Moonlit reverie

^{Photo by Michael on Unsplash}

The moon is pregnant with celestial fire.^*  Her belly is full, round and luminous. I can’t stop looking up, admiring her ability to put on this heavenly show every twenty-nine days.

Yet the full moon messes with some people’s minds. Sleeplessness, sleepwalking, and feeling emotionally overwhelmed are some of the negative effects people can experience at this time of the month. It is no surprise that lunacy means madness; people believed the moon was its cause. As is often the case, there is a kernel of truth in this folklore. Recently, a link has been found between symptoms of bipolar disorder and the phases of the moon.

Luckily, I don’t suffer from any of these negative consequences. I am an unashamed Selenophile and could spend hours admiring the moon’s beauty. In ancient times, the Greeks venerated Selene as the moon Goddess. Her name means moon, light and brightness. Had I been born during the Antiquity, I would have worshipped her at every full moon, standing in a field with my hands raised to the heavens. Instead, I signal my adoration by tilting my head towards her belly and let awe course through my body with soothing calmness. I never tire of her beauty or mystique.

However, my fanciful flight into metaphor and personification only works in languages where nouns have no gender or where the moon per chance is considered feminine, such as in French. Had I been writing this piece in German, where the moon is masculine (der Mond), I would have imagined him as a lover, a sentinel or my nighttime companion who would inevitably leave me every twenty-nine days.

^*  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray