Walking in the Moonlight
Pisces 1 // making art in Radical Uncertainty
The bitter cold blew in this morning, sweeping away the balmy sunshine we had yesterday. After school my kids rode bikes and played “what time is it Mr. Wolf” and we all felt happy and alive. But just as suddenly as the 70 degree day arrived, it was gone again. Today I’m hunched over my cup of coffee, staring out at a cold bleak morning again. I hope you are finding some inner light today.
I caught the Full Moon this week out my kitchen window. In the morning before the off-to-school bustle, she and I shared a quiet moment. Her shining face glowed through the naked oak branches as I put away dishes and made lunches. As I tried to ready my heart for another day.
The Moon is the guardian of Pisces time and she also hovers on the horizon of the 8 of cups, casting her mysterious glow over our human struggles - our angst, our choices, and our indecision.
It’s truly hard to write about much of anything today. As I sit at my computer in my warm house, with my hot coffee, and my kids safe at school. When mothers across the world are holding their children while bombs drop on their heads. When a mother somewhere mourns her child who’s death was the most extreme and devastating form of protest.
“If your circuits are overwhelmed there’s a reason and the reason isn’t because you are heartless, it’s because there is not a human heart on this planet that can bear all of what is happening right now.”1
In this card we see a figure on a beach at night. Imagine the Moon shining out on the water, hear the crash of waves on the rocky cliff, smell salt on the air. The figure is heading out across the rugged landscape, leaving most of her cups on shore. She’s outgrown them or they are no longer useful to her, and she’s walking away into the moonlit unknown.
I think this card can speak to the desire to walk away from heartache.
It can speak to the knowing that something isn’t right for us, even if it has worked for a long time.
And I think it also speaks to how as a species we are walking that moonlit shoreline. We are collectively in a time of Radical Uncertainty. Which cups will we take with us? Which cups actually equip us to face whatever we meet on the other side of those massive cliffs? Which cups will we leave behind?
Maybe the card is also asking us to walk away from the past - old stories that are causing more harm than good.
Ideologies that demonize entire groups of people?
Communication that resorts to insults?
Media that is driven by profit?
I was unexpectedly given tickets to see Hadestown2 this week. I took the teen and we were blown away in the best way. This song had me in tears.
“No use talking of the past, it’s passed
Set out walking and you don’t look back
Where you’re goin’ there ain’t no one knows
Any way the wind blows.”
I think we are collectively on a journey to the underworld.
Maybe we're already there.
I’ve written before about how creativity is the only weapon I’m willing to wield in this world hell-bent on destruction. And in this case, it is my only cup too. Orpheus journeyed to the underworld with a song, it didn’t save the one he loved but we are still singing it. “Telling a tale that never dies.”
I will drink deeply from the cup of creative care.
I will hold my kids and write words and make art3 if it’s the last thing I do.
I will end with 8 photos of my sketchbook with a short story in the captions.
The foggy, moonlit shore seems treacherous. And the the world we are living in right now does too. But like
says, “Do not be stilled by anger or grief. Burn them both and use that fuel to keep moving. Look up at the clouds and tip your head way back so the roofs of the houses disappear. Keep moving.”
Every one of your watercolors is breathtaking, but the painting of my meditation took my breath away. To see my inner landscape painted on a page—so accurately—is wild.
I’ve felt a call to shift my nightly meditation from the fireplace/candle to witnessing the moon. I’ve only done it once, because it requires hauling blankets and tea outside and putting on socks and a robe, at a time (after my daughter falls asleep) when I’m so very tired. But I keep feeling the call, so maybe I’ll head out tonight.
"Creativity is the only weapon I’m willing to wield in this world hell-bent on destruction." Love this! And love your art!