The Power of the Pale Moon

"Another pale moon shines like the high noon..."

When I lived in Wilkes-Barre, PA, I often rode in the backseat of the vehicle when my friends and I traveled all over the Northeast. Although I may have slightly complained about always having to sit in the back (I always lost to "shotgun;" I just wasn't fast enough) it gave me a chance to just stare out the car window and take in the beauty of the landscape: the mountains, the green forests, the white snow that covered everything, the dark sky, the stars, and my favorite - the pale moon. I wondered how many people were observing the beauty of the moon like me and how many people appreciated the brightness of the moon in the darkness of the night.

Most of the time my friends blasted the music very high so it was easy to block out ongoing conversations and let my mind disappear for a while. I'd look into the distance space and "night" dream about anything and everything. I meditated about my life and where I was at that moment and how my decisions affected my life right down to why i decided to go for that particular car ride with my friends. I pondered where these decisions may lead to and wondered how it affected the next phase of my life. I thought about people - my friends and family, old friends I haven't seen in a long time, people I never met, and people I observed during the day. What were they doing at the exact moment I thought about them? What were they afraid of? What were their dreams? Who would I meet next? and where would I meet them? Sometimes I contemplated that whoever I was thinking about happened to be staring at the moon the exact same time I was - and we sort of connected for a brief moment before my friends finally interrupted and I'd fall back into the real world.

It was always hard to break myself from these "night" dreams and my friends would often have to yell my name pretty forcefully to get my attention.

I always looked forward to those moments of solitude. Yes, I was in the confines of a small compact space with 2 or more people, but looking up at the moon transported me into a place that no one could enter but me. I lost all connections with the present and pondered, wondered, and dreamed as I experienced the power of that pale moon.