The WE & The Wild Moon
Social Permaculture || Ancestral Skills || Human Rewilding || Inspired
Learning to live life in harmony with the sun & moon ????
By Miku Maria KeTukal
I am a child of the Alaskan Wilds. Growing up with sparkling snow under the full moon, shining like a million brilliant crystal diamonds, I skied to school, watched over moose twins born behind my house each year, had bears on my block, and grew up with the aurora borealis dancing across the night sky.
Then I left.
Following a new path which took me to Bellingham, Washington, and then to Japan! Then to Vancouver, Canada, and then back to Seattle, Washington where I lived in the Urban Wilds for the past 12 years. Somewhere along this journey, I forgot myself, and I forgot the wilds. People would say, oh, look at this beautiful farm-land, look at this beautiful park, look at this beautiful path (with graffiti tagging and people everywhere). And my heart would sink. This is not wild, I would think. This was something else.
I have embarked on a personal journey of remembering, and rewilding my heart, body, and mind consciously since 2017, upon completing my Ph.D. at the University of Washington in Environmental and Forest Science. I started apprenticing and studying with traditional elders and teachers, participating in traditional dances and ceremony and coming into relationship with the wilds in a deeper way than I ever had before. I learned to cultivate a conscious “I-You” relationship with nature, and an I-We relationship, not just the “I-Thou” transcendent awe-filled experiences from childhood.
I am re-learning and remembering how to be again in the still space. To be once more as I was, the wind on the mountains, the whispers of the spirits of the trees, the song of the birds.
For part of this journey, I have taken up the study of the sun and moon.
How do I come into relationship with the rhythms and cycles of the moon?
What is my role?
How can I be in the We-space with these beings?
Encouraged by some of my traditional elders and teachers, I set out to try and remember the lost wisdom of my own ancestry (this journey is a whole different story!) to try and see how my people’s people’s people answered these questions. Somewhere in my body, I feel I might still remember.
I started with my Celtic heritage. On my Father’s side (and also some of my Mother’s) I have vast Celtic ancestry, with deep deep roots in ancient Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France and Italy. When I close my eyes, sometimes I imagine the soft quiet footsteps of a priestess, the guardian of the well, walking barefoot through the mossy ancient Celtic landscape and dreamscape, with deep green moss and white mists. I tremble as I almost remember this. Somehow, it feels familiar.
The ancient Celtic people have been celebrating the sacred days which shift with the seasons 8 times a year for thousands of years. So, I began to study the sun cycles through this lens. Many of our Vibrantly Team members also have Celtic ancestry, so we brought the Celtic Sacred Day Solar Cycle into Vibrantly as a way to help ground the work we do in connection to the land.
How many seasons can there be? And what is the point of knowing the seasons?
Once, I only knew Summer, Winter, Fall, and Spring. Actually, laughably, Alaska really only has Summer, Winter, and what we call “breakup” when the snow melts. Now that I have eight seasons to study, each season aligning with either the cross-quarter day or the solstice/equinox, I found it surprisingly difficult to keep all this information straight. My heart yearned to reconnect to the wild, and I felt like I was on path, but everything I was learning was just outside of my grasp.
Up until recently, I couldn’t even remember the names of all these seasons.
Now, I am learning how the cross-quarter days, the equinoxes, and solstices mark the seasons and sacred times. Eight times a year we have a chance to tune in and listen. I have sought out teachers and direct sources of wisdom where I can on this journey. I am studying with Auntie Hazel, Grandmother Sarah MacLean Bicknell, and even with Sharon Blackie who is in Ireland at the moment to learn these ancient ways.
I have learned winter isn’t monotonous anymore…after Yuletide (what I once celebrated as Christmas). There is also Imbolc, then Ostara…then May Day! Or Beltane, the height of spring. Each season has its own rhythm, plants, song, smell, and essence. There is so much to see and learn and notice if we really get quiet and listen.
My next “leveling up” took place as I began to study the Moon. I began tuning my life to the Moon while working with Grandmother Kaariina Saarinen and the CoCreavatars Network. We schedule all our publications to align with the moon cycle. At first, it was very difficult for me to not get caught up in the energies of the Full Moon, or the New Moon, because of my old ways of understanding the moon cycle. Before I knew it, we were already halfway on to the next cycle, and I was still reminiscing in the energies of the last one instead of being present.
Part of the connection with the Wild and the We is being present. Being truly present to what is before us, within us and around us.
This is what it means to have the We with nature.
I started to notice little by little these small changes in my life, as my awareness grew more and more about these subtle shifts of the moon cycles.
I noticed subtle changes in my body and emotions as the moon changed.
I looked up at the sky every chance I had, and she was always there, Laluna.
I started to notice how the plants and life shifted with each of the moons, as they called in their own season.
In Seattle, I did my best to find local moon knowledge, and I found CoSalish teachings shared by the Saanich People, which I felt especially connected to because they map roughly with the location, and are also connected to the home of my flute teacher (and amazing Saanich healer and story-teller) Osiem Che Oke-ten. I still have not found the moon teachings for the Duwamish people (does anyone know of an elder who keeps this wisdom we might study with?).
