Ravings of a Lunatic

Have you been looking at the moon this week? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a moon so bright and beautiful! It casts big squares of light into my room at night. Moonbeams so bright it is hard to tell whether it is falling night or rising day. The Mother of the Night sending soft revelations into my walled world. Illuminations that turn my ordinary space into a sacred place. It seems almost a shame to close my eyes and sleep.

But the moon has been constant this week. She has watched over me through the night and awakened me each morning at 6 a.m. (well, OK, my full bladder helped). I usually stumble into the bathroom on my early morning potty runs, feeling my way along the wall and through the doorway, not wanting to open my eyes and wake up too much before I crawl back into bed for another hour or so of sleep. But when my eyes have fluttered open on these mornings, she has been waiting right outside my window, shining like a huge heavenly floodlight, a ridiculously brilliant ball so close I felt she was nearly within reach. It almost felt as if she were waiting for me to wake up and come out and play. I could not help but want to stay awake. She pulled me out of my sloom, and eased my early morning loneliness with some kind of Moon Magic. Call me Pagan or Lunatic. I felt a little bit of both.

Crawling back into bed vowing not to fall back asleep, I snuggled into my pillows facing the windows so that I could moon gaze. She was mesmerizing as I laid there trying to think of some poetic words to describe this experience. But none came. All I could think of were the words of Jason Mraz’s ballad to the moon, Bella Luna, going round in my head instead:

I'm just a singer, you're the world
All I can bring ya
Is the language of a lover
Bella luna, my beautiful, beautiful moon
How you swoon me like no other

I was so gratified when I had lunch with my cousin yesterday and she told me that her daughter had beckoned her out to see the moon the night before. And again when a co-worker walked into the office today and said, “Have you seen the moon this week?” I am so glad that I have not been the only one taken hostage by the beauty of Bella Luna, warming the winter sky. So often, our modern lives dictate that the only time we spend out of doors is the five second walk from our house to the car, from the car to the office, from the store to the car, and back again. We become disconnected from the natural world by our “inside lives”. Especially in winter. But every now and again, Mother Nature creates something so spectacular, like this week’s moon, she draws us out and we remember who really are. Though bordered and bound by concrete below and roofs above, we are children of the earth still.

I’ve always suspected that we are still pushed and pulled by unseen natural forces even though electric lights guide our waking and sleeping hours more than the sun and the moon these days. I’ve heard it said that emergency rooms are packed at the full moon. And that more babies are born during a full moon than at any other time. I don’t doubt it. Two out of three of my babies were born at the full moon. It brings me some kind of primal satisfaction to know that the moon, like an ancient midwife, pulled my babies out of me with the same power she pulls the tides out to sea.

Jason Mraz sings of the moon as if she were his lover. I’ve always thought of her as my Ancient Mother. And she has inspired poetry from me too, as she has so many other dreamers since the beginning of time. Mine is a scant offering. My widow’s mite, as it were, among many much greater gifts by minds far richer than mine, upon the alter of the moon. Yet I cast my simple gift upon it with a full and thankful heart, knowing it is accepted by my Celestial Mother.

Moonrise Prayer

Mother Moon
In the night,
Gentle glow dimmed
By city light.

Am I guided by you
More than I know,
Like my ancient grandmothers
Long ago?

In womanhood,
I recognize you now,
As one Mother
To Another.

Quietly light my shadowed paths
As a mother does for her child.
Comfort me in darker hours
With wisdom wrought of tidal powers.

Mother Moon,
Oh! Sentient Mother,
Shining softly on creation,

May my own mothering
Be given to such
Modest illumination.