By the time the Full Moon rose over ancient cultures at the end of October, the harvest had usually been completed, leaving the fields wide open and stubbly. Leaf-dropping trees stood stripped and starkly skeletal under this brilliant moon, which illuminated deer, wild boar, foxes, and other animals as they foraged in the fields for leftover nuts, fruit, vegetables, and grains. Hunter-gatherers welcomed this time of year, and this helpful moon, for its promise of abundant and reasonably easy hunting. Appropriately, they referred to their beacon above as the “Full Hunter’s Moon” (or “Blood,” or “Sanguine Moon”).
Their work was urgent, for winter was fast approaching, and woe to the community that failed to stock its larder with enough food to survive the freezing months ahead. Today, many of us in the developed world have no such pressure because our survival no longer hinges on good hunting, yet the power of the Hunter’s Moon persists. If you feel the urge to journey into yourself to your own skeletal core, you may discover your essential vulnerability that gives the lie to your usual reckless bravado. Men in particular may welcome at this time of year a special opportunity to shed their egos by the season’s door and assess the truth of their own nakedness and barren landscapes.
No man can contemplate his place in the world beneath a Hunter’s Moon without conjuring Diana, the huntress, and Venus/Sophia, the lover-mother-Goddess of all creation. Doing so, he perceives The Divine Feminine and arrives at harmony, a place of worship, service, and unselfish love. The Hunter’s Moon looks down on a world that is fully prepared for regeneration and rebirth. It awaits the labor, the bended knee and diligent tilling of physical and emotional soil. This is work in the trenches, and work among the clouds.
It’s work that is especially important for men to be doing now, and the work will go so much better if women are willing to act as companion-guides. Some men need a woman’s masterful mentorship more than they know, others more than they can say, but all men who would serve The Divine Feminine must have it. Until a man submits to The Divine Feminine, he is not wholly a man. The Hunter’s Moon is a perfect moment in time to accept that truth or renew one’s dedication to it.
Here is my poem of this transformation.
The Promise of Hunter’s Moon
At some point we’re all coming back as birds.
We’ll begin in the muck, unrecognizable, stinking,
Until creatures with hands or tools for hands
Scoop us up and start squeezing and pulling.
Suddenly there we are, unmistakably beaked,
Straining against thin leather thongs that someone
Had the good sense to tie around rocks and our twiggy legs.
It’s a good thing, this confinement, because free
We’d rip and tear apart anything we could reach.
The things with hands, or tools like hands, feed us
A mixture of water and the blood of the beheaded,
And with this inside of us we develop fast,
Looking more like giant birds you’d recognize
By the minute. Our feathers grow black and glossy,
And the thicker they become the meaner we feel.
When they just can’t grow anymore they fall out.
Our featherless bodies are disgusting to touch,
Hideous to behold. Where once we were murderous,
We grow timid under the mirror-hot sun. Then
More feathers appear, small at first, white feathers,
Beautiful, snowy plumes that dazzle under a Hunter’s Moon.
When we’re ready She comes. Out of the sea and sky,
Out of the barren ground She comes. Astonishing
Is her loveliness, perfected is Her power. She rises and walks
Among us as we bow, obedient, peaceful, and so in love.
Today, the day of The Hunters Moon. Shall we dance in the light in the dark and let the winds of incoming change penetrate the spirit in which we celebrate? Let the senses awaken to to the changes awaiting us and we shall pursue them with a daring blindness of spiritual sight.
I want to love
and be loved back
by someone I can trust
I don’t want lust.
I want to have faith that we can change our fate.,
That all cultures whatever religion will unite.
To only kill poverty and not kill kill but heal people.
I want to hear happiness from all temples and steeples.
But this is a sad souls dream
just a daze
a hope for a miracle of a new age.
in how many years will the world blow.
How many more generations can we go..before time stops dead,
we all fall asleep,
A final kiss to your child as you whisper goodnight my sweet..
Good afternoon,
By way of introduction, my name is Rie Anders and I write contemporary romantic fiction. I would like to use your poem “The Promise of Hunters Moon” in my next novel, appropriately titled, “Hunters Moon.”
Julie Hunter is the heiress to a Vineyard and lost her first love in a tragic accident. She has become dark, and jaded, and unable to allow a true love back into her life. Your Poem captures the absolute essence of her transformation and I would be honored if you could grant me permission to use it as my introduction.
Please, advise if you approve, the name of the credit to be given.
Kind regards,
Rie
One of the most difficult things in the world is when we leave go of feelings of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and hence of the responsibility to act fully, knowingly. Life becomes difficult for the person for having lost /abandoned a sense of boundary, a sense of responsibility for being an ‘I’. To give up responsibility for being a separate person and to dream, work, talk of an apparently ideal grand zipless ‘we’ can be a complete abandonment of responsible adulthood lived materially here, now, with many others. I prefer not to have the word ‘submit’ put into the blender and flavored to cover its distaste, then served to me in other words to make it more palatable. I am not at all convinced that submission should be made more palatable. What is it about submission that makes it hard to let go of? What is it about submission that keeps one or the other from saying a clear ‘no’ to it? Masters and submission are about a very particular human relation of power (way beyond the leaves on the tree, which is another discussion) It does not matter who is in which spot (here use any duality you wish). To abandon a sense of judgement and responsibility for being in the world, in hope that eventually we will all be one big melting happy family, keeps us trapped. It is like the zen monk who, having had a bird alight on his hand, can keep the bird from flying away again by constantly draining the and tension from his hand, so that the bird can not use this to take off again. We each have a responsibility to live the human contours we inhabit, to embrace being an ‘I’ in the midst of we, and to know that where I put my ‘weight’ counts. Once more, let me register my firm ‘no’ to language of submission as inspiration.
