Poetry for the Esbat: Migration Moon 2012 (It's personal.)

The Moon, XVII
from the Tarot of the Animal Lords

My past full Moon devotionals -- as I have taken to calling them -- have generally been more academic than this one will be. I am feeling a bit more personal in this time of upheaval & fluctuation. This time, it will be different. No baking, libations or rural luxuries for us this Moon... but we shall blow her kisses as She passes over the City of Sin. Twenty-four hours later, we shall find ourselves in the land of the Midnight Sun. 


So, this is goodbye. Goodbye to our Lady Moon (as far as our eyes are concerned), goodbye to the Darkness, the Night Altar & it's Delegates (some of them are back -- strange, one with the loveliest pale grey calf I have ever seen... not unlike the colour of the Moon). This is goodbye to Breakfast Canyon & our high desert homestead. It is goodbye to this house; my haven, my hermitage. 


This Moon, I do not care to prattle on about the Full Moon's various names & the cultural/historical origins thereof. Perhaps I will get to that next year. For the curious, some of that background information can be found here: Farmers' Almanac, WWUP, NASA, FAandPP & SPACE. In lieu of all the various historical & folk names, I think I shall call Her Last Moon Before the Midnight Sun. Or perhaps the Migration Moon. Or maybe, the Goodbye Moon. All of them work.


But it's not the Strawberry Moon this time.


I had selected a Moon card from a very different deck several weeks ago, but things change, moods change, people change... just like the Moon. We are bound up in cycles & rhythms, most of which we fail to notice -- unless of course, we find them inconvenient or taxing. Last night, as I considered the portions remaining to be completed of this monumental task we call migration, I thought about the image on this card from the Tarot of the Animal Lords. Like the deck for May's Flower Moon, The Fairy Tarot, the Tarot of the Animal Lords is published by Lo Scarabeo in Torino, Italy. 


This particular card speaks to me on so many levels right now. Just look at that cat. That cat is going somewhere -- going with intent. That cat is a traveller, an explorer, a gypsy. Like me. Like us. That cat is accompanied by an owl. I have not yet been able to document all that has happened with the owls in the past few months, but I feel they are trying to get a message through to me. However, I cannot seem to figure out how to listen. The cat's walking stick is adorned with a crab. The crab is closely associated with the astrological sign Cancer. This is something of a double entendre for me, one half of which involves Cancer's associations with safety, security & the home, the other half of which you will have to glean for yourself. The cat's potion bottles uncannily resemble certain organs... but the robin outside is reminding me this is not the time.

The poem I chose this time might be considered by some to be an unconventional choice for a Lunar devotional. I care not. There are so many superb poems written for Our Lady Moon that I have many, many more years to be conventional. This year it is about sentimentality. The poem below is a childhood favourite. When I read it, my mind uses Burl Ives's voice. Beloved by my mother (whose birthday is in June... Goodbye (again) Momme), this delightfully affectionate poetic tale is about love & travel. It is an apt reflection of where I am right now, or rather, where I will be once I say goodbye -- traveling away with my love, under the light of the Moon.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear

I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
   In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
   And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
    What a beautiful Pussy you are,
         You are,
         You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

II
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
   How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
   But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
   To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
   With a ring at the end of his nose,
             His nose,
             His nose,
   With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
   Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;   
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
   They danced by the light of the moon,
             The moon,
             The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.