The Liminal — Worm Moon Cycle — Feb 2026
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FEBRUARY 17, 2026 · THE WORM MOON · TENTH ISSUE · WWW.FOXANDTHISTLE.STUDIO
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THE FOX & THISTLE Liminal
A MONTHLY CREATIVE ALMANAC WEAVING TOGETHER ART, EXPRESSION, AND REFLECTIONS
Look Out For:
Crocus flowering, camellia blooming, emerging daffodils, roadside grasses, dormant buds, rising sap, greening mosses, thawing ground, wolf spiders, ground beetles, earthworms, robins, red-winged blackbirds, swallows, sparrows, ospreys, cardinals, nuthatches, crows, woodpeckers, rabbits, deer, foxes, brisk nights, foggy mornings, & lengthening days!
Look Up For:
The new moon on February 17th rings in the year of the Fire Horse on the Chinese Lunar Calendar. The full Worm Moon—named for emerging worms—peaks on March 3rd, and with it a total lunar eclipse will be visible to much of the US. The daylight in the Northern Hemisphere has been steadily growing for two months, bringing us to the threshold of the Spring Equinox.
THE WORM MOON cycle → → → New Moon 2/17 1st Quarter 2/24 Full Moon 3/03 Last Quarter 3/11 New Moon 3/18 ⋯ NEXT: the PINK MOON
THE LIMINAL is published in concert with our 2026 FORTNIGHT CALENDAR, a free download is available for subscribers.
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Inside this Issue: Time Keeping with a Buffalo Hide, Whirlpools in a Stream, Rabbit & Snail Meditation, English Brass Rubbing, Everlasting Flowers, A Cursed To-Do List, Variegated Leaves, Cuniculi Caracoulus Stewius, & What Might a Hero Be?
FESTINA LENTE — MAKE HASTE SLOWLY
Part Two: TIME — Pace vs Urgency
[Image of buffalo hide winter count]
A pictographic calendar, originally painted on a buffalo hide, recording seventy-one years of Yanktononai Dakota (Sioux) tribal history. Lone Dog was the last known keeper of this winter count. Traditionally, the keeper would consult the tribal elders to select the key event inside a given year. This might include battles, sickness, celestial events, meetings... and then he'd record it on the hide as a mnemonic device for oral storytelling.
Lone Dog's Winter Count, 1871
The counter-clockwise spiral echoes broader interpretation; the hair whorl on the back of the human head grows in this direction, thought to mimic nature. And the innumerable other places where the spiral can be found. From the tiniest of shells to the incomprehensible spinning of our home galaxy THE MILKY WAY.
Then again, a whirlpool in a stream only spins counter-clockwise when viewed from above the surface of the water, but from below, the motion appears clockwise. This is the orientation we use to measure linear time. A useful device for scientific thought: quantifying, qualifying, and lining things up into a predictable beginning, middle, and end. But ticking time seems to march from an unknown before to an endless thereafter, ever being processed in the now. Giving anyone paying close attention the fear of missing out on a meal, a message, or a moment, in the mere blink of an eye.
A Victorian clock.
Choosing one way over the other may be the very thing that creates urgency in our lives. Time might exist as fast and slow at once. Perhaps fast and slow are not opposites, but companions...
The Urgency of the Rabbit
The Pace of a Snail
How can we hold two things at once?
How small does urgency get before it disappears?
Does remembrance exist outside of time?
Still to come:
Crab & Butterfly: TRANSFORMATION
Turtle & Sail: AGENCY
Diamond Ring & Foliage: COMMITMENT
Dolphin & Chameleon: ADAPTATION
No praise is finer than that which is passed along by our readers, please pass THE LIMINAL along!
Hothouse Flowers
HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR VINTAGE BAZAAR
MARGARET DAYRELL
The lady of the manor at Lillingstone Dayrell, Buckinghamshire, England. This brass rubbing was made from a replica cast from a tomb chest in St. Nicholas Church. The memorial features brass effigies on the top slab depicting her and her husband Paul. The original brass dates to circa 1491.
Brass rubbings were popularized in the mid-20th century as a tourist attraction during a revival of interest in medieval and Gothic art.
FOREVER BLOOMS
These flower blossoms were made out of discarded dishes from the thrift store. Plates, bowls, tea cups, votives, and plastic caps make up these yard art decorations. Particularly colorful in the winter months, glass and ceramic flowers add some pizazz to a yard year round. Each one has a bent spoon on the back for easy hanging.
Handmade by FOX & THISTLE STUDIO
MUCH TO DO
We all have to do lists—busywork, vile tasks, and grand ambitions. The eternal tomorrows. Yet... the days end one after another with little else to show but some half-hearted notes and new unimaginable distractions. After all, the only things we really need to do are pay taxes and die.
