The new moon shows no face at all, and that is its gift, a blank slate on which to write a new one. On this darkest night, brew the nectar the hedge-witches called the fair unmaking.
Advanced hands work the dark moon because it demands trust in what cannot be seen. This nectar reaches toward beauty by first dissolving the tired face you wear, then coaxing a truer one up from beneath, as a stone is polished by patient water. It is anointed, never drunk.
The Working
- On the moonless night, half-fill a dark bowl with rainwater and set it where no light but a single flame can reach.
- Steep in it elderflower for clarity, marshmallow root for softness, and a curl of orange peel for brightness, warming the water only to blood-heat.
- Lay a smooth rose quartz and a moonstone in the bowl and let them lie there until the water takes their coolness.
- Add three drops of almond oil and a single drop of rose, and stir widdershins to unmake, then sunwise to remake, nine turns each.
- Speak the incantation across the surface until your breath troubles the water.
- Cover the bowl and leave it in the dark from midnight to first light.
- At dawn, lift out the stones and anoint your face with the nectar, letting it dry as the new moon’s first invisible sliver is born.
The Incantation
Dark of the moon with no face to show,
take up the one that the long days wore;
down through the water, let it go,
draw me a fairer than before.
Flower and stone and the oil of rose,
work in the black where the new is made;
give to the dawn what the darkness knows,
beauty unborrowed, and unafraid.
Keep the nectar in a stoppered glass away from the sun, and anoint each morning until the moon shows full.