The Moon Has Always Belonged To Her – And To You

On rockets, goddesses, and the women who remind us of the starstuff we’re made of. ✨

“Look at that wocketship!”

The VIP toddler in my life said it with his whole chest. Arms up, eyes wide, finger pointing at the sky, voice full of wonder and something that had no word for it yet – because he’s four, and four-year-olds haven’t learned to be anything less than completely, cosmically alive.

I heard it through my daughter’s phone. Watched the footage she took from Florida, on top of her work parking garage. Cars were queued up and the excitement was palpable.

In times when the world feels heavy with division and noise… this. People watching from parking garages, pulling over on roadsides, looking up together at the same point in the heavens. Millions of strangers. One sky.  

Four astronauts inside, the tiny metal speck with billowing smoke made its way high above the clouds. And with it, a globe full of eyes cast upward and the raised collective frequency of hope – for new beginnings, for unity, for achievement, for greatness, for oneness, for a legacy to be proud of.

For the four-year-olds to come.

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Space has moved me to tears quite a bit lately.

The night before Artemis II launched, I sat in a dark theater next to my son – whose name is currently hurtling through space on that very mission – and watched “Project Hail Mary.” If you’ve seen it, you know. If you haven’t: go. Right now. Gotta see it on the big screen. I’ll wait.

It’s the story of a man who wakes up alone in space with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He has to piece himself back together – not from photographs or journals, but from what he does. From what he knows. From what his hands and his heart remember even when his mind doesn’t. 

I’ve been thinking about that a lot too.

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There’s a moment in the film where Ryland Grace stops trying to remember who he was – and starts paying attention to who he is. Right now, in an impossible situation, with his specific skills, the curiosity, and the capacity for connection across impossible differences. 

And something in me exhaled – because I understand some of that feeling. 

The life you carefully built can change overnight. The identity you wore for years – the job, the title, the carefully constructed professional self – can dissolve faster than you ever imagined possible. And you wake up, metaphorically speaking, alone in liminal space, asking the same question Ryland Grace asked: 

Who am I now?

Not who was I. Not who should I be. Not what does my LinkedIn bio say. 

But who am I NOW?

The answer, it turns out, isn’t found in your resumé. It’s in what your hands and heart remember. What your instincts reach for in the dark. What lights you up when nobody’s watching and nothing’s guaranteed. 

For Ryland Grace, it was science. Curiosity. Connection. 

For me – and maybe for you – it’s something else entirely.

It’s language, story, beauty, and the stubborn belief that the right words, in the right order, with the right evocative visuals change everything. 

Then, the next morning, Artemis II launched.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about her. 

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Artemis.

Not the mission – the goddess. 

One of my favorites, with me since I was a little girl doodling Ionic columns in the corners of my school notes, like the ones found at the Temple of Artemis. Getting lost poring over Greek mythology books – the ones with the gold-edged pages and illustrations that made the goddesses and gods feel real and close and just slightly dangerous. 

Artemis was always my kind of woman: independent, fierce, answerable to no one. Goddess of the moon, the wild places, children, and animals. Apollo’s twin – but nobody’s shadow. 

The Ancient Greeks understood something we keep having to relearn: the moon belongs to her. It always has. 

And on April 1, 2026, a woman named Christina Koch strapped herself into a spacecraft named for that goddess – and went where no woman has ever gone before.

But first, another woman had to get her there. 

Her name is Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s first female Artemis launch director. The woman in Firing Room One whose voice was the last Earth voice those astronauts heard before they left our atmosphere. Allegedly, there’s a LEGO being made of Charlie – which is honestly the highest honor our civilization can bestow on someone. 😉

Charlie didn’t go to the moon. Charlie made sure others got there safely.

She’s the communicator. The strategist. The one whose voice carries the weight of humanity’s most daring moments. The one working behind the scenes. Maybe her name isn’t as well known, but without her voice – none of it happens.

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But Charlie wasn’t the only woman behind the scenes, holding everything together. The night before the launch, sitting in that dark theater with my son, I watched Eva Stratt do the seemingly impossible too. 

If you’ve seen “Project Hail Mary,” you know her. If you haven’t – she’s the woman who essentially decides, alone, that she’ll do whatever it takes to save the human race. No committee. No consensus. No permission. No endless approvals. Just the absolute, unshakeable belief in the mission and the willingness to carry the weight of it so no one else has to. 

She’s not the hero who goes to space. She’s the reason the hero can. 

And in one extraordinary scene she sang Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times,” karaoke style. That aching song about standing at the edge of something ending, something unknown, something that requires more courage than most of us think we have. 

“You can’t bribe the door on the way to the sky… we’ve been here before… will we ever learn?”

Sung by the woman who single-handedly makes sure humanity survives, so we can keep learning.

I think about the women like Eva and Charlie. The ones whose names may not make the front page headlines. The ones behind the scenes, holding the mission together, believing when belief is the hardest thing in the face of staggering odds.

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I’ve worn a Hera necklace for years – the goddess and protector of the family. My children’s names are engraved on the back of it in Greek. Never take it off.  It’s not just a habit or piece of jewelry to me. It’s symbolic.

Hera, Artemis, Athena – my granddaughter’s chosen name. I’ve been surrounded by goddesses throughout my life.

Maybe you have been too.

Mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, friends, aunts, cousins – incredible women who worked behind the scenes to support you and ended up changing the trajectory of your life to propel you forward.

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I’ve spent decades being a version of the person who builds content for others.

The one behind the words. Behind the message. Behind the carefully crafted language that makes the complex feel human and the impossible feel achievable. Not launching spacecraft, of course, but helping organizations find the language for their most important moments. Crisis communications for a global audience. Executive messages that shaped how leaders were seen. Brand voices that made companies sound like humans instead of robots.

Watching Charlie in Firing Room One, I felt something I hadn’t expected… understanding. Of the quiet power in being the person whose words matter – even when your name isn’t on the front page or the rocket.

My son’s name is on the rocket. 🛰️

Mine is on the brand.

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And somewhere between a toddler’s awe and Christina’s launch and Charlie’s Firing Room and Eva’s unwavering commitment and Ryland’s piecing himself back together – I remembered something.

We truly are all starstuff. 

Carl Sagan said it best: the nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood – all forged in the hearts of collapsing stars. 

We are not separate from the cosmos. We are the cosmos. We are the stars looking back at themselves, saying “look at that wocketship” with our whole chests.

And so is your brand.

The woman who’s reinventing herself – who’s done trying to contort herself into someone she’s not. Who has done the inner work, sat with the discomfort, and emerged into something she doesn’t quite have words for yet. She’s remembering the starstuff she’s made of. Like Artemis reclaiming the moon. Like Christina Koch strapping in for a woman’s first-ever visit to our furthest reaches of the universe. She’s building something true. 

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That’s who Starstuff Studio exists for.

The who that was always you. The one who got buried under responsibilities and to-dos and job titles and corporate style guides and the accumulated weight of performing a version of yourself that fit someone else’s org chart or life.

Your brand should travel as far as you’re willing to go.

The moon has always belonged to her.

And so does this next chapter. 

We need something good.

You are something good.

Moon joy, 🚀🌙✨
~Ren

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Florence (Ren) Yaeger, Copywriter & Brand Strategist | Starstuff Studio | starstuff.studio
ren@starstuff.studio