Rare Blood Moon

Rare. I love this word. It evokes a promise of some kind of treasure. And the reality is, when we can transform what seems ordinary into something to be treasured, that is a storyteller’s dream. On March 13 – 14 we had the rare experience of viewing the only lunar eclipse visible from North America this year.

During the eclipse, I was proof reading my first ever published book, Sleeping Giant: a memoir of alchemy, and simultaneously stepping through the magical threshold of my back door into Lunar Luminosity so I could watch the eclipse up close with my telephoto lens. It felt magical to watch the moon transform. And in a way it felt magical

to be stepping in and out, like going between two worlds. During those three hours, the moon was changing… and my book was changing too, from an idea to a reality.

It was a worthy crescendo, the blood red ball hanging in a dark sky with a parade of clouds passing by.

I can see why the Nordic myths about the lunar eclipse have a violent slant. After all, the moon does turn the color of blood and so it makes sense, the attempt of Hati the Warg to put an end to it all at Ragnarok.

The Navajo tradition is closer to the kind of celebration that points in the direction I’m heading, a silent reverence for the beauty of the feminine moon and reflection on its meaning of rebirth.