Followed by a Moonshadow
“Tell me - what are you”?
Are you just an old, worn road, laid low in eerie silence?
Twisting through dark, dense woods, overgrown in centuries of cycles and seasons?
OR are you an incantation? Drawing me deeper. A wildwood path that is inviting my soul, my desire, to drink deeply and then to speak?
In that moment, I become aware of ‘fear’.
IT IS DARK… and I sense a deep ‘aloneness’.
Why am I alone here in the woods, at night? Alone in the dark?
I am vulnerable to all the unknowings that lurk just yonder.
I am small, I must tremble, and I must hide.
This feels like a narrative I’ve lived by. “Hide, it’s dark outside, and no one is here to keep you safe”.
BUT WAIT... That instinct to fear it cannot be true, here. I have walked through the darkest of woods, times when only bravery has governed me. Times when even the ‘smallness’ of me has refused to let go, and I have not crumbled when all else would say that perhaps I should.
Why do I fear now? Does this dark isolation only cloak something I feel growing inside?
Do I really need to fear being alone when laid low in eerie silence, twisting through dark, dense woods?
OR is this where I was born to come alive? To burst forth with creative wonder in the boding whimsical enchantment of this night garden?
A second glance at the shadowy boughs, and there is some strange and undeniable mystery here.
With this forest’s dark foliage and its hidden places, I hear mysteries that seem to be longing to be spoken. The twisting of the unspoken past and present, all of it gloriously waiting for its moment.
Either way, fear or freedom, I feel that this forboding place will somehow show a truth that I now have to face. I must resist hiding out. I must ask, “Is there something to all this hiddenness, more than just me believing in timidness. What is with my hiding away, what is it hiding deepest within?
“Look up, Look out”.
The grace-filled, illuminous moonlight is dancing overhead. Shedding crystal blue light down through the canopy and splayed out ahead of me.
It speaks.
It’s huge, and I can’t believe how long I have only looked at Earthbound. Gripped with heavy fear, I have failed to notice how looming it hung, and how powerfully near.
The moon speaks deep into my soul with words untold. Telling me I was made for this place, for the magical, the mystical, the whimsical, for the sense of otherworldly belonging.
I know it speaks truth because as it does, fear retreats and identity bursts forth.
It’s true - I would never fear the opportunity to marvel in beauty both light and dark, in all its wonder, its awe, its Creator.
Who told me I should fear being here? The moon speaks to me again. Ever so big, towering over the woods, the road, the darkened trees. The moon that cannot be moved, that never ceases to glow, it is forever there watching over me, assured that I and it are never alone.
My little heart may forget at times, the moon and its place, its presence, that it burst forth with moonlight. A simple look up from the dark, eerie road, and I know I need not fear the darkness.
I can take hold of it, yes, hold of the dark and feel the invitation to partake, even in this dark and mysterious place, I can come alive.
I love a stroll in the dark woods at night, the coo of the owl, the creak of the trees. I don’t need to fear what is watching me, because I need only look up to the moon and trace down its shadow; because it and its wonder, not fear, is what is leading me.
