Supermoon!

Tonight tonight I will be out studying the effects of this year's Supermoon, an effect that happens when the moon is in perigee, closest to,  planet Earth as it makes it's way around and through the celestial year. My Esteemed Companion has a women's group that meets once a month, in time for and in celebration of the full moon cycle. She called me late last night, filled with a sort of  wild, joyous lunar energy, telling me her tale of how grand it was to be out and about with her friends, deep in a country night, howling along with the local coyotes up in the hills. I couldn't talk much about the moon here on the coast as we had a heavy, misty cloud cover kind of night. But I was able to live vicariously through her observations, through her activities and for that I was glad.

In so many ways we are disconnected from the bigger things of life when we step back or ignore the cycles of this wonderful planet of ours. Moving away from a large city existence to a that of a smaller, rural town has helped reshape my world view, has helped to promote a belated but always welcome paradigm shift. When your world is always co-opted and directed by rampant consumerism you find that your "seasonal" calendar is shaped by commercial and political holidays and their respective sales, not by pagan rituals, holy days and the seasons that helped spawn them. Being here on the Mendo coast I am always in awe of what raw nature brings into my life. It may be subtle, in the way that the sun sets way to the north this time of year or overt as when the temps rise over the mountains in the east and it makes for soft, foggy days here on the coast. I now have experienced a full calendar year here, have learned to see and appreciate what seasons are like here on the coast. Our lives on the Mendocino coast can be damp or breezy, exquisitely sunny or morosely overcast, but always temperate thanks to that incredible heat sink we have in the form of the Pacific ocean right outside our door.

I think of my good friend there in the Round Valley and know that her take on the coming and going of the seasons is different but still remarkably the same. We are blessed to be living in worlds that are surrounded by nature, in places where crops and cycles are king and hold trump over cyclical sales and promotional events. I love how, when I visit her at her barn pole house, that her abode, high and above the surrounding hay fields, feels a lot like my place here near the ocean. Standing there on her porch, looking out over the fields in the late afternoon sun, reminds me oh so much of the sea, the gentle hands of wind blowing through the grasses, setting them in motion in a delightful kind of soft wave effect. The bird song may be different but the birds there, like their brethren here on the coast, are active, alive and forever busy. The hills and mountains that I see off to the West are not unlike what I see off in my eastern horizon. In fact, we share those coastal ranges , a sort of common boundary, a kind of high pass that keeps our seasons, our passions, forever stirred up, and, in the end, in check.

The Supermoon is arriving this evening. Maybe I can drive a bit, find a place in the mountains that will allow me to witness this phenomena, without the protective cloud cover the keeps this place in the general range of 60 degrees. Maybe I can find a place this evening that will let me witness this event, and, if I'm lucky, have a few coyotes around to howl with, too.

We all can use a good bit of howling now and again!

Salud!

And here's a bit of info about the Supermoon!

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/06/22/supermoon-rises-in-weekend-night-sky-sunday/