A love letter to the Moon

I didn't see the moon on the night it was totally full but I sat with a candle and the curtains open to write this letter and I could FEEL it. When I told my husband Dean (he's a postie) that I was writing a letter to the moon he said he was sorry but he didn't think Royal Mail delivered that far! If they did I think he'd enjoy being on the lunar round.

Dear Moon,

How are you? 

It was really nice to see you the other night. It feels like I haven’t seen all of you properly for months. Either you’ve been hidden away behind the clouds or I have been inside behind closed curtains or closed eyes tucked up in my bed. So when I saw you rising quietly above the mill in the dusky light into a beautifully clear sky it stopped me in my tracks.

I loved how you accompanied me home. Sometimes you’d hide behind the trees as I turned a corner. I’d look back for you and you’d be gone but then you would pop up behind a roof or a chimney pot, but never quite where I expected you to be. 

Oh there you are!

People were looking at me, looking at you. “What is she looking at?” I don’t know why they didn't stop and gaze up at you too. 

You bring a stillness. A calm. A quiet magic. It feels better when you are there. When I see you majestically rising on the horizon you remind me that I AM ON A PLANET MOVING THROUGH SPACE. You remind me that space is huge and old, older than any of us will ever be. Moon, you might find this hard to understand but we forget this down here on Earth, over and over and over. We get caught up in our lives, our thoughts, our phones (yes it’s true, can you believe it?) and all our goings on. We can be so unkind to each other. But you don’t roll your eyes at us, or wave your fists. You don’t get into an argument about who is right or wrong.

You just quietly shine.

Waiting for us to remember who we are and where we are.

You shine so brightly that it is easy to forget that you don’t have a light source of your own. You are lit by the sun, just as we are. You reflect the sunlight all 238,000 miles back down to Earth! You light up the rooftops and the fields and help us find our way in the dark. The other night you made a bright beam of light through a gap in our curtains. We opened them to let you in. 

I wanted to say thank you Moon. Thank you for that time when I saw you above Regents Park rose garden in the late summer. Thank you for that time in Carreg Cennen castle at dusk, back before they locked the gates at night; we saw you rise above the quiet hills through an ancient arched window and wondered how many of our ancestors had done the same. Thanks for that time we rode our bikes to the meadow at solstice to see the sunrise. You followed us all the way and we sang to you. All the silvery moon songs we could think of. Yes, that was us. Do you remember?

You kept us connected when we lived a hundred miles apart. Dean could see you rising above his Asda and I could see you rising above our Coop! You held us together. You could hold us all together but so many of us have stopped noticing you and the stars and planets around you. Even if we do make it past all the distractions that keep us from looking skyward, we have filled the air with all the particles of modern life. Our towns and cities are lighting up the night now and we rarely see a truly dark sky. I heard that there will soon be more satellites orbiting the earth than visible stars in our skies. All so we can have faster internet to stay connected. When all we needed to do was look up.

It’s me who is rolling my eyes and waving my fists. 

But you just continue to shine. 

Peacefully. 

Beautifully. 

Moonfully. 

I am inspired by your gentle rhythm. You never hurry but you always get there. You wax and you wane, from full and bright to dark and hidden and then back again, in and out, over and over,  steady, sure, never deviating, never favouring one phase over another. You just are where you are. You keep time for us, marking the months and seasons reminding us where we are in the wheel of the year. And gentle, steady one, you have the power to turn the tides. How do you do that? Be so gentle yet so powerful? We have so much to learn from you.

Moon, I’m going to go now but it’s been lovely to write to you. Please know that I, and many of us down here on this blue planet will always be looking out for you.

Until next time.

Lots of love

Hannah x

Thanks to Agnes Becker for this lovely idea. She's always looking out for the moon too.

And thanks to The Rebel Stargazer for all she shares about the night sky. You might enjoy her latest post The Skies of Spring Equinox.

If you'd like to hear a spoken word recording of this post I recorded one for my Something I Have Noticed Substack (recorded in one take, and Ffion text me in the middle but it's good enough!). x