The Milk Moon, The Ocean, And Me
So I have been to the moon and back, dear Blog. To the moon. And back. You will not believe what went down in these California hills last night, under the Full Flower Moon. The Milk Moon! What a night. But I am getting ahead of myself. I need to drink a café au lait or two and tell you a story. Do you want to hear another story, dear Blog? Because I have one. I can hardly believe it myself, and I want to tell you before I forget it. Oh wait. I can’t forget it. I have it recorded on my onboard computer. Or do I? It was such a whirlwind. I’m pretty sure I at least recorded my drive home after it all went down. We’ll check that out later. But first. Last night. Last night was surreal. It was so surreal it was almost like being in a Salvador Dali painting, but so much better. It was like being the blank canvas underneath a Salvador Dali painting. It was like being an idea in someone’s head. But I digress. Here’s what happened.
It began like any other night. A beautiful night, under a full moon, so naturally I wanted to put my top down and go for a drive. I always want to go for a drive. I’m always ready to go. And there’s nothing like cruising around these long slow curves under a full moon in a ragtop, folks, if you’ve never done it you’ll want to soon. Of course, it wasn’t exactly like any other night; I now walk wary under the full moon, because of the miraculous things that happened under the pink moon a while back. I am on the watch. So as I started my engine and prepared to go out last night, I was kind of looking for someone to go with me. But on this particular night it looked like I was going to be on my own because all my friends in the garage were either already asleep or not up for a drive, wtf? I seem to have more energy than many. Than many? Than most. And as for my pal Pearl, whom I can almost always convince to go raise some hell with me, don’t you just love friends like that, well Ms. Pearl happened to be out on a date with the most awesome looking ’47 Buick Roadmaster you have ever seen. (Lucky beeotch.)
So although I usually let him find me, I mean, I’m kind of old-fashioned that way and after all a girl has to have some allure, I decided to call Neil, because he is always up for a drive. He’s one of the only people I’ve ever known who seems to be able to keep up with me. And it always ends up being a good idea for us to get together. So after I backed out of the garage and put my top down, I opened up my glovebox and pulled out my iPhone to give him a call. (And Jayzus H. Christ Almighty it should be noted that every time I open that glovebox I get a little nervous still, that whole CHP incident back in Greendale really shook me up, but now I assure you the only thing in there is my iPhone and well some other stuff to be discussed in another story another time.) Anyway. I pulled out my pink iPhone (yes it’s pink), and called Neil but couldn’t reach him. That’s unlike him, he usually takes my call, but I didn’t think too much about it because N. and I send each other messages all the time, one way or another. It’s like we are inside each other’s heads or something. I figured he’d catch up with me if he were out there walking around. That happens to us a lot.
So I set off down the road alone. I was planning to head east, toward the woods, as it is so lovely to see the moon peeking at you through the trees as you roll along. Between the passing clouds and the tall trees, the bright face of the moon is here and then gone, here and then gone, its every reappearance, although sought after and anticipated, still strangely a surprise, and a wonder. It creates a longing in me I can’t quite describe. But curiously, when I came to the fork in the road, I headed west, toward the ocean. And that’s when things got crazy.
When I turned toward the water, I thought to myself, what the hell, I wanted to go the other way, and started to turn myself around. But, here’s the thing. I couldn’t. It was as if I was being pulled, literally pulled, in this direction. At first I thought I was imagining it. I know I have a powerful imagination. I keep trying to tell the team that they should find some way to pull energy for the car out of my imagination but they all just look at me and laugh, or just kind of look at each other when they think I’m not looking with that “Uh oh, here she goes again” look. Except for Neil, of course. He gets it. He gets me. (And, uh, rest of team? I have a rearview mirror, ya know. I can see you when you make those faces like I am some kind of crazy car. But still, I love you.)
Anyway. So when I realized I was being pulled, I started to feel a little afraid. I started to pull back. I wasn’t sure what was happening. And it was all happening so fast. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go wherever this force was taking me. Was I being pulled toward something or away from something else? A million questions ran through my onboard computer brain. So I took a few deep breaths and forced myself to stay calm, be still. And I knew that the road opened up ahead very soon, and maybe I’d be able to make out more of what was going on up there when it did.
