Moon Lists makes analog tools, prompts conversations, and shares resources to inspire new ideas, to help reshape the present, & to (re)define your own perspective…

Moon Lists started as a better way to ask questions — realizing we were repeating a familiar script without better answers. (i.e.: You run into a friend you haven’t seen in awhile. ‘What’s been going on?’ they ask. You reply, ‘Just work,’ or ‘Not too much,’ or ‘[insert arbitrarily relatable milestone]’, or ‘[insert past/future vacation anecdote.]’ Surely we can do better than that. 

In this newsletter (and in our printed and digital workbooks) we share prompts (for journaling and/or conversation), list-making practices, and distilled esoterica holistically intended for thinking with specificity about the present and recent past.

But Why?

Journaling can synthesize our idea of who we appear (or aspire) to be and who we actually are. It acts as a hinge between the abstract ideas of “identity”…versus the ways we actually spend time, think, and arrange our lives. In other words, the things you pay attention to are what you become.

Self-reflection doesn’t need to be a study in navel gazing, not overly academic, saccharine, nor woo woo. It’s about finding absurdity and lightness amid the randomness of life; breaking through creative or emotional roadblocks; and/or curating a mix of references that are wholly your own. 

“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.” — R. Buckminster Fuller

Backup Apollo 11 Commander Jim Lovell reading a newspaper, May 1969

This kind of journaling can be helpful for:

  • Distilling everyday drivel.

  • Clarifying what invites seriousness versus what can be ignored.

  • Recognizing patterns.

  • Tending to your obsessions.

  • Creating an abstract portrait of the present.

  • Taking an inventory of your attention.

  • Starting something new; renewing interest in something familiar. 

  • More interesting conversations.

  • Seeing the forest, not just the trees, so to speak. 

  • Reorienting. 

  • Recalling.

  • Reconnecting.

  • Thinking more clearly.

  • Metabolizing your experience.

This Newsletter:

Moon Lists email subscribers receive 3-4 emails per month.

One email is always a set of unique prompts written for the present moment or surrounding a theme.

Additional emails vary in application and format, but include:

  • Downloadable worksheets and list-making ideas.

  • First access to secret releases or special projects (see below for examples!)

  • Attention Inventory (a list of current hyperfixations, for inspiring your own.)

  • Deep Dives (an exhaustive inquiry into a single topic — including tools to complement Moon Lists-esque experiences, or examinations of an idea or individual.)

  • Additional emails…there is no formula here y’all.

Our Workbooks:

If you want something a more all-encompassing and/or analog, we make a couple workbooks, each undated, spanning 12-18 months, and intended for jumping in whenever you want (and including both monthly prompts & smaller weekly list-making ideas.)

Analog—
The second edition of the analog Moon Lists workbook (12 undated months of prompts, list-making, and space to write) may be purchased here.

Digi—
For traveling, pairing with your own blank notebook of choice (or get our recommendations for favorite blank notebooks here), and/or instant gratification the digital workbooks include entirely unique prompts (different from the analog version!) yet general enough for jumping in whenever.

Download here.

Special Projects: Moon Lists x Sonhab ‘advent calendar’; limited edition hardcover print run of the Moon Lists workbook, hand-sewn with an exposed spine, Smyth-sewn signature binding, and dove grey-blue book cloth covers.

Special Projects:

From time to time we release special collaborative projects, objects, or highly limited edition notebooks. These are shared first with newsletter subscribers, so please ensure you are signed up if you are curious to learn more.

How to use the prompts:

Read through the list of monthly prompts while thinking back to the last month or last couple weeks. If you want some examples, try this post or this one.

Pair with a journal and jot down notes; bring the list of questions to dinner with a friend or partner; or just reflect and see where your mind wanders.

There are no rules! That said, these questions have no value without engagement...so the only “wrong” way to do it is to not start at all. 

But I thought this was about the Moon:

If you are intently looking for prompts that relate to the moon cycles or any form of lunar wisdom…sorry, no.

We regard the moon as metaphor — a reminder of perspective, of vantage, flipping the narrative… (plus a dash of humility in realizing our own relative insignificance.)

Consider the Overview Effect, or a cognitive shift in awareness reported frequently by astronauts during spaceflight, often caused by seeing the Earth from outer space. “It is the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, ‘hanging in the void,’ shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, national boundaries vanish. The conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this “pale blue dot” becomes both obvious and imperative.” - Ian O’Neill, “The Human Brain in Space: Euphoria and the Overview Effect.”

ETC:

More about Moon Lists may be accessed on our website here.

You may follow on Instagram here.

Moon Lists is founded by Leigh Patterson & is the personal project of LUCCA, a studio for creative & editorial direction

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