It is already the 31st of October, Halloween, Samhain, and the threshold of the Winter season. My goodness how this year has flown. Now adding to the day, we find meteorologists telling us about changes in weather, clocks that need to be changed, and we look to observe the 2nd full moon of the month on this day, making it a Blue Moon. Fascinating.
It doesn’t matter whether these days or occurrences are of scientific interest to you, or religious significance to you, or purely observational delight, what is notable is that it should exemplify the fact that every day we have something to look for to celebrate! Every day we can find something worthy to evaluate, interpret, embrace, celebrate, or just observe wide eyed.
Last evening my husband and I sat down to our supper and my phone made that distinctive ‘ding’ that phones do in this era, alerting me that I have a text. Trained in the currently Pavlovian way, I grabbed at the phone to see who had something important to tell me. It was, in fact, a dear friend in another state saying “Oh Kelly, if you can, go look at the moon.” I jumped up and said “Oh my” and ran for the back door. In true comedic fashion, my husband set down his plate of food too, not knowing what was going on but being supportive (or concerned in hindsight) and ran after me. I raced into our backyard and tried to look East. In a city, moonrise may be something that happens just as a sliver between 2 houses so we ran from North to South in our yard trying to find that sliver of sky between urban dwellings. “There she is” I shouted. He now understood. I got to see the moon rise back there among the houses, thanks to my friend in another state.
Now to some it may sound like I’ve lost my mind. I would have to chuckle at how it must have looked from a drone view. But in fact I must say I couldn’t be more thrilled at that text. More than the fact that I jumped up and reacted and saw the moon, it was the whole of the aggregated scenario. It was a tapestry of loving threads.
My friend was thinking of me with love in her heart for her artist friend and said, you must go share this beauty … to touch my heart. My husband, in his loving support of me as an eccentric, ran with me into the night …to touch my heart. The moon shone down on us from God himself …to touch my heart. That assemblidge of threads, my friends, is what we must not forget, ever. We must not let that love, each personal loving thread that reaches out to touch our heart, be affected by the hate and fear and noise around us right now.
Last night when that text came and we did our observations of the moon it turned our path from grey tensions of the week back to the path of dreaming a little more, laughing a little more, and celebrating a little more – even causing us to jump in our car and sneaking off to the grocery store for a 1/2 gallon of ice cream to celebrate this wonderful milestone day of love.
Take this moment and stop, run into your hearts’ yard to see the moon, so that the tensions and dissensions of our world have less ability to make us forget how vitally important those threads of love among friends, spouse, or family can, and must, be.
As we ran out to the car on the curb last night for the mission of ice cream, I turned back and looked lovingly at my house to see the Blue Moon, that lovely full moon, rising up over my housetop. This morning when I woke up well rested and happy, I decided that memory image of my house full of love and confidence and optimism with a full moon rising and the warm lights betraying how beautiful it was, should be captured it my next painting.
This, the next painting, is an 8″ by 10″ oil on canvas board called, “Blue Moon”.
Kelly E. James 