Moon

“Because what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is..” Bright Eyes, “Lua”

In moonlight, lovers make promises and con men ply their trade. The ancients made sense of the moon’s phases with stories of hungry dragons, and the moon defines almost everything we take for granted about our calendars.

The Moon is our nearest universal neighbor. It is out there- 240,000 miles away; but its presence is deeply, intrinsically a part of each of us, too. Resulting from a cataclysmic crash of an asteroid with the Earth four billion years ago, the gravitational pull of the Moon’s daily revolution around the Earth affects every drop of water on earth. We mechanically speak of and measure the oceans tides; we know their high and low times in any given location. In reality, the movement of the oceans is continuous- a never ending wave that endlessly circles the Earth.

Seas, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and even water puddles are also being affected. The movement within smaller bodies of water may seem negligible from a human point of view, yet that movement has affected every part of our genetic being, just as water itself has. The moon is not merely out there; it is wound around us, tied to each cell of our bodies and of every living being.

Even without knowing the physical and genetic hold of the Moon on humans, St.Francis of Assisi properly spoke of and understood intuitively the intimate nature of the Earth-Moon-Life relationship:

“Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.”

Much of the million-year holy, evening-lit relationship between humans and the Moon has been lost within mechanistic worldviews that treat universal bodies as interesting but personally irrelevant parts of some thing outside ourselves. But, be quiet and hear the Moon’s real voice in our heartbeats. Feel the Moon’s allure as our own desires are drawn from us in the soft reflected glow of the Sun’s light from its surface.

The attractions between us and the Moon are real. They are not only the stuff of poetry; they are part of the Universe’s rhythmic symphony within us. And we must, must begin to learn again that we are the choir..