Wisdom for a Hunger Moon

Hunger Moon / Snow Moon

Here in North America, Indigenous people tell us the name for the full moon in February is the Snow Moon, or the Hunger moon.

Yesterday we had what New Jersey folk call a snow storm, and while it was a bit blustery, for this Canadian, 4 inches of snow is hardly a storm. Still, it seems auspicious that today the garden is softened and muffled in white. The sun is reflecting off the snow, bringing a wash of bright hope into the house.

But it’s cold and icy out there. Best to stay inside if one can. It’s winter…a time of going inwards when we are invited to introspection.

I’m a winter person. In Quebec, where I was raised, we say “My country is not a country, it’s winter.” Mon pays c’est ne pas un pays, c’est l’hiver. I long for cold days and long nights. They’re in my marrow and my blood. It’s the time when this bear can go into her cave and hibernate, dreaming and connecting with the earth and with my soul. It’s the time for telling stories, too. Some stories, I was told by an Ojibwe elder, cannot be told until the snow is on the ground since the spirits of the stories are occupied at other times, doing the work the Creator intended them to do, and mustn’t be disturbed. Now, the stories come to us.

This particular moon has significant power, as it comes with a lunar eclipse and a comet. Busy up there in the heavens these days, as it is on earth. So perhaps we can take this moment to deepen our connections, to meditate and dream. Who knows what we’ll come up with?

A few of us (me included) have been feeling a bit creatively blocked, due in large part to the crazy political atmosphere, and all the negativity swirling around the world. Might I suggest we use the energy of this “Hungry” moon to contemplate what it means to be truly hungry? Imagine not having enough to eat. Think of the deer, pawing at the ground in search of something green. Imagine the mice who haven’t had snow to burrow under until now, and must be cold (unless they’re in your basement!) Imagine the refugee, the homeless, the prisoner. Are we hungry for justice? For mercy? For creative energy?

The world looks different under a blanket of snow. What’s hidden? What’s revealed? There is a purity to all this white, and yet the grey-blue shadows seem like figures in a sacred montage. What are they saying to you?

Tell me what you see, what you dream, what stories come to you….

 

 

6 Comments

  1. Stephanie Pinkerton on February 10, 2017 at 5:38 pm

    Lauren, I’ve been paying attention to this full moon … and as you say, with the eclipse and a comet, it sure seems busy in the heavens. Most of my friends and I feel the same way you do, we’re hungry for justice. We also feel our energy is being sucked out of us as we follow the endless political soap operas, which have been going on for way too long. In any case, with regards to dreaming, I’ll be paying more attention to what the universe is trying to tell me!
    Keep writing, Stephanie

    • Lauren B. Davis on February 10, 2017 at 5:52 pm

      thanks for your comment, Stephanie. I know what you mean about feeling your energy being sucked out of you, but it’s so important to find ways to rejuvenate and to keep going. I think that’s what this energy can offer us. Would love to hear if you receive a message from your dreams!

  2. Ms Aisha on February 28, 2017 at 12:20 am

    It is a scary time and it has impacted my creative output. It is a relief to read someone else writing about it, it makes me feel less alone. I say to friends, “Trump has taken eight months of my life and he doesn’t deserve it, he doesn’t care about me or you.” But this is easier said than done, anyway…my dreams.

    Last week I dreamt that I was walking at night near my home and a tornado came out of no where and picked me up into the sky. I knew that eventually I would fall back down onto the ground and die but that wasn’t what happened.

    Instead I landed in a field outside of a town faraway from my home. I walked into town and went into a grocery store, not the glossy, organic kind, picture stacked canned goods, old red and white signs and Mexican & White working class folks pushing squeaky carts. I wandered in and tried to convince the cashier that I did not belong there. I was frantic, trying to explain that something unbelievable had happened to me. I’d been picked up by a tornado and I needed help getting back home, even though I had no money, no id and knew that no one would believe me.

    The cashier called the sherrif. When he came to the store, I knew before I even spoke to him that he would not believe me. I was going to end up in a mental hospital for sure, after spending a night in jail. I didn’t matter; I had to tell my story; I had to try. And I did, all the while saying, “I know this sounds crazy and you don’t believe me, but I am telling the truth…”

    This sounds like fiction but it wasn’t. It was a dream and I was me the whole time, feeling everything.

    • Lauren B. Davis on February 28, 2017 at 7:24 am

      Wow, Aisha, what a gift your soul has given you! That dream, it seems to me, is just waiting to be turned into a novel or a short story. A kind of “Trump-era Yellow Brick Road” if you will. Even in (or perhaps especially in) these dreadful times, your connection to your own subconscious can provide such essential guidance. I wonder what you’ll do with it? Keep me posted, won’t you?

      • MsAisha on February 28, 2017 at 2:55 pm

        I will, my work had become dystopian as of late.

        • Lauren B. Davis on February 28, 2017 at 2:58 pm

          Hahahahaha! Well, what hasn’t? Yes, I say! Go with that.

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