Wednesday’s lunar muse

If you missed seeing the blood super moon in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, there are a million images and videos online.  However to see this sight again one only needs to wait until 2037.   During the eclipse of 2017, I wasn’t prepared to view that event, so I only saw it through others’ images and the news.  Or perhaps it is because I have seen a total eclipse (and lunar eclipses) in my youth.   Yet I was up in the 5 o’clock hour walking the dogs and marveling at the sight.   I even took a few grainy cellphone images – quite an effort given that I had dog leashes in either hand.

“O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circle orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” -Wm Shakespeare

The moon captures my imagination, as it has for artists, playwrights and composers.  Shakespeare compared the feared inconsistency of love to the Moon, in Romeo and Juliet.  As a child I learned to play a greatly simplified version of  Ludwig Van Beethoven’s classic Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor, “Quasi una fantasia”, popularly known as Moonlight Sonata.  Also as a kid, I recall my mother had a poster reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  One of the bands I liked in my late teens – Thin Lizzy, recorded a song about dancing in moonlight.   And seeing the blood moon this morning, Wednesday,  while walking the dogs at 5 AM, I was mumbling lyrics  I was trying to place from the deep recesses of my memory.   When I got back, YouTube helped me out: Thin Lizzy.

This week has been unusual for several reasons.  Perhaps the moon has something to do with it?  It feels more like early summer than the last week of January even for Southern California.  This week, we’ve enjoyed a picnic with friends, a barbecue,  and our bible study group had a pot luck the other night.  Tonight, we had a couple of younger church Singles ministry friends over for dinner.  It was also entertaining as our elder son of the two still living in California, came over in the late afternoon and stayed for dinner.  All five of us had a great time.   Or should I say, seven, of us.  Comet and Dexter were adamant that they were NOT “outside” dogs and were very glad to have lots of company.  An entertaining week.  Not much dancing in the moonlight though.  Probably save that for the next blood moon.  The nursing home in ’37 will be a rockin’ place with me in it…..