The Moon Makes Her Move
And she's not shy about it.
Pamela Fitzsimons, Australia, Werekata Moon
Thursday, March 13th 2025
Evening, chickweed -
Big big big changes internal and external, great and small happening for us these days. You faring okay my friend? You holding up?
I’ve been deep in the transformation station myself (and I thank you for your patience), but coming outta my cocoon (100% goop right now, thanks for asking), waving one hand from the chrysalis, to make a little gesture at the sky tonight.
In a few hours we’ll have ourselves a Total Eclipse of the Moon. A blood moon follows until dawn. Feels deeply potent at this pinnacle shifting seasonal moment - the birds are flocking back, the geese loaf around on the river ice, the snow route parking bans have just been lifted (or so I’m told, could just be a myth).
You can see the eclipse tonight if you are somehow able to stay up past 1 AM these days. The Manitoba Museum is doing a live stream starting at 11 PM Central Time - when the penumbral eclipse begins - you know what, in the interest of science, here’s the timetable of the heavens tonight - the set times for the show if you will -
So if you wake up in the middle of the night filled with weird dreams (I would expect as much on a blood moon lunar eclipse night) you can look outside or just check the live stream.
Eclipses come in pairs, and tonight is the beginning of a so-called “Eclipse Season,” lasting until the partial solar eclipse on March 29 comes to close things out. Imagine along with me all of humankind experiencing the weird sensation of having their hair gently pulled by the moon for the next two weeks. We are duty-bound to be extra gentle with all the folks and especially the lunatics (the mooniest of all).
Here are 5 Recommendations (while you’re working on your Moon Tan) -
1. Oh of course first pay respects to Moon Tan -
(if I had an ounce of their courage where the heck would I be now - )
Get cozy somewhere and read one of the greatest short stories of all time - this one will stick with you for a long time, I promise -
THE DISTANCE OF THE MOON by ITALO CALVINO
Italo Calvino’s “The Distance of the Moon” story is so incredibly surreal and tactile and strange and yet comforting.
Meditate on a few of Chela Davidson’s affirmations for creatives going through dark periods - “hell realms” as she calls them, (and I appreciate that very much):
I will not collapse in despair. I will descend gently and indulgently into my despair and make love to it, make art from it.
I will not diminish the value of making art. I will not rush the unseen. I will let myself be lonely in the fear of being trapped here forever.
I will not deny myself joy and pleasure. I will not martyr myself to systems that benefit from my extraction and lack of well-being. I will rest, play and delight as a right. As a fight. As an act of resistance.
I will not exalt efficiency. I will revere imagination. I will waste time, words and effort as a practice. As a reminder that time, words and effort needn’t be scarce. There’s no rush, only the invitation to revel.
Tease apart the idea of the future with Jacques Derrida -
“Absolute Future: A future that’s unconditioned by past patterns.
Because of the way that our brains work, and because of the way that our culture teaches us that life follows a linear path in which you build perpetually upon the last thing that you’ve done, so you sort of go up and the the right based on what you’ve done before, when we think about our future typically we really narrow our aperture to basically only picture outcomes and experiences that relate somehow to what we’ve done in the past.
“But actually when you look back at a life, so much of what happens is something that could never have been predicted. It’s meeting somebody that leads to something that leads to something that leads to something that ends up totally changing your direction. We forget those things so easily, the abolsute future, this wide open future, is actually a lot closer to reality, if we allow that.” — Emily McDowell
Make sure you take it slow these next two weeks, question everything, drink extra (extra!) water, meditate whenever possible (marvel mildly at your brain chatter like you would a passing cloud), throw your phone in the river if you can, take long walks, steamy showers, long rests - I’m wishing you a magical little time of self realization while we orbit this wild celestial window. Make the best of the weirdness! You got this - see you in there -
Natalie