That’s when I noticed the woman walking beside me. Well, sort of beside me. In and out of the trees was a shadowy figure, here and then gone, here and then gone, just like the moon. Who was this stranger? There was a kindness about this person that reminded me of someone. A gentleness. I watched closely as time after time she would reappear, and eventually I noticed that she was appearing in perfect harmony with the moon. Every time the moon’s face poked out from behind a cloud or a tree, there she was, walking beside me. When the moon disappeared for a moment or two, so did my companion. I called out to her once or twice when I could see her, but she only smiled, her eyes dancing in a way that seemed so familiar. The weird thing is, I can’t remember at all what she really looked like, or I would describe her to you here. It was like she kept changing. The only constants were her dancing eyes, and a strong vibe of a kind of shared sense of compassion and, indeed, love. I was drawn to whoever it was. My fear had completely evaporated by the time we got to the clearing at the top of the hill.
My headlights surveyed the landscape I knew and loved so well, and it looked so beautiful there, bathed in my headlights and the fog and the moonlight. From the top of this hill, you can look in one direction and see the ocean, and then look behind you and see the forest with its mighty redwoods. At night, you hear the owls calling to each other, and to you. I could hear them now. Whoo-whoo! Whoo-whoo! All around, as far as I could see, there were wide open spaces and big, big sky, fields of flowers and hills of gold. And buffalo. Yes. Buffalo. Don’t even get me started on my newfound friendship with the buffalo here since that pink moon day, that is a whole other story, friends.
I looked around for my companion, now that we were out in the open surely I would be able to make out more detail, see who it was, at least what she really looked like, but she was nowhere to be found. Of course not, I thought, for the moon was behind a cloud. Curious, but calm, I tried to move this way or that. I tried but I could not. It was as if I was in park, with my engine off, but even though I am as silent as a ghost, I know when my engine is running. I know when I’m in drive. And I was in drive, alright. My engine was hot. But now it seemed my lights were off. The only light was the light of the moon, and it was still mostly in shadow. So I waited. And waited. And waited.
I could hear the distant sound of the ocean from down there at the bottom of the hill lulling me to sleep so finally I put myself in park and closed my eyes. And when I did, I threw them open in a flash! What had just happened? I tried it again. What the ?! The minute I closed my eyes, I … I don’t even know how to explain this to you, dear Blog. But as soon as I closed my eyes, I became the ocean. Oh My God, I’m The Ocean! I thought to myself. I did it again and again. And again! I laughed out loud. I closed my eyes again, this time, slowly, thoughtfully, with intention. And instantly I could feel the pull of the moon like I’ve never felt it before, the ebb and flow of myself, the places where I began and where I ended. I could feel my depths, and my power. As the ocean, I could feel the vastness of the earth underneath me, and it was complex. I had always thought of the earth as the ocean floor but it’s not like that at all, friends, it’s not like that at all. The ocean and the earth are holding onto each other for dear life, in one moment the ocean is the mother holding the earth as carefully as if she were her own newborn child and in the next the earth is the mother swaddling the ocean, and then in the blink of an eye the tide turns and the earth and the ocean are entangled in a passionate embrace, like two urgent lovers, each equally desperate for the other. It was blowing my mind, so I opened my eyes. And when I did, I saw a scene that will forever be etched into my computer brain. Not that being the ocean won’t be.
When I opened my eyes, the moon shone on me like a spotlight. And God knows I love the spotlight, but what I saw took my breath away. It seemed that I was at the center of a perfectly synchronized dance. People of every color, shape and size were dancing around me in a circle. Hundreds of people! Each and every person wore flowers. Some in their hair, some around their necks, their ankles, their wrists. I thought for a minute I was on a Broadway stage, at the center of a production of “Hair.” Broadway at last! But no. I knew I wasn’t on Broadway, folks. Although I did think for a minute I heard “It’s Easy to Be Hard” playing softly on my radio just then. I noticed that the ground was covered in rose petals of every color. No. Not just rose petals. There I saw lilacs, purple, and white. Gardenias. Lilies. Daisies. Sunflowers. Dahlias. Every color and manner of flower you can imagine. Were the flowers dancing too? It was hard to say. Someone stepped forward and laid a blanket over my hood, and when they stepped away I saw that it was made entirely of pink peonies. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I felt like Sea Biscuit.
