The Full Moon nearest the Winter Solstice is the Oak Moon, the Moon of the newborn year, the Divine Child. Like the Divine Child who is born to die and dies to be reborn anew, the ancient Oak has its trunk and branches in the material world of the living, while its roots, the branches in reverse, reach deep into the Underworld, symbolic land of the Spirit. As the roots probe downward into the grave-like darkness of the Earth, its branches grow ever upward toward the light, to be crowned by sacred Mistletoe.
My last few weeks have been filled with happiness and distress. Joy at a young man found and reunited with his family after years of drifting across America; distress after another young girl found in altogether different circumstances who will, sadly, never see her family again. This is the rhythm of life however, part yin, part yang, and the changing phases of the moon remind us that this is the natural fabric of things, for the most part mysterious and beyond our control, but ever present and ever changing. Our lot in life is not to question why but to accept the rhythms and try to live in harmony with their weft and weave.
The Mysterious Oak Moon
