Wild Wandering — Slow letters & sacred devotion

For a little while · New Moon in Scorpio

The Well Beneath the Waterthe dark moon of Monday, November 9

Just past Samhain, with the year turned toward its dark half, the moon goes quiet too. On Monday she disappears from the sky entirely, in Scorpio, the deepest of the water signs. A few things for this moon only, gathered here until she grows back to half.

A woman with closed eyes rests her chin on her hand, wrapped in a deep wine-red shawl embroidered with gold leaves. A gold Scorpio glyph hangs at her throat and crescent moons dangle from her ears. Behind her, a dark new moon is ringed with light like an eclipse, circled by a halo of golden moon phases, above a night sea and a sky full of stars, with dark red lilies in the foreground.

This moon's sky

New Moon: Mon, Nov 9, 1:02 a.m. Central
Where: 16°53′ Scorpio
Mercury and Venus: Both direct Fri, Nov 13
First crescent: Dusk, Nov 11 or 12
First quarter: Tue, Nov 17
Full Moon: Tue, Nov 24, in Gemini

The moon reaches new at 1:02 a.m. Central on Monday (2:02 a.m. Eastern, and 11:02 p.m. Pacific on Sunday night). She and the sun stand together at almost 17 degrees of Scorpio, a fixed water sign: the deep lake rather than the running stream. Scorpio is the sign of what lives below the surface, of secrets kept and secrets finally told, and of slow changes that happen where no one can see.

Mercury, still traveling backward through Scorpio, and Venus, backward through Libra, both turn direct on Friday the 13th. What stalled in October begins to move again. Plant the seed now. Let it sit until after Friday before you make the call or sign the page.

To find the first crescent, look low in the west-southwest about half an hour after sunset. On Wednesday the 11th she is a thin silver thread barely above the horizon, and binoculars help. On Thursday the 12th she is higher and brighter, and much easier to catch.

The same dark moon, around the world

This moon belongs to many people at once. In India and across the Hindu world, the dark moon night of Sunday, November 8, is Diwali, the festival of lights, when lamps are lit in every window to welcome Lakshmi. In Bengal the same night is Kali Puja, honoring Kali.

In the Jewish calendar, the new month of Kislev begins at sundown on Monday, November 9, with Rosh Chodesh, the head of the month. Kislev is the month of Hanukkah, another festival of light in the dark.

These are living traditions with their own keepers and meanings. It is a lovely thing simply to know that on the same dark night, so many people are lighting lamps and beginning again.

A Free Printable

The Wella printable ritual for the dark moon

Three pages to print and keep on your altar or in your journal: the full Well ritual with this moon's times, a page for your honest question and your intention, and a moon tracker from the dark moon to the full, so you can watch your seed grow night by night.

Download the printable (PDF, 3 pages)

Prints well on ordinary letter paper, in color or black and white.

A Ritual for This Moon

The Wellfor any evening from November 9 to 11

Twenty quiet minutes, a bowl of water, and one honest question. Scorpio does not do small talk. This is a moon for the question you have been circling for months: what do I truly want, under all the things I am supposed to want?

I
Make the room dark. Turn off the overhead lights, and let a battery candle, or a candle in a steady holder, be the only light. Set a bowl of clean water in front of you, the darker the bowl the better.
Look into the water until your breathing slows. The still surface is the top of the well.
II
Write one question at the top of a page: What do I truly want, under everything I'm supposed to want? Then write without stopping for five minutes.
Don't edit. Scorpio prefers the first, honest draft. You are lowering the bucket.
III
Read it back, and underline the one sentence that makes your chest go quiet.
That sentence is your intention for this moon. It is usually simpler than you expected.
IV
Hold a small, smooth stone in your palm and say your sentence out loud. Then lower the stone gently into the bowl, and watch the ripples spread and settle.
What is planted in deep water stays planted. The stone gives your intention weight.
V
Leave the bowl on a windowsill overnight. In the morning, pour the water onto a houseplant or bare soil, and carry the stone in your pocket until the full moon on the 24th.
When you touch it, remember what you asked for. Let the well keep it until the moon is full.

Say softly, as the stone goes in:

Deep water, dark moon, hold what I've named.
Keep it still, keep it safe, and bring it back changed.

Keep any candle on a steady surface, away from paper, and never leave it burning unattended. Small stones can be a choking hazard, so keep the bowl out of reach of little ones and pets.

Two Old Stories for the Dark Moon

The scorpion and the hunter

The Greeks told how the giant hunter Orion was brought down by a scorpion. In one telling, Orion boasted that he would kill every wild creature on earth, and the Earth herself sent a scorpion to stop him. In another, it was the goddess Artemis who sent it. Either way, both were placed among the stars, and set on opposite sides of the sky so they would never meet again.

