Moon mysteries & liberatory praxis

Engaging with wonder and mystery in our change-making here on earth

DISCLAIMER:

If standing under a vast night sky fills you with awe, this essay may possibly be a well-timed offering for you. If you’re looking for a break from your ego that thinks it knows everything, this could be just what’s needed, or not. And if you’re someone who prefers clear-cut answers and gets twitchy around unconventional theories, this is definitely not for you—or maybe it is! Read on and find out, or don’t and perhaps listen to this podcast episode instead:

Last Friday night from about 8pm to midnight, I traversed the vast space of the interwebs asking Google questions that it’s never seen from me before. Why can we only see one side of the moon? What are the theories about the creation of the moon? What’s ancient astronomy? Is the moon…artificial? Is there EI on the moon? Yeah…the searches progressively got weirder and weirder.

Maybe this is my way of coping with the tragic and overwhelming power imbalances, genocides, ecocides, and more catastrophes unfolding on Planet Earth... When not a lot makes sense right now and my body tightens when I foresee how our femme, queer and trans bodies, Mother Earth and her diverse living bodies will be further threatened, almost any coping strategy will do.

Maybe these new curiosities about the moon have emerged for me because I’m drawn to the psychedelic wonder of facing the void. Here, I’m leaning into the void, the way I leaned into The Handmaid’s Tale during the pandemic. Maybe because the uncertainty that exists now—as if light pouring through my eyeballs went from stark bright to pitch dark—invites a pause for deeper inquiry rather than rushing for certainty. Engaging with such questions about the moon this week has allowed me to access astonishment, reverence and even joy— qualities that I, perhaps we, need in times of fear and pitch blackness. So I want to share with you some of what I’ve been learning and how it might relate to this moment.

Whether full or new, waxing or waning, we can only see one side of the moon from eathside. Pink Floyd poetically called the other half, “the dark side of the moon”. In 1959, Soviet astronauts captured images of the previously unseen face of the moon, and it’s only in 2019 that the first spaceship (from China) landed on the far side of the moon. Apparently, the far side has a very different appearance and chemical composition than the near side…which makes it even more of a mystery.

There are several theories about how the moon formed, all of which are limited in its understanding. The dominant theory, Collision theory, says that the moon was formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, Theia. This theory though doesn’t explain some strange similarities and differences between the earth and moon’s biochemical qualities. Another theory holds that the moon is hollow (erm yes…hollow) with a harder shell beneath the surface. Evidence for this theory includes a point that crater patterns on the moon don’t go deeper than a certain depth, and that when the moon is struck by a meteor or satellite, it reverberates similar to that of a ringing bell.

Now, it’s about to get even more peculiar, but stay with me—or don’t.

The moon, vaguely classified as an “astronautical body,” not a star or a planet, has hollow-moon theorists also posing that it was not “naturally” created. What are the odds—they ask flabbergastedly, of the moon being in “perfect circular orbit” with earth, 400 times smaller than the size of the sun and 400 times closer to earth than the sun (hence the total eclipses, and the sun and moon often looking the same size despite their vast difference)?! Taking it further into the depths of eccentricity, some scientists believe all of this is not by coincidence, but by design…by extraterrestrial intelligence.

Okay, let’s pause.

To be clear, I’m not sharing this because I believe aliens made the moon with a hollow core. What to believe or disbelieve is actually the least interesting thing here to me.

I’m not trying to stir up conspiracy theories, I promise. I’m primarily intrigued by the mystery and the imagination of possibilities beyond my logical brain (okay, maybe I just need to read more actual Sci-Fi). But when I’ve shared some of this moon stuff in conversation recently, people look at me with flavors of discomfort, skepticism, dismissal or glazed over “does not compute” faces. I get it. If you’re still reading this, maybe you’re feeling it too. It is, after all, displeasing to have our knowing poked and prodded, even by the kookiest of theories.

I felt moved to write this because these theories and ideas stretch the limits of what I think I know. They invite me beyond the parameters of what I and we have inherited as “truth.” In doing so, I find myself confronting a vastness that’s so big, that all I can do for my freedom is to surrender. It feels important to acknowledge that we actually don’t completely understand from all sides something, like the moon, that impacts us everyday (I do realize that I don’t have to turn to the moon for a dose of the vast void—just like I don’t have to subject myself to The Handmaid’s Tale during a global trauma, but I do shit like this so here we are).

So what does this mean for us here on Planet Earth, especially when the ground beneath can feel so threatened and unstable?!

Many of us feel pretty comfortable with the near side of the moon; attributing beautiful meanings and intentions with its various phases. It offers us a grounded certainty. Yet, right now and more and more, it seems like we’re needing the unseen, unusual ideas of a “far side” variety. Engaging with multiple sides—known and unknown, right and left and center, red and blue and green and rainbow sprinkles—is necessary for our stewardship of collective wholeness.

Last week, I wrote for The Moon Times Digest on What Can Be Trusted? reflecting on how distrust has become a social disease inflamed by politics, polarization, and constant messaging designed to erode our faith in ourselves and one another. When I consider these lunar mysteries, I feel humbled and in wonderment the same way I feel standing before the Pacific Ocean. I fear it, yes, just like I fear the majority of The Divided States of America pumping their fists to MAGA. But now is clearly not a time of knowing (even though a lot of people sound like they have answers, I sure as hell do not), what I do have are curiosities, maybe you do too? Can we allow ourselves to trust our curiosities? Can we let our curiosities—rather than our conclusions—lead (even if it sometimes leads us down rabbit holes about hallow moons)?

Is the practice of engaging mystery not essential for expanding imagination of new worlds?

Letting go of the need to be certain, to be “right,” or to “know” is entering a wonderful dance with mystery . Olivia, a queer storyteller, social work scholar, and member in The River, said, “it’s important for me to consider worlds and possibilities outside of this one, because this one isn’t it. Exploring the far-fetched is how new worlds are born.” That wonderful dance with mystery—whether through unanswered questions, myths, or reverence for the cosmic void between and above us—can become, in itself, an act of liberation that expands us beyond the bounds of oppressive reality.

In this era of fear and uncertainty, engaging with wonder is not just an escape but a praxis of resilience and liberation. The moon, in all its mysteries, reminds me that not everything needs to be fully understood to be real, trusted, impactful and sacred. May we let curiosity guide us, expanding our boundaries of imagination and possibility. Perhaps the unknown isn’t something to conquer but an invitation to open ourselves to new worlds waiting to be seen.

Dear reader, what comes up for you as you read this? How are you sitting lately with the vast unknown? How are you accessing wonder? Praytell in the comments!

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