Sometime after midnight, here in Maine, we’ll experience the beginning of the longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years. It will peak at 4:03 AM when I will be sleeping, but I might catch the tail end of the event at my more usual time of rising. I’ve always wanted to be an early riser, to wake while it’s still dark and quiet and still, to catch the coral haze of first light. The times that I have, it’s been magical. I love the secret of the dawn. I love the feeling of having a long morning ahead of me, especially now that the sun sets so early. So, why don’t I wake up earlier, more often, take a steaming cup of tea out with me to the yard, and pay homage to our friend, the rising sun?
Why don’t we do more of what we love?
A favorite from Rumi…(translated by Coleman Barks)
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.
Just before writing this post, I gave a reading at a Vermont College of Fine Arts alumnx gathering on Zoom. In honor of Scorpio season, I read a piece about something hidden, which eventually gets revealed, the sudden sting of betrayal, a surprising death.
There's something special about gathering with old friends and catching up, not by chatting, but via the portal of our writing. It's how we introduce ourselves in Gateless Writing workshops and salons, for four minutes at the start of each gathering, and then by sharing our work fresh from the page. So much of our lives can be revealed in such a short space of time. We get sparkles and shadows and glimmers, layers and white spaces. Inside the untold stories we hear, lies the connection we bring to them.
The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.
Creativity Prompts
~ Write about a secret, or a lie, something hidden, or dark, something shadowy, and intense.
~ Write about a time you or your character were/was stung by a betrayal, felt as if it sneaked up on you/them from out of nowhere, and how, afterwards, you/they were transformed by the light found inside it.
~ Read through some old journals. Choose an entry that compels you. Write a letter to your younger, more innocent self, from your voice of experience.
~ Take out a piece of paper and a charcoal pencil or graphite stick if you have one, and if you don’t, maybe you have a piece of charcoal from your woodstove. A pencil will also do. Draw a picture of a sphere. Have fun exploring how you can make shadows by smudging the charcoal with your finger. If you have watercolor supplies, it can be fun to explore with shades of black by adding various amounts of water to the paint. If you’re up for it, depict the eclipse in a series of shadowy spheres.
Need a little something to inspire your moon art? Enjoy this video by Sujay Arts
In honor of the Beaver Moon, here's a friend. I encountered this one on a snowy road on my way to an art class. I always wondered where they were headed.
(Beaver Walking, Harrington Road, Bristol, Maine, Jodi Paloni)