The Half Moon – Her lessons, Her possibilities, and an Embarrassing Story involving Mentrual Blood

The Half Moon tips over herself tonight. Tonight is the First Quarter Moon. I haven’t done any formal research into quarter moon rituals, and I would LOVE and NEED to hear whatever insights and information you may have. But technical knowledge or no, I do know what intuitively resonates with me about this Halfling in the sky and I’m pumped to share these thoughts

with you!

We sing rollicking songs and feast ourselves by communal fires for the Full Moon; we solemnly lay our seeds of personal intention on the New Moon. For a while now I’ve felt deeply at home in these lunar rituals. They are so blunt and relatable – moon is big and round, I can see at night, let’s party. Moon is dark, the infinity of the starry sky is revealed and internal shadows come to the surface, let’s set intentions that may come to harvest by the next full moon. But the quarter moon has remained mysterious to me, an untapped invitation for ritual and healing.

What does the Half Moon have to teach us?

The Half Moon teaches us to find our stillness by noticing our stillness. The Half Moon is a fleeting moment in the sky, a tender instant strung between the slightest tip one way or the other. We catch sight of this moment and it appears so solidly decided, HALF, a line brazenly drawn straight down the middle. But in fact we are witnessing the space of quiet between exhale and inhale. She teaches us that stillness is not a final destination that follows years of meditation and holiness. Stillness is what comes when we notice that we are, at this moment, already still. Look at the moon and imagine that there is no where she is coming from, no where she is going to. Let expectations and memories fall away and accept her as she is. Notice in yourself how you are at this moment still. No where to go, no place to leave. What if your present moment on your path was the only place you had to be?

The Half Moon teaches us to accept our duality. The Half Moon shares her darkness and her light equally. Her darkness gleams down, unafraid to sublimate into the expanse around it. Her darkness accepts its place in the infinite, the chaos and the unknowable. Her light shines down without a doubt of its worthiness to glow right there amongst the stars. No mind that she is as much in darkness as she is in light, there is no need to wait for complete cheery light to take her place in the sky. The Moon shows up even when she shows up in pieces. She teaches us to hold up our value unapologetically, raggedness and all. Both darkness and light are gifts to be honored and revered. How do you react to your own darkness? How do you react to your own light? What are you afraid of sharing with others and how do you talk to yourself about sharing these things? Do you ever feel pressure to feel one way or another, but not both? Look at the Half Moon in her proud expression and consider how you might speak to yourself in a way that accepts your complexity.

It’s important to understand that connotations between darkness and negativity are often rooted in historical attempts to validate racism. How might a culture that works to spiritually reclaim its darkness also heal its engrained assumptions about dark skin? Perhaps we can heal our own personal engrained racism by doing the spiritual work ourselves. I believe that personal healing is directly linked to cultural healing and the moon offers countless opportunities for us to experience how.

The First Quarter Moon, Specifically

Ok, so technically this isn’t The Half Moon, it’s the First Quarter Moon. Which is nice phrasing, because it reminds me that this whole this is a cycle, not just a ping-ponging back and forth between New and Whole but a stretch across New, past Whole and a pull even further into a new New. Fun.

For me, the First Quarter Moon is a time for reflection and recommitment. On the New Moon I set some intentions for myself. How have I been relating to those intentions, if at all? Are those intentions still relevant for me or can I release some of them from my consciousness? And in general, how have I engaged with my life since the New Moon? I take this time to re-read journals and notes, give myself permission to radically change, and finally to Recommit.

Recommitting means ruthless honesty – what can I truly commit to; what do I truly want to commit to? I may have gotten trigger happy on the New Moon and made lots of intentions I don’t want to or can’t truly hold to, now I have a chance to reconnect with my truth and stick with what’s real. Recommitment should feel celebratory and like a relief – Yes! I get to hold on to what I care about and stop trying to commit to things I don’t care about! It should not feel like a promise or a burden. It’s more functional to commit to processes rather than goals. I commit to saying “I love you” to each of my body parts as I lotion up after a shower. I don’t commit to completely accepting everything about my body. That’s an end goal; I’ll get there one day. For now, I’m sticking with “I love you.”

And Finally, An Embarrassing Story Involving Menstrual Blood

I bleed on the Half Moon. That’s right, as in now. It has been my practice for a while to collect all of my moon blood in a jar (I use a menstrual cup so that’s fairly easy) and honor a piece of sacred ground with it after my flow is over. Moon blood is seriously nourishing and I love to offer it to sacred herbs and trees. It’s nice and feels way more reasonable that wasting all that nourishing goodness on a cotton swab stuck in someone’s septic tank.

But today the worst nightmare happened. I was packing up and getting ready to leave after a day working at the restaurant. I was in the bathroom and decided to take advantage of their running water (my cabin has none) and dump my cup before leaving. I had my jar and everything, did the deed, and left the bathroom. And left the jar in that bathroom. In the 2.5 minutes it took me to realize my fuck up, someone else used that bathroom and TOOK MY MOON BLOOD. I searched and searched but really there was nothing to do. Someone went in to that bathroom, lord knows what they think they found, and lord knows what they did with it.

No one said anything to me, and I’m pretty sure no one ever will. We will just go on, me and whoever it was, working side by side, never acknowledging that both of us have held a jar of my menses in our hands. Now that’s a special bond to share with someone. Who knows, maybe there are covert witches at work who need some blood for their own moon altar. I know that my moon altar is pretty bummed about the whole thing.

 Don't waste your red gold down the drain, grow a tree!
I wouldn't put it on houseplants though, to be real.
This ain't me, I found this image online.

So on this First Quarter Moon, I am learning to accept my shame and to accept that I stand out. I’m learning to accept that sometimes my internal matters physically and emotionally come to light when I don’t intend them to; that’s the risk I take on by dealing so  intimately with my internal matters. I am more willing to handle the consequences then I am willing to tuck my darkness away. I just hope my co-workers can handle those consequences, too. Yeeeeeeesh.