November: The Moon is Always Full
We share our sun with all of our planetary siblings, but the moon is ours alone. What we call the moon is really our moon—our most intimate celestial reference point. In orbit around us, our moon practices a profound, gravitational devotion to this earth: its presence stabilizes our earth’s wobble as we spin around the sun, protecting seasons and species alike; its mass and movement create a life-giving, tidal pulse within our oceans; its light signals to some species that it’s time to mate, while others gather to howl at its shining face. There’s no end to noticing and imagining the effects of our moon’s rhythm, light, and tug on the countless living beings here on earth.
Modern life is hinged on solar cycles of time—day and night, seasons, and years. But the moon’s rhythms help us mark other cycles of time. Full moon, new moon, waxing and waning—these phases express the qualities within a lunar cycle of time and can be found in our most ancient mythologies. As the moon moves between the earth and the sun, coming in and out of illumination, its shifting visage offers us enduring wisdom: time will change us; we will move through periods of illumination and shadow; we will know fullness and emptiness; none of these states will be permanent.
This month, rather than focus on the steady changes of our moon’s phases, we turn to its enduring wholeness throughout these shifts. However it appears to us, the moon is always full unto itself.
About this Spell
Working with this spell, we expand and deepen our vision beyond what is immediately visible or known. We are beings who only ever slenderly understand ourselves, but understanding is not a prerequisite for accompanying. If there is grief in your body, you don’t need to understand its causes to walk with it and allow for compassion to walk with you. If you’ve been startled by blessings, you do not need to puzzle through what you did to deserve them. If you're in transformation, you cannot know what you're becoming. We do not need to understand exactly what our future will hold in order to embrace it fully.
This month, we ask you to turn your attention towards wholeness by remembering that which is behind, underneath, within, and just beyond. We ask you to play with the idea that you are an entity that remains intact throughout so many cycles of change. What helps you surrender to the nurturing tides of time? What helps you trust in the dimensions of this reality you cannot see? To work with this spell, we encourage you to rest and lie fallow, allowing for the transformations that happen when you aren’t watching. Look to our moon, and see if you can find that subtle reminder of your enduring fullness.
Meditation on The Moon is Always Full
The moon pulls the ocean into waves that roll in and out along the shore. As you settle in your body and notice the sensations of this moment, see if you can allow your breath to be as effortless as ocean waves. If this comes easily, rest in it for awhile. If there is too much resistance or tension in your body, try closing your eyes and imagining a full moon glowing onto your skin. See if its silver light can help dissolve some of your tension. Breath as if your cells were sand on a seashore, absorbing the nourishment that each wave delivers, as if your thoughts were water, catching intricate patterns of the moon's reflected light.
With your eyes open or closed, try to land in the kind of gaze that looks out over a horizon, impossibly vast and smooth and unchanging. Let the only movement in the world be the ocean wave of your breath, drawn in and out by an unknowable but steady, nurturing force. In this timeless place, let your spirit turn towards the absurd—can imagine the pattern that would emerge in the world if your every movement in life had been drawn by an un-fading light? How else might you imagine the ever-expanding, never-fading, never-to-be-repeated shape and path of your existence? See how long you can spend stretching your consciousness beyond the ordinary and usual understandings of yourself… and then, as you’re ready, slowly open your eyes if they’ve been closed. For a few moments, see the world around you as it exists right now. Let the empty space that lies between things become a subtle yet substantial connective tissue—so that, for as long as you can, your vision of this world is imbued with wholeness, completeness, total fullness.
About the painting:
Corina: This image was a risk for us. Our paintings are primarily earth-based—plants, animals, landscapes. We’ve done a few astral paintings, but never a portrait of our planet’s nearest companion. This was also a spell that came to us fully formed and feeling inevitable—I think my sister was the one to name it, and we both knew immediately that it had to happen. I remember sketching this one with a sense of curiosity, not having any real sense what would happen to it as a painting, and seeing the final image with that same sense of—yes, of course, it couldn’t be any other way. Also sewing that spell by hand, in cursive, on a curve took some time!
Jocelyn: I got the words for this spell from the end of a poem I wrote as I was navigating love and loss: “...the moon is always full / it’s just the light that changes / as our positions rearrange what I’m able to see / Of the moon, who I love / Who I believe remembers the fullness of me” — I was so glad my sister matched my enthusiasm for making this image. I wound up equally glad to find that the final product didn’t look forced or out of place, despite it being so different from what we usually paint. In co-authoring this spell, I realized I could write a book on the moon—we had to reign ourselves in and, ultimately, not get as political as we usually get, but I imagine we may revisit other dimensions of this spell later in our collaboration.
This month's offerings:
We've got a sale going on this image for the whole month of November! Buy a print, postcard, or magnet of “The Moon is Always Full” and get 15% off, using the coupon code FULLMOON.
Please mark your calendars for the 11th Annual Marshall Handmade Market!!! Jo will be set up the entire weekend before Thanksgiving in an old school-turned-artist-studios on an island in the French Broad River, just across the bridge from downtown Marshall, NC. It's the most magical craft fair!
We’ve got a holiday sale running on our 2020 Calendar and Portable Fortitude Deck when you buy them together—$40 + free shipping in the US!
As always, you can follow our shenanigans at @abacuscorvus on Instagram. And you can find out what each of us is up to by following @corinadross and @jocelyncorvus
~ In It Together~
Jo & Corina