ecdysis / birth: ‘tsuga’
an ecdysis, still from the music video below
In Pisces, we feel the liminality of ecdysis— the shedding of our skin, of what we’d known to be true. As the last sign of the astrological wheel, we grab onto the fins of the two fish as they doula us through the end of the threshold: the death of something. The Full Moon already serves as a time for us to let go, and in the sign of Pisces, it can feel like everything’s emerging to absolve—simultaneously & spontaneously. Some undercurrents we’ve noticed tugging on us for a while, and now finally we jump in.
We witness transitions— emotional, physical, relational— and we make decisions. But these decisions are not intellectual— they’re made in the womb waters, in the in-between, before the crowning of the head. We’ve been swimming in these psycho-emotional waters from Wednesday evening with the Full moon until tomorrow, Saturday morning, when the moon finally enters Aries. At that time, we will be able to settle into the next stage; the rebirth of an Aries moon where we can charge forward, someone altered.
What has become apparent that needs shed? A hardened heart? An unhealthy obsession? Or perhaps it already feels as if everything is dissipating at your fingertips, and with that this moon asks, what is essential? To what or whom are you devoted? What has to pull through, although changed?
This full moon week has been intense for me. I was bullied and betrayed; though those emotions felt trivial in the face of helping with an unexpected closure of a business sanctuary I’ve loved for 5 years, in a 4 day deadline. All the while, and most importantly, I’ve been holding spiritual space, praying every day for a friend who knocked on death’s door, and now grieving, as she entered through it. At once, I had begged for life, that she may be reborn into her body, all while I asked for death, of patterns and relational habits causing me harm. I held both poles at once; straddled the in-between.
Ironically, or perhaps in some divine jest of timing, I release my music video today of a song incredibly dear to my heart. Once, on Hunter mountain, I sang it with my guitar while my friend who just passed improvised on her violin. It was a cold night, but the fired roared. I wish I had some recording of that moment other than memory. But the song still remains, and the video that releases today with it features, in some fateful way, a death ritual — rotating around the transition of one beloved being dying and emerging as a new form.
about the song: tsuga
It began with a verse, an invocation of sorts, that continued its refrain in my mind. On a walk in the winter of 2019, I heard the opening line of my forthcoming album: “Only in the hemlock grove may her true name be known / she who speaks the tongue of beast and bone.”
At the time, I didn’t quite know what would unravel from that phrase. But on the summer solstice of that year, I wrote the remainder of that first track, ‘tsuga’, while in the throes of an acute personal crisis. That night, I was beginning to lose the thread of my sanity, and I was in the woods, surrounded by hemlocks that were infested by wooly adelgids, which are insects killing these trees off. But from the dead trees, Reishi mushrooms were fruiting. I could see the hemlock’s life force transmuting into a new form, and I knew I had to go through something similar. Parts of me had to die for the next chapter.
This video, and the accompanying song, illustrates this dance of transmutation shared between Hemlock, the wooly adelgid, and Reishi. I hope it strikes a chord within you.
tsuga is now released on spotify and all your streaming services, for you to listen as you wish. it’s the first single from my album, of beast and bone
tsuga “merch” / new herbal offering
When a song is inspired by a plant ally, what better “merch” than an herbal remedy holding the soul of that being? It’s an offering so that you may develop your relationship with the Hemlock tree, tsuga canadensis— the primary inspiration of this song. Perhaps, as you get to know them, you’ll sing their next tune.
This herbal body oil invites you into the sanctuary of a hemlock grove, so you may know the mysteries of what’s within you and what the earth contains. The scent connects above with below— an evergreen aroma that’s bright, grounding, and lingering.
With only oak, maple, and beech, the sunlight streams through, bright and effervescent. But here we go deeper into the wood, where feathery hemlocks grow. Their shade provides shelter and space for roots to fractal wide. These trees provide an understory where the light dims, beckoning something mysterious.
In this way, hemlock encourages us to not look up and out, but to reflect inward, to confront what’s unknown, within. They open their soft, fern-like branches in an embrace that encourages somatic safety. They create sanctuary. And with this ally, we feel comfortable to go to the edge of our comfort zone. We know and trust that their presence will provide wings if we fall.
Take time, oil your body from temple to toe. What has been pushed aside? What tendrils stretch out from your body towards other beings and things, and how can you tend to them? What immensity exists, breathing, here?