New moon of April 2026

Many things have happened since the previous new moon, planet-dwellers.

Someone in my chosen family told me: “Simplify your life. And then simplify again. Happiness follows.”

When I think about it, some things are best left unsaid and un-announced to the wider public. Everyone will be happier that way.

What news can I then bring you on this new lunar cycle, my fellow esteemed gaia-naut?

I know! Let me check the logs on my camera, (a beauty from the digital-camera manufacturers of the 2010s.)

snapshots

Note: the above has been edited with an app named Snapseed.

from another camera

tried a journal prompt: what I have learnt that I need in love

It's so strange that people around me, myself included, need a new useful language to advocate for what we really need. The language from my childhood environment is insufficient for my present-day circumstances.

To help me, I used a checklist from Dr. William Harley, Jr.'s book, titled “His Needs, Her Needs”. A striking sentence from that book is: affairs begin when someone in the marriage feels unfulfilled in their emotional needs, and looks elsewhere to fulfill those needs: co-workers, strangers and so on.

Dr. Harley, Jr. lists out ten different emotional needs in his book.

After working through some exercises, I have compiled a ranking of my top five emotional needs, out of the ten. In this particular order:

  1. Gestures of affection
  2. Recreational companionship
  3. Words of admiration
  4. Physical attractiveness of my partner (lest anonymous critics accuse me of sexism, I believe my partner would similarly love for me to look well-groomed and well-dressed.)
  5. Intimate conversations – about fears, vulnerabilities and future hopes.

I wonder, dear reader, if you and your partner discuss whether each of you are meeting each other's needs? For me, I realised it takes substantial effort to even figure out my emotional needs in the first place – with the caveat, of course, that my emotional needs may change as time passes.

bookshelf

  1. Sun City, by Tove Jansson.
  2. The insanity of God: A true story of faith resurrected, by Nik Ripken.
  3. Illustration now: Fashion, edited by Wiedemann and Heller.

resources

  1. “Affection, sex and the 10 emotional needs”. By: Mark Jala. Retrieved from Happy Marriage Coaching on 16 April 2026. Also on Internet Archive.
  2. Journal prompt cards, from Oliver Bonas, (which is the name of a chain of stores.)

#lunaticus