Full Moon of the Season…
Full moon: Arthur Billington
Glory to thee forever
Bright moon, this night
Thyself art ever
The glorious lamp of the poor
I celebrated the Harvest Moon on 1st October, and invited anyone who would to join in with that - and the same applies to the Hunter’s (Blue, Samhain) Moon on 31st October, November 30th and December 29th, 2020.
So that’s a date, then! In a world of virtual community, connecting simply but with a shared spiritual intent is really bonding.
If you are in a hurry for a meditation that you can adapt for any full moon, scroll to below the image of ‘The Temple of the Moon.’
I wrote this at the end of the fruit harvest, with the full moon silvering the ripe fruit still hanging on the boughs. Our little apple tree, a Queen Cox, was laden; and as we ate each apple we felt that we, as in Yeats’ poem, could -
‘Walk among long dappled grass
And pluck ‘til time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon
The golden apples of the sun.’
And here are a couple of fascinating ideas I’ve been playing with recently:
As the full Moon has such a significant pull on our oceans, maybe its action kickstarted the earliest evolutionary journey – that pull exposing sea creatures to the shore at low tide and encouraging sea creatures to take their first tentative explorations to becoming land animals.
As the full moon pulls against gravity, it’s influence, felt most keenly at the full, has been called ‘levity’. How wonderful to have that leavening feeling of lightness and humour built into a cosmic action!
It is because the moon-pull makes gravity less ‘heavy’ that nomadic peoples often travelled under moonlight. And under the full moon they can see where they’re going of course. To appreciate this, we who rarely encounter the truly dark night should experience it once in a while: being unable to see one’s own hand in front of one’s face is a very salutary experience. And, as we enter the dark night time in the Northern Hemisphere, let’s celebrate every bright moon.
The Temple of the Stars © Sue Wookey. See her other beautiful images here.
Suggestions for our Moon Meditation
- with the usual proviso that you're in charge! Do what seems right for you, always.
Beforehand -
The art is first to evoke peace within you, then -
Set a reminder for your actual local moonrise and plan around that
Gaze at the Moon Temple picture, to take into your meditation
Prepare your space with a new candle: make it beautiful
Keep checking the darkening sky; breathe with the approaching night
Bring that essence of night-time peace back inside
When you are ready to begin –
Settle down, take three breaths with earth, air and water, and light the candle.
Speak the verse at the top of the blog to greet the moon you will see imaginally.
Allow a feeling of peace to spread through your body.
Amplify this by imagining or sensing a cloudy night sky. As the wind moves the clouds, they are forming, dissipating and reforming the word ‘peace’ with every breath that you take.
When that feeling is filling your whole body, let the clouds float away, leaving a dark starlit sky.
Light your candle and be entranced by the beauty of its flame.
Gently set an intent to be open to all new ideas for peace.
Lower or shut your eyes, to allow the night sky scene to fill your imagination…
Over to you now to craft your meditation, using anything below -
On your internal cinema screen, watch spellbound as a glow on the horizon becomes the full harvest moon, a huge golden orb. Time is meaningless. The moon rises, changing to a brilliant silver sailing high in the sky.
From its core, a spiralling energy emanates, raying down, silvering leaves and grasses, reflecting and making moon paths on water. Imagine that you are in the Moon temple: you face the stone. Like it, you are a bridge between earth and sky, surrounded by the four guardian trees.
Greet the moon, ever revolving, ever changing, ever potent: deeply involved with the life of our earth.
The dynamism of the spiralling is a brief glimpse into the magical workings of the cosmos, in a harmony and peace that mirrors your internal feeling. The starlight sparkling on the stone echoes the starlight in your body. We are made of the stars!
The peace within and without interchange with each breath. The spiralling energy from within and without needs to express itself more consciously in the world and you find yourself saying, or singing, or humming:
‘May there be peace within and without… may there be peace above and below… may there be peace in every quarter, every realm... may peace prevail over all the world.’
We are pinpoints of light all round the world and, as we meditate, joined by gossamer threads of common intent; a silver web of beauty and peace, holding the earth.
Bless the earth, and receive its blessings – you are not separate, but an integral part of nature.
And finish -
After a few moments, you feel a sense of completion and the urge to return to the realm of the everyday. Extinguish the candle, holding the memory and feeling of what we've all done together.
Feel fully back to reality, rejuvenated and full of peace as you take a cup of tea to the window or yard, to look out at the full moon high in the sky. The world is a beautiful, inspirited place: send out your blessings, knowing they will be returned.
People who lived close to nature have always celebrated the Moon, so let’s end as we began, with a verse collected in the Highlands and Islands over a hundred years ago by Alexander Carmichael and preserved in the Carmina Gaedelica:
Hail to thee, jewel of the night!
Beauty of the heavens, jewel of the night!
Mother of the stars, jewel of the night!
Fosterling of the sun, jewel of the night!
Majesty of the stars, jewel of the night!