A Little Light — But What a Light!

 It seems like such a little act:  lighting a candle.  But I have discovered in that act much to meditate upon.

As the year heads into its last few months, more tiny flames are lit around the world as particular religious festivals arrive:  Diwali, Hanukah, Christmas, even the newcomer Kwanza.  All these celebrations light candles in some form as part of their ceremonies.  Sometimes the wicks being lit are at the tip of hard candles; sometimes in a tiny cup of liquid.  But the visual effect is the same.  And it is beautiful.

In the northern hemisphere, the lighting of candles on those holidays late in the year carries an added spiritual meaning through the warmth the candles bring in cold weather.  But even when those religious holidays are practiced in the southern hemisphere, with days getting longer, candle lights can bring a soft yellow glow to what was darkness.  Although I am not a Roman Catholic, I have (as long as I can remember) found pleasing any pictures of Catholics lighting candles in a sometimes dim sanctuary, often accompanied by private prayers.

Before electricity came to our modern world, candles were used where today we use tiny light bulbs.  I feel nervous when I see pictures of some Europeans lighting candles on the branches of evergreen Christmas trees.  And I know the firefighters at my local fire-department can sleep easier knowing that electric lights decorate our trees in the U.S.  But we still desire to light candles in other ways during these festive months.

Before our petroleum age, the material for candles was wax from bees or tallow from sheep or cattle.  We might do well to recognize the flame as also being a gift from Nature.

Scientists who work in the area of evolutionary psychology try to project their thoughts back upon the path of human evolution.  Certainly a significant step in that story would have been being able to start a fire.  The European cultural heritage expresses how momentous that discovery was with its mythological story of Prometheus, who steals fire from the gods.  In the playwright Aeschylus's adaptation Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is also viewed as being the bringer of civilization.  But the god Zeus knew all too well how dangerous humans could be without bounds.  And so, Prometheus is bound to a rocky mountain as punishment.

That danger of possessing fire is why my reflections upon candle-lighting have led me to see it as an example of behaving in a restrained, respectful manner.  In humankind's use of candles, we have found a way to handle fire in a controlled way. If in mythology fire brings civilization, can lighting a candle be a civilizing act today?  In our religious and spiritual lighting of candles, can we—instead of fanning the flames of anger in ourselves and others—turn our hearts toward worship?

The commonality across faith-traditions of lighting candles (whether in sticks or cups of liquid) might enable us to share in the emotions of Howard Thurman, even if our faith-tradition is non-Christian, or if we have none.  He writes in part:

"I Will Light Candles This Christmas.

Candles of joy despite all sadness,

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,

Candles of courage for fears ever present,

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens."

~ ~ ~

Do you light candles on particular occasions?  When?  What feelings does it bring?

(The lines from "Candles for Christmas" by Howard Thurman are from Meditations of the Heart, © 1953, used under Fair Use.)
(The painting of Prometheus by Jan Cossiers is in the Public Domain.)

A Little Light — But What a Light!

It seems like such a little act:  lighting a candle.  But I have discovered in that act much to meditate upon.

As the year heads into its last few months, more tiny flames are lit around the world as particular religious festivals arrive:  Diwali, Hanukah, Christmas, even the newcomer Kwanza.  All these celebrations light candles in some form as part of their ceremonies.  Sometimes the wicks being lit are at the tip of hard candles; sometimes in a tiny cup of liquid.  But the visual effect is the same.  And it is beautiful.

In the northern hemisphere, the lighting of candles on those holidays late in the year carries an added spiritual meaning through the warmth the candles bring in cold weather.  But even when those religious holidays are practiced in the southern hemisphere, with days getting longer, candle lights can bring a soft yellow glow to what was darkness.  Although I am not a Roman Catholic, I have (as long as I can remember) found pleasing any pictures of Catholics lighting candles in a sometimes dim sanctuary, often accompanied by private prayers.

Before electricity came to our modern world, candles were used where today we use tiny light bulbs.  I feel nervous when I see pictures of some Europeans lighting candles on the branches of evergreen Christmas trees.  And I know the firefighters at my local fire-department can sleep easier knowing that electric lights decorate our trees in the U.S.  But we still desire to light candles in other ways during these festive months.

Before our petroleum age, the material for candles was wax from bees or tallow from sheep or cattle.  We might do well to recognize the flame as also being a gift from Nature.

