2024 - 2025 Factory ~ Student Led: Lupus in Tabula – or how to howl at the full moon

When Gilgamesh placed his crown on his head,

A princess Ishtar raised her eyes to the beauty of Gilgamesh

“Come along, Gilgamesh, be you my husband, to me grant your lusciousness." *

When the silvery light of the full moon begins its ascent yet still hides just beyond the horizon, we gather to play and embody the monstrous within and channel the lunar power towards shapeshifting transformation.

… Gilgamesh addressed Princess Ishtar saying:

“What would I have to give you if I married you!

…

A waterskin that soaks its bearer through,

Limestone that buckles out the stone wall,

A battering ram that attracts the enemy land,

A shoe that bites its owner’s feet! *

January’s full Wolf Moon reaches peak illumination on Monday, January 13th. The first full moon of the year is named after the howling of hungry wolves lamenting the scarcity of food in midwinter and their increased activity during the cold January winter nights.

Where are your bridegrooms that you keep forever’

Where is your ‘Little Shepherd’ bird that went up over you!

See here now, I will recite the list of your lovers.*

This gathering, we start with an adapted play of the card game ‘The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow’. Here in Nida, NAC has recently become the target of Werewolves. The Roamers must gather their wits to eradicate this new plague returning from past aeons, before NAC loses its last inhabitants.

… You loved the Shepherd, the Master Herder, 

who continually presented you with bread baked in embers, 

and who daily slaughtered for you a kid. 

Yet you struck him, and turned him into a wolf, 

so his own shepherds now chase him 

and his own dogs snap at his shins. *

Many witches use this period of the Wolf Moon for intense spell work related to personal growth, self-improvement, and inner discovery. We end the gathering with a moon ritual closer to midnight, reflecting on our past year and projecting our intentions under the full Wolf Moon.

* The Epic of Gilgamesh, 2100 BCE, Tablet VI