• Tag Archives moon

  • A Night of Moon Shadows

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    -11 61% 16% 0mph  WSW  bar30.34 windchill-11  Winter

                     Full Winter Moon

    It is, again, a night of moon shadows, crisp in outline.  In its reflection of the sun’s light moon as mirror gives us a cool, silvered glow for the dark time.  Stripped of its life giving powers, this light instead comes to us as a pure light, with no other purpose than to illuminate.  It is a deep mystery, the moon.  Its light casts fairy dust on trees and shrubs, rocks and snow drifts, otherwise common in appearance during the day, but in the moonlight, marvelous wonderful.  It also pulls us, drags us a bit on our cosmic journey, sloshes our waters.  The moon’s magic spell cast over millennia of human imagination remains the same, strong.

    A couple of days ago I signed up for what is in essence a correspondence course in Taoism.  I have had my second lesson from Teacher Jiahan and he has already clarified some things and created questions about others.  This is a five course package so at the end I should have a decent introduction.  Taoism is an ancient trail, by definition.  The Tao is the Way, but the Way that can be known is not the Way.  Teacher Jiahan says this well-known first line of the Tao Te Ching actually means that the Way is not fixed or rigid, since a central tenet of Taoism is the ever changing nature, of, well, nature.  It is the nature of nature to change. 

    The smells of jacaranda, plumeria, gardenia and suntan lotion come to me know.  The smell of moist earth and ozone, leis thrown over newcomers, smiles.  All this plus the memories of heiaus, volcanoes, whales, surfers, fish, meals beside the Pacific, quiet time away from the office.  Not far away now. 


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Great Wheel 📎and tagged

  • Not a Good Sign

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    -6  68%  29%  2mph  WNW  bar30.24  steep rise  windchill-8  Winter

                                  Full Winter Moon

    “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.” – Albert Camus

    When I went out to get the paper this morning, the full winter moon again hugged the horizon, this time a bright silver coin visible through the bare trees of our woods to the west.  Our paper comes, like most of us in the ‘burbs, to a rectangular box below our mailbox, perched on the road so both paper delivery and mail delivery can happen from the seat of a vehicle. 

    The trash man cometh at about the same time I goeth to get the paper.  As I stood and watched, the trucks long robotic arm moved out and away from the truck, gripped our black plastic trash container, moved a bit further out, then swept up and over the truck, inverting our container in mid-air causing the lid to fly open and the trash to spill out, white plastic bags full, into the maw of the truck.  The process reversed; I waved at the trash man as he pulled away, grabbed onto the handle and pulled the container on its ridiculous plastic wheels up the 100 foot incline of our driveway.  It scrunched in the below zero temperatures as it rolled and slid behind me.

    On the paper’s front page I could see a picture of our central banker, Ben Bernanke, with his head in his hands.  Not a good sign.

    Though I’ve done it less than Kate in recent months, getting the newspaper in the morning is an immersion in the weather and season at a point when it all seems fresh, just as dawn begins to break.  It is a meditation, at least for me, since I do it half asleep and therefore more open to the subtle messages of partially hidden moon, the screech of snow and the bite of the wind as it blows across my ungloved hands.

    This morning finds me at work on a safari tour for 2nd graders.  2nd graders are great; they respond and most without an inner censor.  I plan to use:  Moche pelican, Benin leopard, (the mummy, because the teacher wants it), the Cambodian lion, Corot’s deer nibbling leaves in a tree, Copley’s Fishing Party, Gaugin’s Under the Pandanus, Picasso’s Baboon and, perhaps the installation of children’s photographs.  Also today I’ll plan a calligraphy tour for 4th graders who’ve used ink, inkstones and brushes while learning brush painting and calligraphy.  Both should be fun.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Faith and Spirituality Great Wheel 📎and tagged