Valentine's Full Moon

Moon-bright though still dark, coyote yowling rolled me out of bed and out into the elements.

I bundled up in layers and a dark, long hooded robe to blend into the night shadows, feeling a bit eerie myself, a bit Keltic.

All slept but the night critters. The coyote called from valley and mesa. Trees rustled. I reached for the comfort of their rooting in the diaphanous feel of the full moon light.

In the US, it's Valentine's Day, the remembering of sweethearts and celebration of true love. An iffy concept after generations of broken families and the age of me-me-me.

Poor-Johnny-one-note indeed.

I once thought kindness was the defining characteristic of affection. Now, having long considered best friend marriages and alliances, I suspect trustworthiness may be the deeper core.

Kindness may falter; one's character settles into each new day.

Yesterday in town, I tucked away this and that for today's celebratory meal, but was struck by an undertow of sadness among the shoppers.

Women bought chocolates for themselves, with a poignant loneliness and some resents at not having a sweetie arrive with a bouquet of red roses.

Men looked gut-shot and distant, estranged. Couples were the exception and most seemed kind to one another.

St. Valentine was actually a healer, a Christian when Rome was not. Eventually imprisoned and put to death, he is remembered for a miracle of restoring sight to a child, with whom he had gathered healing plants in the meadows outside the Imperial city.

He was gentle and loving in a brutal time. A miracle in itself, a daily-ness of character.

This morning's Valentine's Day moon was an extraordinary color, ripe peach-flesh at its setting. A cousin in Texas was also up watching the show, but there, the moon set red.

I wonder if volcanic activity in the last year or two has begun to affect atmospherics: Iceland, Kamchatka and Indonesia? Volcanic ash belched high.

cache.boston.com

Krakatoa blew in 1883, the first global event shot round the world by telegraph. It produced such a magnitude of volcanic ash that sunlight could not penetrate, for the "year without summer." And crop failure.

Krakatoa as seen from shipboard

Sunsets that year raged across the skies of the Victorian era and its rigidities, lurid and shockingly vivid, imprinting the imagination and paintings of Turner, Gainsborough and the Hudson River School.

 Krakatoa sunset by Turner

I wonder what this way cometh. I've not seen an ivory moon-set the last little while. Is it volcanic ash? We also have comets flashing about. Historically they've troubled reptilian-brain memory as ill omen and poor harvests to come.

What an irony it would be, if all the chemtrail smog to block the sun were overwhelmed by a planetary event.

Full Valentine's moon tonight and magic abroad, and love as miracle, a daily doing. Whatever comes.

Red, Red Rose

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile! 
   ~Robert Burns
 

Wayfarer reads aloud:
https://youtu.be/PsSytuDv2S8