moonlight madness morning musings

“And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night.”


It is four twenty in the morning and I am moonstruck. The three quarter moon shone through my bedroom window and I waked to the sounds of Tilly’s yearling son bellowing, and Zeke and Barney carousing in the woods. Phoebe is too deaf and blind to hear much these days so she slept through the outdoor party. I sat on the front porch soaking up the moonlight as I called the dogs home. They came eventually. We sat together enjoying the warm night air, listening to the train passing by down at the river and I was content.
So much happens at night that is invisible, unseen and unheard by my daylight eyes and ears. An alternate parallel universe exists, lives side by side with me and I am mostly unaware of its living, breathing existence... until the dogs insist on my participation. I sit with Barney on one side, Zeke at my feet, and try to see, hear, smell their world. In the woods, I hear rustlings and the dogs sit up, ready to get back to the party. I smell the dusty, dry earth but cannot separate the scents into its different layers. And even though the moonlight is bright, my vision cannot penetrate the night darkness completely. I am a handicapped person in this world, crippled by my physical limitations, unable to maneuver easily in this moonlight madness.
I wish I had the heightened senses of animals so I might see the movement of my spirit, hear the sounds of my soul, smell the presence of God in the wind, follow the invisible tracks of the Holy One in the world around me.



One of the department stores in Louisville used to have Moonlight Madness Sales. The store would stay open until midnight and the bargains were plentiful. Sometimes on our Friday night dates we would stop by Bacon’s on our way home just to check out the sale. You see different people out late at night and you see people differently late at night. A whole night time society exists.... shift workers, nurses, truck drivers, restaurant and hotel staff, police... and most of us never know they are there. It is a world of street lights, quieter voices, empty streets and darkened houses.
I wonder if the people who inhabit the darkness and sleep during the light learn to see more clearly in the night. I wonder if the quieter passages among the sleeping world makes one able to hear God’s voice speaking more distinctly. I wonder if the night time world’s mystery allows God to come for a visit without having to stand in line to be seen or heard.


“There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.”

What is the glory of the moon? A cooler light that never harms, softens the hard edges of bright daylight reality, candlelight of the cosmos, visible in its entirety to the naked eye, mysterious illumination that opens the heart to the unknown, beloved of lovers and poets, a shape changer that shows its full glory in cycles... Moonlight... the stuff of dreams and visions, the blessing of night. Good morning moon.