May 28, 2012 Blog #14

Tracking Moon Shadows

Last night, Sunday night, the moon was still waxing crescent, not yet half moon. My last full moon on this journey was on Iona, filling the sea with moon paths to follow across the sea to the Isle of Mull. A million wavelets shimmered silver reflecting the moon’s reflection of the sun, mirror upon mirror of spreading lunacy, over the seascape.

It was 4-5 nights ago when the new moon hid from the stars, here on southern Crete. During the day, I happened to notice the waves breaking on under-water rocks out in the bay. Those wave breaks are gone now, as the tides have increased and covered those rocks. The wind has slackened, and trying out my new snorkel around those shallow rocks was a good test for the cheap equipment I have purchased, snorkel, mask, and aqua socks.

The tides are another natural wonder I take for granted. I think that I understand that the moon’s gravity moves the tides on the earth, but what does that really mean? On a science level, I visualize the blue earth with its oceans heaped up, asymmetrically on the side of the moon’s pull. But what kind of power and magnetism can stack and slacken the tides of an ocean, trillion tons of flowing water? And they say that it can influence women’ menstruation, and other animal and human body functions are synchronized to it’s phases. There has always been romance and folklore about the full moon and the new moon. Indigenous people planned their agricultural and personal lives around the flux of the moon. The moon’s silvery light in the darkness, casts upon the earth it’s own mystery and dream like images. Each night, I go outside, and greet the moon, take notice of her changes, and the subtle shift in the atmosphere of them darkness. It comforts me to watch the moon’s phases and seek to attune to its feminine energy on the earth and in myself. Good night moon….

Tonight, I walked into Ierapetra to try out a Greek restaurant in the old town, non tourist sector. Food wasn’t spectacular, whole Bream (fish) fried, but the evocative Greek balalaika music made up for it. Most of the,restaurants along the strip and Castello restaurant where I ate, were empty. The proprietors grow more somber by the day, as they wait and hope for tourists to come. There is so much bad news worldwide about Greece and its economic debacle, can this ancient land, cradle of western thought, survive? What must it be like for these simple people, descendants of an ancient civilization, Minoan, 2000 years before classical Greece arose, the educated, literate, artistic flowering of civilization before Christ, to be the failures of Europe, a risk to the world economy?

Walking home around 10:30, after dinner. (the Greeks eat late, starting around 9:30 PM), there was a bandstand at the harbor, with Greek music group, colored lights, and amplifiers playing music for the substantial local crowd. Much of the music seemed wistful, longing, with an air of reaching for something lost, though, of course, I could not understand the Greek words. But the lights, milling crowd, groups of young women laughing, children playing, dancing, toddling, teasing, and chasing each other, adolescents shyly, hungrily eyeing each other, parents relaxed but watchful. A few men of darker energy lurked in the shadows watching, waiting for their main chance.

I wonder, did the Venetian colonial government of the middle ages encourage such music and spontaneous social gatherings? How abut the Ottoman Turks who ruled this island for 400 years?
, during which, at one point, 40% of the population was Muslim? How did they make festival and music? What about the Romans, the classical Greek culture, the 4000 year old Minoan people?
Did they have parties and list mingle to music outside the palace? The Neolithic, the hunter gatherer, did “Lucy” squat by the fire, sing and make music, an dance to the seasons and the visits of the neighboring tribe? Have we humans, social animals been making music and dancing from the first tribal gatherings? Some scientists, specialists in music and ancient languages have proposed that music existed before human speech?

What was the occasion? What were they celebrating? Was it just Sunday night? Or was it Pentecost Sunday, the fifth Sunday after Easter, when the Christian church celebrates the inspiration of the apostles? Think of the image of tongues of flame descending on the crown chakras of each of the apostles, suddenly giving them courage, wisdom, and words to speak forth to the assemblage in the market place, powerful spiritual truths they had learned from their time with Jesus, who had been crucified. And the reports said everyone heard their words in their own language, merchants and travelers from every nation, hearing these words of inspiration from uneducated fishermen. They were filled with wonder; what manifestation was this?
How do I experience inspiration today? What is “in-spiration” like for you?

I couldn’t understand the lyrics of the Greek music, but the the elders, parents, young men and women, teenagers, children, and toddlers communicated their hopes and joys and timeless community belonging clearly, strolling, laughing, greeting, looking into the mid distance at things only they could see. I sat on a stone bench and bounced and nodded to the rhythm and let the universal language of the music carry and inspire me on this Pentecost Sunday. What a vision of inspiration, tongues of fire! I walked home reflective and inspired.

Love After Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome.

And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine, Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you

All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit, Feast on you life.