Moon – my mostly unfabulous life

300px-Harvest_moon

Silver disk: Let me call you goddess —
You, with your mirrored face.
Tonight, of all nights, your shape is perfect,
Your presence sublime.
You know it too. You appear before the sun has even set,
Glorious without your cloak of night,
Gazing down in supreme splendor,
To make this dusty world pastoral.

The queen of night is at her most perfect roundness, closer to us than at any other time of the year. She glows silver in an indigo sky.

People celebrate this night for many reasons. For some, it is the time to enjoy the view of the moon, and they toast it with sweets, wine, and tea. For others, it is a time of relaxation and thanksgiving for the harvest.

The Moon Festival is a woman’s festival, their time to worship. The harvest moon symbolizes the ascendancy of cool darkness over the bright heat of summer. This reminds us of equality in the cosmos : light and dark, male and female, heat and frost, hard and soft — all these things are part of an overall equilibrium.

If you are a woman, then tonight is your night for worship and celebration. If you are a man, then it is a night to step aside and give your wives, mothers, and sisters their privacy. But for all, we can be thankful for the riches of autumn and begin our preparations for the coming frost.

Moon above water.
Sit in solitude.

If waters are placid, the moon will be mirrored perfectly. If we still ourselves, we can mirror the divine perfectly. But if we engage solely in the frenetic activities of our daily involvements, if we seek to impose our own schemes on the natural order, and if we allow ourselves to become absorbed in self-centered views, the surface of our waters becomes turbulent. Then we cannot be receptive to Tao.

There is no effort that we can make to still ourselves. True stillness comes naturally from moments of solitude where we allow our minds to settle. Just as water seeks its own level, the mind will gravitate toward the holy. Muddy water will become clear if allowed to stand undisturbed, and so too will the mind become clear if it is allowed to be still.

Neither the water nor the moon make any effort to achieve a reflection. In the same way, meditation will be natural and immediate.