My friend Rebecca tells me that this full moon is in fact Saga Dawa Düchen, the Tibetan Buddhist holiest of holy’s, commemorating the birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana of Buddha Shakyamuni. Double whammy. Who knew. Well, I knew something was going on. Felt it as this moon waxed heavy two days ago, drawing me out to behold her weight in the shimmering afternoon sky.

And sometimes, in life, you feel the call, right? You get out and get won over by the moment, release your burdens, and offer your most earnest prayers and gratitude for all there is.

And to be sure, I do love the spirit of Buddha, and Jesus, and the Moon, and every body really. What’s not to love! So long as we exclude anything to do with the quicksilver of media that is, and the madness of a world beyond what is not immediately present, tangible, visible. I like to imagine the world before The News, and how much more present one might have been able to remain. Actually, that’s the world I largely chose to live in today, but that requires some counter strategy nowadays. Anyways, back to the moon.

I set my alarm for 3am. The “stargaze” chime rings. As it happens, I need a pee, so it’s easy to get up. I step out. The moon is blazing intensely overhead to the South. The landscape is opaque, yet bright, like stepping into a misty dreamworld. No sign of any eclipse. Must have got the time wrong. I set up my tripod, and peer through the binoculars. I’m naked of course, Free Willy, like a pendulum to the Earth, whilst my gaze is heavenward. I peer at the moon, taking in the dazzling detail – the luminous striations, meteor craters and great lake beds, alive with cosmic history and purpose. I stand back. This gorgeous gyrating body is riding the top of the constellation Scorpio. They are in perfect union, Scorpio hanging from the head of the moon. This feels of profound significance for me. I can only just make out the constellation in the brightness, but I know it well enough to see it clearly.

I crawl back into my bed and the moon is perfectly positioned through my skylight. I feel inspired to reach behind my head, feeling for the old beaten up, much loved copy of the Hridayasutra (by Mark Whitwell) and prop it up to face the moon, feeling all the significance of the union of male, female, head to heart centre in me. Feels good. I lie there, happy, eyes closed, bathing in moon light with a big smile through my body-mind, feeling un-separate, undifferentiated, at peace.

5am. I wake. OMG, there it is, through the window, above the flowering Palo de Arco where the orioles usually flit, the shadowed rusty diamond moon. I go out to pee, tripod in hand. In the subdued, eclipsed light, Scorpio is big and bright, reclining now, stretched out, toes in the South, head to the West over the Pacific, nestled in the bosom of the moon. The sky is ablaze with stars, the central core of our galaxy, the birthing place of our solar system, clearly visible between the constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius. There’s a bright large planet overhead. I spin me bins to look at it. It’s Saturn. Four of her moons visible. How fucking cool is all this! I turn back to the eclipsed moon and take it in deeply. The mind starts drifting, but I reel it back in to behold, to feel, without language (saving that for the morning, with a cuppa tea). The Moon. This influencer. This auspicious moment. Amidst troubled times. This parting of the waves. Stillness.

 

SYZYGY

 

 

 

 

 

 

(poem 2016)