UNCONQUERABLE

for the full moon on February 12th, 2025

Part I: Introduction

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all at once.
…
The heart understands the swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

Excerpt from “For When People Ask” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Full Moon Tea for February 12th:

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Rose (Rosa spp.)

---

When I feel anxious, outraged or grief-stricken with the tyranny of these days, I lift my eyes up to the Sky. A bright sky with gauzy clouds, a dusk sky casting a final golden glow, an overcast sky heavy with snow about to break — no matter what kind of light the heavens are wearing I’m restored to a momentary sense of awe and equanimity. I peer into a midnight infinity where endless, invisible stars pulse and planets spin and the edges of the Universe are unknown to anyone. I gaze into the blue-black mantle that protects this precious planet.

But sometimes, I become disturbed anew as I realize that there are those who look at the very same Sky and instead of being humbled or healed in the face of such immensity, they only see what is yet to be conquered and commercialized. Some want a piece of it for themselves. From lower airspace to the upper atmosphere, from our luminous Moon to mineral-rich asteroids and even entire planets — to some minds these are mere things to be obtained, resources to extract, places to send payloads and probes and trash.

It is human inclination to explore and innovate, but this is not what I speak of. I speak of a dangerous kind of hunger that lives in some people, compelling them to plunder and possess what is not rightfully theirs.

This desire for domination is not only directed towards the Sky, of course. To some people the Earth, too, is seen as an accumulation of objects and landscapes and lives that matter less than their own — places and peoples ripe with possibilities for colonization and control, opportunities for wealth through thievery and exploitation.

When these individuals — ill with deep emptiness — obtain great influence we must be vigilant, resisting and evading their dangerous workings, lest we be devoured. I imagine that they are like black holes voraciously swallowing everything around them. They who proceed to conquer and consume without consequence haunt the Earth with their ravenous greed and distorted vision. They frantically attempt to seize anything — even light itself — in order to fill up their internal abyss. They inflict their emptiness — turned outwards into hungry rage and revenge — upon all innocents in their path. They give no thought to the desecration they cause. Like a black hole, they deform the space around them. Indeed, their own sense of self is completely contorted. They cannot fathom that anything other than themselves should matter.

We must remember that black holes are stars that have already died; they are giants collapsing in upon themselves. We can take some measure of comfort in knowing that although their force is potent, they are in the inevitable process of expiring. We must let them cease to be by resisting their pull, by not feeding them more energy, by keeping ourselves sovereign. Black hole individuals will destroy themselves as they collapse further into their own gaping void.

These days call for us to become — to continue to be — our own bodies of light, our own celestial systems and orbs. We can join with other bodies to create a new gravitational force, strong and sustaining. We can create other ways of existing that revolve around what is life-giving, instead of being passively pulled into obliteration.

We can keep one another safe — and sane — by noticing and sharing moments of goodness and joy. We can see not only the devastation, but the beauty and delight that are here, too.

As my dear friend, Jenny, recently wrote, “May we find joy alongside the unbearable and in the enormous darkness of the black and beautiful night, with stars whispering their light and the whole of it stretching above and between us and our sorrows, our refusals, and our power….” (Read the rest of her brilliant and beautiful essay, “Rekindling Joy”.)

Indeed, we must keep our joy always close by, holding it tenderly and fiercely like a shield against those who would overcome us. Doing so will protect us in the face of annihilating forces. Doing so will give us strength as we escape the insatiable hunger of the tyrannical forces that attempt to swallow the entire world.

Like the immensity of the Sky, like the heart of the deep Earth, we, too, are unconquerable.

With full moon blessings,
Steph

Part II: Contemplation