Dance by the light of the moon. Which moon? September, the Harvest Moon, the Yellow Leaf Moon. But if you are Haida, near the cool waters of Alaska and British Columbia, it might be the Ice Moon. For the Ojibwe, the Rice Moon. Cherokee, the Black Butterfly Moon. Climate changes the way the moon clings to the sky.
No matter the temperature, September is a transitional month. Warm one day, cool the next. Nights start to dip. On the last day of September, our heat kicked on for the first time. We opened the windows to let the “burnt dust” smell flow out into the wind. Then bundled up on the couch. It’s sweatshirt season. The time to dress in layers is upon us.
The Harvest Moon always looks bigger to me. The full moon was dramatic, a red smear across the sky. You could barely make it out behind the mist off the lake. I start to go inside in the Fall. I am internal. It’s a good time to write. And rest. I would miss the seasons so, if I lived in a climate that did not shift with the turning Earth.
I once thought I wanted to study the stars. That was before I saw how much math was involved. The exacting part of the Heavens is fascinating. But the mystery is what holds me. Not knowing is more exciting than knowing. I still believe in Santa Claus. Fairies are alive and well with the Hobbits in the forest. Trolls and gnomes dot the darkness of Sleepy Hollow. I’ll take the mystery over the facts any day.
That doesn’t work in real life. You can drown in what you don’t know. There’s a fine balance between being informed and obsessed. But I remember writing practices on — What are your obsessions? Because they hold a lot of juice. What are my obsessions?
I watch the Moon, the Sun, the Stars. I want to know what makes the Earth tick. I’m obsessed with understanding love and forgiveness. The breakdowns, the shattered dreams, the loss of control, the forgetfulness of the last broken heart, the wild abandon that makes a person fall in love.
I am obsessed with wind and trees. A single burnt umber leaf against a cerulean sky (I like to say the word cerulean). I want to understand what makes a family tick, the ghostlike qualities of memories, how we come to love the people we love, why people stick, then fade into the sunset, or drop off entirely, the clean hatchet cleave. Sharp. Close. Far away. Serrated. Here. Gone. I’m obsessed with photography, mandalas, finding my way in spite of the erratic, misleading compass needle. Where is True North? I want to know where I fit in.
I’m obsessed with community, with the good work of everyday teaching, with the smell of wood smoke and the sound of the Downy woodpecker snapping away on a turning ash branch. Have you ever noticed the erratic way a woodpecker flies? They look like giant hummingbirds, darting, rising, falling, but always landing on their feet. Sideways, clinging to the side of a rough barked tree. I’m obsessed with what connects and what separates. And why humans can’t seem to grasp — there is no difference between the two.
The 9th Full Moon has passed. Farmers plow bulging fields by the light of the moon. Two years out of three, the Harvest Moon falls in September. Corn, rice, beans, and wild rice reach their full potential. Under the Maize Moon, where the deer paw the earth, why can’t we?
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, October 9th, 2008
-related to posts: Against The Grain (August Moon), The Many Moons Of July (Digging Deeper), winter haiku trilogy, Squaring The Circle — July Mandalas (Chakras & Color), PRACTICE – Wolf Moon – 10min
I am obsessed with a full moon. I can sit and watch it like a movie, and have done just that once, during the cycle of a full lunar eclipse. Can you ever see too many full moons in “this one wild and precious life?” Not me. It seems that the beautiful moon holds secrets that I am dying to know…
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breathepeace, I’m with you. I don’t think you can ever see too many full moons in a lifetime. I’ve only made a conscious effort to see one full lunar eclipse in its entirety. I think it was sometime in the 1980’s. I had just moved to Minnesota. Some friends were traveling through on their way back from the Michigan Women’s Festival. The eclipse was happening when they were here.
So we took a picnic and a blanket up to a flat hilly area near the waterworks in St. Paul and watched the whole eclipse. (There aren’t a lot of mountains or high places in the Twin Cities.) It was heavenly. I think I took some Kodachrome slides with my Minolta telephoto lens (way back before digital). I wonder where they are?
