September Moon
“That moon which the sky never saw, even in dreams, has risen again.”
The September full moon is always so welcome in my life.
While Summer's warmth and open skies are bursting and bright
with an unrestrained joy of movement, I yearn all season for the gathering clouds,
the smell of leaf smoke, the valid excuse to wear all the layers and textures,
and the advent of soup season.
But more, I long for the time of containment that autumn so gracefully brings forth,
trailing like brightly colored silk streamers behind her twig-crackling footsteps.
I long for the boundaries that are containers.
The nurturing safe-zone of quieter light and darker mornings
that beckon me to write under blankets, read holy words by sacred sisters,
and immerse myself into the weaving time of approaching winter.
When September's full moon arrives, I am full, too.
I am full, with harvest and the reaping of all I planted and watered the past year.
I am looking over what I have cultivated well, what I have let go of,
and what I can cull for the next season's time of resting soil.
I view my yield, the fruits, the gatherings and gleanings of my plantings.
I've become a warm loaf of bread, and all my handwork is honeyed
and dripping with the sweetness of sun-warmed labor, to be tasted slowly and with appreciation.
What needs to be turned over in my life requires a container of time and quiet that only the boundaries of this liminal autumn season allows and gifts to me.
Summer was the riotous blooms and gain and heft.
Winter will be for the underground making, the tunneling, the seeding.
Now, I am held between the weft and weave, the beginnings of dying light.
When the full moon of September crests and begins her weighted rise
over our mountains and hills, traveling through limbs and leaves in her ascent,
I feel her turning my insides orange, burnt umber, golden amber, brick red and brown.
She moves my organs, settling them into place for the long night to come.
She readies me, throws a light shawl over my shoulders and wraps her milky arms
across my heart. She's cool, but comforting.
One slow, steadying breath, and I've come home again to myself in the ancient way of falling moons and rising tides, cooling soil, the promise of candle glow and the middle light of equinox.