Moonlight Perspective
For years I’ve wanted to be a morning person. You know, one of those people who jump out of bed happy, singing, full of energy and light, ready to take on the world. Instead I wake up hazy and slow and aching to stay in bed a little longer.
When I left the school system, I decided to try again. I’d wake up earlier than necessary, I thought, and start my day with journaling or meditation and take walks at the park under the morning sky, filled with expectancy for the new day. What a perfect way to begin the day!
A year later that has not happened. I lie in bed until the last possible second and get up just in time for my first scheduled event of the day. I am learning that I can choose to judge myself for that or I can choose to accept where I am and who I am in this moment. I am choosing compassion. I am choosing acceptance. I am choosing love.
Instead of the morning, I am drawn to the night. Most nights before bed, I walk up and down my street once or twice sending gratitude into the air, taking time to remember and fully absorb the beauties, the joys, the tiny mercies and miracles of my day. Sometimes when life feels heavy, when I can’t seem to shake the challenges of this world, I need more than that. So I venture a little further in my neighborhood into the darkness of night to gain a little moonlight perspective.
I often carry the challenges of my day with me into these moonlit walks. But there is something about the night that brings me back to this very moment. As I walk through my neighborhood, I am aware of the moon lighting my path, the stars dotting the sky. Everyone’s cars are in their driveways now. Their porch lights are on though their porches are empty. There is a stillness in the air that is palpable. The chirping of a million crickets surrounds me. The comforting scent of clothing being washed pours from laundry room vents into the night air. A dog barks from a distant place I cannot see. Everything is hushed. I am mostly alone.
As I connect to this present moment, to the stillness that surrounds me, the burdens of the day begin to dissipate from my chest, empty out of me. With each step I am slowly being restored.
I have always been in love with the moon. The moon is full of mystery. So is my life. There is so much uncertainty, so many things I do not know or understand, so many things I cannot control. The moon reminds me there is beauty in the mystery, beauty in the uncertainty, beauty in the darkness. As I walk under her glow, I am reminded that it’s ok not to know everything, not to see everything clearly, just to trust, just to move in the direction I am drawn.
My whole life I have been waiting for life to get easy. Once I jump over this hurdle, I will be fine, I’ve thought. As soon as I overcome this challenge, life will be simple, I believe. And then I will overcome something, and another hurdle surfaces and the next challenge arrives. Easy never comes. And yet when I walk under the moonlit sky, something that feels like ease comes to me and strengthens me. Somehow I feel so small and yet connected to something so big and I am certain that everything will be ok, that everything is ok. I feel capable of this journey.
Everyone can use a little moonlight perspective sometimes, or at least your own version of that. Reminders that if we stay connected to this moment, that if we can embrace the mysteries, the unknowns, the patches of darkness in this life, then somehow we can live in the world with a little more ease, with a little more joy, with a little more peace.
The moonlight reminds me that even in the dark, there is always enough light to guide my path. I am protected. I am guided. I am completely enfolded in love. And so I keep walking under a moonlit sky.