The full moon is so peaceful. The quality of reflective light rather than the harshness of solar. Totally different. Have you ever taken any movies or video of the full moon? Liz took some video the last time we had a lunar eclipse, I think it was last winter. It’s wonderful.
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Yup, I have taken pictures of the moon, but mostly on vacation, which, I guess, must be the only time that I predictably carry a camera. Two of my favorite moon photos were taken in Tibet: a full moon rising at sunset; and a day later, setting at sunrise. Also, I have some shots of the full moon rising over the Nile River. I don’t have a good telephoto lens on my low-budget digital camera. Without one, it is hard to do the moon justice … unless it is close to the horizon line.
When I served on the school board, I was gifted with a great black and white photo of the full moon, taken with a high-powered telescope, by one of the junior high science teachers. You can see the craters and shadows on the surface of the moon. Very cool and a cherished gift for this moon-lover.
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I can get completely lost in close-up crater shots of the moon. You know, one thing I might add to my list of things I want to do before I die is to spend time in one of those little dome-shaped telescope huts somewhere in the desert in NM. I think there are a couple in Montana, too, maybe even Wyoming. Wouldn’t it be cool to spend a night in one of those and just stargaze and moongaze through one of those high-powered telescopes?
Hey, I’d love to hear your impressions about the Moon Over Tibet. If you ever want to submit your photos to red Ravine with a piece (or even photos and haiku) about that experience, please consider it. The submission door is always open.
I love meeting people who are as gaga over the Moon as I am. Fellow moonlovers always welcomed here. 8) Now I’m thinking about moonflowers. I think there are several nightblooming flowers with that name.
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Oh, I wanted to add, I agree, it’s difficult to get good Moon shots without a telephoto. I don’t have one either on my digital camera which are most of the shots I post on red Ravine. I did have a lot of lenses with my film cameras. But I haven’t taken them out in a while. On my wish list for way in the future is a full-body Digital SLR with lots of lenses for occasions just like those. By the time I get around to buying one, I’m sure they’ll be as small as a tomato. 8)
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“I want to know where I fit in.”
You fit right where you are.
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leslie, that sounds kind of Zen, a koan in and of itself. Perfect.
The October moon is upon us. Saw it rise above the Weisman Art Museum last night. Beautiful. October moonwriting on the way.
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I am thinking of the word you used to describe the end of a relationship – “serrated”.
Ouch! That could be the beginning of a poem, couldn’t it?
As for the moon, I spent several hours (yes, hours!) staring at a full moon, one day past full, in the wilderness in Colorado last week. Thirty miles from the nearest town, well kind of a town. Isolated, so dark. Ahhhh! I watched the night sky for the first few hours, until the moon gradually rose over the crests of the mountains to the east of where I was camping.
It was amazing – I literally watched her go from a glow to a tiny bit of brightness, and then in only a few minutes time, she crept higher and higher, until suddenly she was in her (almost) full glory. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had watched the full moon appear a tiny bit at a time. Most spectacular! Something I will always remember.
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Bo, I hadn’t realized how harsh that sounds until you pointed it out. Serrated relationships — that’s how it feels sometimes. You just never know.
Oh, you spent time with the western Full Moon. It sounds heavenly. I am always amazed at how much larger and brighter the moon seems when rising in places like Montana, New Mexico, Montana. I wonder if it’s because you can get so much further away from her, the perspective of the mountains, and Yes — how dark it can be out in those open wilderness spaces.
Thanks for sharing your Moon story. I have watched October’s Moon this month with great delight. I think I’ve noticed and seen her at almost every stage.
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[…] to posts: PRACTICE – September Harvest Moon – 15 min, Against The Grain (August Moon), The Many Moons Of July (Digging Deeper), winter haiku trilogy, […]
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[…] to posts: PRACTICE – September Harvest Moon – 15 min, Against The Grain (August Moon), The Many Moons Of July (Digging Deeper), winter haiku trilogy, […]
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