THIRTEEN LUNATIONS

Marin offers a loosely autobiographical meditation on space, time, and other subjects.

The author explains that she does not particularly care for the Gregorian calendar; her main critique is that it has “very little to do with what the moon is up to.” In this work, Marin details a more moon-centered (or “luni-solar”) calendar. In this version, there are nine days in a week, mostly with names linked to planets (Vensday, for example). In the pages that follow, the author develops her calendar and presents a smorgasbord of other material concerning seasons, traditions, and the solar system. There are also personal reflections, such as notes on a trip the author took to Glastonbury in the early 2000s. Marin shares various dreams she’s had, including one that she has thought about for 30-some years, in which a being with red hair took her into another world. Both astronomy and astrology are given great attention: The author discusses how Saturn’s rings are divided into seven sections, and the reader learns about concepts like “Saturn Return,” which occurs when “Saturn occupies the same sign it did at a person’s birth.” This wide breadth of material sets the book apart from, well, most books—the reader is taken on a seasonally inspired journey that offers recipes, poems, and more. The free-wheeling nature of the text is buoyed by the author’s upbeat attitude, such as when the reader is encouraged at the beginning of one recipe to “Have fun!” Yet some points prove to be perplexing—Marin’s account of her trip to Glastonbury can be confusing. A number of topics, such as quotations from Robert Coon and mentions of a hostel called Black Sheep, are thrown at the reader in rapid succession; these passages may require re-reading to fully grasp what the author is conveying. Yet taken altogether, the many small pieces of the work add up to a unique and engaging whole.

A cheerfully personal, if occasionally obscure, perspective on the complexities of Earth and beyond.