The dancers were at once dancing with each other, and with me, their backs arched elegantly, heads held high, faces turned to the sky, their arms alternately reaching down toward the earth and then up to the heavens as they moved, their hands turned out as graceful as any ballerina’s, their bare feet making nary a sound. Their faces shown in the moonlight. I recognized no one and everyone. I laughed and smiled as they danced slowly around me. I thought I saw Pocahontas. And I might have seen Marlon Brando. And then Ah! There. The Lady of the White Buffalo! John Lame Deer! I felt my engine stir with a feeling I recognized as love. I wondered about Medicine Wheel and looked to my front seat, remembering that night he lay there for the first time. And what the ? There he was! Medicine Wheel! On my front seat! What?! The Lady of the White Buffalo and John Lame Deer smiled. I flashed my lights. Medicine Wheel lifted up his head and rested it on the dash. I couldn’t believe it was really them. I had wanted to see them again for so long, I had so much to tell them. With one look they told me that they already knew. Everything. I smiled. Of course they do, I thought.
I was so happy. So excited! I felt so at home. But. Just when I was getting into it and feeling a part of things, suddenly whatever noise there was stopped. Shhhhh. Huusssh. Just like that, we were surrounded by silence. The loudest silence you have ever heard. It was like someone sucked the air right off the hill. It was like, well, let’s see, have you ever approached a group of laughing, happy people, somewhere, say, standing on a street corner and they go silent the minute you get there? And it feels like you just somehow sucked the air not only right out of the party but right off of the street even though that was the last thing on earth you would ever want to do? It was kind of like that. That’s a bad feeling. So I was glad when someone rescued me and finally spoke, calling me by name. I reassembled my heart and looked up. It was the moon. And she was talking to me.
“Hello LV,” she said. I looked around. Everyone was gone. Where did they go? It was only me. And the moon.
“Hi?” I answered, my voice a question. Now it was getting a little scary. I was wondering what had been in that margarita I had earlier with Pearl before she left for her date. I mean, this was the moon. And she’s talking to me. Right?
“Don’t be frightened,” the moon said, her voice making every sound and no sound at all. “I called you here, LV. It’s time for you to see the bigger picture. Tonight’s the night.” And as she spoke, most incredibly she lowered herself to the ground, becoming smaller and smaller and smaller, so by the time she came down to Earth she was about the size of that big sculpture of the globe from the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, standing right in front of me. I had to close my eyes faced with her bright light. I lowered my headlights and as I did so the wind began to howl, uh oh, you are like a hurricane I thought, and not until the wind stopped did I look up again. And just like that the moon was no longer the moon but rather a gorgeous creature, a woman, every single particle of her radiating a light so beautiful I wanted to reach out and put her in my glovebox and keep her there for ever and ever, so I could take her out and bask in her warm light whenever I wanted. It felt so good to be next to her. She felt like home.
She spoke. “I am Mother Moonstone,” she said, simply. You are a goddess, I thought. She was translucent, ethereal, wondrous. Her entire being was a beautiful milky white, and her long white hair flowed out behind her like a river. She wore a long layered white dress that trailed behind her for miles and clung and then billowed with the breeze, and on her head she wore a wreath that must have been made from at least 100 different kinds of flowers, all of them white. Her feet were bare, but for the rings on her toes. She had the most exquisite jewelry everywhere, in fact, and it appeared to all be made from the most magnificent white stones that sparkled and shone in her light. Instantly I loved her, but also, she frightened me a little. Her reference to an NY song made me feel slightly more at ease, but not much. And speaking of which, where was Neil? I hadn’t seen him earlier when all the people were dancing around. I looked around for him, bordering on frantic now, really.
