All Things Moon

Dear Diary,

I have posted some more pics. by my favourite artist, Paul Henry, I hope you like them too. I have some more ready to post another time.

Friday is a free day.

Well not exactly, as the place is a tip and I am forced to have a purge with the hoover, the mop and later, when I’ve had little sit-down and rest with the computer and I’ve written a wee bit of a blog, I must get out the duster. I can’t ignore the levels of dust and the cobwebs in the cottage any longer. The washing machine is also flat out, even though there’s only the two of us now, there still seems to be a lot of washing to do sometimes.

I’m annoyed with myself too because this morning I’ve somehow lost a lens from my best glasses. I only need to wear them for close-up things, reading etc, so I am constantly taking them off and putting them down, when I haven’t got them balanced on the top of my head that is! It must be only recently that I lost it but I can’t find it anywhere. Such is life. Luckily I have several off-the-peg pairs that will have to do for now. It’s the expense of a replacement lens that worries/angers me.

Sorry, what I have written is, so far, so boring, who on earth would be interested in it? Just nice to get things off your chest sometimes isn’t it?

Talking of which…….

I had quite a day on Wednesday, my daughter and I went to Cardiff. We stopped in Merthyr Tydfil retail park on the way down for some retail therapy. I had to go for my routine hospital mammogram in Cardiff and we also wanted to go to Ikea. Sounds simple enough but we got lost in Cardiff centre and literally couldn’t get out of it, kept driving round and round, it was like a nightmare. They have several roads blocked off, building works everywhere and no road signs that make any sense. I absolutely love driving and have many years of experience, but getting to Ikea seems to be so difficult and getting through or out of Cardiff centre likewise. M said that he had seen it mentioned on the net that, at the moment, Cardiff was the most difficult city to get out of. I trust it’s only a temporary chaos. V and I came to the conclusion it was something to do with the Full Moon as we had one of those days when everything seemed to be blocking us. Still I managed to buy a lovely long grey Wallis cardigan and some new Dorothy Perkins skinny jeans and two rugs from Ikea. So not all bad.


The Full Moon does affect us, (think of the levels of unrest in the world, the crime and the admissions to hospital that peak at these times). I always have vivid dreams in the week leading up to it and feel out of sorts somehow.

I really love hares and I always think of the myth (?) that they sit gazing up at the moon. I have a stone one in my garden doing just that - V bought it for me for a birthday present once.

We did escape from Cardiff in the end and we drove home in the dark over the Epynt mountains and lo and behold, there was a young and obviously moonstruck, mountain hare blocking our way for quite a while. It wouldn’t move to the side of the narrow road and we had to hang back and follow it from a distance.

Just before we saw the hare, an owl had swooped silently beside the car and earlier on in our journey, lower down in the valley, a big long-tailed rat had crossed our path. On the way down to Cardiff, two Canada geese had flown really low, right in front of the car, so all in all it was quite an interesting journey, (full perhaps of some mysterious symbolic significances?) the rural part that is. I wouldn’t like to tell you how long we were trapped in Cardiff but it was like being in one of those really anxious dreams that you can’t escape from! Was I pleased to get back to my little riverside haven; I felt like the country mouse again.

I have been meditating on All Things Moon. Apparently it is a powerful time to gather herbs and mushrooms, their healing properties are at their strongest. Wounds bleed more heavily, our emotions are heightened and apparently, more women go into labour at this time.



Here are some moon quotes.

I love this one and it is quite pertinent at this time of trouble in Burma:

Three things cannot long be hidden:
the sun
the moon
the truth
Buddha, 563-483 BC


And this one links to my previous blog about the sound of silence:


See how nature - trees, flowers - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence - we need silence to be able to touch souls.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta 1910-1997

And my favourite:

I don’t know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum.
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950

I’ll leave you with a little moon poem.

Silver



Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy coat the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.


- Walter de la Mare

Bye for now,
Cait