The past several nights, I have awakened just after midnight to moonlight streaming through our bedroom window. I have been entranced with its brightness — bright enough to throw shadows onto the lawn as I peek out the second floor bedroom window.
I never knew the moon to be so bright. But then, I don’t think I ever paid attention to the strength of moonlight before. When my eyes are adjusted to darkness, the moon’s light is strong enough to walk safely and able to spot any obstacles like the gaping potholes at the end of this winter, or stones churned up by the snow plow and thrown onto the road’s edge. The moon’s light is probably strong enough to do yardwork, if I were so inclined to leave my warm bed and get dressed in the chill of my house at night.
The moon is said to be a symbol of feminine energy and monthly cycles. Supposedly the moon was created as a “secondary”, less bright light than the sun which is said to be a symbol of male energy. Yet the light I am entranced by as I awake to it does not seem to take second fiddle to the sun at all. Moonlight is soft yet bright. It changes through the lunar cycle, never the same any single night. It rises and sets in different places through the year and its timing shifts as well. It does not share its light with an “in your face” brightness — rather it gives just enough light that I can see something but only with soft edges, not well-defined boundaries. And the softness of its light — even at full moon — makes me “work” to see things and know what they are. I have to want to see before my eyes focus and my brain discerns the outlines shown in the fainter light.
The sun’s light can blind one with light, moonlight reveals.
And the moon overcomes the sun in periodic eclipses, blocking the bright light of the sun for a few stunning moments of awe. . .the “secondary” light showing its subtle strength for all to see as though to say, “Each of us has our gifts. One is not stronger, of more value, than another. Remember . . .”
Pilgrimages and Paths 