Poetry for the Esbat: Hyperborean Moon (The Worms are Still Sleeping Beneath the Verglas)

Mandala of Place: I am here. Generally speaking.
Mercator: Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio. A map of the North Pole.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Greetings from Hyperborea, where it has now been snowing steadily for 24 hours! Our worms are still sleeping soundly under a thick, snow topped crust of verglas. No Spring has sprung for us. The consolation? We get extended navel-gazing time & (hopefully) some bonus inspiration:

"Never the Muse is absent
from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry
and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.
Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed
in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live."
-- Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode; translated by Richmond Lattimore. (source: Wikipedia)

The Greeks almost had it right. Yes, this is indeed a land of inspiration. It is also a land where the Sun shines nearly 24 hours a day, but only part of the time. The other part, well...

Light & Dark, Light & Dark. It's a balance. It is also what you make of it.

Last year, in Utah, March bioregional Full Moon naming was a breeze -- those worms, they did all the work. This year, these Alaskan worms, oh! They are allowed liberal use of the snooze button. So, I spent some time culling the Lunar names across the ether. Nothing worked particularly well. Even the more local Haida name for the March Moon, "Noisy Goose Moon" doesn't seem to fit the bill. Those geese, they are clever. They are not venturing this way yet. 

So, here we are again. Making up names. I considered several climate-related, snow, ice, sleet, frost, cold type names, but they lack optimism. They also lack panache. I felt that associating ourselves with a place of creativity & inspiration, governed (under a theocratic monarchy) by the offspring of a snow-nymph & the North Wind seemed like a reasonable compromise to this freezing up of moniker-making. Besides, it fits. This is the North & there is still much navel-gazing & inside-ness to be had. Let us make the most of it. 

A brief digression: For some reason, I have had my mind returning to Thoth/Tahuti/Djhuti lately. In retrospect, I find it peculiar (or not really, because I was once one of those ambitious, monkey-brained, neo-pagan neophytes who only did cursory research) that I never realized that Thoth was associated with the Moon when I was keeping His shrine in the forest. 

Forest Shrine to Thoth, early 1990's.

"Thoth was still the ever-mysterious radiance of intuition, lit silver by the Moon. While Thoth is best known to Egypt and to history and present consciousness as a god of intellectual arts, his identification with the Moon continues, as though to suggest that the highest wisdom combines the clarity and penetration of intellect balanced by the insight and compassion of intuition." -- Thoth, Neter of the Moon, Comforter of Souls

Knowing this now makes an incredible amount of sense, as though a whole curve of dots in my cosmological dot-to-dot are firmly & finally connected. This mention of Thoth has little to do with this month's poetry for the Esbat (or does it?). I simply had a compulsion to transfer the thoughts into written form, here as I ruminate on all things Moon-ly. 

I am finding that the dots are connecting all over the place. Dots here, dots there. What a whole lot of dots there are, what a whole lot of entanglement we have! In last month's Poetry for the Esbat, I shared an image of the Tarot High Priestess by artist Jane Adams. I have been finding Ms. Adams's writing & imagery so incredibly illuminating, influential & challenging that I am revisiting her work again & again... & again this Esbat. 

The source post for this poetry wraps up a slew of dots, all into this lovely little package of connections. It transmutes the bits of this & that into gem pouch of personal meaning. It could mean nothing to any & every other human creature on this planet, but goodness(!), it fits together so neatly for me. The poem has been taken from her piece, "Sacred India Tarot Archive – Creation of Chandra, the Moon – card 18" where I found not only the Moon & Tarot, but also, embodiment, Darkness & Light, dreaming, evolution, guides, change... as if my thoughts, my spiritual foci, my efforts (& post labels) were snatched up & synthesized into this synopsis of the Moon card. 

"In the western Tarot, the Moon card rules embodiment, cycles of cell renewal and repair through sleep;  and cycles also of our past lives.  It has a wave pattern, because the path of evolution proceeds in waves.   But the Moon is also associated to the personal ego.   Archangel Michael guards this domain and “the path of honesty” to the transpersonal Self." -- Jane Adams, Sacred India Tarot Archive – Creation of Chandra, the Moon – card 18

"Arcanum Eighteen – an early interior journey looking up the Sefiroth of the Tree of Life. In the Moon’s crescent are the enigmatic faces of our guides.  The path takes us through the gate of the body (two towers, the ends of a fence) into the landscape of our dreams at night.  Beyond yet from within it, rises the sun, our Self. The pool here, is as the same as the one which the woman in the Star, card 17, gazes into.  We see with her the evolution of Life in all its forms." Image & text by Jane Adams

I am not going to attempt to summarize what I do not even fully understand. So, I suggest that you read the post for yourself. For me, it simply encapsulates this place I linger, this Hyperborean place of internal exploration, the effort of embodiment, the quest for knowledge & more importantly, understanding. Today I will dance. Tomorrow I will sing. There will be prose & poetry & relationship in between. Oh, yes... & baking.

The Moon: Embodiment
From Jane Adams, Sacred India Tarot Archive – Creation of Chandra, the Moon – card 18

Light & Dark, Light & Dark. It's a balance. It is also what you make of it.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.