Moon Cradle

[pegkerr]

Tonight at quarter to nine I stepped out the back door on my way to go clean the dojo. I glanced up at the sky--and stopped dead in my tracks. Immediately, I went back inside the house and called the girls downstairs. "Come outside, girls. You have to see this."

Puzzled but dutiful, they trooped downstairs and then looked up as I pointed. "Ohhhhh," Fiona breathed.

The sky was perfectly clear. A lovely crescent moon hung over the house in the twilit sky, the dark part of it visible as a faint glimmer of silver against the purer blue-black. Venus dazzled just to one side, bright and clear. "Oh, how beautiful!" Delia exclaimed in a hushed voice.

"Yes," I said in quiet satisfaction. "I wanted to share it with you."

Fiona gave me a look that told me she understood. "Take a picture of that with your heart, and keep it to remember," I told her. I looked back up at the sky and took my own picture with my own heart. Something to remember when the world seems frightening and dangerous and cursed and teeming with mad hates.

There is surpassing beauty here, too, which can be found by simply looking up into the sky.

"Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

The Return of the King

The moon-cradle's rocking and rocking,
Where a cloud and a cloud go by,
Silent rocking and rocking
The moon-cradle out in the sky.

Comments

[firedragon9.livejournal.com]

I love it when the sky is perfectly clear and you can see the moon and the stars. It's so beautiful.

[vass]

I love that passage from RotK, and the song Sam writes about it. I am very certain that it happened to JRRT.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

In early 2004, my beautiful 16-year-old niece-by-courtesy, Jenny, was killed in a car accident. When I flew out to Cleveland to be with her family, the song that comforted her father (my lifetime friend) above all others was Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow."

Why?

Because when Jenny was about two, they had been in Florida, in some kind of vacation place with a view of the water. The moonshadow was lovely, and the parents started spontaneously singing "Moonshadow" to their daughter. When they finished, she said "Again!" and they sang it again. And again. And again. And again.

To this day, it makes my friend smile, even through tears, remembering his glorious child.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I wonder if maybe the reason you've been blocked in writing fiction lately is just that ficiton isn't what you ought to be writing just now. This piece and the older one just after it are beautiful, and all the more inspiring for having really happened.

[leiabelle.livejournal.com]

I also thought the moon and Venus looked particularly beautiful last night. And that's one of my most favorite parts of Lord of the Rings.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We saw that through the trees, too, and stopped a minute.

[folk.livejournal.com]

anatsuno and I, on our way back from eating sweetbreads, foie gras and choucroute garnie (Alsatian sauerkraut with Large Chunks Of Meat And Meaty Things Like Sausage) last night out in the country, spotted exactly the same Lunar-Venusian scene. I love that, across the world, we shared the same view of the cosmos as you.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

So it is Venus? A friend of mine and I have been running and I'm constantly distracted by the big shiny planet. Last night, big shiny planet with bonus earthshiny moon, we got into a semi-argument over which planet it was. Venus seemed logical, but Venus is not one of my planets.
Of course, we turned away from the pretty halfway through the run, so I was whining and cursing my legs and not able to see it. Poor planning on my part.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

The link to Minnesota Starwatch which I provided above noted that Venus is visible for two hours after sunset this month. Saturn is visible, too, as bright as the brightest star, "but not even close to the brightness of Venus." So I think it was Venus.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I'm used to looking up as I walk across campus at night and seeing Jupiter or Saturn-- sophomore year, Mars, but mostly the big ones. Once I had a fix on them, I could find them just about all winter. Venus was always hidden down by the horizon, if she was up at all. Being in grad school and not having to walk all over the place, I've missed my stargazing.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

We saw that last night, and the night before. Last night we had a completely clear sky, so Venus was bright bright bright. Wednesday night was cloudy, but there was a gap in the clouds at the right moment, and there was the moon, fingernail sliver in the Maxfield Parrish blue sky just before the last light faded, and Venus behind, beside, behind a cloud.

It was worthy of the ephemeral phenomenon alert system, so I called two neighbors and told them to look.

Venus and the Moon

[laytonwoman3rd.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that a sight? My husband had gone to bed with a book, and I took our dog our for her last potty trip before going to bed. There they were, Venus and the moon, right at eye level directly in front of my house. Marvelous. I made him get up, put on clothes, and go look. He was suitably appreciative.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Back when my nephews were four and two I was out one evening with 'em. It must have been a couple hours after moonrise, and both boys noticed it at the same time, pointed and said, "Ooooooooooo".

And that's how the Moon got it's name.

Mooooooooooooooooooon.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

We were looking at it from the front walk just about an hour later. It was really gorgeous. Caught my eye right away.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

R and I saw it as we were returning from his birthday dinner - quite a spectacular sight. My mother called that "the old moon in the arms of the new." Isn't that a pretty phrase?

According to jiawen it's Venus. It seemed awfully high in the sky for Venus, but she says that Venus is especially high and bright right now.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing that moment with your girls -- and with us. That was lovely.