we consider that it is the opposite side of the brain the initiates it, we begin to see how these seeming polarities are intricately connected. Another way of thinking about it, is that the Lunar aspect relates to communication and reception, and the solar is more generative and creative

Working with sides of the body is a powerful way to move energy and ride the current of lunar and solar qualities. When paired with the breath awareness and sound we can observe surprising shifts.
One way of working with these qualities is moving the breath up the left side of the body on the inhale (lunar) and down the right side of the body on the exhale (solar). Alternate nostril breathing, with the third eye point as the fulcrum for this alternating flow of directional energy, is another approach to the same idea. Mantra can also be added to connect more with the subtlety of the energy. Many Tantric Practices relate diurectly or indirectly to balancing these energies, because it is only when the Ida (left) and Pingala (right) Nadis (energy channels in the subtle body) are in balance that Sushumna (the central channel in the spine) becomes active. And it is when Sushumna is active the true work of meditation begins.

Mikella Millen

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