With the super, blood, blue moon and total lunar eclipse last week, it would be remiss to not write about Moon today.  I took the photo above from our front yard last Thursday night. I love how the camera is focused on the branches instead of the actual moon.

Moon is waking up in the early (or late) hours of the dark morning, when the house is silent, and smiling as I peel my eyes open to find the beauty of a silver light playing through the window. Feeling special, like it is shining only on me, waking me with its pearly touch. It is the sheen like liquid mercury glossing the branches, fence posts, and grasses. Coating the ground with melted light.

It’s being able to walk down the gravel path at our favorite campground without a flashlight in my hand because the one in the sky is so brilliant. Holding hands with my kids, feeling them cling close because Mommy and Daddy insist we can see, “just let your eyes adjust.” And teaching them about night things. Not scary things. Beautiful, amazing, God things that wake while we sleep. Sing while we snore. Hunt while we rest.

Moon is the sound of the train coming through in the stark quiet of a summer’s night, imagining the reflection flash from its metal sides as it click-clacks along. The soft white glow trapped by the mounds of coal in its belly. Then feeling the breeze as we stare up at the bridge far above our heads and the train comes whooshing by. Feeling the vibrations in our chests. And then listening to the quiet lapping of water against shore and pontoon once more. And a metallic glisten to the ripples, as if the moon has come to dance on the water.

It’s an uncle I miss every day. Jimmy Buffett and Eric Clapton. Geronimo’s Cadillac. A Stairway to Heaven. Sometimes bacon and beans and a Louisiana battle. It was always laughter and love and a sense of contentment. Uncle Jim’s Music, it’s been dubbed. An eclectic taste in life that we all recognize. And things that spark memories of times when life felt a bit more complete.

The moon’s glow is more beautiful than the sun’s. Ironic since they are one in the same. But true, nonetheless. It’s strength is softer, gentler in its persuasion to lead down the trail ahead. East to West. Evening to Morning. Summer to Winter. And back again.