Under the Snow Moon - Land, Moon, Rowan

This season we begin the with the Snow Moon as it begins its cycle across our skies.

Named in the deep winter months because February’s typically cold, snowy weather in North America earned its full moon the name Snow Moon.

Storm Moon and Hunger Moon are other traditional names that speak to weather and hunger’s presence in the land at this time.

Listening to the Land 🌾

At the Listening to the Land day in Oxford on January 7th, I was honoured to meet so many people whose deep connection to land, water, rivers and soil unfolds in the projects they’ve created. I watched conversations grow like new shoots from where my stall was positioned, and felt nourished by the creative ways people cultivate belonging with land and community.

Moon & Earth - A Shared Origin 🌍

Modern science offers its own poetic vision of our celestial companion. The leading explanation for the Moon’s origin is the Giant Impact Hypothesis, which suggests that very early in Earth’s history a Mars-sized body collided with our young planet, flinging debris that later coalesced into the Moon. This idea — the Moon born of Earth’s own substance — deepens the sense that Moon and land are expressions of a shared beginning.https://science.nasa.gov/moon/formation

Whether we trace this in stone, story or star-chart, it reminds us that our bodies and the land beneath them are not separate from the Moon’s rhythm. The Moon’s influence on tides and on ancient lore reflects that same belonging. We are land-creatures born of water, dust and longing to remember our wider cycles.

Moon Cycles & Land Wisdom 🌙

At Oxford I noticed how, for some, the Moon’s cycle is a familiar rhythm, while for others it is the land itself, soil, seasons and seed, that carries the weight of their relationship with nature. In biodynamic farming, this ancient conversation between Moon and Earth remains central to sowing and harvest. It is a lived reminder that attending to lunar rhythms does not distract us from the land, but deepens our intimacy with it.

This understanding sits at the heart of Rootlight Rituals and the Selenodynamic way I blend tea. Each blend is prepared in alignment with a specific lunar phase, not only through timing, but through attention. As I blend, pack and prepare the herbs, I work slowly and deliberately, holding the qualities of the Moon in mind. The herbs are chosen for their affinity with the phase, and the process itself becomes part of how those qualities are carried.

Before finishing a blend, I step outside and place my hands beneath the Moon, allowing them to rest there long enough to feel its presence. I then return and hold my hands over the tea, offering what that phase wishes to imprint. Not as something added, but as something remembered. The herbs absorb this through care, intention and relationship, just as land absorbs weather, season and touch.

As the Snow Moon New Moon rises anew, we also enter the realm of the Rowan tree in the Celtic Ogham calendar. Known in Irish as Luis, Rowan carries an energy of vision, protection and personal power. After the richness of Listening to the Land day, this feels like a fitting threshold. A moment of return. A recognition that loving the land, and allowing ourselves to feel loved by it in return, is both ancient and urgently needed.

Walk into this lunar cycle with reverence for what is seen and unseen, and may your roots reach deeper into every place your feet stand.

With light and grounding,

Miri

Rootlight Rituals