No Hurries

Lughnasa                                                              Labor Day Moon

The Labor Day moon has been full the last couple of nights. From our north facing bedroom window we see its light amongst the lodgepole pines, soft on the intermittently grassy and rocky surface that is our backyard. In Andover our south facing bedroom found the full moon shining, lighting up our bed and the room itself. This mountain experience is more subtle, we see the moon by moonshine only while the moon itself floats across the southern sky toward Black Mountain.

My mood has not lifted. I feel my Self as I see the moon shine. The Self, though hidden for now in my psychic south, still sends out rays of thought and feeling. Its presence is known only by these hints. An inclination toward horror fiction. A surge of interest in images from Rome. Imagining my books spread out on my art cart or me sitting in the now covered with books chair, reading. Looking through notes written on art works remembered. Feeling my way through the mountain, into the mountain. Wandering the trails, climbing on the rocks of Shadow Mountain.

After what I wrote yesterday, I realized this is not an unusual transition for me, though it’s not one I’ve made in a while. Something, perhaps the Self’s phases as it passes through the sky of a new place, perhaps the false winter of the cancer season, perhaps the ongoing adjustment to family and the absence of friends, something, probably a mix of all these, has put my Self in the southern sky, out of my range of vision for now.

The ancientrail through this place must be walked slowly. I’ve been trying to push, to run, to shorten the journey with speed. My inner ear becomes deaf as I hurry. My mind narrows to the dangers of the trail, watching for roots and projecting rocks. Imagination has no role. Yet, on this ancientrail of Self re-discovery listening, imagining, expanding the mind are what is necessary.

Waiting now to see the moonrise.