The face keeps the ledger of every late hour and every worry carried past its bedtime. As the moon wanes, this small bundle takes a turn keeping that ledger instead of you.
This is not a drawing-toward but a drawing-off — the tired dimness, the furrow between the brows, the grey that seeps beneath the eyes. Made while the moon empties, it empties you of what dulls the face.
The Working
- In the waning moon, cut a square of pale linen and lay upon it dried mint, elderflower, and a few cucumber seeds if you have them.
- Add a small pinch of salt to take up what it draws, and a single dried cornflower for the eyes.
- Gather the corners and bind them with grey thread, knotting once for each night left until the dark moon.
- Hold the bundle to your lips and name softly the weariness you wish gone.
- Slip it inside your pillow slip, close to where your cheek will rest.
- Each morning, shake it out an open window so the night’s gathering goes off into the air.
- At the dark of the moon, bury the herbs and keep the linen for the next filling.
The Incantation
Take the grey beneath the eye,
take the furrow, let it lie.
What the long day pressed on me,
loosen now and set it free.
Waning moon and cooling leaf,
draw the shadow, draw the grief.
By the dark of the moon your glass will show a face at rest, unpressed by the week that it carried.