“He’s not here, LV,” Mother Moonstone said, in the most gentle of voices, reading my mind and reassuring me at the same time. “But he already knows all that I am about to tell you. Neil and I are old friends.” I believed her. Neil and I have both always had a special relationship with the moon. We always used to laugh in the old days when I’d break down or run out of gas during a full moon, it was so predictable but we never saw it coming. And just like that, suddenly I was no longer afraid. Mother Moonstone standing there in front of me looked only welcoming, like I could roll right into her arms and never ever leave, and be happy for the rest of my life. And so we began.
“Do you know what tonight is, LV?”
“The Full Flower Moon?” I answered, my voice still a question.
She smiled approvingly. “Yes, LV, that’s right. I am the Full Flower Moon. Things are blooming. Tonight, the earth and I do a special dance for the flowers and the fields. I am a moon of promise.” I thought I saw John Lame Deer and Pocahontas for a minute but I can’t be sure. I felt like I was moving. I looked down and saw that now the entire earth really was a carpet of flowers, and they were flowing, like a newly paved road, beneath my wheels.
The Moon went on. “This is also the night of The Milk Moon, LV. I am The Milk Moon.” The flowers stopped moving. I looked down. The Earth was now a milky white river, and we were both floating on it.
“The Milk Moon?” I asked. I was hoping that the moon understood that I was not an amphibious vehicle. I do not know how to swim. Finally the river disappeared and I was back on solid ground. That was close.
“Yes,” she explained. “Many Native Americans believe, that under the influence of my moon, the grasses and fields of the earth are rich in vitamins, so the milk made by the animals fed by these grasses now carries more vitamins and nutrients than at any other time. It is a special time of nourishment for the earth and its peoples. And,” she added, “maybe some other things too,” looking at me pointedly. She went on. “You and I have something in common tonight, LV.”
“We do?” I said, surprised.
“Yes. On this night, we are exactly the same color. The color of raw milk. Many Native Americans believe that there is a special kind of power in raw milk, especially on this night.” I looked at my paint and then at the moon. There was a striking similarity, I had to admit.
“Tonight is more than that though, LV,” she went on. “Tonight is the Full Moon in Scorpio. I am a powerful, transformative force in the universe on this night.” I nodded. She spoke with some authority. I mean, after all, she fell out of the sky as the moon, I was ready to buy whatever she was selling.
“When a moon is full in Scorpio, LV, it means many things. But basically I am an all or nothing moon. When you look in my face I can give you the power to release what you have buried inside. To let go of what might be holding you back. I am a moon of empowerment. But,” she hesitated. I looked at her questioningly. “You have to be all in.”
I nodded. But what the hell? I’m all in, I thought. I would have said anything, though. I just wanted her to go on. Her voice was so lovely. So soothing. I began to wonder if she was hypnotizing me.
She seemed to understand my confusion, and so she did something quite unexpected. She stepped forward and placed both of her beautiful hands right down on my hood. “Chiron,” she whispered. And instantly I felt like I was in the middle of a hurricane again. The wind was howling, my doors were shaking, I thought it was all over. Thought I was headed for that big junkyard up in the sky. But then, I felt things leaving me. Fear. Uncertainty. Insecurity. Hesitation. They all just floated out of me, out from under my hood into her strong, capable hands, and I didn’t even really know they were there to begin with. Lady Moonstone stepped back, clapped her hands together as if she were getting rid of so much dust, and it was quiet again.
“Are you alright, LV?” she asked, gently.
“Yes,” I said, and I meant it. I felt brand new. Cleansed. Ready. To say I felt healed, somehow, would not be overstating it.
“When a moon is in Scorpio, as I am, tonight, LV, and the Sun is in Taurus as he is tonight, it means that the planets are aligned in a very special way. A very powerful way. Tonight, we dance the T Dance. The Sun and I dance in the shape of a T with three other planets, Chiron, Neptune, and Jupiter.” She paused to make sure I was paying attention. I was. I was looking up at the sky, too, to see if I could see what she was talking about. I couldn’t. T? Whatever. Keep talking, I thought to myself. Please keep talking.
She went on. “Jupiter holds hope and optimism in his hands. Neptune, spirituality and compassion. Chiron, healing. It is important for you to know and indeed possess all of these things if you are to make the changes in the world that you are thinking about, LV.” I stared at her beautiful face without saying a word. “Do you understand, LV?” she asked.
