Salt Moon
But it’s not light
You’re carrying
Said the moon
It’s water
the live weight of water
a basin you lift slowly
shift suddenly
and it’s water’s wave
that rocks you
when it spills
not the way light spills
a rush of water
all will and habit
finds a new course and takes
everything down with it
to leave you
to collect yourself
beside a shimmering
new body
of water-so calm
in its new bed
so light.
Tidal – Jody Gladding
Salt Moon started as an exploration of my own cycle(s). At the start of this year I was really struggling with powerful shifts in my emotions and moods throughout each month, moving from happy, excited and optimistic about life, to feeling extreme darkness, anxiety, paranoia and emptiness within a day.
I had always thought I was just a sensitive, creative and intense person who experienced emotions deeply and these shifts were just how it was, but it had become exhausting and unbearable; the constant up and downs, half of the month feeling strong and confident and then half of it feeling broken.
It wasn’t until I started tracking my menstrual cycle that I saw the patterns emerge every month. Obviously I was aware of PMS and hormones changing affected my mood but I had no idea to what extent and how precise it was each month. I discovered that on day 11 I would feel elated and incredibly confident, on day 13 I felt nauseous, experiencing cramps and headaches as I ovulate, day 14 I crash and start to experience paranoia, panic, confusion and a deep emptiness. There were days where I could not move and sat staring in to space, feeling hopeless and like all the joy had been sucked out of my body. And then it would lift and life would be wonderful, and optimistic and light - until it happened again the next month.
I was ‘diagnosed’ with PMDD (an abnormal reaction to the fluctuations in hormonal changes that take place during a woman’s monthly cycle), although a diagnosis can be helpful in some sense I think what was really essential for me was starting to pay attention to what was coming up and when, starting to listen to and honour the changes instead of pushing through or masking them with short term distractions. I believe that so much of what was happening for me was my body screaming ‘over here, look over here, this isn’t working and needs your attention’.
I wanted to make work that reflected this journey. I wanted to connect to a cycle with a beginning and an end, something that happened over and over again, that marked the passing of time, that offered an opportunity for pause, reflection, releasing and letting go. I decided to follow the Moon as it rose each day, starting on New Moon and following it for a full lunar cycle (although there are 26 images - the length of my cycle that month). I photographed the sea just after moonrise, thinking about the Moon’s gravitational pull on the ocean and our bodies, at times I could see the Moons light glimmering upon the surface of the water, other times sitting on the beach with the sun setting on the right and the moon rising to my left. I photographed each day or night with a large format film camera exposing the image for between 8 minutes to 2 hours. I then washed the developed negatives in the sea, creating crystals and scratches and distortions upon the image. In a sense it became a collaboration, the sea transforming the image as it does to me each time I submerge my body in to it.
As I write this now, looking back over my notes from the months at the start of the year, I see how much has changed. I feel the resistance has gone, there has been a softening and although this has been an incredibly challenging year, for so many reasons, it has also been one that has allowed deep healing, a slowing down and the opportunity to really tune in and listen.