Scientists who work in the area of evolutionary psychology try to project their thoughts back upon the path of human evolution.  Certainly a significant step in that story would have been being able to start a fire.  The European cultural heritage expresses how momentous that discovery was with its mythological story of Prometheus, who steals fire from the gods.  In the playwright Aeschylus's adaptation Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is also viewed as being the bringer of civilization.  But the god Zeus knew all too well how dangerous humans could be without bounds.  And so, Prometheus is bound to a rocky mountain as punishment.

That danger of possessing fire is why my reflections upon candle-lighting have led me to see it as an example of behaving in a restrained, respectful manner.  In humankind's use of candles, we have found a way to handle fire in a controlled way. If in mythology fire brings civilization, can lighting a candle be a civilizing act today?  In our religious and spiritual lighting of candles, can we—instead of fanning the flames of anger in ourselves and others—turn our hearts toward worship?

The commonality across faith-traditions of lighting candles (whether in sticks or cups of liquid) might enable us to share in the emotions of Howard Thurman, even if our faith-tradition is non-Christian, or if we have none.  He writes in part:

"I Will Light Candles This Christmas.

Candles of joy despite all sadness,

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,

Candles of courage for fears ever present,

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens."

~ ~ ~

Do you light candles on particular occasions?  When?  What feelings does it bring?

(The lines from "Candles for Christmas" by Howard Thurman are from Meditations of the Heart, © 1953, used under Fair Use.)
(The painting of Prometheus by Jan Cossiers is in the Public Domain.)

Lively Trees

One memorable scene in the movie Wizard of Oz comes fairly early in the story, when Dorothy has met only one of her road companions on the yellow brick road.  Being hungry, she tries to eat an apple from a tree beside the road, only to have the trees take revenge for the seeming theft.  Although the trees remain planted in place like real trees, their gnarled barks become faces, just like a person's, angrily shouting insults. And their branches turn into arms that hurl apples at Dorothy and the scarecrow.

I recalled this scene when I read some religious texts celebrating the totally opposite spirit of real tress -- their graciousness toward humankind.  As the 9th-century Srimad Bhagavatam puts it:  "The whole life of these trees are spent in service.  With their leaves, fruits, flowers, branches, roots, fragrance, sap, bark, wood, and finally even their ashes as coal, they exist purely for others."

tree of life
in church in Sweden

All of the world's major faith-traditions have employed the tree as a symbol in some fashion, recognizing how important trees are to humans.  In Christianity, the "tree of life" has symbolized both the source of life (such as in Genesis 2:9) and the network of living relationships that cover the Earth.  However, I have encountered the most poetic expressions of gratitude for the practical benefits of trees in writings of Hinduism.

We humans are able to verbally communicate gratitude to another human being in ways we cannot to other species.  And so some Hindu writings personify trees as a way of expressing their goodness.  For example, the Vikrama Charitram says:  "Trees are like good people who care for others."  The contemporary writer Kamala Vasudevan interprets this verse, explaining why trees can be pictured as being altruistic.  He writes:  "They have to keep standing in the sun but they give shade to others.  Whatever fruits they bear, they do not eat themselves, but give it to others.  So kind they are."

It is not only humans who are served by trees.  Our contemporary knowledge from the science of ecology has shown how intricate are the multiple interrelationships in the "tree of life."  One poetic way such interrelationships have been traditionally symbolized in India has been through the Neem tree, which is depicted as being a mother to the "daughter" sparrows who grow up with mother's support before flying off to new homes.  One lovely tribute to trees using that symbol is a traditional "swing song," a song that can be sung to the rhythm of a swing hung in a tree.  Part of it goes this way:

Bengali quilt

"Father, never cut this Neem tree,

The Neem offers rest to sparrows,

Father, never trouble your daughters [or else]

All the sparrows will fly away,

The Neem will feel so lonely."

