Follow the Phases of the Moon

Follow the Phases of the Moon

She is known in many cultures as the Mother, or the Grandmother. In Anishanaabe she is munna' mock: Grandmother Moon. (If it is Mother Earth, then she is Grandmother Moon.) She has dominion over the waters. To be on-goingly aware of her changing face, as she waxes and wanes, is to have a celestial touchpoint, a way to measure the long inhalation and exhalation of her cycle, its expansion and contraction. For many traditional people, this was more than academic. All of the living world, the mineral, the plant, and the animal kingdoms are responding to the call of the moon. Planting and harvesting have traditionally been timed to the cycles of the moon. The full moon calls the sap upwards in the plants, fills them with vital force. The force of the waxing moon is different than the force of the waning moon.

While there are many calendars of the phases of the moon, this is our favorite: the Many Moons calendar by Jeremy Rendina. It has no words, because a moon phase calendar doesn't need words. It shows the cycle of the moon each month in a beautiful spiral. For those with a more digital inclination, there are a wide variety of free phone apps that will show you the phases of the moon. Among the many astrological influences, that of the moon is pronounced. There are correlations between mood and moon cycle that have been obvious since antiquity. We speak of a lunatic (from the old French, la lune, moon), and the word is derived from the concept that changes in the moon caused intermittent insanity. This is born out, in the present day, by the relationship between moon phases and psychiatric admits. I know many of us have had the experience of being unable to sleep during a full moon, or finding our minds whirling in concert with her when she is full. For men who don't know this, women's menstrual cycles are connected with phases of the moon. Assuredly, if she can call the sap up from the ground in plants (she has dominion over the waters) she can shape aspects of our human experience, we who are made of 70% water.

I had a remarkable experience camping at an alpine lake in the California Sierras during the full moon. (This is actually the exact spot where we filmed the Meditate in Nature video. The story I'm about to tell took place at the water's edge right behind where we filmed). I was sleeping outside, about 50 feet from the lake's edge. At about 11:30 pm, when the full moon was directly overhead, I was awakened by the crashing of waves. The lake had been flat as a mirror. Drawn by the sound, and thinking that an entire flock of birds, or some other group of creatures had come down to the water, I crept on my hands and knees to the water's edge. Belly to the ground so I wouldn't startle these creatures, I spent a breathless five minutes trying to figure out what kind of animals were splashing. There didn't seem to be anything on the surface of the water. Was it a school of fish? Something in the water? Scratching my head, I lay there, my face against the cool stones, watching the lake rise and fall like it had been shaken when suddenly I realized that it was force of the moon, directly overhead, making tides. I had never perceived her force in quite this way before, and it left me in awe. She was raising the lake with her force: lifting the water.