“It’s work that is especially important for men to be doing now, and the work will go so much better if women are willing to act as companion-guides.”
I think women have become disconnected from our own femininity, thus this stuck out to me, as I and I imagine many (most?) other women don’t even know how to be a companion-guide in this manner. Any advice?
Also, as with anything, there is a light side and a dark side, same with the concept of submission. It can be a beautiful thing, it can be an ugly thing. I find it helpful to consider other words like acceptance, allowing, receptive, and so on help to remember what can be beautiful about the idea of ‘submitting’ when the word itself triggers negative connotations.
Hi, Jasmine, Thank you for your thoughtfulness and wisdom. And your question! “Any suggestions?” Oh, depending on the day, I have many, and few! When I am more fully attuned to the better angels of my nature, I’m aware that a woman on this path takes something of a leap of faith, a willingness to trust a man. It’s a huge leap for women who are healing and becoming aware of their power. I think, often, that women need great Goddess patience with men, and even more patience beyond that with their men. A man who truly opens to this path will learn, especially from his woman. He will learn not by didactic pronouncements, but by unwavering observation of her, by listening to her. Women as guides will accept this form of devotion, be rigorous about it, and play with it with compassion. I have no doubt that it’s a tough journey for women, but you are all so blessed and capable! Together, we make each other whole. On a vast scale, isn’t that the connection we’re all after?
What a wonderful assessment! This yin yang relationship is all about balance and learning to support each other.
You are so kind to say so Thank you!
Thank you Robert, a true wordsmith of the soul are you….words, language, what a joy when produced with such grace and heart!
Blessings to all,
Aho!
Thank you, Robert McDowell and all at MoonCircles!
From our family to all of you for helping our family
live a more abundant and joyful life.
And blessings and peace to you and your family, Pat (and happy gardening!).
I live in Australia,so it is springtime,a time for planting and sowing.I would like some recognition of the southern hemisphere!
Hi Jo, I’m an avid gardener. As for planting and sowing in Australia I
suggest http://www.gardenate.com You’ll find specific information for Australia
by region about what to plant and when. The regions listed for Australia are:
arid
cool/mountain
sub-tropical
temperate
tropical.
__Wishing you an abundant planting and harvesting season. Blessings
Beautiful!
Thank you, Suzanne. Peace…
I’ve read a few of your pieces on this site and each time, sooner or late, I read a line in it that has a reference to men’s need to “submit to the divine feminine”, your phrase using the word ‘submit’. And yes, I as a woman, find this problematic. Submission is not in my world something I would advocate – to anything, anyone, any time, or for anything, anyone, any time. Submission lacks relation. It is the absolute lack of I and Thou. It is a thou that wipes out the I. We have had enough submission in the last couple thousand years. Let’s do the work for a real, working I and Thou – with one another, with the earth, with the heavens, with the water and how we treat the resources at our hands. Let’s acknowledge power, vulnerability and relation. And let’s give submission a rest for a few thousand years….
Thank you, Lise, for writing. I think I understand your problem with the word, “submit.” Women have been repressed for centuries, and it makes sense that many do not see anything positive in submission as a word or concept. But with men it’s different. We have arrived at an evolutionary moment in which men must makes amends and be transformed. Submission and service are necessary, positive steps in this process. Consider the way the leaves submit to the wind, the tides to the moon, the worker bee to the queen and colony. Men have much work to do, including diving deep into the shadows of their own wrecks, before they can fully harmonize and be balanced with women, who, after all, since the time of Gods and Goddesses, have been the true masters.
I’m speaking here to Lise’s thoughts AND Robert’s response… I too understand Lise’s resistance to the idea of “submit,” however, we must understand that when speaking about submitting to the divine feminine energy, we are leaving our limited ego’s ideas behind and committing to our greater Knowledge that there is something greater than our limited self — which is our Greater Self, our Source, our seminal Oneness. We submit to our Self, from whence our self comes, where the Truth of All resides. To submit to another person is what rankles, and Lise is correct in that. But we are leaving that duality-world behind in 2012 — when we know that we are submitting to our own Self, our own personal Highest and Best, that Source Self which Knows our own, personal, and innate Well-Being and love, then it makes more sense. In submitting then, we are wise in allowing our Wholeness, and the duality– the separation and its iniquities– no longer exist, no longer have reality, no longer even have meaning except in the remembered lessons we set up to help us transcend. It’s time to leave behind the anger and separation and Know that those fearful and angry stances are no longer necessary or even viable. What an incredible treasure is Robert, who can speak from the masculine side and reflect the balance… many men cannot yet hear the feminine speak the wisdom, but to have a man speak it is, for them, to introduce it, and to us, truly joyous and heart-filling. Thank you so much, Robert (33/6… no wonder!), for beautifully expressing to men (especially, but also to disbelieving or doubting women, as well) the POWER and deep pleasure that live in “holding the Paradox,” holding both seemingly-opposing sides at the same time, proving that there are actually not two separate parts, not a separated I-and-Thou, but actually only the differing, fascinating, and unique whole of One-In-All. “In Lak’ech Ala K’in” — “I am another you”… (a Mayan traditional greeting and acknowledgement). Sincerely, NEW
Thank you, Nancy, for your kindness, and also for adding your wise thoughts to this issue. Eventually, we’ll arrive at that destination of awareness where one is all. We–women and men–must help each other on the journey and we must all revere The Divine Feminine, everywhere and always.
Great story and poem!
Thank you, Frances. I’m grateful for your praise. Blessings to you, Robert