Moon Rant

The moon is universally beloved, no question. I, however, don’t know if I feel so sycophantic about the most fawned-over muse in the history of art and literature as it is currently waxing, which, like clockwork every month, makes me feel like the entire Pacific Ocean is vacationing in my ears. The light gets brighter, I wake up at 5 or 6 am for no good reason just feeling beat-up and unrested. It’s true that I have sung about the moon myself, but I was just longing to trade places with it temporarily. I wanted to slip its leash and get a break from pushing back against it all the time. I cry more easily, I often feel unequipped or hair-triggered. My sense of smell is heightened to the point of being unbearable and inappropriately distracting. Sometimes wanting to give up all the struggling and shoot both my feet off and quit everything. Does this sound like “woman problems” to you? You aren’t all wrong but probably only about 13 percent right. It’s more that I have a sleep-based temperament and the moon doesn’t care. It’s like I’m a little rubber foothold on the cliff face the moon is climbing to launch. It’s just perched there on my neck, bouncing a little, biding its time.

All creatures are influenced by the moon and its gravity and what it does to the tides and the animals and migration and feeding and on and on. I just learned yesterday that parasite loads in a horse's intestines become more active and increase during the full moon signaled by a drop in melatonin! Shocking and not at all shocking as there are thousands upon thousands of examples like this. And also not strange is the fact that empirical science still states that for human females there is no proven correlation between the moon and menstrual cycles, which elicits a hearty “FUCK OFF!” from me every time I read it. We are still strapped to the bomb of the idea that humans are not of the natural world. Really, fuck off. I’m sure there’s a book somewhere that traces this idea back to which pope and/or monarch deemed it “so", but this newsletter does not have that kind of space. What do all of you non-menstruating persons think is happening to you during the wax? I’m very interested in this because I’m interested in YOU, you human animals! You are beautiful and fascinating! 

Ancient people were pretty open about their relationship with the moon, but at some point in the dawn of patriarchy in Europe, “men” and “women” were strapped into two distinct and separate genders and away from nature, though women were considered tricky and conniving, and in danger of slipping into its primitive, seductive whims. Everyone else was “uncivilized” and racism rose up like a swarm of attack knives… yes, we know. What have modern “Western” people lost in our relationship with the moon because of all that fuckery? Would we be better at governing and taking care of ourselves if we knew? Would we keep different, more effective schedules and be better rested? Men aren’t allowed anywhere near the moon in Western culture.  Except for the occasional violent bar brawl and some Farmer’s Almanac planting advice you guys don’t get any moon-time. At some point an entire canon of werewolf mythology had to be invented to talk about how the men of yore felt!! Maybe it was women who wrote it to describe what men would not admit to? Haha! I’m just being ridiculous, obviously, but actual wolves have paid the price for this for centuries. They are still villainized and hated, just tiptoeing around extinction wishing we would get over ourselves already. It was a fucking METAPHOR, hoss! Science is going to bat for wolves these days (for the most part), thank goodness. But the word hasn’t trickled down yet. And P.S. It’s not because of the moon, they howl whenever the fuck they feel like it. I admire them for it.