Move With the Moon

Moon rhythms, life rhythms.

Words and music by Sarah Pirtle © 2002, Discovery Center Music, BMI.

Lyrics

1. When the moon is new, our seed goes in the ground.

That moonlight moves inside the seed and new life circles round.

Into a crescent moon, the moon that’s peeking out

Cuz the earth has held that seed, the seed begins to sprout.

 

Chorus:

Move with the moon, and, oh, you will grow.

The garden’s astir, row upon row.

Move with the moon, the tides and the tow,

Dark turns to light and fast turns to slow--ooh.

 

2. Ah ha, the quarter moon, visible at noon

Seed is bursting into stalk, humming a fast tune.

And now the gibbous moon, shouts into the sky.

Life is good, let’s make a bud and, oh, the colors fly.

 

Chorus:

Move with the moon, and, oh, you will grow.

The garden’s alight, row upon row.

Move with the moon, the tides and the tow,

Dark turns to light and fast turns to slow--ooh.

 

3. A circle glowing round. Full moon takes her ride

Now from that bud, the petals form, and a flower opens wide

Then bursting into fruit, the moon begins to wane

But in that fruit there is a gift that brings us seeds again.

 

Chorus:

Move with the moon, and, oh, you will grow.

The garden’s apop, row upon row.

Move with the moon, the tides and the tow,

Light turns to dark, and fast turns to slow--ooh.

 

4. At the last quarter moon, we gather what we’ve grown

And hold in us the harvest time and the harvest takes us home.

As now the moon draws in, a sliver up at dawn

All that was inside the plant is moving underground.

 

Chorus:

Move with the moon, and, oh, you will grow.

The garden’s at rest, row upon row.

Move with the moon, the tides and the tow,

Light turns to dark, and fast turns to slow--ooh.

 

Repeat the first verse.

 

Last Chorus:

Move with the moon, and, oh, you will grow.

The garden’s coming back, row upon row.

Move with the moon, the tides and the tow,

Dark turns to light and fast turns to slow--ooh.

Recorded on “Heart of the World,” produced by A Gentle Wind, www.gentlewind.com. Used by permission.
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Donald Person. Paul Strausman - guitar.
David Kiphuth - banjo, Linda Schrade - harmony vocals.

The Story of the Song

The song was inspired by the article, “The Eight Lunar Phases” by Susan Levitt, in We’Moon 2000 and by an herbal apprenticeship with Clearpath Herbals.

Guides for using the song:

Peter Paul, from the Maliseet Anishinabe of Maine says that when you analyze the Maliseet word for Moon it means “he borrows or begs from the sun.” (The Sacred, Navaho Community College Press, p. 88).

The structure and pattern of the song is that each verse presents two phases of the Moon. The eight phases of the Moon last about three to four days: New Moon, Crescent Moon, Quarter Moon, Gibbous Moon, Full Moon, Waning Full Moon, Last Quarter Moon, and Waning Crescent Moon. At the same time, these phases of the Moon are compared to the stages of a garden: seed, sprout, stem, bud, flower, fruit, harvest, and returning to the soil. The cycle returns in the fifth and final verse.

Drawing: Make a circle and divide it into 8 segments for the eight phases. Each segment can show a changing garden and a changing size of the moon.

The moon is there all the time whether or not we can see it. It’s the positions of the Earth and Moon and Sun in respect to each other that changes. The new moon happens when the Moon is on the other side of us along with the Sun. Earth couldn’t be the planet we know without the moon. The moon affects all the water of our planet -- the water in us, in plants, in the weather in the sky -- and causes the tides of the ocean.

There is a Giant Impact theory of how the moon began. As described in Astronomy for Dummies by Stephen Maran (IDG Books, 1999, p. 96-97), this theory says that 4.5 billion years ago a giant object three times the mass of Mars hit the Earth, and set us spinning. This led to the creation of the moon. During the impact, a vapor of hot rock was knocked into space, and it condensed into the moon.

“The Moon is only whole when it is taken in its totality -- that which we see and that we do not see. So it is with life. Life is not whole until its totality is comprehended. When the physical part of life that we can see is taken with the spiritual part of life that we do not so easily see, then life can be full and complete for each of us.”

-- Edward Benton-Banai, The Mishomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway, (Indian Country Communications, p. 83.)