Snow Moon

Last week, Snow Moon was an internet sensation. Did you see it and wonder about the phenomenon? By now you may know that Snow Moon is the second full moon of the year, occurring during the snowiest month, and refers to times when the Moon is closest to the earth in its monthly orbit around our planet. The gigantic moon was poetry in motion. From Las Vegas to London, San Francisco to Athens, Sister Moon stole the show. Photographers captured her in full blossom-bright pink behind the Empire State Building, hovering over the Parthenon in Greece. She was backdrop for a casino in Las Vegas and a lighthouse on the Great Lakes. I counted ten major news outlets that rhapsodized about the celestial event.

An ice fisherman was startled by the immense globe. He wrote, “Packing up the gear took longer than usual as we stood on the ice, surrounded by nothing but snow and silence, and marveled at the moon as it rose over the eastern horizon.”

Snow Moon was a colossal magnet in the sky, teaching weary inhabitants of this world to look up from their computers, from their worries and see transcendent beauty in the sky. For a brief time, earth’s satellite brought the world closer together. Sister Moon struck a chord deep inside us.

Poet John Keats wrote, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. He wrote of despair and the lack of noble natures, of unhealthy, darkened ways. His words speak of current times. I am sure that you could write a long list of darkened ways. Hear the words of this poet who lived two hundred years ago.

     In spite of all,

     Some shape of beauty moves the pall

    From our dark spirits.

For one brief moment on February 19, 2019, the moon dazzled us with cheering light. No, we are not extensions of machines, nor bundles of molecules glued together by chemical reactions. No, we are body and soul, made with the spark of divinity.