Lessons For a New Beginning

“Never seen a moon so large,” the bundled man behind me grunts before he takes another breath through his vaporizer.

I had been standing enthralled with the full flavor of the moon overhead as it cast its light across the top of a fog bank rising from the Yolo Bollies.  A door had opened and closed, the TV dulled then blaring then muffled again. When he spoke, my heart had sunk.

I sigh, knowing that at one time I would have engaged in conversation. Tonight, at the end of the first day of 2018, I don’t want to talk to anyone. Truth be told, I really want to lay down on the street naked and take a moon bath. Let the cooling silent rays from millions of miles away penetrate my skin with its light. I want to soak in her calmness as Grandmother Moon, her quiet brilliance touching my heart sores, helping them continue their healing from the inside. I want to be reassured that all is well by her modeling the rhythm of nature, the waxing and waning, the light then the dark, and then the light, again and again and again.

In our crazy upside-down world, I need to know some one thing is predictable, settled, and meeting my expectations of stability in this arbitrary paradigm of time. I want to attach my hungering for some kind of love to a state of being satisfied by her offering of light to me.

She, unlike people, does not disappoint, has never missed a meeting. I know she’s there even if I can’t see her defined form. On a cloudy night or one puddling with fog or rain, the sky glows with her reflection of the sun. I am comforted.

My attention to her presence tonight is underscored by my recent internet connection. Who would have thought by watching several free presentations by women teachers of yoga, shamanism, storytelling, etc. that I would bring to mind many forgotten Ceremonies? This brilliant moon is not just reminding me but urging me to remember and reconnect with all the experiences that have come to me, that have created my ‘her-story.’

Her presence is a demand for me to gain release from my self-imposed restrictions of living in a small bungalow, behind a garage, surrounded by fences and overgrown trees and bushes. It feels as if I am being asked to reach for more time in nature rather than the safety of the four walls that cushion me from the elements and from the people of the world.

I hear her voice saying, “Enough with the memories of having lived in a house with undraped windows in all directions where you could see the life of forest and meadow respond to the temper and temperature of the day and the night.” “Time to remember the dance across the shadowed patterns of the moonlight on the linoleum floor.” “Repeat the steps, instead, in your small yard, around the metal fire pit.” “Be hypnotized again by the antics of ravens and blue jays winging from fence to tree to garage and the little grey birds and the ones with their black heads and white bellies.”

“Be grateful for the soft bed, oak rocker, the well-stocked refrigerator, and the new car.” “Show gratitude for home and ability to sustain yourself.”  

“Be in the world with joy!”

I shiver in the cold and with these messages. Then, I capture inadequate pictures of this engorged moon, tuck my wantonness under my heart, and secure my thoughts of naked wildness safely behind my eyes before I return to my home.