2006 Tip #16:
Harvest Moon or Easter Egg?
I got outside around 9:30 pm and looked up to find a huge bright white egg in the sky.
Somehow I reflected on the cycles of life. Reflected light from the sun, and orbiting of the moon, give us the light show of the moon’s phases. Only a few days ago, the harvest moon was brilliant in its fullness. Now it is shrinking back down to a crescent smile. Next the moon is gone all-together. And then, it’s back again with the thinnest of sky smiles. The cycle goes on. Light and dark, and back again to the big circle moon.
We all go back and forth. In and out. On and off. Up and down. Let’s remember and have faith that however “down” we might be, there is an “up” around the corner. Sometimes it’s harder to find, sometimes it takes a fair amount of work to get to it. But it’s always there.
Spring has it offer of hope, renewal and resurrection from death and hibernation. The Easter egg and other spring symbols, from almost all faiths, celebrate the continuance of life, the certainty of life forces and the powers derived from eternal energy.
As I looked out over the city lights, a mysterious white owl flew very close to me—only a few yards away and a few feet over my head. It floated in the night air like an apparition, and then it disappeared. A few moments later, I saw it again as a large gliding black bird. It was continuing its night hunt, away from the lights of my deck, and appearing altogether different. Seeking more energy to live another day. Hunting to provide for its own future. It was the same owl, moving through light and dark.
Move forward! Let’s each of us find our way in the continuum of life. Enjoy the moment while understanding the value of evolving in positive ways to a fuller you, a brighter you.
And, let’s not get down if we get off our diet—our good eating program and goals—or if we stopped exercising for a while because our schedule’s been busy. Just find the opportunity—plan the opportunity—to pick it up again and move it forward, step by step, to another good level. There is tomorrow and the “up” part of life’s cycles. Let’s use this day—and tomorrows'—to their best advantage.
Use the harvest moon as a symbol of how we’re going to see the positive lights and move ahead with a better mind set. This moon was given its name because “it shines so brightly that farmers…can work late at night to take in the fall harvest.”* For me, any fall full moon is glorious and represents a celebration of life’s gifts—as we bring in the last of this year’s crops. Watch for the sky smiles and then for November’s full moon.
They’re just around the corner.
Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it this way: “Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”
And Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The days come and go, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.”
“Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it.”
—inspirational thought by Anne de Lendos
