Sometimes the moon is just the moon. Sometimes it is something more.
The sun goes down, once a day.
As it goes down, it takes with it something.
Some energy, some form of life.
Replacing it, but not quite replacing it, because it’s different - and because sometimes they appear together, is the moon.
It brings something, some different form of life.
It’s no wonder, really, that peoples around the world have seen and felt their gods in these great ‘discs’ in the sky.
If I let myself feel the sun’s energy on my face… Or witness it disappearing behind the horizon once again, taking something with it... Or find myself bathed in the silvery moonlight…
If I do those things, I feel their gods too.
I feel them in the things I do, too.
Sometimes, I feel them guiding my fingers or my voice, the energy flowing through me.
Sometimes, I feel what it’s like to try to force my will on the universe, rather than noticing the universe’s will and letting it flow through me.
I often remember Ingrid Goff-Maidoff’s poem: God spoke today in flowers, and I, who was waiting on words, almost missed the conversation.
It can be powerful to remember, sometimes, that the signs are there for us if we want them.
Guiding us with a seemingly magical energy. Reminding us what we should be doing or should not be doing.
We have to be a little careful not to ask for too many signs. That can be a little disrespectful… Like the parable, where the man who refused all help to escape a flood because ‘God will save me’ finds himself dead, facing his maker, asking why he wasn’t saved and being told, exasperatedly ‘Well, I sent a weather forecast, your neighbour, the police, a boat and a helicopter, what more do you need!’.
But sometimes, to wait on a sign is ok. To listen for one.
To trust that life has got you. And that you’ll be shown the way.
Wracked by worry and indecision about spending a large amount of money a few weeks ago, I discovered the scarcely credible fact that I hadn’t been paid an invoice for several thousand pounds in the middle of 2022. It is impossible to imagine me not noticing that, and yet I hadn’t. And here it was, ready for me when I needed it. As if by magic.
There, a few days later, was the money in my account.
There was the sign.
Keep going.
This expenditure is an act of love. It is a creation of something meaningful.
It is our wish.
Keep going.
I don’t trust easily. I don’t trust the gods any more easily than I trust people I don’t know well (or even those I do).
To trust - really trust - may be my life’s work.
But sometimes…
Sometimes I hear the voices.
Sometimes I read the signs.
Sometimes I listen.
Sometimes I see.
Sometimes the moon is just the moon, reflecting the light of the sun down into a garden in Warwickshire at night.
Sometimes it is the goddess, shining her eyes upon me.
—
This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
Subscribe to this blog here
Read the archive here.
Buy the 12-Minute Method series of books, written 12 minutes a week over three years, here.