Beaver Moon, Frost Moon
--
And a Lunar Eclipse in Taurus
What’s in this letter:
- THANK YOU + links to buy books
- A Message from Amy
- A quote and some further moon thoughts
- What’s new in our publication
- Opportunities to share your writing
Thank you for your continued support of and interest in Wisdom Body Collective, and thanks to everyone who has already preorded chapbooks through our kickstarter campaign this week.
There’s still time to buy cunt poems and WOUND::WOMB ! Click here to preorder these chapbooks at $10 each or get both for $15 by Sunday (Nov 21) at Midnight EST.
There are also still copies of More Revolutionary Letters available in our etsy store.
Give the gift of radical literature this holiday season!
A Message From Amy:
“My closest friends and I have a long-standing Beaver Moon tradition involving letting go of three beliefs, behaviors, patterns, or relationships into a body of water each November moon. No matter where we are in the world we carry out this tradition, each communing with a local body of water.
Today, running the creek trail behind my house, I kept returning to releasing the fear of failure. Last weekend when Wisdom Body gathered for our monthly circle, we talked about navigating failure through job and literary rejections. I don’t know that we came to any answers, other than that moving forward and honoring our feelings is paramount.
I think I underestimated the ease with which we might sell two chapbooks from a budding press entitled Cunt Poems and Wound::Womb. A few years ago, I wrote a poem about Inanna and the Gardener, a lesser known Sumerian myth in which a gardener violates Inanna the same way he violates the earth by uprooting seedlings. Inanna floods the land with her menstrual blood. Commerce stops. Ur is on lockdown until Inanna seeks justice for herself and the land. I used the word cunt in the poem in reference to the evolution of language. The publisher asked me to sensor it. Instead, I asked it to remain intact with an etymological footnote. My request was met at first with hesitation, and then with an understanding. Language is a living body with its own history. Reviving language, reimaging its facets keeps the body breathing, just as Inanna’s menstrual blood fed the land.
Today, I’ll give my fear that we will not get these two fledgling books into the world after this week’s Kickstarter push to the water. I am grateful to see we still have so many bridges to build, and language to feed, rematriate, and grow.”
Amy’s reflection brings to mind this maxim which came to me (Ada) in around this time of year in 2008, and which I have displayed in my space in some variation almost constantly since then:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Nelson Mandela
For me, the idea that inadequacy actually masks a fear of being powerful beyond measure revolutionized my thinking. When I consider the fact a liberated presence is the very thing that liberates others, it becomes easier to tend to the work of stepping into my own light.
What’s New on Medium
The first three pieces in our Artist Statement Series are live. Check them out and leave the artists some comments if you feel moved.
Along with Artist Statements by Amy Bobeda , Amanda Earl, and C.M. Chady, we’ve got an Essay on Autumn Lilacs by Emily, and some new poems up for your enjoyment!
Opportunities to Share Writing
We are always open to guest writers. Right now we are especially looking for poems and artist statements to share in our Medium publication— we love work that engages bodily experience, emphasizes process over product, involves text & image, craft, eco poetics, mythopoetic, and work that aligns with our mission statement. Send your writing to <wisdombodycollective[at]gmail[dot]com>.