Each moon brings in a new season. The New Moon marks the beginning of the season, and the full moon the end. In most indigenous cultures (though maybe not all?) there were 13 moons that marked the seasons. Now we have 13 times a year to notice the seasons as this moon cycle operates within the 8 season sun cycle.
It was challenging at first to really tune into the moon, to keep track of where it was in the cycle, I would blink and suddenly the moon was full, and blink again, and it was new. Slowly, little by little I started to be more present in my day. In my life. Each day started to have meaning because it was a different part of the rising and falling of the moon.
I now live in Hawaii and there is an amazing and present culture here of tuning to the moon for prayer, for planting, and for fishing. Much of the ancient knowledge has been maintained and is shared broadly with many people (not all of it of course, but much of it is mainstream in Hawaii).
In Hawaii, the seasonal changes are very subtle (at least for me), there is more emphasis placed on the day of the moon cycle rather than what season the moon is bringing in itself. As I write this, today is the 21st day of the Welo Moon, which is called ʻOlekūkahi.
It is a day where:
“people avoided planting and fishing, though farmers would weed and otherwise tidy up. The final day belonged to the Gods Kaloa and Kanaloa and people offered prayers to these Gods on this day. “lower high tide mid morning and and a low tide at midday.” Source
So, now I have gone from the awareness of 3 seasons in Alaska to 4 in Seattle, to 8 sun seasons from Celtic Heritage, to then 13 moon seasons for the Saanich People, to then every day for the Hawaiian People (kānaka ʻōiwi). This journey has been no small feat but it has been worth every effort and has returned wildness into my life in a way I could never have dreamt of.
My heritage and identity are complex like many of our generation. My Grandfather on my Mother’s side was a Mexican Italian immigrant, and my Grandmother was an immigrant from Southern Italy. We carry “Mestiza” as I was taught to say heritage in our family, coming from my Great-great Grandmother Francesca Lucio Ruiz. Her people were from the Sinaloa area of Mexico though we have lost the record of our tribal affiliation (my sister who speaks fluent Spanish assures me we have a future adventure planned to go there and see what we can find).
In my quest of remembering this part of my heritage, I made a commitment for the next 4 years to dance at the Danza de la Luna. This is an Aztec Dance: a dance of the ancient Mexican people (and further South).
Some part of our body knows and longs for our heritage: to be connected to the wildness and the WE of our ancestry, and the lands of our people’s people. I have realized now that I have this practice, that there was a sense of meaning missing from my life without it. Now, that I am on this path I feel like I am coming home fully. To the place that I have always been leaving and returning to, my home, my omateyotl, my deep, ancient knowingness.
I am now walking a path of learning the Aztec Moon Calendar and Sun Calendar! It is tremendous. Every single day has meaning, every single week has meaning. If I thought it was difficult at first to learn the subtleties of 8 Seasons a year versus four! and then every day with the Hawaiian Moon Calendar, the Aztec Nahuatl teachings I am learning are even more complex. Each day has a meaning, and a god, and so does each week!
Today, for example, is:
“The day is 11 OZOMATLI – MONKEY ???? Guardian: Xochipilli. God of love, dance, song, joy, pleasure, and flowers. The direction is poniente. The color is red. The virtue today is joy.
Today is a great time of cleaning rites and with that comes celebrating through dance, music, art, and entertainment. It is a day of creative understanding and sensuality.
Xochipilli is the prince of flowers ???? signifying this beauty of creator’s brushstrokes. The science behind creation is also honored.
The animal for the day is QUETZALTOTOTL –
THE QUETZAL illuminates our inner being as we offer lamenting and confession. The beauty of spirit shines forth when we are honest with ourselves and the mirror this month.
It is also the time of the lord of the night – ???? ???? ???? MICTLANTECUHTLI – THE LORD OF THE PLACE OF REST AND STILLNESS. We translate this energy as transformation, and during this time of changing form we acknowledge the great sleep taking place representing the pause before creation. Everything dies. In preparation for this we arrive at Mictlan as clean and clear as possible ready for what we will all face. This is our Earthly task; to use our tools, calendar, and plants to cleanse in preparation to meet our creator. When we arrive we have a registry of truth that is seen clearly. Where did we give? How did we treat each other? These and more are all seen.
Ometeolt ????????????”
Each day I look up at the moon, each day I say my prayers and thanks to Creator for another chance to wake up and live this life. I strive to live from the space of the WE, in harmony and in right relationship with all my relations and kin. To do this, we have to know them. Know they are there. Know how they flow, and breath, smell and feel. To know the seasons in our bodies and beings. So that the seasons become us, like breathing. Each day. Each week. Each moon. Each sun cycle.
I am on this journey still, each day as part of my remembering for how to walk in a good way, for how to live with the sacred, and how to live by the sun and moon.