The full moon played coy last night.  What a tease!  Now you see her, now you don’t.  It’s a heart-breaking story with a good ending.  Here’s what happened.

As you regular readers know, I readied to sit outside with the Broken Snowshoe Moon last night.  (That’s the Annishnabe name for the April moon.) The moon and I had some business to discuss.  You know she’s magic.  I know she’s magic.  There’s certain areas in my life (and the life of the planet) that need some magic.  You should discuss this with the full moon and see if she might lend a helping hand.

At 9 p.m. sharp I’m staring out the bathroom window where the night before Madam Moon shined her almost-full face down from the heavens.  OK, Madam Moon, where are you?  No sighting.  The dusk deepened all around, but our Lady refused to show her full white face. 

What to do?  I trudged outside and quizzically surveyed the sky.  Yep, there’s some random twinkling stars.  Yep, darkness descends.  Yep, those night birds chirp their goodnight songs.  Where oh where are you, O Moon?

Suddenly, through the trees.  What is that?  A great orange globe seems to penetrate through the woods.  YES!  I leaped inside, donned Grandma’s old snowmobile suit from the early 1970′s, and sprinted outside toward the car.  Shouted to my husband in the garage something probably inaudible like “The moon!  The moon!  I’m going to chase the moon!” and sped down the road through the mud and darkness, headed for the bay.

The 90 year old neighbor down the road insisted several months ago, “You must take a picture of the full moon over the bay.”  So here I am, trying to figure out where to park, trying to determine where to access the bay without trespassing wantonly on private properly, trying to chase down that Mother Moon rising full and orange and huge over the calm waters.

I finally found an access, not telling you where, running helter-skelter in the dark, trying not to fall with camera in hand.  The moon lit the surroundings enough to provide comfort while jogging in the blackness.  Arrived at the bay, breathless, prepared to greet the Moon and…and…I am not kidding…there is NO moon.

WHAT?  How could this be?  How could the moon shine so bright and orange and beautiful one minute, and the next minute be hijacked?  Who stole the moon?  I covered twenty possible scenarios in my mind in the next five minutes, standing dumb-founded.  (Well, it was probably one minute, before I began running wildly back up to the road and searching for another access.)

I had joined a group on another site, gaia.com, yesterday called “Now I can See the Moon”.  All I could think was…Now I can’t see the moon!  What an odd thing.  You join a group in the morning which advocates seeing the moon, and now the darn thing has packed up and left the country.  Without a cloud in the sky.  How could this happen?

At the second access, I stopped still in my panting tracks and beheld…the most beautiful sight in the universe.  That fat orange magnificent pregnant jubilant moon crested oh so slowly above the horizon, lifting herself onto our visible skies like a lady giving birth to a light we’ve rarely seen on the planet.

(Later, Barry helped figure it out.  We’re higher up on the road so the moon was visible rising here first.  Down at the bay it took a tiny bit longer.  Thank goodness that mystery was solved…)

I snapped photos of her magnificence but, alas, I don’t know how to slow the shutter speed and all those photographic adjustments to capture the way she appeared on the horizon with her shadow shimmering on the waters of the bay.

So this is the view the camera registered, with a flash illuminating the bush overlooking the lake.  The second orange ball is the shadow of our moon on the lake.

The "Broken Snowshoe" April full moon

The "Broken Snowshoe" April full moon

I’m heading back down there tonight to spend some more quality time with the moon.  Hope you all enjoy your time with her this month!

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