13 Moons is a video project formed of a series of performative self-portrait style videos in which I explore my relationship with my lunar cycle over a period of 13 lunation.
Though we live in a solar culture, chiefly observing time based on our relationship to the mighty Sun, we have a deep and abiding connection to the Moon. Symbolically and metaphorically, the Moon represents our feminine nature - possessed of by all genders - and rules our emotional tides, our intimate, ancestral and familial connections and more broadly our feeling nature. This project is a way to consciously and explicitly explore my own relationship with this archetype but also to raise the value and importance of this oft misunderstood and undervalued energy in our lives.
I commenced the project in January 2018 and, each month, fueled very much by the visions and sensations I experience during my menses, I create a new video. The first is viewable here with more to follow in time.
“We ran as if to meet the moon.”
13 Moons is a video project formed of a series of performative self-portrait style videos in which, over a period of 13 lunations or one full calendar year, I explore notions of power through the lens of the archetypal feminine. I commenced the project in January 2018 and, each month fueled very much by the visions and sensations I experience during my menses, I create a new video. The series can be viewed here.
Though we live in a solar culture, chiefly observing time based on our relationship to the mighty Sun, we have a deep and abiding connection to the Moon, presiding over as she does the ebb and flow of waters, conception, agricultural cycles and every kind of coming into being. Symbolically and metaphorically, the Moon represents our feminine nature - possessed of by all genders - and rules our emotional tides, our intimate, ancestral and familial connections and more broadly our feeling nature, our emotional intelligence. Lunar consciousness speaks to our intuitive faculties, to the merits of the dream world and the gift of nocturnal visions. Lunar power, when healthily expressed, shows up in the form of creativity and fertility, in the qualities of intuitive insight and nurturance and interpersonal connection. Though these qualities are shared by the all of humanity, they have traditionally been associated with female-bodied people and have persistently been undervalued and in many cases, repressed with violence.
This project is a way to explore a personal relationship to a feminine power and in so doing, raise the value and importance of oft abused and undervalued qualities in the greater collective.
© Sheba Remy Kharbanda 2020