Distillation
In honor of the new moon in Gemini on June 14th
The rhythm of the solar year can be overlaid onto the cycle of the moon. With the winter solstice corresponding with the energy of the new moon and the summer solstice with the energy of the full moon. In the transition seasons the waxing quarter corresponds with the spring equinox and the waning quarter with the fall equinox. As someone who writes to you each month on the new moon, I find this time of year - this summer solstice full moon energy time of year - to be particularly poignant. For it is this moment in the solar year when we stand in opposition to new moon energy. Oppositions are often initially seen in conflict to one another, but in fact they are great compliments - when in collaboration, then complete each other, support wholeness, and in many cases they invite reflection.
Similar to the concept of Yin and Yang where even in its most complete form, one embodies the seed of the other, oppositions hold a seed-sized dose of medicine for one another. In this summer solstice season of the full moon, the new moon reminds us to turn inward and distill all that we have gathering, to reflect, to find pause and in so doing to remember that there are many forms of nourishment, all dependent on one another. While in the winter solstice season of the new moon, the full moon reminds us to stay embodied - that as we explore the etherial, dream, wonder, and imagine we are tethered to this plane of our bodies and this earth, that we choose how deep and how far and how existential to go, and that at the end of the day we are still going to wash our face and clean kitchen with our own hands.
What I’m celebrating and practicing this Gemini season is embodiment - the invitation that this lush, rich season presents me to revel in abundance and honor that abundance by making things with my hands. In so doing, I am called into presence, a reflective pause. I may have a long list of things I am excited to do, but the things on it slow me down. When I harvest the roses, I can’t help but stand in reverent prayer for moments before harvesting, when I turn them into soda and beads and extract and hydrosol, my pace naturally slows to match the methodical movement of my hands, my brain slows to the sort of waves that I imagine nourish me during my time in the darkness of winter and the dreamtime of my sleep. I am soothed.
When my hands have completed their task and my eyes lift, I have been fertilized, my capacity to embrace Gemini’s insatiable hunger for more and to gather as much as I can to feed my mind, has been restored - I am ready for more, in the tender, sweet, gentle, yet thorny way of the rose.
linden, rose petals, red-tailed hawk feather
Rose petals floating in the bathtub. You should try this too.