Imagining this song in a movie scene, I picture a girl swinging in a homemade swing while singing the song.  It would be a scene to enjoy.  Hopefully it might inspire gratitude in me as well, because I wouldn't want trees throwing their apples at me!

~~~

Do you remember any trees you have benefited from in tangible or intangible ways?

(The quote by Vasudevan is from "The Great 'Tree' of Human Life"

in the Deccan Herald, Sunday June 6, 2004, ©.)

(The stained glass photo is by Håkan Svensson, and is used under a

 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

Elephants on the Agenda

Is there any child that at some point does not like elephants?  Why?  I think it has to do with more than elephants' trunks (even though those remarkable appendages do provide opportunity for children's jokes about what elephants pack in their trunks).  The Disney movie Dumbo, for example, spun its story more around Dumbo's big ears than around his nose.  And in Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who, the elephant Horton's entire personality propels the story.  Although trunks are part of our fascination with elephants, I think a larger reason might be the elephant's size and capabilities.

It was certainly the massive size of elephants that motivated adults to first domesticate them. Sadly, to me, one of the main uses the animals were put to was to fight in wars (at least as far back as the 4th century B.C.E. in India).  When I was growing up, I would occasionally hear some adult make a reference to Hannibal's feat of moving an army over the Alps in the 3rd century B.C.E.  It was only as an adult that I read the elephants' tragic side of the story:  When Hannibal began his long march toward Rome, he had 50 elephants in his military force; by the time he got beyond the Alps, only 8 elephants were still alive.

Today, with our growing consciousness of environmental impacts, we are more aware of the risks elephants face from poachers desiring their ivory tusks.

relief mural in Thailand

When children advance beyond Dumbo and Horton, they are likely to learn the story of the blind men, each of whom described an elephant differently because each touched only part of the animal, none of the men being able to see the whole.  I have heard that story variously described as being of Hindu and of Buddhist origin.  One form in which that parable has been perpetuated in English-speaking culture has been through John Godfrey Saxe's 1872 poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant."  Saxe, in his final stanza, clearly showed that his target was theologians ("in theologic wars," as he put it). Today, I think rightfully, we are more likely to use the story of the blind men to remind ourselves that in any endeavor we can become blind to the whole.

Over the past few decades, we have even learned that our knowledge of the lives of elephants has been fragmentary.  We have discovered that some elephant herds in Kenya make risky periodic trips into the Kitum Cave in order to get salt to supplement their diet.  And we have now found out that elephants grieve, displaying anguish not only over the corpse of a comrade but also over the bones of a deceased member of the herd.

Laotian painting of the
Buddha's loving kindness
calming an elephant
    

Oh, and as for that matter of why children are fascinated with elephants, I will speak for myself.  Looking back on my own childhood, I have decided my fascination was because of elephants' grace and friendliness despite their massive size.  Especially as a child, the world seemed massive and overwhelming.  But, with the elephants in the zoo and in the circus, I possessed evidence that something that seemed overwhelming could be made manageable.  Even made friendly.

~~~

Do you have any recollections of seeing elephants when you were a child?

(The photo with the Buddha is used through a

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

(Saxe's poem can be read at this external link:  "The Blind Men and the Elephant.")

Some Light on Diwali and Us

In the U.S., as soon as Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, people's plans turn to what has come to be called "the holiday season."  That label, although bland, is appropriate because some of the most festive celebrations of a number of faith-traditions all fall in December:  Obviously, Christianity's Christmas.  And Judaism's Hanukkah.  Also the less known but beautiful home-ceremonies of Kwanzaa, out of African-American culture.  However, even before the December convergence of those holidays occurs, the Indian-American community has gotten a jump on celebration with the ancient festival of Diwali.  And that celebration can shed some light on those other holidays, as well as upon our human relationship with the natural world.

The name "Diwali" is derived from the Sanskrit phrase "row of lamps."  In India, there are variations depending in which region it is being celebrated, and whether the people celebrating are Hindus, Jains, or Sikhs.  But it is the lighting of small clay oil lamps that has resulted in its sometimes being referred to as "the festival of lights."

It is hard to express to someone who does not live in a city with a significant Indian population how popular Diwali is, but one Diwali gathering in the suburb of one large U.S. city drew thousands of celebrants.  One autumn, I dropped in for a vegetarian buffet at an Indian restaurant, and found myself in a crowd of people buying sweets for Diwali -- a crowd so focused on one task that it resembled Christmas shoppers.

I cannot help but notice that all four of the latter-fall or early-winter festivals I have mentioned involve the lighting of candles or oil lamps:  The four weekly Advent candles before Christmas. The eight daily-lit candles of the Jewish menorah.  The Kwanzaa candles representing different virtues.  And the oil lamps of Diwali.

No matter which way we celebrate "the holiday season," as we call it, and no matter which way we celebrate the multi-layered meanings of symbols about light and darkness, one thing will certainly remain true.  Tomorrow, the sun will rise; and in the Northern Hemisphere in the weeks following the winter solstice, the days will grow longer again.  That phenomenon has occurred for over 4 billion years, which calculates out to 1.46 trillion days.  Moreover, scientists tell us the sun will pull that trick of rising for billions of years still to come.

