Sick Dad Moon

Sick Dad Moon is a translation of my lunar journaling practice which began in 2010 under the guidance of a traditional healer during my apprenticeship. She advised me to chronicle dreams, bodily discomfort, interpersonal challenges, and symbolic synchronicities throughout each lunar cycle—a practice I found so valuable that I've maintained it for over a decade.

In 2020 my father was intubated due to COVID complications. At the beginning of his illness my family held on to updates very tightly. Variations of heart rate, breathing, and signs of infection all felt like theatrical cues to begin celebrating or, inversely, despairing. As weeks went by, daily descriptive details became less urgent. As months went by, they became less desirable.

Simultaneously I began to noting my daily experiences and dreams in significantly less detail. When I observed this, I decided to purposefully change my diaristic practice. I began inventing a chart system populated by core images representing my sensations, relationships, dreams, and heartaches throughout the 28-day lunar month. This shift transformed my private journaling into a challenge of visually mapping qualitative personal data. The resulting works resembled a fusion of medical charts, scrapbooks, and esoteric diagrams. I completed eight months of these visual-chart journals before discontinuing.

While my father eventually recovered, the experience left him irrevocably changed in many ways.