When navigating a period of transition, a wise friend encouraged me to create ritual. Sitting beneath a full moon with poetry is where I began. Staring moon-struck into the sky is nothing new. I have volumes of poetry written by fellow lunar lovers. It is not really about the moon, it is about the space she holds for my prayers.

Carol Anne Duffy, in her poem The Woman in the Moon, writes as the moon. The moon says: ‘…What reached me here were your prayers, griefs, here’s the craic, losses and longings, your lives/so brief, mine long, a talented loneliness’.

Join me this month under the blue August moon, to imagine the pensive moon, listening. Listen in turn to the thoughts that arise from the beautiful writing included in ritual below.