Singing Up the Moon

 

I was all out of sorts yesterday. Something was (g)rumbling around inside me. I couldn’t write. I felt off. I felt as if something wanted to break loose, to make itself known and I had no idea (on the surface at least) what it was. The full moon was working me and I didn’t know it…until a friend reminded me.

Then he shared this,

“I lived in a place once, where the women would go out at sunset and build a fire and wait for the moon. They would each get cornmeal to pray with and eventually to offer to the fire. Once the moon started to show up in the East, they would “sing up the moon” with a certain song till it was fully up. The men would stay inside and just gather someplace, and drink coffee, talk, play cards and just chill. The full moon was women’s business; it was their night. It was always really cool to hear them singing.“

It is women’s business. We can ‘sing up the moon’. 

This is what we know as women, what we know in our female bones.

There is a difference between men and women in how our biology responds to life moving through and around us.

What would it be like if we’d grown up with this wisdom, grown up being shown how this wisdom is an integral part of womanhood?

We’ve forgotten so much wisdom because of our disconnection from our true home, the natural world. Not everyone has forgotten. There are sources of wisdom available to us. For me, one source is this beautiful friend from high school who shares so wisely his culture’s wisdom. I’ve only reconnected with him since Facebook brought so many of our class back together. There are so many other sources of wisdom if we have the humility to ask and the desire to know. 

Much of our socialization has been to see this wisdom as something less than: less than science, less than logic, less than reasonable; yet, it is such hubris to believe this is so. We are in the state we are in right now because we have lost touch with wisdom inherent in life itself, with a knowing of things other than rationality and logic.

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As the movement and pull of this big bold beautiful full moon worked on me, I felt pushed and pulled toward something that wasn’t very comfortable. I could feel a kind of push-pull happening inside me where much of me wanted to run from what I was feeling and being pulled toward, while at the same time part of me was willing to dive right in. I’ve found these ‘storms’ to be thresholds to big changes and shifting, many times brought on by more momentous astrological markers. I never used to give astrology much credence (part of my conditioning), but I’ve discovered that it’s actually very practical, especially when you can feel the pushes and pulls happening in your own body.

As I wrestled with these feelings, I remembered these words spoken by the photographer, Diane Arbus:

“You must learn not to be careful.”

These words are kindling for my soul. They take hold of my soul’s spark and feed it into flame. They move me toward the wisdom of the instinctual self within, the divine wild, the soul.

Too careful and cautious come about when we lose the scent and impulse of our own instinctual nature. When I am in touch, I am like a tracker, someone who tracks animals by listening and looking, sensing and feeling. There’s a coming to know how life moves, how instincts flow, and how responses maneuver, whether it be within oneself or in the flow of life (which really aren’t two separate things).

We are taught and trained to be careful. I wonder if women are more careful than men? Or vice-versa? Or is that not even relevant? I know I am too careful. And, I usually don’t even know I am being such…until I feel it in my body. I think I run in cycles and spells – of carefulness.

I am too careful, yet, in some ways I am way too impetuous. A funny thing about us humans is that we push pull much of the time, coming toward and moving against, rather than trusting in the flow of life itself, both the open spacious awareness of spirit and the entirely instinctual nature of soul.

This something within us that isn’t careful at all, isn’t so neat and tidy, doesn’t care at all what others think. It’s instinct. It’s raw. It’s chaos at its core. It’s animal. It’s divine.

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The past two weeks of travel, to both Alaska and Montana, have been beautiful and challenging. I’ve learned what matters deeply to me, what I must have in the work I do. I’ve learned what it means to stay with myself, and to hold fast to my integrity. I’ve learned more about what it means to collaborate, to trust people I didn’t yet know because I could sense into their integrity and willingness to work for the whole. There were things I didn’t do particularly well, while at the same time I had moments of genius and insight – pretty normal human stuff.

I participated in ceremony and ritual to honor and give thanks to Pachamama. I sweated in a sweat lodge. I danced and breathed and created from the Soul. I honored this divine wildness within me.

Coming to trust that this wild is within us, and that it is wholly divine, is part of journey in remembering and embodying the emergent feminine. She is the divine wild humanity of our being. She comes to us all, both women and men, as the soul pushes to come back into consciousness.

What I’ve found works for me is to keep saying yes. I ask myself if I want to follow the rich call of the soul, and I always answer yes, even if there is a part that fears these instincts and where they might take me. It has never worked for me to push past the fear. Instead, I acknowledge it is here, truly listen to it like I would a frightened child, and then asking myself if I want to stay in this place of fear. The response is immediately and abundantly clear.

With nose to the air and ear to the ground, She, this wild divine soul, leads me, insistently and lovingly.

I share this with you, because if you, too, feel this pull, know you are not alone. Many of us are being drawn to the pull of Soul, to wake up to our instinctual nature. 

It is key for women to live this instinctual nature. I know it can be frightening, and I know it helps when we share with each other what we are seeing, hearing, and sensing. We are awakening together. We are women and we are one woman.

I’d love to know what you’ve experienced, how the moon pulls you.

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Image by Joe, licensed under CC, Some rights reserved