The Dark Side of the Moon

 

moonseed

 

 

I am cocooned

by the dark of the moon

lulled to sleep by breathing trees

sheltered under a velvet night.

The Great Bear is sleeping

behind Black Mountain

imagining new beginnings.

Overhead a bowl of cracked stars

coalesces into patterned forms.

Ancient images appear…

The Little Bear and Gemini Twin

envision Bigger Dreams.

 

When the moon is full

the sky is lit all night

for days…

disrupting Dawn’s

midnight turning.

Smudged by opaque glaze

Moon annihilates the stars –

A solitary sightless eye

cracks cottonwood branches

into dying fragments,

Trickster Rabbit,

constellates Human Shadow.

Too much light

floods even protected spaces.

Disturbed and restless, I awaken.

My dreaming body

has lost her Memory.

Stories disappear.

 

Postscript:

 

There is something about living in a land that celebrates an empty deep blue-sky bowl and a harsh white sun as being ‘wondrous’ that I find disturbing. There is a kind of monotony associated with these endless blue wind rainless days that leaves me enervated and wired at the same time. They attempt to keep me dis-embodied – “de –pressed” psychically, and hovering outside my body.

 

(I compensate by spending as much time as I can writing because this art form keeps me firmly anchored in my body.

 

And I walk embodied, especially during the pre-dawn hours, when the trees and scrub “talk.” This morning I apologized for not paying close enough attention to what the plants had to say when words rose unbidden from inside and out raising the hair on my arms. “You know now,” they commented tersely).

 

It has taken me a long time to recognize that I am suffering from a deluge of light not just during the day, but also at night living here. For most of the month the sky is lit by some kind of moon – glow… and star -fire is absent or greatly dimmed.

 

Walking under an open sky full of stars is a gift, one that I have never taken for granted. Star gazing, especially during the frigid winter months in the Northeast has been my passion for as long as I can remember… (In Maine I keep my northeastern field open just for that purpose). Here, my favorite constellation is mostly hidden by a barren reptilian mountain…

 

I used to honor the passage of each full moon but these days it is the dark of the moon I acknowledge and celebrate. I look forward to the dark of the moon because during this time it is much easier to stay in my body, to sleep deep and well, and to star gaze…

 

Personally, this reversal mirrors other radical reversals I have experienced within the last two months…

 

Indigenous peoples have honored the dark of the moon as a powerful passage (root vegetables are still planted around or at the time of the dark of the moon), but until I came to New Mexico I never thought about what really happens at the dark of the moon. A birthing occurs following a night of total darkness. A moonseed comes to life as an invisible sliver, and a new Earth cycle begins…

 

It is February 1^st and tomorrow, or somewhere in this general period, Indigenous peoples across the globe celebrate “First Light” the precursor to spring.

 

In this country some still celebrate groundhog day…When the groundhog emerges if he sees his shadow spring is still six weeks away (here this story has no meaning for obvious reasons). But the point I want to make is that the groundhog was first a bear, and throughout central Europe chained bears were forced to walk over scalding coals throughout the countryside to make the crops grow. How the bear became a groundhog is a mystery.

 

I too acknowledge this turning, though for me it is tempered by knowing that soon the days of fierce white light will stretch into what seems like “forever” and I will have to work harder than ever to stay embodied.

 

Although here in New Mexico the Great Bear constellation mostly remains hidden, the Big Bear Moon will be full next week…

 

One problem with the full moon is that it promotes a dulling of the mind and senses – actions without awareness/accurate reflection are a normal part of this monthly turning.

 

The Indigenous (throughout the world) myth of the rabbit living with his grandmother embraces this idea – the rabbit as trickster aspect dulls the grandmother’s wits and muddles her senses – if only temporarily.

