I've always been in love with the moon. I couldn't count the hours I've spent looking at the moon, it could be tens of thousands. I've watched the moon all my life.
When I was a young girl and saw the New Moon, I would say, "New Moon, New Moon, pray tell me, who my own true love will be. The color of his hair, the clothes he will wear and the happy day he'll wed me." Before going to bed, I'd "dip" my pillow in the moonlight shining through the window so I would have sweet dreams. The moon has shown down over 20,000 times since I was born, I might have seen half of them.
People all over the world from the beginning of time have had legends about the moon-legends to explain why the moon changed, waxing and waning, going through 28 phases a month, a silver moon, blue moon, harvest moon, blood moon.
Indians had hundreds of stories and legends about the moon to explain why it changed shapes, changed colors, why it traveled across the sky. One legend says the sun and the moon were lovers who quarreled and parted and then were both filled with regret and they spent eternity searching for each other across the sky and they only met once a year and the sun would turn black and the moon would slip away to spend another year trying to catch her true love.
The moon is mentioned in the Bible seventy-five times. It speaks of the "glory of the moon" in Corinthians, and in Genesis it says the moon shall "govern the night". In Jeremiah it talks about the "fixed order" of the moon and how it stirs up the seas so the waves roar. The Psalms say God made the moon for the seasons and Job says he watched the moon "walking in splendor".
Around the world fishermen set out in their boats trusting the tides that are controlled by the moon. People plant or harvest crops by the phase of the moon. For centuries, mothers have weaned their babies during the waning of the moon.
When my children were very small, they believed if they closed their eyes and couldn't see me, then I couldn't see them. If they closed their eyes they became invisible. This usually happened when they didn't want to take a bath or when they'd raided the cookie jar. All they had to do was close their eyes and become invisible. Sometimes I would play along and when they closed their eyes, I would sneak out of the house and go into the yard and call their names and pretend to be searching for them. When they opened their eyes, I was gone and they were convinced they had been invisible.
My children all live thousands of miles away and now I really do feel invisible.
I get lonely and depressed, I miss my family, and I feel like I'm disappearing. I'm waning like the moon, becoming smaller and smaller each night. Sometimes I'm barely a thin sliver in a dark sky, an indifferent world.
Then, the sun will shine, the wind will blow, one of my children will call me, I'll get a letter from a friend . . . and I can feel my heart growing larger, waxing like the moon when it goes through the phases to become a bright, beautiful full moon that fills the night sky.
I go through phases like the moon, waxing and waning, sometimes dull and misty, sometimes hidden by clouds, but still, always here...and eventually I'm "whole" again, like the full moon. I'm just going through phases, like the moon. It might seem like I'm fading away, disappearing, I might feel like I'm barely a sliver of what I used to be . . . but I'm coming back. Tomorrow I'll be a little bigger, a little brighter and soon I'll be my whole self again.
I'm always my whole self, like the moon is always round. It's only shadows from the Earth that cover the moon giving the illusion it is changing shape but the moon is always round, always there. I'm always here (I don't want to say I'm round) people might not see me, like they might not see the moon, but it's only the "shadow" of a bad day, or feeling alone, or remembering something from the past that makes me sad, but it's temporary and tomorrow I'll shine . . . I'm just going through a phase . . . like the moon.
Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind and My Searching Heart, When the Stars Danced, and Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins.
