How We Tell Our Stories: A Review of the We'Moon Planner
"Huh? What's a We'Moon?"
That's what I asked when my friend, who was taking a wholesale order for our college Pagan group, offered to sign me up for a copy.
"This," they whispered, reverently and smiling, while producing a well-worn and colorful book from their bag. "Is a We'Moon planner."
I flipped through the pages, seeing that it was a weekly guidebook and planner full of unfamiliar symbols alongside lunar phases and artwork and words that I hadn't seen elsewhere. It was a cackling of feminist noise, a song of welcoming, a viewing of the world from an unihibitedly queer and womxn-centered lens.
Suffice to say, I signed up to order one and have been using a We'Moon ever since for the last 15 years.
I have wanted to write about We'Moon and the importance of womxn's independent publications for a good long while so when the lovely folks at We'Moon offered to send me a copy of their 2022 planner to review and share with all of you it was a very easy yes.
A small collection of my We’Moons over the years…
But, first - what is a We'Moon? A We'Moon planner, known fully as We'Moon: Gaia Rhythms for We'Moon, is a full-color feminist weekly datebook guided by lunar rhythms and overflowing with art, poetry, sacred prose, holy days of the wheel of the year, and astrological insight (including an emphermeris and multiple Moon calendars!) reflecting the ever-changing diversity of womxn's culture from around the world. It is created by and for folks who identify as womxn, is trans-inclusive, and committed to the liberation of all womxn. If you identify as a womxn you can answer the call for contributions and submit work inspired by the annual theme. I've always found the editorial team at We'Moon to be really great to work with and highly recommend submitting art or poetry if you're feeling called.
The name We'Moon reflects the long tradition within womxn's culture of reweaving, reclaiming, and redreaming language to better reflect our experiences outside the boundaries of patriarchal oppression and the bindings of the binary. Wemoon means "we of the moon" and is a way of creating space for womxn to create art, culture, and spaces to exist in our own image as well as realigning ourselves with the rhythms of Moon, Star, and Sun rather than endless cycles of production, extraction, and consumption presented to us by patriarchy and capitalism. In the spirit of dismantling oppressive powers and centering the voices of womxn, We'Moon continues to seek out and center the voices of BIPOC womxn in addition to holding space for dykes, lesbians, and queer womxn.
But here's the reason that I've continued to support We'Moon for all these years: I've ever encountered another publication that so consistently and radically tells womxn, and especially queer womxn, that they are loved and adored and needed and magickal. All of this is done in the holy container that We'Moon has created over the years, inviting in familiar rituals alongside new words, and helping womxn to track their rhythms in ways untethered from endlessly being othered into a Moon-shaped world of just being.
We'Moon is part of the long but often untold and unknown story of radical womxn's publications such as Sinister Wisdom, Azalea, Amazon Quarterly, Of A Like Mind, Lady-Inclination-of-the-Night, and WomanSpirit, to name just a few. We'Moon is unique in its longevity having been in publication for forty years which is no small feat for a group of mostly lesbian and queer womxn indepentendly publishing a printed book during some of the hardest periods endured by the publishing industry. And they're not just publishing a planner but caretaking land and leading educational retreats for lesbian feminists - it's amazing and inspiring. The We'Moon anthology, In the Spirit of We'Moon, is a beautiful read if you want to learn more and also just have a lovely collection of words and art to feed your soul (it really is like a Book of Shadows in addition to an anthology).
And, holy Goddess, is this sort of feminist rabble-rousing, queer dyke gathering, and womxn-centered story-telling needed during this time when trans-exclusionary folks are noisier than ever.
Trans-exclusionary folks who are binary-bound and biologically-reductionist in their thinking are not only terrifyingly un-feminist by modern standards but also by the standards of many of our feminist ancestors who were truly radical in their philosophies. I've been around long enough to watch elders and their followers in my community become poisoned by the powers of patriarchy that they are fighting and embrace patriarchal thinking, swayed by its illusions of power and adopting its cruel and threatening tactics of silencing womxn's voices - all which makes them seem more numerous than they really are. I've also been around long enough to see plenty of my elders continue to be incredible in their radicalism (hello, Judith Butler).
One of the ways that patriarchal systems of power are dismantled is through spells of storytelling, of collecting and distributing herstories and ourstories and theystories like dandelion seeds on the wind. Because the power-over narratives of the patriarchy are paper thin and easily shredded by the stories of brilliance and love and struggle and resiliency that emerge when we tell our own stories. And that is why We'Moon continues to be more relevant than ever - it is a current of telling, an upswelling of songs, a flow of herstory through time and space, messy and revelling and wondrously wild.
If you've been following me long enough, reading my newsletter or blog over the years, you've read poetry that I first encountered in the pages of We'Moon. I've been published in We'Moon a few times and it's been an incredible honor. More importantly, sharing my work has connected me to an intergenerational community of womxn, as readers of We'Moon have reached out to me, and let me know that my own words has been shared in rituals around the world (it is truly wild to know this). Knowing that I'm participating in this vast network of womxn caring for eachother through the power of our words and art has shaped me and how I move through the world.
Every year, when my friends and I receive our We'Moon we sit down together, sometimes with a greater community of other wemoon, sometimes just ourselves, and read out loud the astrological forecasts of our signs. We look at the poetry and art on the pages surrounding our birth dates and fill up on the vision of a world that is kind and feminist and queer and sees us as we see ourselves. Friends, it's a powerful magick, and if you're feeling called to participate I highly recommend getting a copy of the We'Moon planner or calendar - you can purchase them directly from We'Moon or often find them in co-ops and similarly rad spaces.
The 2022 theme is The Magical Dark so as you can imagine I've been reveling in the deep resonance I'm feeling for so much contained in these pages. Every year a portion of proceeds from We'Moon is donated to a values-aligned organization because we all thrive when we cast seeds of resources far and wide. You can get a spiral-bound planner, a sturdy paperback (my preference) or unbound (I always imagine that this if for the most chaotic of hags who shuffles the pages and lives according the the random order in which they fall and, holy heck, do I want to meet you). The planners are also available in both English and Spanish.
I hope that I have succeeded in introducing some of you to the magick of We'Moon much in the same way that I was introduced to it so many years ago - with excited whispers and the sort of wonder that emerges when you finally see yourself reflected in the world and choose to say "YES."
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This post was made possible by the womxn of We’Moon who sent me a copy of their 2022 planner for free in exchange for an honest review.
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