The Surprises of a Snow Moon
Halfway Between Solstice and Equinox
The Snow Moon can seem full of paradox. It’s named this because February is often the snowiest month of the year. And yet, we are halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. This is the time of the ancient Celtic season of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, and Candlemas — which all remind us of the stirrings of life deep below the snow. A candle as a small spark that can become a flame. A yet-to-be born lamb moves in a ewe’s belly. Seeds stir, words itch on the poet’s tongue.
Amy recently sent the Collective an interview marking the ten-year anniversary of the publication of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. It was a reminder and celebration, as it’s arguably one of the most important books of our century so far — a call to see the natural world through a lens of relationship and reciprocity. It can stir in the reader a dormant yet powerful yearning — to find one’s own relationship to nature, to consider plants as beings, to ask instead of to take.
I have read the book several times over the last ten years, most recently with a group of students in a literature class on humans and nature. Several of them, despite (and maybe because of) their age, had joined and left climate activist groups, already burnt out. The book appeared to be a balm to them, in its combination of compassion and fierceness. Unlike the climate activism groups, which often felt large, impersonal, and overwhelming, it seemed to offer a way to re-think what being human is from the inside out. Inside out — seed-thinking. Just like those seeds stirring under the snow.
“The refusal to be complicit [with destruction] can be a kind of resistance to dominant paradigms, but it’s also an opportunity to be creative and joyful.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer
With the surprises of the Snow Moon, Wisdom Body Collective’s creativities stir. Stephanie Michele contemplates bread and lice, while making a dream seed order list. amy bobeda dives into the memoir Feral, and a short story collection of surreal proportions to avoid publicizing her new book about clay and birds. C. M. Chady celebrates a full-moon birthday and prepares the finishing touches on Embodied Unconscious: the feminine space of sexuality, surrealism, and experimentation in literature, out soon from Spuytin Duyvil. We wait for the printing of A Body Made of Eyes. Ada McCartney launches a podcast series. Chloe sends texts from school. Emily reflects on the full moon and has an interview out this month with Ocooch Mountain Echo. As we all wait for winter’s thaw to birth spring’s creative powers, the women of Wisdom Body find ourselves focused on the important things: the moon, food, art, and seeds.
