Yesterday was the Harvest Moon of 2021. A season of reaping what has been sewn. The last full moon of the summer and the first of autumn. A lunar bridge.
Ever since I hit womanhood, I’ve felt a strong connection to the moon. It was thing of curiosity when I was a child but morphed into a symbol of incredible power and grace as an adult. Every few months, my menstrual cycle links up with the full moon; my body marking its own metric of time in sync with the universe. I feel infinite when that happens. I understand myself to be inexplicable, defined only by the vast mystery of the cosmos. Secrets buried within my body that I was entrusted to hold.
This year’s Harvest Moon will always be special to me, and my body was bleeding as it shone. I have a deep yearning for a sense of infinite, for never ending stories, for ebbs and flows that continue in perpetuity outside of our control. I am desperately seeking the more gracious characteristics of time. And so I am in deep gratitude that this moon, this harvesting moon, has allowed me to share in unearthing the boundless crop.
I’d like to share a poem I came across on Instagram last night by adrienne maree brown. I was simultaneously shook and calmed by it. I was moved by it. I read it aloud while basking in the moon’s glow, one hand applying pressure to the heat of my lower abdomen. I want to share it here. I want to read it always and think of that and those who are infinite, parts of the vast mystery of perpetuity. Thank you, adrienne.
wide fat bottom moon
slow turning your face away in laughter moon
the same thread woven through all of us
but we can only mend our small portion
and our life is the stitch, stitch, stitch
meticulous work if you let it be great
you have to know when the line is straight
when the droplet of blood can wash clean
when the bruise can fade
when the critic can rest in the quality
when the emptiness can fill
how the root can grip the soil
and when, when to let it all go
enough softens the grip
enough stretches the hours
enough expands the wonder
fullness is so important to witness
and even in your brightness, in your godness,
your character is in your scars
knowing you have lived through your own destruction
i trust you to welcome mine
knowing you surrender in reflection
i bend to kiss the earth
i let you kiss my spine
and fill my bones with delight.
💜