Once upon a time, the Queen of Heaven was the Moon, sister to the Earth. Together they were honored as aspects of the Great Mother, the Goddess of time immemorial. She set the first calendar, taught the people when, where, and how to plant, cultivate and harvest food and medicine, and others of the oldest magics.
Moon is the oldest story, and it is a long story. A story with many names for Moon, many gods, multiple genders, and mythic places. A story that includes most of our lineages. Practices honoring the phases of the Moon take us back to our oldest ancestors, and our ancestors’ ancestors, as far as the dawn of humanity. The impacts of Moon consciousness are everywhere. They are reflected as remnants of our first rituals: in our traditions of gathering with friends and family, in our spice racks and mixing bowls, in how we honor landmarks and lifecycle events, in our instinctive responses to rhythm and to seasonal changes, in our need for story to make sense of the world and resolve psychic tension, in our desire for grand design and higher power. Moon consciousness has always been endemic to our evolution and essential for us to thrive upon the Earth. Following the Moon will lead you out of your current version of religion, out of the constrictions of contemporary patriarchy, and back into evolution.
The Moon story renews itself over generations and across cultures.
The Moon story reaches back into pre-prehistory. Its story is of fluidity, of transformation, of vision and illusion, of renewal. The Moon is both female and male, sometimes both at once. The Moon stimulates our deepest memories, collective thoughts, and our semiconscious knowledge. The shadow of Earth cast on the Moon gives the illusion of its changing size. We watch the dance of shadow and light playing over the Moon’s face, a dance that reflects the nonlinear chaos of reality, the slippery disorder of actual existence that sits under our mental structures of thought, naming, and stability. Our vision of the Moon renews itself over the month, and the Moon story renews itself over generations and across cultures. The Moon holds a story that weaves unity and duality. This joining of opposites, the weaving of the strands of duality, is the act of creation.
While the Moon is always reflecting the same amount of sunlight toward the Earth, the shadow of the Earth between the Sun and the Moon creates a vision of change in the Moon cycle. We watch the dance of shadow and light and this changing light influences our brains and our inner cycles. The pull of the Moon on the Earth’s waters causes the cycles of ocean tides and moves our inner waters in a smaller, but similar, way. This fluctuating light taught human bodies to cycle and to menstruate. It is the cycle that regulates us, we need these repeating changes to be whole. Without their guidance, we are dysregulated and we do harm to ourselves, to others and to the planet. A beginning step towards restoring ourselves to health on any level is reconnecting with the natural cycles of our ecosystem. Synching your body with the Moon’s body and Earth’s body was, and still is, important.
The connection of the Moon to our ancestors is how I came into my reworking of Jewish rites, and, inspired by the Moon prayer, ended up a Kohenet, a priestess. It began in the most traditional of ways; by sitting with text, trying to interpret an ancient traditional prayer, Birkat Levanah (Blessing the Moon). In the traditional style, I used my well-worn dictionary and searched for layered meanings by etymologies; looking for words that share the same three-letter Hebrew root.
Suddenly the prayer I’m working with expands, and it becomes a doorway.
Suddenly the prayer I’m working with expands, and it becomes a doorway. I feel the ancestors crowd into my too-small study space. The search becomes a meditation; I am lost for hours in my falling-apart dictionary drinking from the navel of the Moon, hearing the echo of deep waters calling, finding gold-sparkling pillars, dancing stars at daybreak, dropping flower petals dripping honey in the overflowing of related words and their implied layers of meaning. Immersed in this abundance of complexity I find the source of this prayer, and it is female. I find in the navel of the pillar of existence the brain in the pelvic bowl, the Creatrix-mind, represented by the turning wheel, the spiral, the labyrinth, giving access to and alignment with the oldest wisdom of the Moon, the generative and regenerative self-contained primal woman’s power, the Cosmic-Mother-of-All. It was the Moon’s changing light that created us in Her image, taught us to cycle as she cycles. We honor her as our Creatrix-self who shows us how to align with Her wisdom, the multiplicative power of plurality. I say the ancient prayer; Blessed is the renewer, blessed is the renewed, blessed is the renewal.
Blessed is the renewer, blessed is the renewed, blessed is the renewal.
I came out of this meditation knowing that both the process and the learning are essential. This is Moon consciousness, this is how we need to tap into Source, by leaving the rational sphere and returning. This natural cycle of knowing helps our brains, our bodies, our ecosystem, and our community.
Moon magic has always fed humanity, and we are starved without it.
Excerpt from the intro to Moon Stories, by D’vorah K’lilah.
D’vorah K’lilah is an ordained psychic healer and Kohenet, initiated Shakta Tantrika, writer, liturgist, and lover of the moon who was parented by redwoods and rivers.
Insta: @bee_flower_moon
