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Monday, November 14, 2016

Meditating on Tonight's Super Moon, Enlarged but Concealed

Picture that you’re sitting
Eyes closed on the blue
Exercise mat
Head facing east towards
The full moon as it’s rising
It’s a super moon at that
But obscured by a thin
Scrim of cloud cover
It’s unseen but felt
As a distinct presence
From crown to nape
You’re sitting up straight
Meditating in fact
On the yin power as it is
Most perfectly expressed
Now when it is both full
And concealed

Which is why
Tonight’s super moon
Hanging somewhere up there
In the sky’s eastern expanse
Is such a perfect metaphor
For my soul – immortal or otherwise -
It’s simply a gift of borrowed radiance
Bouncing off rocky barren soil
Evident only as a faint flickering
From the curtain’s other side
No more than a lumen or two
That's barely detectable
With my eyes either
Open or closed

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Since moving to East Quogue this year it has become a ritual for me to walk down to the end of Weesuck Avenue in order to watch the full moon rise over the Creek. At first, I was somewhat disappointed tonight because there was a thick cloud cover that obscured the sky to the south and east. But then a few fingers above the horizon I began to detect the super moon rising, evident at first only as backlighting (worthy of the finest Santo Loquasto set) that lit up a plane of stratus clouds facing eastward. The illumination gradually increased revealing a vast cloud structure that had been jerry rigged to encase the moon. Quite an incredible site really. And I realized that to see the super-moon rise this way, by implication, is to experience the Yin power in its greatest extremity - when it is both engorged and concealed.  The poem above was written a little bit later, after returning home and meditating some, thinking about this striking Yin apparition.  And the photo below was taken by my wife a little bit later in the evening as the moon continued to play hide and seek.

Super Moon Super Scrim (M. Bridge)

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