When the moon is full here in Provence, it’s brimming. She (I think of it as a female planet) illuminates our east-facing house from behind the ridge on the other side of the valley.
The treetops on the ridge are backlit like the bristle of a black wolf. When I take the dogs out for a last wee stop at night there’s an eerie breeze through the naked trees. I look at the moon and know it will not allow me to fall into a deep sleep this night. I mean, if she can move oceans, it’s not totally unreasonable that she can have an effect on my breathing and heartbeat?
My daily practice yesterday was dedicated to the moon. I saluted it, thinking I’d domesticate it so that the night wouldn’t be disrupted. The series of asanas is called Chandra Namaskar, Moon salutation. It’s a quirky vinyasa which builds up in six or seven asanas and then retreats back the same way, more refined in a way than the Surya Namaskar, Sun salutation. It didn’t work as a sleeping pill, but it did help to revisit this vinyasa which I hadn’t tried for many years. Back and forth, back and forth, I practised and enjoyed my company.
When we were skiing in the Jura mountains and the kids were small, we befriended a couple of French grandparents at the little pension we stayed in. They were (grudgingly) tending to their grandson, who was the age of our son Erland. She was an embroidery master and taught this art to elegant ladies in the 16e arrondissement in Paris. She was also a self-taught philosopher. The night before the first moon landing, she woke her two daughters up to look at the moon one last time while it was still Virgin land.
We visited them as a family in Paris. The granddad came to pick us up in his woolly slippers at the metro station Place de la République and led us home to a small apartment in a building across a courtyard. We were served a sumptuous meal of home-made foie gras and I kept thinking of that corner window through which madame made her daughters watch the virgin moon.
Namaste in full moonlight,
Emily