Imbolc New Life Moon
Haven’t done a nocturne since I got to Colorado, if I recall correctly. However, driving home tonight with the waxing new life moon shining through the lodgepole pines and Orion high in southwestern sky I wanted to write one.
I’m re-reading an old book, 1974, by a theologian named David Miller, The New Polytheism. It is, in a way, a counterpoint to H. Richard Niebhur’s important essay, “Radical Monotheism and Western Culture.”
The moon and Orion both represent, and are themselves, forces in our culture. Orion, the hunter and warrior. The moon, our light in the darkness, the periodicity most familiar to us after night and day. I could feel them both tonight on the drive up Brook Forest, these old friends, 71 years of nights, 49 since my time in the guard shack in Muncie when Orion and I became friends.
I find polytheism, multiple centers of value in H. Richard Niebhur’s conceptual framework, a much more sensible approach to the diverse and plural world in which we live, and which lives in us.
Night makes this clearer to me, cleans up the distractions of the day. My mind ranges further, makes unusual connections, feels old threads linking now and then, now and tomorrow. Time for bed now. Good night.
