I would have gone down to the shore line, but instead we walked the cliffs to keep within reach of the last feeble fingers of the sinking sun.
I will never know what that afternoon would have been down there where the waves were, and the salt in my hair, and crash and churn, and the dark-shadow-cold. But had I known that; I would not have seen the cliff-top rabbits or how the sun fell so rapidly behind the hill, deathly pale but not yet tired or bleeding.
Or how behind the church upon the hill the winter-white of day softened into gold.
We turned our back to the gilded shadows and looked seawards. The wolf moon had crept silent into the sky.
Cerridwen, goddess of the moon, is there even when she is not seen. She is both mother and crone.
If you would see her, you must look for her.
Sometimes you must look to the morning skies where you will see her in her mother aspect, not long out of maidenhood. At other times you must seek her in the afternoon wherein I see her crone.
The morning moon is nurturing, but she is young, still learning and asks of you, "what can you give?"
The afternoon and evening moon is wise and will wait for you to ask of her, whatever it is you seek.
She is always there, but by day she may be hidden by cloud or outshone by the sun or maybe it is we, who are standing in her light, casting shadows.
Cerridwen is not fazed. She knows who she is. She continues her orbit, reflects the light that shines upon her, exerts her pull and lets it go. She breathes in and out, and the tides ebb and flow. She knows her own life-force and has no need to compete with suns or other stars.
We could all learn to be a little more lunar.
~ ~ ~
Much later I go and sit outside. I am drawn to the moon as I am drawn to the water.
The temperature is below zero. I see the frost forming on the rooftops. Glitter scattered by an unseen hand.
In the clean cut of night-sharp chill, I cling to my Celtic roots and reach back through time and memory, myth and legend: the nets we cast and lines, to reel in all the shining fish of faith, of other things to which we might cleave, the things without reason that we choose to believe.
Be still.
Just as music cannot be without the silence of the pause, so the dance cannot exist without the stillness between the steps. Put down your pen, and simply watch for awhile.
~ ~ ~
By chance, I sleep this wolf moon night beneath the glass ceiling of a rented room. That wondrous shining dead sphere of debris that walks with us through the vastness of space and accepts all our madness in her name, lights my sleep and keeps me from dreaming.
I wake in the white-light of the world’s own night-light and feel safe. All shadows solid and identifiable. There are no ghosts here.
I track her route across the sky and note how far she’s travelled.
And this morning I am awake in time to see her leave. She drops down behind the garden gate and is gone.
~ ~ ~
It feels like sacrilege to discount the day that follows on. The white frost hollow. The low sun playing hide and seek among the pines. The silvered fringes of the reeds. The arctic blue of summer-sky in winter pools. The lapwing dancing, ducks pairing off, and geese auditioning for lead roles in the long flight home.
It feels ungrateful to not mention our congregation, our self-formed church of the natural world, and worldliness and words, that forms into an unbidden circle beneath the berm that hushes the sea, and makes us think of other things: of films, and wars, and dead seals, and birds, and how we can be shocked and saddened and afraid, and then find joy in the handling of a stone, make a joke, wonder about re-catching opportunities, not lost but still pulling at the reel.
It feels important that we remember just how it feels, to be. To be human. To be in this world and not the one we’d wish for. To be grateful for the sea, and the storms. To be grateful for each other, and the beach. To be grateful for the flight of things we cannot name, and dark waters as well as those that shine. To be grateful for the once-living things, that we never met. To be grateful for the precious stones we crunch through as we match our footsteps to our heartbeat.
It feels urgent to register that it is not only these precious landscapes that are fragile; so are we who walk among them. I salute the courage of those who speak of how hard it has been and seek to help us open windows into our inner worlds, which may be best done outside where most of those who listen are plant-life or winged ones or non-judgemental waters. I am grateful for those who know how to find the words, and also for those who do not know, but reach out regardless.
~ ~ ~
I would not omit such importance from this day, and yet…there falls another evening, and rises another moon. The horizon is wrapped in sadness. No vibrant fire in the sky as yet, but a water-colour of the worn-out shades of too-oft-washed clothes, ancient denim loved into softness and faded dusty damask rose. It is a sky that has lost all the brittle of the day, a sky I want to wrap around me. A comfort-shawl of a sky.
Then I see it: a shining star. Brilliant white. The light of a boat, way out on the sea/sky-line.
To the right of it, there is a smudgy image…a maybe mirage, a fuzzy is-there-something-there? I squint and peer and am on the point of leaving when, she pulls herself together, coalesces into a definitive round, and heaves up out of the sea and into the sky.
Only when she is above the waves could I callit moon-rise. At first it feels more like a birth. There seems to be such an effort to be free. Her pale colours reflect the still sorrowful light of the departing sun. The moon is born in dusky shades and faded glory…
…until she's clear and sloughs off her salt-water sac. Then she shines. As though lit from within, the rose deepens into pink and shifts into orange. A bowl of fire to challenge Lugh now displaying in his gold and purple robes, but sinking all the same. And the moon-rise into the sky becomes majestic, shining white, untethered now, she reclaims the night.