Turn, Turn, Turn…

 

We are approaching the Fall Equinox, a time of year that is perhaps more poignant than any other, and also my favorite season. As the days shorten and the trees are heavy with golden or rosy apples, with every kind of maple turning a different shade of crimson, rust, gold and olive green, with papery brown beeches rustling in light wind, and white pines dropping needles in abundance as I prune back the juniper that lines my woodland paths for another year, I am thankful simply to “be.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Datura plant that has now gone into the ground (with my help – I never thought I would get this plant out of its pot!) surprised me with a shower of ripe seeds falling from bright green prickly pods just two days after I dug it in. I covered the windfall with soil hoping that some new seeds will sprout along with their year old sisters after a long winter’s sleep under a blanket of thick mulch and snow. I am still collecting nasturtium seeds from my seemingly impossible patch of ever blooming flowers, whose peppery blossoms I love to eat, if only I can bear to spare them from becoming a riotous bouquet for my table! The last of the scarlet runner beans have giant pods almost ready for harvesting for next years seed.

 

On quiet nights I sleep with my head under the open window closest to the brook whose waters are barely tr, audible and yet the drought seems less threatening because it is normal to see the brook low this time of year (unfortunately this is only illusion). My vernal pool is finally drying up and I am delighted to see that no wriggling tadpoles are left…all have transformed into amphibians that live in two worlds instead of one (rather like me!) Tree frogs trill throughout the night singing love songs and everywhere tiny gold wood frogs hop through grass that I deliberately leave unattended so that they, and the small slower hopping toads, are not killed by a mindless mowing machine.

 

I revel in the spreading carpet of emerald green moss that is gradually replacing the grass in most places because shade dominates my little patch of woodland around this house. My pearl white hydrangea blooms on and is a joy to behold, she is so full of bumble bees. I could stand under her for hours counting different varieties of this one species. After a summer without bees I am in love with these humming blossoms.

 

The squirrels are caching nuts, during this year of acorn and pine cone abundance and even their chittering seems less annoying. I can smell the fermenting apples outside my window and at night listen for the sound of creatures coming in to feast… Last night, the source of the great thud I heard as some animal hit the ground from the apple tree remains a mystery. Why anyone would bother to climb this tree now is a question that remains unanswered. There are so many apples covering the ground that I need to walk under the drooping boughs with care. I note with pleasure that many small native bees like these sweetest of wild apples as they begin to rot on the ground. This year, instead of raking them up I will leave the fruit to fertilize the Earth for next spring. In time, the deer will return to feast on fermented apples and crabapples that pepper the ground under their various trees.

 

What a season this has been! Never do I remember such abundance but perhaps there have been other years almost as good as this one. It may also be that each year my appreciation deepens. I am still waiting for the first partridge to appear in one of their favorite crabapples, and daily I watch for the flock of cedar waxwings that lay over here for a feast on their southern migration. The flickers have yet to arrive for a stopover but two mornings ago I heard the first flock of geese flying over the house. Some Indigenous tribes call this this month the time of the “ducks flying away” and some are already on the wing.

 

The fox grapes are ripening in great globular clusters just outside my window, although a hard frost will be needed to sweeten them for my taste. The birds aren’t as fussy and neither are the foxes.

 

The time of natural harvest is particularly special to me because I know that I am providing much needed food for my non – human friends – a gift to those who have both witnessed and loved me… Every plant and tree on this property was planted with the idea that someday animals/birds/insects would find an abundance of food here, while in other more manicured places, it might become more scarce. I am glad to have lived long enough to experience this dream coming to pass.

 

As I lean into the coming darkness, I do so with gratitude for this season, and for the few moments of balance that we will experience as the equinox moments pass by, moving us from now pale early morning light into quickening dark nights, and the coming of the winter months…I remind myself that moments of balance are always temporary in Nature and in myself and that both need to be cherished.

 

As fall begins so does the hope for soaking rain – precious water that will nourish the earth, fill brooks streams, rivers and dug wells. Trees caching fire and gold in their leaves are also preparing for winter’s sleep. Hopefully high winds won’t take the flaming canopies too soon.

 

Lily B is usually quiet not singing until mid – morning. I sleep late, the mourning doves and finches don’t appear until after 7 AM, and my dogs are reluctant to leave our warm bed. All of us are turning with the wheel as Nature prepares herself for another winter’s sleep.