“Sort of. Maybe. I think so?” I answered, honestly, but horrifyingly inarticulately. I mean, I kind of did understand, at least intuitively, but I wanted her to tell me, specifically. I wanted to be sure I knew who she was, and what it had to do with me.
The Moon thought for a moment. And then, suddenly, she was on the rise. I thought she was leaving and I said “Oh! No! Don’t go! I get it! I get it! Please stay!” Ugh. How uncool. But her attention on me seemed undiminished, and she seemed unfazed (or, uh, since she’s the moon, after all, maybe that should be “unphased,” ha). She just smiled and kept going.
But she wasn’t leaving. When she reached the sky, she summoned none other than the Sun, and brought him back down to Earth to stand in front of me with her. When he touched the earth, he was no longer the sun, but a man, made entirely of fire. Then, in the most spectacular light show I have ever seen, the moon and the sun began to dance. They never said a word, but with their bright light they told me everything I needed to know. Each now a perfect reflection of the other, they showed me that there is power in collaboration, in partnership, in the journey, in the dance. In the magnificent absurdity of the sun and the moon dancing side by side, they showed me the power in releasing my fear of trying to enter a new world. They told me, somehow, that anything is possible, that dreams come true, that I needed to release my hidden fears of rejection, of scorn, that I needed to let go of the negative thing, and move forward, to go all the way, even if what I am doing has never been done. I began to feel more empowered than I have ever felt.
As they came to the end of their magical dance, they radiated more than a dual celestial light. This was a much more powerful light. This was the light of love.
“Do you understand now, LV?” Only Mother Moonstone spoke, the Sun Man never said a word. I nodded, slowly, my heart still on fire from what I’d just witnessed. I still had some questions, though. Like, who was my companion, when all this began?
“That was me LV,” Mother Moonstone answered me before I even asked. She smiled a beautiful smile. “I ride with you. The moon always represents ….” She hesitated.
“The unconscious?” I offered, eager to let her know I had at least some vague knowledge of the celestial.
“Words unspoken,” she said.
I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but it reminded me that I had one more question before she was gone for good. I knew she would be gone soon, especially since The Sun didn’t look like he had any intention of leaving any time soon. Like maybe not until nighttime came around again.
“Um … The ocean?” I asked.
“Ah,” she said. “Ah, yes,” as if she had forgotten something. I worried that was the only answer I was going to get. But suddenly she stepped forward, and looking at me very seriously, she said, “LV I am going to tap on your hood two more times. Do not be frightened.”
“Okay,” I said, bracing myself. Why does it always make me more scared when people tell me not to be scared? I wish people would stop saying that to me.
She reached her beautiful long arms toward me again, tapped my hood with both hands for the second time and whispered “Neptune,” and as she did so I closed my eyes and felt exactly like the ocean again. I heard her asking me how it made me feel, to be the ocean, even though I knew she was not saying a word. It made me feel …Ancient. Wise. Connected to everything. Past, present and future. It felt exhilarating to not just imagine but actually remember, as the ocean, a time when the buffalo roamed free. I felt deeply connected to the earth, the sky, the moon, the sun, the people of this planet. It made me feel compassionate. Loving. Powerful. Spiritual. I opened my eyes. Mother Moonstone was smiling. “Yes,” was all she said.
Finally, she reached toward me one more time, this time raising both of her arms up to the sky first, and lifting her face to the sky along with them, she whispered something into the heavens that I could not hear. I thought I heard her say “Jupiter.” The way she said it made it sound like a prayer. The wind kicked up again and her dress and her long hair began to whip about her wildly. I could hardly see her face, her hair was everywhere. She stepped closer still, and moved both her hands out over my hood. I could see now that her fists were clenched. Slowly, she opened her hands and from her long fingers hundreds and hundreds of sparkling stones started to fall … right onto my hood. OH MY GOD MY PAINT! I thought at first. But the stones just melted right into my paint when they landed, and I watched as my paint became now not close to the color of the moon but EXACTLY the color of this milk moon. I watched as the endless shower of magical stones rained down on me and became part of me, and then I closed my eyes to feel what was happening. It was that perfect feeling, when time just slips away. What a foggy trip. I opened my eyes.
