There is a stand of five trees at the bottom of my hill whose names I do not know. About 50 feet tall, deciduous with non-descript single-lobed leaves, they grow out of woods beside my house. I am sure they were not planted by design. I see them every day and yet have not bothered to take a stem of leaves and photos to a nursery for identification. It’s like repeatedly running into a neighbor at the store and never knowing her name but being too embarrassed to ask. I can’t go on living with strangers, so I made a point of it this week.
Continue reading...9. April 2009
When you find a wide, flat sandy beach along the Pacific Ocean, at low tide you may discover money strewn along the tideline…sand dollars. I remember finding my first one when I was just six at Cannon Beach, Oregon. Even at that age I knew they were magical. With a five-pointed star centered inside a larger star, gracing a round white dome of a shell that evokes the full moon, this is surely one of the most delightful shells on earth. And it’s a pentacle. A pentacle—a five-pointed star in a circle—has gotten some bad, erroneous press. Ignorant people claim there is something satanic about them, when in fact, they couldn’t be more wholesome.
Continue reading...28. March 2009
It’s one of those ironies of the natural world: Thursday the moon was new but also invisible to us. Because it sets with the sun, its tiny crescent is lost in the blare and glare. But I knew it was there, and I bowed my head in acknowledgment to the western sky. Today it should appear penciled in about an hour before sunset. This first new moon of Spring always feels extra special, with the earth and moon energies so in sync to pulse renewal into our veins.
Continue reading...10. March 2009
Life in the western world is ordered by the sun: our clocks, calendars and seasons all are calibrated by our heliocentric orbit. But there is another rhythm in our universe, an older way of measuring time: the pulse of the moon. Aligning my life with that beat has provided me with profound, ethereal experiences. The most enduring relationship in my life is with the moon. There. I’ve admitted it. I’m a lunatic. But what’s the point of telling you about my life if I’m not candid? No month in my memory has passed without a stimulating dialogue with the moon. There. Another admission. She talks back to me. Or perhaps a better way to put it would be, she responds to me.
Continue reading...25. February 2009
Yesterday was the new moon, though it is never visible on that day. It rises with the sun and arcs above us all day long, then invisibly slips away in the sun’s gaudy shadow. The photo above is a fragment of a rock scallop that I love because its crescent shape reminds me of the new moon, yet is substantial and tangible. I lovingly call myself a Lunatic, because I’m devoted to observing the moon. Fortunately, living so far from city lights I get to witness many lunar spectacles.
Continue reading...9. February 2009
Cold, starry night—bright full moon orb rises over the ridge, gleaming onto the bay. So slowly that I must look away then back again to measure it, an orangey glow spreads across her face. Her light fades to one bright spot on the edge, like an eyeball bouncing rays off its cornea. Then the moon simply darkens and becomes a mystical peach—glowing, rising between her acolytes Saturn and Regulus.
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Why I Meditate and How It Affects Me
24. April 2009
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