A New Moon Ritual for Winter’s End

A Ritual Bath with The Moon Card and the Knight of Cups

“Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes it visible. The Moon develops creativity as chemicals develop photographic images.”

-Norma Jean Harris

I am tucked into my bed as I begin this post. We have had some sunny but cold weather in San Francisco recently. I know that San Francisco’s version of cold is downright cozy by comparison to places currently blanketed by snow. Maybe that’s part of why I feel so grateful for the freezing temperatures.

It’s nice to have a good excuse to work from underneath a blanket. It is nice to be reminded that we are still in winter.

This final phase of winter always reminds me of a word I learned in a movement class — Otkaz. I took this class almost 20 years ago while working on a BFA in theatre, but it has stayed with me. It comes from the work of a Russian and Soviet theatre director, Vsevolod Meyerhold.

Meyerhold created a system for training actors based on his principles of biomechanics (only distantly related to the present scientific use of the term). I recently had a refresher on the term, from that long-ago movement instructor (thanks David Taft!).

The Otkaz is the preparation for action. It is followed by the Pocil, which is the action with meaning, which is followed by the Stoika, the end of the action. When we get up to stand from a chair, in the otkaz we lean slightly back, coiling the center and leaning forward in the chair seat to stand.

To me, Otkaz encapsulates the energy of our current Pisces season, whose corresponding Tarot card is The Moon.

This is a time when we’re preparing to get up from our winter chair (or bed in my case). As we move towards the 1st day of Spring, we are standing up from our period of hibernation/rest and digest. On March 19th we will arrive at the end of both winter, and another turn on the wheel of the year.

Today, I’m offering an Otkaz bath ritual for Wednesday’s New Moon in Pisces, using The Moon card and the Knight of Cups as anchors.

It was around this time last year that I began structuring these newsletters around each Zodiac sign and its corresponding card. If you have been with me for the entire journey, thank you! If you are new, thank you also!

You can read my original post on The Moon and Pisces here. This post also gives a nice summation of how the Zodiac and the Tarot align as well as how the Devil through the Star cards/seasons prepare us for The Moon.