ARIES NEW MOON GUEST CONTRIBUTOR : ANGELA CLELAND
MON 12 APR 03:30 - Mooning Monthly flexes its green fingers....
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Welcome to the fourth edition of MOON LIT, a platform for new literature with a lunar theme, this month featuring the poetry of writer and poetry guru Angela Cleland.
Spring is upon us and the Aries New Moon is generally recognised as the starting point of the annual astrological cycle. A wonderful opportunity therefore exists over the next few days to work that ‘new beginning’ vibe to everyone’s advantage and clearly set intents for the next twelve lunar months.
It’s a natural window in which to set one’s house in order, so to speak; tospring clean the mind, body and spirit, not to mention one’s bathroom and kitchen cabinets, with a view to making clear, uncluttered decisions about the reality you want to manifest as the year progresses.
Here's where the spring garden metaphor gets its yearly airing but it bears regular repetition: any new moon provides fertile, receptive ground in which to plant seeds of intent that, with careful nurturing, will give rise to bountiful harvest over successive future full moons. An Aries New Moon amplifies this energetic fertility still further and under cover of its fecund, benevolent darkness, every conscious thought, word and action can become an optimally potent, fertilised seed, plump with a fresh new world of potentials we wish to create and experience. It’s a kind of Alan Titchmarsh magic so start flexing those green fingers folks.
Above all, this Aries New Moon is bursting with vibrant creativity so why not let that be reflected in your outlook? Quite simply, if things aren’t working the way they stand, try something different. There is really nothing to lose except the misguided social conditioning that gives rise to a restricted vision of your own limitations and that is surely something to be welcomed.
May the forthcoming Aries New Moon provide the shoots of rebirth and new growth in the lives of All.
It is with great excitement that I introduce the work of Angela Cleland to the MOON LIT forum. Angela was born and bred in Scotland, studied English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow before completing her Masters in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, London. She has worked variously as a supermarket store detective, a telecoms knowledge engineer, a business analyst and as the development manager for an award-winning e-learning company. She now balances writing with being a Mum, running online creative and critical writing workshops and providing mentoring services through the Poetry School. Her poetry collections are Waiting to Burn (pamphlet, Templar Poetry, 2006), And in Here, the Menagerie (Templar Poetry, 2007) and Room of Thieves (Salt, 2013). She has recently finished writing her third collection Real Cute Danger. Angela also writes science fiction and fantasy under the name Cleland Smith. She offers us three celestially inspired slices of her intimately observed world, written exclusively for MOON LIT. She invites us to join her upward gaze, to question our relationship with the moon (and each other) as one we have come to know by habit rather than conscious experience. Male, female, cold lump of dust and rock? Detached, intimate, a loving presence? We journey across the emotional tides of the lakes and seas on the moon's face that mirror those in our own lives. The poet calls for guidance from the philosophers and cosmologists that have charted their own solar/lunar returned reflections from Earth, in the hope of safe passage. We are never left adrift.
AND AS FOR THE MOON
You can’t even look at him. The night sky is ruined for you. Look at his big white face, how could he let you down like this? But then, how could he not, who hogs the sky, who drags the ocean by its scruff like a plaything? The mild, milk-faced goon is feta. Oh, sweetheart, I would hold you if I could. All I can tell you is what I know. He claims to be the moon, but there are one-hundred and fifty-eight confirmed moons in our solar system alone. Take my telescope – choose yourself a new moon. Gaze at it, unashamedly.
ALBEDO
(noun) the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet or moon
Bold as a soldier’s button, holding smart the tunic of the sky, she grows in the eye as I watch her, leans in closer to return my gaze, unfazed by my attentions. I mirror her motion, grow up to meet her, and we are nose-to-nose over the rooftops, letting the sun’s stolen light bounce between our faces in an endless luminous rally. I will not photograph her tonight. How could I knowingly diminish her? I want to reach my hands through the radiance of her edge and place them on her cool cheeks. I want to press my forehead against hers, come away with her chalky imprint on my brow. But for now, I keep my hands on my waxing heart. For now, love is distance.
SWIMMING ON THE MOON AND NOW
Sea of Cold, Ocean of Storms, Lake of Sorrow, Lake of Fear,
Lake of Hatred, Lake of Winter, Sea of Crises, Sea of Clouds,
Lake of Solitude, Lake of Death, Sea of the Edge,
Sea that has Become Known.
Langrenus! Stevinus! Copernicus! Plato!
Sea of Islands, Lake of Time, Lake of Perseverance,
Lake of Dreams, Lake of Goodness, Sea of Serenity,
Sea of Tranquility, Lake of Hope,
Sea that has Become Known.
Aristarchus! Kepler! Grimaldi! Tycho!
Lake of Spring, Sea of Nectar,
Gaudii, gaudii – Lake of Joy!
Lake of Time, Sea of Clouds,
Lake of Forgetfulness –
Angela Cleland 2021
@AngelaCleland
Once again we open the doors of our very own art gallery MOON LIT DISPLAY, exhibiting drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture by artists with a lunar bent. Each month, alongside our literary guests, a visual artist will be invited to share their most recent creative output, ensuring our exhibits complement the contemporary, enquiring nature of the poetry.
Under this Aries New Moon we turn to artist and creative force Kathryn Lloyd. Kathryn is an artist, writer and editor based in London. She has contributed to various arts publications including Art Monthly, Art Review, Apollo, Burlington Contemporary, MAP and The White Review. She has published catalogue texts for Survey at Jerwood Space in London and Entangled: Threads & Making at Turner Contemporary in Margate – for which catalogue she was also Assistant Editor. Lloyd has delivered talks at Central Saint Martins and Jerwood Space and is a regular guest on the Art Monthly Radio Show. She is also Contemporary Art Editor for The Burlington Magazine. Lloyd studied MA Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh, and completed The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School in 2013.
More of her work can be viewed at www.kathrynlloyd.co.uk
GRIEVING WOMAN ONE
graphite on paper
55 x 35 cm
LYCAON
graphite and gold leaf on paper
42 x 29 cm
TINKA
graphite on paper
38 x 28 cm
Just so you know, MOON LIT seeks to present literature and artwork that celebrates and reveres, marvels, champions and cherishes, whilst never shirking the necessary excavation of life's shadows in search of the priceless shining diamonds within. Each edition is a poetic invitation to contemplate our reading of, and reaction to, circumstance, that we may more consciously direct our thoughts, words and actions toward positive benefit for All.
Throughout 2021 MOON LIT will offer a monthly meditative pause under the poetic guidance of our distinguished literary guests. It is hoped readers will find time in hectic schedules to unhurriedly savour their literary craft; to read and reread these new perspectives on the miraculous, beguiling life experience to which we all belong.
MOON LIT publishes at new moon alongside its full moon sister publication MOONING MONTHLY that offers loosely astrological lunar forecasts for the coming month. (Mooning Monthly 115 still available here) Subscribe for free HERE at your leisure to ensure both emails hit your inbox when it matters.
And of course, do please share MOON LIT with friends and family of similar lunar sensitivities, in the hope that this illuminating endeavour brightens our currently challenging, darkened times with the light of beauty and Love.
With love 'til next time
Mark
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