Explore the rest of the series: 16th-century French Renaissance etchings paired with statements of existential dread.
VARIEGATED LEAVES
My grandmother died the year I was married. On my thirtieth birthday, she had a stroke and became bedridden in her home. Thirteen days later, on my mother's birthday, she passed. Inside those two weeks, her little house came alive again.
Pots clanging and screen doors slamming. Casseroles, coffee, and baked goods. Dogs. Children. Laughter. Growing up, we had gathered here like clockwork for Sunday dinner. Roast beef or turkey. Mashed potatoes. The rolls were always made from scratch. She and my great-grandmother would do their old dance, driving everyone else from the kitchen wearing aprons and waving wooden spoons. They hardly ever spoke to each other. One of them was mostly deaf. All of the kids playing games in the backyard under an enormous oak tree. The men gathering around the television. The dog stealing and defending soiled napkins.
Twenty years later, and we hadn't skipped a beat. Same furniture. Mostly the same faces. And the same kinds of jokes. This was a place of love. My mom was still a few years away from retirement when grandma passed. The office she worked in had given our family a living plant arrangement for the funeral. It was a hoya with speckled leaves. I remember that. My soon to be mother-in-law somehow ended up taking it home and repotting it. After we were married, she gave it to us.
We spent the next decade renting a small bungalow just north of Washington, DC. The plant lived on a tall windowed cabinet I purchased from an auction. It contained cookware and liquor bottles. Over it was our wedding portrait. I arranged the long spindly vines around that picture of us. We had a dog who went from middle to old age in that house then died. Another who didn't survive a year. We lost several babies there. Then we had a little girl. The marriage didn't last long after that. The plant was there. It was watered. I may have wiped its leaves down once. I can't remember. When we split, the plant came with me.
I put it high on a shelf in my bedroom. I talked to it. Thirteen years after my grandmother's funeral, it bloomed. The flowers smelled like velvety chocolate. Now it blooms every year. The vines continue to reach. But the roots have found their limit. And somehow through all the laughter and tears, of dinners cooked, visitors come and gone, and a thousand and one micro dramas. This plant. This witness. This companion. Should take me back to my grandmother's kitchen.
She didn't even have plants.
KETTLE & CRUMB
Simple recipes—tried & true, from Fox & Thistle’s kitchen.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE SLOWLY LENGTHENING DAYS
VALENCIAN RABBIT & SNAIL STEW
Conejo con Caracoles
PREP 30 min
COOK 1 hr 15 min
TOTAL 1 hr 45 min
SERVES 4
This humble farmhouse stew comes from the eastern coast of Spain, where snails were traditionally gathered after rainstorms. The dish is considered a rustic ancestor to the region's later rice dishes, such as paella.
• olive oil • 2.5–3 lbs. rabbit, cut into 6-8 pieces • salt & pepper • 1 onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced • 1 tsp sweet paprika • 1 tomato, grated • 1 splash dry white wine or brandy • 4 c. chicken broth • 1 bay leaf • 1 small sprig rosemary • 1 small sprig thyme • 1 can escargot 12-25 snails
Picada: 1 oz. toasted almonds • 1 garlic clove • 1 stale piece of bread • pinch of saffron • 2-3 Tbsp broth from pot to blend
- Brown rabbit in olive oil on all sides. Set aside.
- Sofrito: Add onion & cook 6-8 min. Add garlic and stir for 30 sec. Add paprika and stir for 30 sec.
- Stir in grated tomato cooking 2-3 min. Deglaze pot with wine or brandy.
- Add broth, bay leaf, rosemary, thyme. Return rabbit to pot and simmer for 1 hour.
- Picada: Grind almonds, clove of garlic, stale (or toasted) bread, saffron, with a little broth to make paste.
- After an hour, add well rinsed snails to pot; simmer 10–15 min.
- Stir in picada; simmer 3–5 min until slightly thickened.
- Salt to taste. Rest 5-10 min
*Serve with rustic bread
WHAT MIGHT A GREAT AMERICA LOOK LIKE?
Reid Wiseman Commander
Victor Glover Pilot
Christina Koch Mission Specialist
Jeremy Hansen Mission Specialist
What could inspire people to train to the limits of human ability? How might they find the courage to step into the unknown for reasons beyond personal gain? What questions could bring them to hold humanity so dear? What work can they do that might reveal something about life itself? How might their discoveries ripple into the world we share in? What could they show us about teamwork at its peak? What might a hero be?
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Go to www.foxandthistle.studio to stay tuned!
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Richard W. Saunders
THE FOX & THISTLE LIMINAL — is a PRODUCTION OF GRIEFNGRAVY press
THE LIMINAL · WORM MOON CYCLE · FEB 17, 2026
