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On signs, false light, and finding your way back by the moon.
After a Saturday morning at the gym — a workout I didn't want to do, but also making the most of heavy lifting on day 10 of my cycle — I was a little shaky (and very smelly). Holding the dark roast with an extra shot Starbucks order my husband asked me to pick up on my way home, I stood juggling my bag, water bottle, and keys as I reached for the doorknob. A moth was waiting. Or more accurately, flying around me. I stood still to encourage it to land so I could get a closer look. He didn't. Instead, he kept circling.
An hour earlier, between pushups and cable woodchops, I'd scrolled past a watercolor painting of a moth in an Instagram ad. This week I'd been rereading Neville Goddard, The Power of Awareness. In the chapter I sat with last night (Chapter Three: Power of Assumption), Neville writes about the moth's longing for the flame. How it’s willing to give up everything it is — to die, even — to become one with what it wants. Complete transformation.
It reads, “Just as the moth in his desire to know the flame was willing to destroy himself, so must you in becoming a new person be willing to die to your present self.”
Naturally, I paid extra attention to the circling moth this morning. Three moths within twelve hours? I don't need to wait for a signier sign.
Before the moth, it was elephants.
When the elephants came back
Elephants showed up three times last week. I mentioned it during our monthly Season Session in The Studio, and another member said they'd been finding her too. For me, the elephant appeared as a stuffed animal held by my 10-month-old nephew at the bookstore, a movie, and a photo.
I've been keeping a five-year Line A Day journal since 2019. A few times a year, I grab my old one — the one I finished in 2023.
The other night, I pulled it out again. Seven years ago this week, in 2019, I wrote a note about elephants. I had just watched a movie about them (don't recall which one). It was the week I was deciding whether to join an $8,000/year mastermind, and I'd asked my coach to help me tune into what was right for me — is this a yes?
I signed up the next day.
I remember that feeling of the decision clearly. In my notes, I also wrote that I felt on the verge of more change and expansion.
I even had a conversation this week with that same coach I worked with in 2019. She asked me a series of really good questions I’m sitting with this week.
Then, on a Zoom call with a long-time friend I made in that $8k mastermind, we both named a familiar pattern: putting people on pedestals.
Mostly, it's been women we admire. Women who show up as leaders. Women whose glow looked so bright and confident that we followed blindly without asking ourselves whether it was lighting our path or theirs. More than once, when I got close, I found out some of that glow was real… and some of it was just a well-positioned floodlight, good makeup, and a well-lit stage.
A real leader can be in the light and show you your own light.
The light showed me what I needed to see. And every time, I got what I was looking for — transformation. I don't regret a single one of these investments in containers.
This isn't a story about these women, but a story about me.
About how long I looked outside myself for the light. A really, really long fucking time.
What I know now. Nobody took my power or even asked for it. At times, I handed some of it over. And some of my biggest growth happened in those spaces.
Learning from others is a gift. Giving them the wheel is a choice. And at the end of the day, it’s always yours to make. You can stay sovereign. You can take what’s true, leave the rest, and keep listening for your own voice underneath it all.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: the wheel was never meant for anyone else. It was meant for God. And God steers through that voice inside you — the one that knows where to find the water. Staying sovereign isn’t about control. It’s about letting God take the wheel, and trusting yourself enough to know where it’s turning.
What does it mean when elephants keep showing up?
Spiritually, elephants are about memory, wisdom, and steady strength. They never forget. My husband has called me an archaeologist more than once — ha!
I digress.
An elephant herd is led by its oldest female — the matriarch. In a drought, she remembers where the water was, sometimes from decades ago. The herd doesn't follow her because they admire her or think she’s pretty. They follow her because she knows the way. Her authority is her lived experience. The kind you can't fake. I’m guessing she’d only lead them to a dry patch once.
This is the opposite of being put on a pedestal.
What does a moth mean spiritually?
