It was just a sliver of light at twilight, that space, maybe only moments between the light and the dark. A liminal time, a threshold time, a betwixt and between time bridging what was before and the yet to come. A new moon just beginning to show up in this twilight time. A sliver of light emerging, crescent shaped to outline that side of the moon facing the sun. A sliver of light cradling the dark side of the moon. As darkness fell over the land upon which I stood, that sliver of light held me too.
A tiny curve of light that seemed to be a melting together of silver and gold flowing into its crescent shape. A new moon. I was mesmerized. It called to me, touched my heart, whispered to my soul in a way more powerful now than any full moon could at this time.
I have always loved the beginning again moon, newly in its moonth cycle. In this time its image is especially powerful. It is, for me, light piercing the darkness when light is most needed. It is a symbol of hope, of grace, of new beginnings. It promises of newly emerging light from a body that is designed to reflect light and spill it out into the universe.
A new moon is visionary – seeing things, including light, that is beyond us after the sun seems to have sunk beneath our earthly horizon. But the sunlight is not beyond the moon’s horizon as our side of the earth is enfolded in darkness and in the moon’s beginning phase it is a symbol of newness, of light to come and to be reflected in increasing fullness.
I believe many of us are feeling the need for light in what has seemed such a dark time. A time of profound unrest. Dark because deep within us fear and anxiety and unknowingness are stalking the light, prowling in a darkness that only light can calm and tame.
I do not fear night; it is the absence of light that most frightens me. So, the vision of a new moon rising brings a sliver of light to my inner being. I open the door of my little home to the falling night that has turned the surface of the river to what seems an unfathomable blackness. As the new moon rises, a shining pathway, narrow but shimmering appears before me. The path along the river’s surface is very much alive and light filled as the river responding to the new moon light, reflects the moon’s sliver of light. I am drawn to it, this pathway of living light. The light reaches out to a yearning within me. The light touches my heart, mind, and soul which become one in a yearning to walk that pathway to new light.
Before heading to bed, I am drawn to a reading from Sounds of the Eternal, a slender little “Celtic Psalter” of morning and night prayers by John Philip Newell. I read the closing night prayer for this night of a new moon and find peace. I turn out the lights in my little house and head to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream, feeling cradled in the promise that light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. I drift off to sleep with a deep desire to wake to a new day when, turning to the light, we can reflect light on a path to new beginnings.
May this be so,
Torrence