About a year ago – after getting settled in this house, I made time for a physical.  I’d lived in this area for nearly 13 years at the time and have seen the same G.P. – and even though all doctors are busy, I have been fortunate enough to see a man who makes time to listen to me and also share what’s going on with his family.  So after relating my 7 month motorhome adventure – his comment was “You are one of the few people who has actually done something they really wanted to do”.  Thankfully,  I know another who has, but the point of today’s post is that I often get that kind of reaction to the travelling, my work, my life in general.  And it is often said with some wistfulness or with the tag line “I wish I could do something like that”.

I’d like to say “Hey, wake up and smell the coffee – because you can!”.  I’d like to say “live your life with some passion, spend some time and figure out what you’d really like to do and go and do it!”  I have no special powers, no pot of money – I do have a good imagination, though!  And the truth is, it is the visualization of the “dream” that gets me there and I believe it is the way that those who accomplish goals and realize dreams “make” things happen.  We see in our mind’s eye how we want our life to be.  Visualizing what we want keeps focus, helps weed out the stuff that is not part of the picture and crazy as it might sound – “moves the molecules” so that the vision becomes reality. 

We each have some number of years in this earthly experience.  If you have any faith or spirituality or even a general belief that this is not all there is – do ya really think we were made to play it safe???

It is not an original line(s) and I can’t say it’s totally true but really, can you imagine on your deathbed saying…

“I wish I’d worked more”

“I wish I’d spent less money”

“I wish I’d travelled less”

“I wish I hadn’t loved…”

I bet not !

Once upon a time in the dark of the moon there was a little raccoon.  He lived down in a big warm chestnut tree with his mother who was also a raccoon.  – the opening line to the children’s book “Wait till the moon is full” by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams who is most famous for illustrating the Laura Ingalls books.   

“Wait till the moon is full” was a favorite of mine as a child and I think also of my mother and grandmother who read it to me – often! I can remember being in the car with my grandmother Ruth and seeing the moon – especially if it was a barely visible curve and saying the line from the book, the mother raccoon telling the little raccoon something like, “the moon is as thin as a sliver of a raccoon’s ear. Wait, Wait till the moon is full”.  I don’t remember how the other phases were described but I never see a sliver of a moon without hearing – in my grandmother’s voice – “thin as a sliver of a raccoon’s ear”.

You see, the little raccoon wanted to “go out in the night – to know an owl, to see if the moon is a rabbit, and to find out how dark is the dark.  But his mother said, “Wait, Wait till the moon is full.” So the little raccoon waited and wondered, while the moon got bigger and bigger and bigger.  Until at last, on a very special evening, the moon was full”. 

I don’t know if my fascination with being up and sometimes outside in the night is because of the book or if I loved the book because I loved the night.   My interest is not in seeing the moon or the stars up close or even knowing the constellations although I like seeing the very familiar ones: the big and little dipper, Orion’s cross, sometimes I can pick out Casseopia.  It is more like the night is a comforting presence – never the same – sometimes starless, sometimes so full of stars that it is nearly overwhelming to think of the vastness of the universe… to lie on the ground, in this dark, dark place with no artificial light to block the sky – on a clear night and see the Milky Way and the “billions and billions” of stars and know that the ones I can see are just a few of how many there are.  Well…that kind of makes the affairs of the day on planet earth seem just a bit inconsequential!

so…- what’s out there? is there an end somewhere or somewhen? and really, why are We – Here in this part of  wherever and whenever. Mysteries for another time of existence.

Tonight, the moon is full.