Under the Wesak Full Moon

While there is not too much I can tell you about Buddha from personal experience, I do know that we're celebrating his birthday today and that that makes for lots of joyful energy the world around. And it just happens to coincide with the celestial event of the year regarding the largest Full Moon...as in the one closest to the Earth, the Moon in perigee. On a Facebook post I spotted this phrase: Normally sober scientists call it a "super moon."

Via the often wondrous connections of the world-wide-Web, this sweet poem came to my Inbox two days ago (thank you Joe Riley, Panhala.net):

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.  ~Ikkyu~

Apart from the promised love letter of tonight, yesterday Spring brought three feathered love letters to Dragonfly Cottage in the form of some special bird neighbors just back from their winter retreats. Dawn brought the unmistakable flute-song of the Wood thrush, and in the evening s/he hopped into the bird bath to splash about, washing the dust of the road off his(or hers) beautiful brown-spotted breast (yes, exercising a bit of anthropomorphic license here!).

Midday I took a break from my work to wash the dishes. The window over the sink gives a close-up view of Round Top Hill against which Dragonfly Cottage nestles. A small dark shape flitted past...one of the butterflies that have been around this week, I thought. And then to my astonished delight, a ruby-throated hummingbird zoomed back into view, pausing for a nano-second to give me a beady-eyed look before darting on with his rounds. "Oh my! Welcome back!" I called after him. Any hummingbird appearance feels magical, and so this first-of-the-season visit lingered in my mind's eye all the rest of the day.

And then, when I went outside to watch the nearly-full Moon rise over the hills beyond the river, two gray-feathered catbirds swooped in full of their loud and saucy bird-talk. I want to think it's last year's duo back for another nesting season. And they certainly did arrive with confident authority, so I'm imagining it really IS them.   

I tend to fret a lot over the oddness of our changed weather patterns, the record-warm winter just past, the record floods of last September. Yesterday's love letters and tonight's promised one are serving to offset this unease, giving me reason to trust the annual promise of the year's growing light with all its potent possibilities.

So enlightenment awaits.
This evening as dusk deepens, may we all....sober scientists, overly-busy priests, techno-entranced consumers, all of us....just let go of all our various busy-ness and preoccupations and step out-of-doors to receive the love letter being beamed our way.

Hope you'll join me in a Marvelous Moon Dance!