It’s a Harvest Moon, the old woman announces. Then she tells me: it means that now is the time to reap what’s been sown.
I am wondering what else.
Consider the goddess who rides a white mare across the sky. Also, this: did you know that the Celts would count their days from sunset? The first day of a week began at night to end in the morning. Now here are true dreamers. They measured time in moons, and there were thirteen in a year.
Elsewhere, they saw not a man’s face, but the body of a hare, the harbinger of good fortune and fertility.
There’s a black-winged creature who eats the orb slowly until its all gone. The moon disagrees, and the creature vomits it back. The cycle repeats.
Perhaps you’ve wondered why it affects the tides. You need to understand: the moon kidnapped the sea god’s daughter for her impertinence. Now you know.
Aine, Aylin, Esther, Hanwi, Io, Mani: she’s the waxing maiden, waning crone. She was romantically involved with the sun god, you know. A dramatic pursuit is what caused the great flood. Now they are a couple. When there’s peace at home, weather is good. But when there’s trouble between them, look out!
Some say she’s captured every night by a hostile tribe. When the antelope go to rescue her, coyote foils the plan, tossing her into the river. And what about the dark marks on her surface?
That’s another story, from when the moon was a wily hunter, outsmarting rabbit, and blinding him with his great light. That’s why rabbit’s eyes are pink-rimmed and squinty, why his lips tremble. He was terrified and blinded by the size of the light. He reached his paw in the river and flung clay at the source.
Now it lights the harvest. Time to gather, time to put away. This from the old woman again. Store the good fruits, she says, and toss away the bad. Patch the walls against the draft, take stock of what you’re storing, and of the hands around the table. Hold, dance. Longer nights are coming soon.