Although the return of light and the human need for illumination, both physical and spiritual, are the most obvious symbols of our four late-year holidays, I have come to think that there is another component as well: Namely, beauty.  The candles we light don't merely illuminate the room we are in.  (If that was all we needed, we could just turn on the overhead fluorescents.)  The candles we light, especially if in a dimmed or darkened rooms, are like the pinpoints of stars in a black velvet sky. The contrast of light and dark creates a harmony of contrasts we can experience as being beautiful.  Moreover, when we light those holiday candles, just as when we look out into the depths of a dark, starlit sky, we can feel a depth to our lives, and a depth in all of human existence.

~~~

Do you have a particular, special memory of one of these four celebrations?

(The photograph of Diwali decorations is by Subharnab Majumdar

and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

Degrees of Separation

"The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw -- and knew I saw -- 
all things in God, and God in all things.” 

 (Mechthild of Magdeburg, 13th cent.)

"They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them."

(The Bhagavad Gita, 3rd cent, B.C.E.)

In their origins, these quotations, are separated by centuries, by cultures, and by miles of geography.  But they are of the same spirit.  Not too long ago, I recalled these memorable lines because I experienced some difficult communication between myself and a friend, causing us to both feel painfully the inescapable differences in our perspectives.

Quotations similar to these can be found in all of the world's great faith-traditions.  Such reminders of a fundamental unity endure because we humans know all too well how easily two friends, two partners, or two family members can become alienated.  (Not to mention the persistent barriers of nationality, ethnicity, and culture.)

Diagram of 6 degrees of separation

Over the past several years, the phrase "six degrees of separation" has entered our vocabulary. The supposition behind that phrase is that, beginning with any person, a series of six connections of some sort can be drawn linking that person to any other person.  (For example: Am I only six degrees from a movie star, if I include the cities I've lived in, and include someone who went to the movie star's high school?)  I wonder if the popularity of trying to find such 6-link chains may come in part from our living in ever-larger cities, causing us to be surrounded by more and more strangers.

The great mystics, such as the Christian Mechthild of Magdeburg and the author of that quote from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, see the world in a somewhat different way:  They say that if we see more deeply into reality, the number of degrees of separation is zero!

Here is where the critics of mysticism (whether religious or secular critics) are easily confused. Critics frequently dismiss mysticism by saying that mystics are impractical and out of touch with everyday reality.  If taken literally, a mystics claim that all is "one" seems obviously false.  For, after all, I can see with my eyes that there are two people right in front of me.  The mystics, however, lived lives just as real and practical as other people.  The difference was that they came to perceive a hidden unity that made the forms of separation shallow in comparison.

all a part of one universe
(16th-century drawing)

Modern science has put a new twist on this age-old dispute between the mystical and the commonplace viewpoints. Modern science, with its narrative of how our universe was born and evolved to us today, draws an actual, physical chain of links connecting everything  -- alienated people, animals, plants, and the inanimate.  As the contemporary Christian writer Matthew Fox explains:  " [The] very elements of which we are composed were in fact prepared billions of years ago in the stars themselves."

~~~

Do you have some way of handling alienation between you and someone else when it occurs?

(The Mechthild quote is taken from Meditations with Mechtild of Magdeburg, ed. Sue Woodruff, © 1982.  p. 42.)
(The passage [2:55] from The Bhagavad Gita is from the translation of Eknath Easwaran, © 1985.)

(The map of the universe by Thomas Digges is in the Public Domain because it is over 70 yrs. old.)

Of Cattle and Cows

Most children in the U.S. today have few opportunities to see sizable animals other than their pets without going to a zoo. However, one way we city folk do get a glimpse of non-zoo animals is by taking a drive in the countryside.  Of all the animals we can spot through a car window at 65 mph, the most likely are cattle and cows.  Although in terms of domesticated animals raised for food worldwide, goats do outnumber bovine, it is these larger, lumbering cattle and cows that dominate in the U.S.  Unfortunately, they usually get mentioned in the news media only when a controversy arises about the slaughter of cattle for beef.  Whether I choose vegetarianism or not, I would like to claim equal time for reflecting upon them with gratitude.  Especially time to reflect upon milk.

