Do you fear the night? When you hear a noise in the shadows do you sit motionless, pinned by terror while your heart returns to its metronomic drumming? For as long as I can remember I have refused to let things unseen hold sway over my imagination. I grew up in a home notorious for unexplained noises echoing through the dark. As an only child I spent more than one night alone with little more than the sounds of a chattering home to keep me company. A home whose floorboards cackled, windows whispered and plumbing and heating was a symphony of percussion and banshee wails. I don't know why I always assumed that the sounds from the dark came from the basement or the attic, but I would ball my hands into little fists and go searching for the things that go bump in the night. I would never bring a flashlight...I was always sure surprise would be on my side if I didn't light my way. I would not arm myself, I would not make escape plans, I would simply stride forth into the darkness and see if equal parts youthful courage and brazen stupidity would see me through the ordeal. I never found a beast of darkness. I never tussled with a denizen of the deep, but on more than one occasion I found Her looking down on me...
I no longer go seeking the hushed whispers of the night...at 29 I have long outgrown that age. What was once a quest to challenge the fiends that disturbed my rest has become something far more subdued and peaceful; late night walks. I often take walks well after midnight along wooded paths and across grass fields. The sounds of the night are still there and beneath the umbrage of stars I find that simple things like trees, bushes or a ripple in the water can still appear fearsome. But while walking last night my eyes were drawn to the sky and again, just as it was so long ago, She was watching. I stopped in my tracks. I could not move. I could not look away. Caught in a near trance I just stood and stared at that singular white jewel in the night's sky; She…Her…My beloved mistress, La Luna, gazing down on me as she has all my life.
I can recall times as far back as age 9 when I would be struck by Her presence. I would be standing one moment, and the next I would be laying on my back, eyes sky bound. I would drift and I would dream and after a time I would come back to my senses and continue on. I have even come to give a sign of respect to that lunar body...I kiss the palm of my right hand, I close the hand into a gentle fist, bring the fist to my heart, open the hand and offer it up, palm wide and full with the offering of the kiss, the heart and the hand to She that is above. I will confess I only do this when I am alone. A casual observer would probably think me strange, but when I am alone I am not ashamed of my passion. When I am alone I am not afraid to share it. And She never passes judgment when the romantic takes hold of me in the dark.
The light of Her gaze has cut through every darkness in my life, though it is not always a healing light. It is often cold and distant and alien, but it can wrap you in tendrils of blue and grey and white and embrace you in dreams of joy and wonder. Those years when I closed my windows, shut my eyes and removed myself from Her sight were the most trying times of my life. I feel a peace and oneness in the light of the moon. I feel whole. I feel complete. I imagine it is very much like being in love.
I wonder if that is true. When do people know when they are in love? Is it a gradual shift from friend to partner...from partner to lover...from lover to one true love? Do people know when it changes? Can they feel it? I think the day I can walk beneath Her gaze, hand-in-hand with a woman and not feel that soft white light, then I will know I am in love. When the seductive mistress of the night's sky tempts and calls and beckons, and yet I am not pinned to the ground in awe and reverence, I will know I am in love. I wonder if She will mourn the loss of Her wolf. Will She feel jealousy as Her alpha child settles with a mate? I think not, for She is timeless and has sent many a wandering hunter on their way. I imagine I will look to the sky one last time to receive that pale kiss upon my brow and then turn to the flesh and blood at my side...the warmth that is, replacing the cold that was. But this day...this night...I still walk and live, stand and fall, struggle and grow, beneath Her gaze. At least someone is watching…
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3 comments:
This is a completely inadequate response to this post, but I really, really miss taking night walks.
The moon is (almost?) full tonight...it's beautiful.
Her love is endless and open. Her understanding is more then we understand and can never be placed aside.
When do people know when they are in love? Is it a gradual shift from friend to partner...from partner to lover...from lover to one true love? Do people know when it changes? Can they feel it?
That love is known, it's immediate, striking at your heart, but something familiar, something that your heart was waiting for and it connected.
Sadly it not always speaks as it should, it doesn't always say what it should. And things happen. It slips. And most are not quick enough to catch it through open fingers.
But no matter it'll be there, it'll wait, it'll grows. It more then anything understands that both need to be in the same spot to go forward. So it has patience and waits. Sometimes forever alone, sometimes not.
The time is a gift that no one can truly understand That no one can truly appreciate. But it's there.
great reading, thank you.
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