Luminous and Numinous

The big light in the upper left? Last night's moon from the western side of Lincoln Park.

Oh that moon. What a moon! What a night! Whoa.

As I left work just after dusk yesterday, I looked around for the moon, but couldn't see her. I figured she was still too low in the sky and that I could look for her from Lincoln Park, a better vantage point and a few minutes away. So I turned my back on the eastern sky. About half a block later, I felt someone tap me the shoulder. It was a physical sensation. No one was there when I turned around, though, but I did notice a brightly lit cloud in the sky. At that exact second, the great and powerful Luna emerged from behind the cloud. It was very dramatic; made me gasp in awe and wonder. Of course I said WOW. I bowed low, too, a shamanic dance of appreciation. After the moment of awe, I had the presence of mind to notice that the cloud from which the moon emerged was the only cloud in the whole sky.

You can not plan for events like that. Alright, Luna, I said out loud. You've got my attention. Of course I tried to take many pictures, though with my cheap little camera I am never able to focus on the moon. The camera battery threatened to give out after only five or six shots. It was way too much energy to capture digitally, for heaven's sake.

The scene in Lincoln Park five minutes later was total chaos. Ordinarily docile and compliant dogs were fighting, running away from their owners, racing around like lunatics. Duh! If the moon could tap me, an oblivious human, on the shoulder, who knows what she was doing to the dogs. Anyone who has ever seen the moon card in the tarot would have instantly grokked what was going down.

I could tell some of the dog owners were annoyed, some were surprised by their dogs' unusual behavior. I wanted to say, Hey, look at the moon! Of course they're going nuts! But I kept quiet after I saw two dog owners slip on some ice and fall to the ground. They had enough to do without having to contend with my thoughts on the situation.

At 3:07 a.m. I woke suddenly from a deep dream, jumped out of bed, put on a pair of slippers and my coat. From the front yard I quickly found the eclipsed moon hanging rather high in the western sky, coppery, fully eclipsed. Instead of speaking to the ghosts of Capitol Hill as I might have imagined, instead of focusing on the fact of the eclipse, what I sensed instead was an arrow originating in the galatic center, extending outwards through Brother Sun, sweet Mama Earth (and my heart - yours, too), through the moon and beyond, as if it was headed to the edge of the solar system. Too, I felt the presence of a great dragon. It's possible the arrow was the dragon, I'm not sure. From the center of the galaxy to the edge of our solar system, for one brief moment it felt like everything was in perfect alignment. What a feeling. Wow.

Or maybe I was still half asleep, who knows? What I do know is that suddenly I realized it was frickin' cold and I needed to get back indoors. Strangely or perfectly I had absolutely no trouble getting back to sleep, kind of a surprise considering the intensity of that experience. Go figure.

The first rays of Brother Sun are shining on the trees outside my window. The light has returned. What a good thing, what a relief, what a blessing. The light has returned, and I was given a vision that will provide me with many hours of entertainment as I ponder the significance of it all. Life is rich, full, and so good. I am grateful.

Happy new solar year, y'all. L'chaim.