Before this month’s post, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has moved with me to Substack, as well as to everyone who’s found me here in recent months. I very much appreciate you keeping up with my Moonletter offerings, the writing of which has been my monthly devotion since 2018.
If you are new to these missives you’ll notice that each month revolves around a particular theme, and to make things a bit experiential for you there is a corresponding herbal tea recommendation — a lunar tea — that you can make on the evening of the full moon.
Each Moonletter offers a personal letter connected to the monthly theme, followed by an impersonal, intuitively written contemplation. If you are a follower you will receive part of these writings (the moon tea and a glimpse of my personal letter). If you are a subscriber you will receive everything I’ve written for that month.
You can read more about this work here, and find the archive of past Moonletters here.
Thank you, truly, for being a monthly reader, and for supporting these lunar-inspired writings.
~Steph
“…in my weak spirit there is a new strength, and this strength is the ability to sacrifice a great thing in order to obtain a greater one.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
Full Moon Tea for October 17th:
Sage (Salvia officinalis)
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Rosehips (Rosa spp.)
Not too long ago I had a dream of a woman suspended in mid-air. Her body was horizontal and stretched out; on her wrists and ankles were tied sea green strings that pulled her in four directions. She lay surrendered in the air — face to the sky, long hair falling down to the earth — as the strings expanded her limbs and held her body aloft. There was no struggle in this tense position, just stillness.
This dream has been lingering in my psyche for many weeks, inviting me into the evocative image. I do not know what its meaning is — I do not need to know.* But feeling into the dream itself I realize that it reminds me of experiences I am familiar with: I know the sensation of being stretched and pulled in all directions, and I understand the quiet strain of being caught in a standstill. I know, too, what it’s like to be in a state of liminality, hovering between two places and not yet belonging to either.
There’s something else, as well: this dream figure gives me the sense that something is being sacrificed while she is mysteriously suspended in the empty air. Perhaps her movement and freedom are relinquished in order for her to be stretched and changed. I do not know. But something in this dream tells me that while we often think we can hold it all, choose it all, and be pulled in multiple directions at once, in actuality this only leads to being caught in a place of immobility and great tension.