It was indeed the dairy cows we saw more often when I grew up in Wisconsin  At that time, containers of Borden's milk were conspicuously adorned with the face of "Elsie the Cow."  It was a cartoon drawing of Elsie smiling broadly, so happy was she to provide us her milk.  Today, Elsie is much less noticeable on the carton.   All the brands of milk other than Borden's in one grocery store I've checked had no picture of a cow on the container.  Also, Carnation no longer tells us their milk comes from cows.  ("Contented cows," they used to say.)  You might think that the milk was synthesized by humans.

Krishna and milk-maidens with cow

It is in regard to this matter of milk and gratitude that one of the biggest misunderstandings between faith-traditions has occurred.  Our English language contains the phrase "sacred cow," meaning something that is protected unreasonably and illogically.  The phrase has its origins in a Western colonial attitude that looked upon the poorer people of India as being stupid for not slaughtering the cows, even when people were near starvation.  Westerners interpreted the taboo on killing cows as a misguided Hindu obstacle to advancement.  The truth was that Indians down through the centuries knew better.  If slaughtered, the cows would have been only a fleeting source of food (and not a convenient one without refrigeration).  Kept alive, the cow provided a life-giving stream of milk for years (as well as providing dung, which, when dried, was burned for fuel, thus preventing deforestation in an arid landscape).

Other cultural misunderstandings about milk have continued into the present.  Children have been encouraged to drink milk without an exception for lactose-intolerant children.  Those who have suffered most have been children of African-American descent because a genetic ability to digest cow's milk evolved in Europeans but not in people of Africa, where the landscape was not appropriate for fat dairy cows.

from The Seventh Seal

Nevertheless, it was a great shift in human history 8,000 years ago when people domesticated animals for milk, also leading to the development of nourishing yogurts and cheese.  In Ingmar Bergman's otherwise dark, existential movie The Seventh Seal, when the hero drinks from a restorative bowl of milk, sunlight reflected from the milk brightens his face.  Not a bad symbol, even though Elsie did not make it into the credits.

~~~

Are there ways you try to remain grateful for the food you eat?  What are those ways?

(The movie still from The Seventh Seal,

 © 1957 by A. B. Svensk Films, is used through Fair Use.)

Trees, Time, and Passing By

Trees rarely make the front page.  That did happen, however, in 2004 when Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her Green Belt Movement begun in Kenya.  Knowing a bit about ecology, I was not surprised to hear about the physical side effects that resulted from that movement's planting trees, such as cleaner streams due to reduced soil erosion.  What intrigued me more were the intangible benefits those trees brought.  For example, friendships between Kenyan women developed because, as they made their daily trips in the hot sun carrying water, they stopped to converse in the shade of trees.

As I have reflected about trees in general, I've concluded that the most enduring intangible benefits trees bring derive from the way they serve as tabernacles of time.  Many species of trees can have life spans longer than ours can ever reach.  Trees, therefore, help families and communities hold onto life-giving memories from generation to generation.  That role trees can serve is made explicit in these lines from the early 20th-century poet Stephen Vincent Benet as he describes Richmond, Virginia:

"The trees in the streets are old trees used to living with people,

Family trees that remember your grandfather's name."

In Sequoia Natl. Park in California, I stretched my neck far back to look up at a tree that was young and growing long before Jesus was born.  Such pine trees and sequoias help us transcend our normal sense of time.  We usually think of time in terms of human generations, but that is subjective and human-centered. The 20th-century American Buddhist poet Gary Snyder speaks to the relativity of time scales in this way:

"As the crickets' soft autumn hum

is to us,

so are we to the trees

as are they

to the rocks and the hills."

Compared to many long-living species of trees, we humans are just passing by.  We are to them passers-by in time, similar to the way we pass by a tree beside the sidewalk or walking path. In countries where people do not get virtually all their food from the grocery story, people can also be more aware of the other, tangible benefits those trees provide.  The Hindu Upadesa Tarangini brings together those tangible benefits with trees' intangible reminder that we are passers-by in the following benediction placed upon a tree:

"Oh tree!  You are standing on the path.  Live for a long time and be happy, because with your blossoms the cuckoo is happy, and with your pollen the bumblebees are happy, and passers by are happy with your fruits.  So live long!"

~~~

Is there any tree in particular that you remember? What is your memory of it?

(The Snyder poem is taken from

Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker, et al., © 1997.)

(The Hindu blessing is taken from Hinduism and Ecology,
 by Ranchor Prime, © 1992.)

