With an almost full moon high in the sky, a group of individuals gathered in Newmarket to learn how to make the most of it and harness its energy, under the guidance of local medium Shelly McConville.
The full moon was at its peak on Oct. 9. Ahead of that, on Oct. 6, McConville opened up her home for a free event to "learn how to actually use this powerful energy in your everyday life."
She said the October full moon is known as the hunter's moon, dating back hundreds of years to Indigenous peoples, as this is the time of year when animals would be fattening themselves up for hibernation and hunting would ramp up to have meat for winter.
Today, McConville said this full moon is still significant.
"That's a time when you actually want to release things that you might need to let go of, also that will enhance your spiritual growth, to set new goals to work toward new things, release negativity. Things like that can really enhance your life going forward because of this energy of the hunter's full moon," she said.
It's not clear what about a full moon is so powerful, but she has witnessed its impact in everyday life. McConville said when she worked at a nursing home with dementia patients, their activity would increase during a full moon. Anecdotally, she has heard of emergency rooms seeing an uptick in incidents when there is a full moon. She also mentioned the rising of the tides and all the references to the impacts of the moon in folklore and pop culture.
As a medium, she said her connection to spirit is even stronger for three days leading up to a full moon and the three days following it.
"Before the full moon and afterwards, my house is crazy with spiritual activity. It's just off the charts," McConville said.
Her first experience as a medium happened when she was eight years old , when she had an encounter with her grandfather who had passed away three days prior. She dabbled with it in her teenage years and throughout her 20s, but it wasn't until her 30s that she began exploring more about her spiritual gifts and learning from teachers.
After that, she decided to teach others and has been doing that for more than 13 years. She has also worked as a reiki master for 14 years. Today she provides spiritual readings, animal communication, house clearings, and paranormal investigations through her business Spiritual and Paranormal Connections.
Hosting events like the hunter's full moon gathering at her Newmarket home is part of that. At the session, she taught people about the full moon and its energy, led a meditation, gave intuitive messages and taught participants how to give messages to each other.
In lieu of payment for the event, McConville collected food donations for the Newmarket Food Pantry.
"I try to give back to the community as much as possible because I think it's really important because we have to help each other," she said. "Everything is costing so much. I think a lot of families are going to really struggle over this holiday season."
She delivered 12 bags of food to the food pantry the day after her event, where it weighed in at 126 pounds.
For McConville, the full moon event was a win-win, helping people tune in to the moon's energy while giving back the community.
