Many Moons

Miracles, Mysteries, Abundance

Upon learning in 2020 (and again in 2024!) that scientists had discovered a second moon orbiting the earth, at least for a little while…

All along we've been wandering around believing there is only one. We've treasured it and honored it and traced its many mysteries. Like the way the oceans flow in and out in accordance with its passage. And the way it keeps us awake when it is full, or sends us into labor amid its shadows, or maybe, just maybe, even makes us a little mad every month or so.

And now we have another, for at least a little while. Another chunk of rock orbiting us, with effects unknown and possibly even miracles yet unnoticed. A moon without a name. An interloper. A crumb. A rock smaller than a house. A transient visitor, they say. (But now more than ever, I'm inclined to add, what do they know for sure?)

Doesn't this knock you off your feet, just a little bit? Doesn't this news send a celestial tingle running down your spine? Yesterday we were living in singularity and today we are shining in plural. Why stop at two or three or even four? This might just throw into doubt everything we think we know about the world. Who knows what abundance we might find, if only we could clear our vision and truly see?

Only now, perhaps we realize, we've been starving ourselves unnecessarily. Perhaps we have more of everything than we had thought. More patience, ready to reveal itself in the most unexpected moments. More clarity, more courage, more laughter, more peace. More generosity, for sure, and more time than we had thought. Time enough for another cup of tea, in fact. Time to put down the pen and pick up the child. Time even to gaze out the window and lose ourselves in the afternoon light as it spills across the earth.

More moons. More light. More space. And, of course, more love. You go to bed at night dim and depleted, feeling like you've given it all up, you've been milked dry, there is no hope for any of us at all. And then you drift off to sleep, the moonlit magic happens (more moonlit magic than we had thought, in fact), and you wake with the sun and there it is again, a heart full of abundant love, saturated and bright.

And for a little while, at least, in the clarity of the morning light, you believe in miracles, in mysteries, in many moons, in possibilities waiting to be revealed. You finally believe in yourself, for example, and in the world, more than you could have imagined, once upon a time, when our eyes were small and our vision was dim, when we foolishly believed there was only room for a single moon to shine above us all.