There is a secret hour of the night
when the Goddess rises in the moon,
the great queen of all humanity,
full of power and majesty.
She shines on us, and all of us
are enlivened by Her. all of us:
animals, both wild and tame,
and plants and trees, and even
rocks, clouds and oceans,
for everything has its rhythm,
everything has its ebbs and flows.
Whether in the air, on earth, or
beneath the sea, everything is Hers.
~Apuleius, The Golden Ass
The moon is, in many cultures, a symbol of feminine principle,
representing the powerful cycles of nature we see all around us. But
these cycles are as much within us as around us. Women, like the
ocean, respond monthly to the call of the moon, our bodies linked
with that pale luminary glow through our courses. But men may also
respond to the lunar pull, in ways we do not understand without the
visible evidence women's bodies provide.
Male or female, our bodies are saltwater like the sea, and like the
sea we are pulled by that great presence in our earthly sky, whom
the ancients called the Queen of Night. Living with nature's cycles
attunes us to our connection with the universe and its mistress.
Attending to the cycles of the moon structures our lives into a
natural ebb and flow, allowing us to grow aware of our need to have
both in balance.
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By Patricia Monaghan
