Corn Moon Goals — 2021

Today is the new Corn Moon, and again, I almost missed it. This can only mean one thing.

Something is wrong with my planning system.

I’ve been thinking about this in context with the New Corn Moon and wondering how I can apply the current lunar energy to my dilemma. For me, the Corn Moon is supposed to help me find “what grows corn for me.” What helps my productivity, my happiness, my life? What hinders it?

I think it’s going to come down to perspective.

As a child, I used to spend a few weeks each summer on my Aunt and Uncle’s farm. It was always an amazing and magical time.

One of the things I’d do when I was little was run through the corn fields (once we grew bigger, we had to stop or we’d knock over the stalks!). There was nothing like looking down those rows of corn that seemed to go on forever and run straight through them as fast as I could. The stalks would blur beside me, and it felt like I was running as fast as the wind.

When I have a planner system that works, my days feel more like this. I have a straight path laid out ahead of me, I know what I’m going to do and all my mental energy can be used in pushing myself toward my goals.

When I don’t have a planner system that works, even though I’m dealing with the same corn, it looks more like this.

All it takes is a little shift, and the path disappears.

This really is what my life has felt like for a while now. I have all this beautiful corn to plant and care for and harvest, but I don’t have a way to look at it that shows me my direction. It leaves me lost and reduces my yield. Plus, there is no way to run through that without knocking everything over!

Incidentally, all of that applies to my writing as well. Without outlines, my writing speed is severely diminished and the end product takes a lot more work to “harvest” (edits, edits, edits).

So, how do I get from here to there? How do I shift my perspective to line up all those rows of bountiful corn once more?

I’m not sure. I’m going back through old planner systems to see what worked and under which circumstances and have some ideas, but it’s going to take time to develop them. Hopefully, using the energy of the New Corn Moon as it waxes full will help. Wish me luck!