Spiritually, the moth represents transformation — and learning to tell real light from false light.
I dove into reading about moths after the porch encounter. Originally, it was thought that moths navigate by the moon and mistake a porch light for it. The newer science is interesting, though. Moths keep their backs to the brightest light, because in nature, that’s the sky. It’s how they know which way is up. A lamp messes with that flow. They tilt toward something that looks like the sky but isn’t, and circle it until they’re worn out.
Oof. I'm tired just thinking about that.
Sit with that for a second. Circling a fake light until you're confused and exhausted.
At first, I didn't think the moth and elephant could be related at all. But instead, I think they're saying, "Remember what you know. Have the confidence and faith to let go of the old shape."
The elephant = memory.
The moth = surrender.
You only get rebirth and transformation with BOTH. Remembering and letting go. I don’t think this needs to be a conscious process either. Like, does the moth sit there and think, “I’m gonna fly into this flame and die!”?
Oh, hello Scorpio season and a Scorpio new moon.
The Scorpio new moon: reflect your own light
Monday, November 9 is the new moon in Scorpio. Scorpio is death and rebirth — moth territory. The stuff that burns off so something new can grow.
And the moon the moth is searching for? She doesn't make her own light. She reflects it back. And at a new moon, no light is reflected back, so we have to get still and quiet to see, hear, and feel our own.
We don't need someone else's light to guide us. We need to reflect our own — outward, into our words, into our work, into the world. When we're quiet enough to hear our unique voice, we bring that up and out. If we’re having trouble finding our way in the dark, turning our back to the light behind us can help us see what’s in front of us. So it was never someone on a pedestal or a stage, but simply someone who has a flashlight.
Quiet around a new moon might look like a completely open calendar, no obligations, staying home, going to bed early, extra self-care, journaling by candlelight.
Honestly, that sums up what I teach. Writing with the moon has nothing to do with rules. It's a way to come back to yourself, phase after phase. And hear the voice underneath all the noise. Then write from there.
How to hear yourself again
Maybe you've been circling someone else's light, too. It could look like scrolling for hours in search of “inspiration.”
Obsessing over the hugely popular Substack writer. The perfect posting schedule. The 30-day streak of gold stars. You follow along, and it's fine. Sure, you learn some things, but a month in, if you’re creating anything, it doesn't feel like you. It feels like a performance.
Yes, learn from people a few steps ahead of you, just keep driving your own bus.
You don't need someone else's writing schedule.
You don't need another writing challenge.
You need to be able to hear yourself at the page.🕯️🕯️🕯️
That's what Finding Flow: Breathe New Life into Your Substack is for.
I created this live experience a few years ago. It sparked my book, Writing with the Moon. It starts Monday, November 9 — on the new moon … on purpose — and runs through the next new moon on December 7. It's 29 days to feel your writing move again, from the inside out. Really, I think it's about feeling your soul move.
And here's how we'll get there: questions.
Really good questions.
Asking questions is the heart of how I coach. I ask as I'm guided — and they don't always make sense in the moment (even to me). I keep my brain out of the way and let the words out. Then one question lands, and something opens. Someone told me this week that a question I asked sent her down a street she never would have walked alone. Someone else told me that a month after I asked a question, she knows exactly what her book is.
A 30-day challenge can get you a finished book or 30 Substack essays. But here's what matters: Is it what your soul wants to write? Or just words on a page to prove you could do it?
In Finding Flow, I'll ask you those questions live, in a small, intimate room (on Zoom, cameras off). The answers come from you — which is the whole point.
We meet on Mondays, 1:00–2:30pm ET (every call is recorded), with an integration week over Thanksgiving so you can rest, and built-in time to write. It's $97 — and if you're in the Studio, you're already in.
Bring the Substack you want to write, the essays you think could become a book someday, bring a hint of an idea or ten ideas. Bring whatever's ready to burn off. I'll help you find your way back to your own light, and write from there.
xx Jacqueline