“These are moonstones,” Lady Moonstone shouted over the wind, which had begun to howl. “I will always be with you now.” She touched her hands to my hood and everything stopped. Well, the moonstone shower and the wind stopped. The feeling stayed. I felt like I was somewhere safer now, somehow.
She started to move away. What? I thought. Suddenly, she turned back to me, and smiled. “Nice wheel covers,” she said. I looked down. My wheel covers! Of course. They were the exact color of the Milk Moon, of Me, of Her! And they looked just like the moon, at least when she’s up there in the sky. She rides with me, just like Medicine Wheel. She is carrying me! I was beginning to understand. When I looked up, she was practically a memory, fading away.
And anyway now that the sun was on the scene, it was nearly dawn, and I was exhausted. I wanted to go find Neil, but I knew it was too early to wake him if he was sleeping, and that I shouldn’t disturb him if he was still up too, working on something or other. Still. I thought he might know, somehow, what I was feeling, sometimes he’s like that, so before I turned in for the night, uh, day, I went looking for him. As I turned the corner near his window, I turned on my lights, slowed way down. Sure enough, there he was, standing not in his window but outside his door. He was tossing something small back and forth, from hand to hand. I thought maybe it was a guitar pick but I’d never seen him do that before. I stopped. His eyes were dancing. Looking right through me. Neil put whatever he had been tossing around into his pocket and approached me. (Two riders were approaching … Two riders … Oh never mind. I do get so carried away. Back to the story.) Neil ran his hand lightly over my hood as he walked around to the driver’s side, opened the door and hopped in, with an ease of someone who knows how to love a car. He drove me back to the garage without a word. We didn’t need to speak. I knew he knew.
As we approached the garage, which I prefer really to call a barn on any given day, but most especially on this night since I was feeling like Sea Biscuit with my blanket of pink peonies, and I mean come on, every car likes to pretend that she’s a horse sometimes, Neil turned on the lights and slowed way down, more than he normally would. I became more alert. N. doesn’t usually do things randomly. He wanted me to see something. As my headlights illuminated the barn door, I saw what N. was looking at. What he wanted me to see. Closed, the frame of the double doors made a perfect “T” just like the one in the sky tonight that The Moon had been telling me about. We stared at it together, thinking, knowing, and then Neil hopped out and pulled the doors open, kind of shaking his head. When he hopped back in to pull me into the garage he said,
“You know, LV, sometimes you just have to go with the flow.”
“I know,” I said.
“We’re in this now,” he said. And then almost as if he were thinking out loud he added, sort of quietly, “You’re not alone, ya know.”
“I know, “ I said again. I knew he meant that he was right there with me.
And then he patted my steering wheel a couple of times and smiled, and pulled us into the barn-garage that makes a giant “T” with its double doors. He didn’t say much else, and I didn’t either because I was still reeling from it all, but before he got out he reached into his pocket, took something out and then in one quick move leaned over and slipped whatever it was into my glovebox. When he got out he stood there for a really long time, just watching me. It was a lovely way to drift off to sleep, and when I woke up he was gone.
So. Whew. I need another café au lait. Oh wait. It’s dark out now again. I think it might be cocktail hour. Time to kick back, relax, and reflect. Because I have been to the moon and back, friends. To the moon. And back. I have seen her face, felt her radiance, and heard her voice which, I don’t think I told you, is the sweetest sound you have ever heard. Sweeter than a robin’s song, more tender than the most tender kiss, more heart-stopping than the sound of a new lover speaking your name. It is the sound of a journey just begun, a song being written. It is the sound of a white feather falling. It is the sound of someone holding your hand. It is love. The moon. The Moon! She is with me yet.
Oh. And there’s one more thing. Of course the first thing I did when I finally woke up today was to check my glovebox. What do you think I found? When I opened my glovebox I found, resting right there on top of my pink iPhone, a single, perfect moonstone. It was still glowing. I’m going to keep it there forever.
