Wolf Moon (2016)

This incarnation of Wolf Moon honors the She-Wolf who nursed and sheltered Romulus and Remus in her den, the Lupercal, after they were cast out into the wild by King Amulius.

By the order of Amulius some of his servants took the babes in an ark and carried them to the river, distant about a hundred and twenty stades from the city, with the intention of throwing them into it. But when they drew near and perceived that the Tiber, swollen by continual rains, had left its natural bed and overflowed the plains, they came down from the top of the Palatine hill to that part of the water that lay nearest (for they could no longer advance any farther) and set down the ark upon the flood where it washed the foot of the hill. The ark floated for some time, and then, as the waters retired by degrees from their extreme limits, it struck against a stone and, overturning, threw out the babes, who lay whimpering and wallowing in the mud. Upon this, a she-wolf that had just whelped appeared and, her udder being distended with milk, gave them her paps to suck and with her tongue licked off the mud with which they were besmeared. In the meantime the herdsmen happened to be driving their flocks forth to pasture (for the place was now become passable) and one of them, seeing the wolf thus fondling the babes, was for some time struck dumb with astonishment and disbelief of what he saw. Then going away and getting together as many as he could of his fellows who kept their herds near at hand (for they would not believe what he said), he led them to see the sight themselves. When these also drew near and saw the wolf caring for the babes as if they had been her young and the babes clinging to her as to their mother, they thought they were beholding a supernatural sight and advanced in a body, shouting to terrify the creature. The wolf, however, far from being provoked at the approach of the men, but as if she had been tame, withdrew gently from the babes and went away, paying little heed to the rabble of shepherds. Now there was not far off a holy place, arched over by a dense wood, and a hollow rock from which springs issued; the wood was said to be consecrated to Pan, and there was an altar there to that god. To this place, then, the wolf came and hid herself. The grove, to be sure, no longer remains, but the cave from which the spring flows is still pointed out, built up against the side of the Palatine hill on the road which leads to the Circus, and near it is a sacred precinct in which there is a statue commemorating the incident; it represents a she-wolf suckling two infants, the figures being in bronze and of ancient workmanship. This spot is said to have been a holy place of the Arcadians who formerly settled there with Evander.

A mother’s unconditional love, soul-deep compassion, and destiny: date plum, myrrh, black mulberry, black poplar, and Pan’s sacred pines.