The Message of Water

Over the past few years, there have been two words frequently heard in national news reports: The words "flood" and "drought."  Less frequently heard has been an integrally related word that has religious connotations:  The word "water."

The words "flood" and "drought" speak of fears.  The word "water" speaks of life.  (I wonder if we, in our frequently urbanized lives, would appreciate Nature more if the news media more often talked about water itself.)

As I said, water has religious associations, and they are rich.  As examples from the Bible: Water is the very source of life, is associated with the water of birth (and of being re-born through baptism), is a symbol of fertility, and is a means of cleansing, both physically and symbolically.

In only the first four chapters (about one-fifth) of the New Testament's Gospel of John, the word "water" appears sixteen times, thus demonstrating its power as a theological symbol.  A few decades ago in the U.S., when the northern and southern branches of the Presbyterian Church re-united, the baptism liturgy became inordinately lengthy because there were so many Biblical references to water that both branches of the church (with their separate liturgical wordings) wanted preserved.

In the most famous book from Taoism, the Tao Te Ching, water becomes an important feminine symbol of the unnameable Ultimate.  The ironical ability of water to change even stone over time also turns water into a metaphor for ideal human behavior.  Such as in this passage:

"Nothing in this world seems softer and more yielding than water,

but nothing can compare with water

for defeating the hard and strong."

                              -- Tao Te Ching (Chap. 78)

In our lives and society today, do we know where the rivers and bayous that wind around and through our cities run?  Can we trace their paths in our minds?

The Hindu tradition contains in the Rig Veda a prayer that is perhaps the oldest written prayer in the world.  The prayer uses the cycle of water back to the sea in order speak to the unity and purpose of all of life:

"May the thread of my song

be not cut

before my life merges

into the sea of love."

~~~

Where do you see water in the world around you?  What is it like?  What is the water doing?

(The passage from the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu,

 is my own rendering based on several translations.)

(The Rig Veda translation is adapted from that of Eknath Easwaran, in God Makes the Rivers to Flow, © 1991.)

Mad Over the Moon

A continuing story in the news over the past several years has been about some people being a bit mad over the moon.  Mad -- angry, that is -- over the decision not to try to send astronauts to the moon again, or even set up a colony there.  The anger has, admirably, been expressed with civility, but the underlying feelings of disappointment and frustration are detectable

It is with a different sense of the word "mad" that people down through history have been mad over the moon:   "Mad" in the sense of enthusiastic about it and adoring it.  Poets, playwrights, and songwriters have frequently either been enamored by the moon or had a crush on it.  People today know the line "Shine on, shine on, harvest moon," even if they can't sing the rest of the song.  As well as the phrase "by the light of the silvery moon" from another love song.  In Hinduism, one symbolic expression of God's love for the human race are classic paintings in which Krishna meets the delighted milkmaids under the light of the moon.

"Violinist in the Moonlight"
 by Hans Thoma

Not that the moon has always been associated with faithfulness.  In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, in a moonlit setting, Romeo is on the verge of swearing by the moon to express his love to Juliet.  But she replies, "Oh, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon, / That monthly changes in her circled orb."  Despite such occasional misgivings, the human race has usually found the moon to be a model of reliability in its recurring phases from new moon to full.  The nearly monthly period of the phases have, understandably, been associated with a woman's menstrual periods.  That feminine association emerged, along with a sense of the moonlight's softness compared to the intense male sun.

Thanks to modern science, we know, however, that the moon is not that soft in its power of gravity, being the primary force making the tides, which in turn stimulate the ocean-shore life of birds and mollusks and more.  The writer Jeffrey Sobosan makes an interesting juxtaposition of our scientific and romantic attachments to the moon.  Reflecting upon the countless bodies in our galaxy, he writes that the moon is "the only one on which human feet have walked," but is also the "best known of our companions in the universe."

A grandmother I know tells me a story about her four-year-old granddaughter.  The two of them were sitting outside at night in the backyard, something they had hardly ever done.  The grandmother pointed up at the bright white ball in the dark sky, and told the child, "Look, that's the moon."  The four-year-old replied," Da moon? Will it fall?"  Oh, that I could more often have such a childlike sense of wonder and discovery!  Oh, that I might be mad about the moon, that it might enable me to more intensely love this world.

~~~

Have you looked at the moon recently?  When?  What was it like?

(The quotation by Jeffrey G. Sobosan is from

Romancing the Universe, © 1999.  p. 10.)