Beltane Emergence Moon
A sickle Emergence Moon has risen in the west, just behind a tall poplar. Above it is Jupiter. A month plus a little ago, March 27th, I was on the road out of Holbrook, Arizona at 4 am. The mesa country was cold and the night was deep. Up in the sky hung a crescent of the Hare Moon and in its cusp was Venus.
(Spring Scattering Stars, Edwin Blashfield,1927)
Crescent moons are among the signal aesthetic gifts of the universe, especially when combined with a bright planet, especially Venus or Jupiter. The heart that cannot be moved by a black sky, a silver sliver of moon and cradled within its arms a fellow traveler, is a heart that has lost its wonder. I recall thinking as I drove on I-40 that morning last March that much of the beauty of southwest Native art came from clear views just like the one I was seeing.
It’s not hard to imagine those early ancestors of ours, on their trek out of Africa, looking up in wonder at the very same sight.