Waxing poetic, not waning poetic.
a short, erratic, grief-driven newsletter.
I talk a little about the time immediately following a Full Moon in the rest of this newsletter. That’s the phase we’re in this week. Specifically, this Full Moon was in Aquarius and triggering some significant dynamics in the chart of the year for the United States. We see some heightened Mars energy and of course the Aquarian brought in by the Moon’s placement. I think the optimistic view here has something to do with fighting for the collective. Notably, that’s something that requires action, not something that just happens. Call your representatives and continue to pressure for a ceasefire and no more sending bombs to help Israel kill Palestinians.
On the personal level, I just encourage you to connect with the people you love.
Somewhere in it all there is a cogent thought about exhalation and grief and mutual recognition.
The phrase is “wax poetic”, not “wane poetic”.
Before the Full Moon, there’s a potential for excess. Cognitively, we know that eventually we will reach a limit, eventually the Moon will not be able to get any brighter. Eventually the round rock in the sky will not get any bigger. But as long as the Moon is waxing, as long as she hasn’t yet reached her fullness, there’s the potential of more. The end is not in sight. “Schrödinger’s bigger Moon”, or something.
We’re past that point after the Full Moon in Aquarius on Monday. There was a little bit of buzz about this Full Moon because, depending on where in the world you were, she was extremely photogenic.
What I really want to get at in this newsletter is this most basic way of looking at the Moon’s journey, a period of collecting light followed by a period of releasing light. Two halves, waxing and waning. A long inhale followed by a long exhale. If I could only keep one interpretive tool or metaphor from astrology, it would be that one. So much about the sky can be boiled down to the inhale and the exhale.
I’m constantly being reminded that I’m not naturally a great breather. It started early. A few weeks after I was born, I stopped breathing. My mom thumped me hard on the chest and brought me back, but it has remained pretty hard to get a body-full of air. It takes all my concentration and effort to follow the Moon’s example, to stretch my diaphragm, expand the space between my ribs, and let the air in. When I do, I appreciate the way it improves my conception of a Full Moon, like she’s filled to bursting with air and with light in those moments, stretched tight.
The waning half of the Moon’s cycle is akin to that euphoric release, not in the way of a broken dam but in the way of a gentle and insistent flow. The first phase after the Full Moon is called the “Disseminating Phase”. This isn’t a time of excess or a time of endless optimism. During this time we remember there are endings and that there are limitations. During this time the Moon gives out her light. She casts it out, like an unpicked tomato beginning to turn soft on the stem, sweetening even as it droops toward the Earth. We know that it’s not long before the seeds will have been sewn again and the stage will be set for the next cycle of growth.
Those born under the Disseminating Phase know how to be of use to other people. They know how to share their fruit. Those born under the Disseminating Phase are nourished by nourishing others, a not uncomplicated dynamic for a person living in late capitalism. We live in a time when not becoming a commodity takes effort. On the one hand we are told that we don’t owe anyone anything, while on the other we know that we are connected by circumstance and by commitment. How does one disseminate without becoming depleted?
Where am I even going this week? It’s hard to set my gaze on anything clearly. A friend lost someone important to them this weekend. People keep reminding me that it was a loss for me also, not because I forget (that’s not possible) or because I don’t feel it (that’s not possible), but because it’s so much easier to look at someone else’s loss than it is to sit in whatever part of it is mine. I can thank my airy Gemini Moon for this, to some extent.
It’s not my story to share, so I’ll remain vague, but it also feels inauthentic to not acknowledge it. I say “it feels inauthentic”, though the person I’m referring to (we’ll call her M) would probably describe that inauthenticity as “being bullshit” or something similarly direct. M had a Libra Moon and, while I rarely discussed astrology with her, I was not surprised to learn she had an airy Moon like me. She was a person with very little patience for bullshit in large part because it would get in the way of honesty and connection and interesting thoughts. She also just thought it was boring.1
I’m not going to keep tinkering with these incomplete ideas or trying to find a better way to say what I want to say, which is that it feels very bad to lose someone. I’m fighting all my urges to caveat, because caveating is not something M would do. She would be honest.
Always a lot of credit goes to the people who have been my teachers, both directly and through their freely shared knowledge, and so many books.
The year I met her, M once went to play pool at a bar in Austin with her friend, another woman in her 50s. After giving a younger girl a cigarette that she had rolled, M listened to her talk about her life working in tech or something. Eventually, she held up her hand to pause the girl and said, “You’re being very boring.” God bless it.
"You are so easily harsh, and you are so easily kind." That resonates with my Libra moon; I'm also speaking as someone who sits in others' grief for a living. Thanks for this.
Love you ❤️