eclipsed

Last year when I was in Spain, waking up every day before the sun, I'd find the moon in the sky, like the eye of God. For a whole month I walked, and as I grew full with the wonder of that experience, the moon bloomed full above me and with me. And with nothing but tangled thoughts and blistered feet to distract, in the early morning hours, the soft light above always soothed, a cool, silent and welcome company leading the way.

Most of the time, all I need do to get back to that quiet, that peace, is to simply, so simply, tilt my chin. . . and look up.

Tonight the moon is so very bright. White as bleached bone. Luminescent as a pearl. Soundless as eternity.

As I write this, I'm sitting on the driveway behind my house, watching the moon running from the dim silhouette of our earth. Watching the moon lose it's futile race with the eclipse that's ever so slowly drawing a grey veil across its radiance and I can't help but feel a correspondence with the darkness, a wrenching sadness born of separation from the light.

I am blessed. I am blessed with more than I could even begin to write here. But for all my blessings, tonight I am sad.

Just the barest sliver left.

On a grand level, our country is conflicted and confused and caught in the mire of a political struggle -- a global struggle -- beyond most of our ken. On a personal level, my circle of friends this week lost one of our own.

A hair's breath. . .

. . . and she's gone.

In a few hours the moon will be back in all her glory. Next week, the elections done, we'll begin to heal from the fight. My friend, our friend, now someplace where shadows don't stretch, is I hope at peace and knows a joy unlike any she ever knew here with us.

For the moment the moon is dark and things feel unsettled. But I take comfort in the knowledge that given a couple of hours the shadow will pass. It always does. And the truth of that knowing is a blessing in itself.