lunar wellsprings & wild belonging

becoming the oceanic heart

I watch a cloud embody the most exquisite shape, a perfect dream of milky smoke wandering through twilight and pine treetops. I witness it change into something else entirely, then disappear. Where does it go?

The tender predicament of eternally falling in love with ephemeral beings: soft wisps of cloud, a shooting star, a particular reflection of moonlight as the river carries it away, freshly fallen rainbow snow sparkles melting in the morning sun. Just as I’m thinking I have never loved anything so deeply, it vanishes before my eyes. Where do these ones go? If I continue to love a cloud even after it’s gone, does it still exist?

[ the word for someone who is in love with clouds: nephophile. ]

I could say that life on this planet is one heartbreak after another. We are asked to feel so much. It is no small feat to be here, with no shortage of grief. I wonder if true intimacy is born purely from grief itself, for loss has an alchemical ability to reveal the holiness in each small thing. Each heartbreak is an exquisite revelation, a truth serum for the present moment, guiding us into deeper and more delicate relationship with ourselves, and with everything. The heart cracks open, the veil is lifted. Birdsong becomes a miracle.

So far, I have found no downside to falling madly in love with the world.

you see, i want a lot.

maybe i want it all:

the darkness of each endless fall,

the shimmering light of each ascent.

…it is not too late

to open your depths by plunging

into them

and drink in the life

that reveals itself quietly there.

[rainer maria rilke]

Often our ideas and visions for our own lives prove to have an ephemeral nature of their own. And in that loss, we unearth more heartache. It is easy to fall in love with a dream. Our inner imaginal world is, after all, arising from the same infinite and animate wellspring as the clouds, the moon, the wind, the flowers. Our dreams are part of Earth’s dream. It is any surprise, then, that humans are capable of such wildly creative ideas and magical dreams?

I have watched so many of my plans and visions for my own life dissipate like a wisp of cloud, like a great wave rising and returning to calm ocean before ever unfurling. Even ideas that seemed so alive and so sure to come true, that I felt might even possibly serve the world in some way, I have watched curiously dissolve. How do we discern the difference between “giving up” on our dreams, versus consciously letting go, allowing the mysteries of our heart to change? In what ways have we been taught to resist the deeper currents of our longing, to ignore the subtle waves of our own love changing.

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents, these deepening tides moving out, returning, I will sing you as no one ever has, streaming through widening channels into the open sea.

[rainer maria rilke]

Change, after all, is what we are here to do. Our hearts are made of mostly water: specifically, salt water.

They say both the moon and earth’s waters are at least 4.5 billion years old. It is the same moon we see now, and the very same, very old water molecules that are infinitely circulating through our bodies and the world. The clouds, waves and mist, who are ever-changing in form and feeling, are literally part of who we are. Our bodies are engaged in an ancient love story that our minds cannot fully comprehend; we can only bear witness to it with awe, gratitude, and mystical curiosity.

The moon is a wellspring of beingness, a mirror of infinite faces. Earth’s waters are in intimate relationship with moon’s alluring pulse and ethereal light. We see this most visibly in the ebb and flow of the oceanic tides, but every single molecule of water on earth is experiencing this same dance with the lunar drum. This includes the sap in all trees and plants, and the great web of water weaving earth’s living soils together, and every drop of water in our bodies.

All of Earth is at the wild mercy of the moon’s beneficent heartbeat.

I watch the cycles of the moon and thank her for keeping the rhythm of my life. The moon is always changing, and always returning - both. Even as she moves through her knowable phases, the moon has never stopped surprising me. Still I gasp upon seeing her rise over a ridge line at dusk. She is born new each time, perhaps on her own gentle journey of becoming.

We are always changing with the moon and the water, no matter what we do. Our love is meant to move like the tides, like sap flowing through plants, to be then breathed out as leaf vapor as we travel upward and become a soft wisp of cloud. Or an unfurling wave in a cold and wild sea. Or perhaps some shape you haven’t yet dared to dream.

We are meant to be surprised by our own becoming. We are forever traveling toward more intricate, tender and wildly aligned ways of belonging to the world. Forever falling more deeply in love with our own way of being here, bearing witness to the love story of our own life. Becoming a glittering wellspring of experiences, feelings and dreams.

I invite you to go out under the moon and tell this loving watch keeper about your wildest dreams and longings. Tell your story to the moonlight. Let the soft wave of your body be moved by the lunar embrace. Ask the moon questions you’ve always wanted to ask. What else are we here to do, than to fall in love with this great mystery? Than to be stunned, undone, heartbroken and bewildered by the beauty of our own unfolding.

And here is a moon poem, including its audio recording, to feed the lunar wellspring.

[ rhythm keeper ]

what would happen
to Earth's waters
if Moon disappeared? 

would the tides still move,
would the sap still flow,
would the dew
ever quiver again? 

she keeps
the time
she beats 
the drum
she sets the pace
of our lives.

do you think that she is made
of pearl milk 
or
silver sap?
she is heaven's honey,
nectar rising from
the dark luminous sea

her first light glowing, looming
from behind the mountain
a woven wild glint
of knowing,
she bestows a lunar trance

and then we dance.

for what would happen
to our hearts
without the rhythm
of her pulse?

how would the wolverine
measure moss
and bones

how would we ever know 
who we really are
without
her polished mirror.

Kate Clearlight, 2023.