There is a reason mothers look up at the moon.
The first time I really paid attention to the moon was after I became a mother.
Before that, the moon was decorative. Something the poets wrote about. Something I glanced at if it happened to be large and cinematic above the trees.
But motherhood shrinks your world in strange ways. Suddenly, you blink, and you are pacing a dark house with a crying baby in your arms. When you finally get her to sleep, you stand at the kitchen window, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and your pounding heart.
“How am I going to survive this?” You think.
But then, there it is — the moon. Something so commonplace soon becomes a quiet companion to my motherhood, helping to shush and soothe my girls through the late hours of early postpartum.
Now, in my third pregnancy, the moon has yet again become a companion during my agonizing stretches of insomnia. I find myself sitting in the family room window in the quiet middle of the night, a cat curled in my lap, looking up at the sky.
I wonder if the moon ever feels the weight of her own phases. I wonder if she also moves through long stretches of darkness even as the world turns toward her, depending on her for steady light and gravity.
Motherhood and the Lunar Cycles
There is a reason why mothers look up at the moon.
Long before the apps did it for us, women measured their lives against lunar rhythms. The average menstrual cycle is about 29.5 days, nearly identical to the lunar month. In fact, the words for “moon,” “month,” and “menstruation” share ancient linguistic roots. Across cultures, the moon was closely linked with fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth.
We are intrinsically linked, so it only makes sense that our face gravitates to the moon’s power in times of struggle. It only makes sense that our bodies are in sync with its seasons, its cycles.
The moon pulls the oceans into tides. It influences animal reproduction patterns. It alters nighttime cycles that affect sleep and hormone rhythms. Which means for mothers, already operating on broken sleep, the moon can feel like an anchor and an enemy, disrupting our babies’ routines, laughing at us from its place in the sky.
Some nights, everything feels illuminated and manageable. Other nights, you move through darkness, doing the work almost entirely by instinct.
The moon is not subtle about this. It waxes. It wanes. It disappears completely and then returns.
Motherhood does the same thing. The only difference is that the moon does not apologize.
Motherhood is Not Linear — And Neither is the Moon
One of the greatest lies that society tells mothers is that we are supposed to move in a straight line. Improve every day. Maintain and grow. Achieve achieve achieve. Be interesting. Be grateful.
And motherhood exposes how impossible that is.
I am in the very early seasons of parenting. I have two girls, ages four and two, and we are welcoming a baby boy in September. My days are measured in nap cycles, growth spurts, sleep regressions, teething, and daycare illnesses. Some weeks feel like an endless winter, and there are nights that seem to stretch into eternity.
But there are also mornings when I wake up full of patience and creativity. We make art. Play and dance. I read books on the couch. I have ideas for essays. I feel like the kind of mother I imagined becoming.
And then there are days when everything feels slightly off. The house is loud. Someone is always crying. Someone else is spilling milk. I’m counting down the minutes until bedtime.
Both days are real.
Both days are motherhood.
But we need to remember that the moon has never once apologized for not being full every night. And neither should mothers.
Mamas may be familiar with variations of memes/videos that come up on social media with a very sweet message: To the mothers awake with their babies, feeling absolutely broken and lost, just remember that there are other mothers right now, awake with their babies, looking at the same moon. You are not alone. If you are in a similar season to me, I am sending this reminder to you.
Rather than seeing these moments of darkness as failure, try to look at them more gently: we are moving through phases like the moon.
Cycles aren’t inefficiencies — they are crucial to survival. When we accept and embrace our seasons (lunar, hormonal, emotional, whatever) we refuse to accept the societal illusion that we must operate at full brightness at all times.
Some nights are full moons.
Some nights are dark moons.
Both are necessary.
Lunar Ritual for Mothers … or anyone!
Once a month, step outside or stand by a window. Look at the moon — whatever phase it’s in, and ask yourself two questions:
What is growing in my life right now?
What am I ready to release?
You don’t need crystals. You don’t need a perfect meditation practice. You only need a moment of noticing.
Motherhood is already a lunar practice. You just have to remember to look up.
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