Look and you will see it is true: as the scorpion rises in the east on a summer evening, Orion sinks away in the west. At the scorpion's heart burns Antares, a red supergiant star whose name means rival of Ares, because its color rivals the red planet Mars.

One gentle surprise: the zodiac signs and the star patterns have drifted apart over two thousand years. This year the sun does not reach the stars of the Scorpion until about November 24, and leaves them only a week later. The sign is a season. The stars keep their own time.

The month begins with a sighting

For much of human history, a new month did not begin with a date on a calendar. It began when someone saw the moon. After the dark nights, people went out at dusk and searched the western sky for the first thin crescent, and when it was seen, the new month began.

The Babylonians kept their months this way. So did ancient Israel: the Mishnah describes witnesses coming to the court in Jerusalem to report the new crescent, and messengers sent out to spread the news. Many Muslim communities still begin each month of the Islamic calendar when the new crescent, the hilal, is sighted.

This month, you can keep a small version of that watch yourself. Step outside at dusk on the 11th or 12th and look low in the west. When you find her, say your intention once more. Your month has begun.

Where these stories come from

The story of Orion and the scorpion survives in several ancient versions. The poet Aratus, in his Phaenomena of the 3rd century BCE, has Artemis send the scorpion. The star-myths collected under the name of Eratosthenes have Orion boast that he would kill every beast, and the Earth send the scorpion in reply. The meaning of the name Antares, anti-Ares, comes from Greek.

The sun's dates in the constellation of Scorpius are based on the modern constellation boundaries set by the International Astronomical Union. The account of witnesses to the new moon comes from the Mishnah, tractate Rosh Hashanah, chapters 1 and 2. Practices for sighting the crescent in the Islamic calendar vary from community to community.

Read the love letter to Cerridwen The New Moon Ritual

No. I · An Invitation

There is a softer life waiting for you, one shaped not by urgency but by devotion. Come slowly. Come barefoot. Bring your ordinary, unfinished hours, and let them become holy.

with love, the wandering ones

A Living Index · Vol. I

The Six Portals

Each doorway opens to a different chamber of the practice. Choose what calls you today; nothing is missed, only waiting.

I

Daily

Sacred Daily Practicethe small, holy hours

Morning rituals, breathwork, candle work, and the tender architecture of a life lived on purpose. Begin again, gently, every day.

Today's Practice II

Cards

The Tarot Seriesseventy-eight letters home

A slow, devotional walk through the Major and Minor Arcana, one card at a time, written as love letters to those who pull them.

Explore the Cards III

Lineage

Divine Feminineshe remembers herself

Goddess studies, ancestral threads, the wild mythology of the body. Inanna, Mary, Persephone, and the one writing this, and those reading.

Meet Her IV

Letters

Slow Letterslongform & slow-written

Essays, fragments, field notes from the soft life. Lyric reflections on grief, beauty, devotion, and what the morning light keeps trying to tell you.

Read the Journal V

Tools

Tools & Resourcesmaps for the wandering

Free worksheets, moon trackers, ritual guides, reading lists, and printable companions for the practice. Take what you need; leave what you don't.

Explore the Resources

VI

Offerings

The Offeringsmade by hand & by heart

The shop. Courses, devotional bundles, printed ephemera, oils, and the slower-made objects that have become part of the practice here.

Coming Soon

A little divination

What Goddess Are You?

Nine questions. No wrong answers. Go with your first feeling, not your best behavior. At the end, a love letter is waiting with your name on it.

Kelli, the keeper of Wild Wandering, resting her head on folded arms

About · The Keeper of the Sanctuary

Kellia wanderer, a witness, a woman remembering

Hello, beloved. I am so glad you wandered in.

Wild Wandering began as a small, quiet practice, a way of returning to myself in a world that kept asking me to be louder, faster, less. I made this sanctuary because I needed it. And then, because you needed it, too.

What you will find here is what I would offer you over a slow cup of tea: rituals for the ordinary morning, love letters to the cards, studies of the goddesses who walked before us, and the small, devotional tools I have gathered along the way. Nothing here is urgent. Everything here is invitation.

Come as you are. Stay as long as you like. The practice will meet you exactly where you stand.

Wander wisely, wild one

Full & New Moon

Letters from the Sanctuary

A quiet note arrives every full and new moon. Slow practice, seasonal poetry, and the occasional invitation to something tender being made by hand or curated by heart.

Wild Wanderinga sacred return to the soft & feral self