Watching the Moon Watch Me

One of my favorite places to be is in my bed around two o’clock in the morning. It is around this hour that the moon shines directly through my bedroom window—I keep the blinds open so as to welcome her presence. Mornings like this morning I have awakened for no apparent reason—maybe having already been asleep for seven hours is reason enough—and I just lay there watching the moon watch me.

As a child, camping out in the yard was a favorite past time for my best friend and I. We slept in a tent in her fenced yard just two doors down and opened the top flap; it was like a sky light. We would talk about life and dreams and fears and boys and our made-up world. She always fell asleep first and then I would just lay there until my eyes could no longer stay open watching the moon watch me.

One Thanksgiving I spent a few days at a beach front condo on St. George Island, Florida. The whole bedroom wall was a window facing the Gulf of Mexico. I lay there all night listening to the sound of the waves crashing. With each crash I imagined the moon instructing the waves how far to come on shore, how high to rise, how loud to sing. Until I could no more, I just laid there on the bed watching the moon watch me.

Not far from home there is a rural retreat—out in the middle of almost nowhere—where the night sky is so huge and the stars are so numerous and all night long I can just sit and watch the moon watch me. It is here, in this space, that the moon does not have to compete with false illumination—where the authenticity of the moon’s light is not only noticed, but revered.

I once had the occasion to be the only guest at this remote retreat. During this time I was struggling to realize some sort of inner freedom. This particular night I was out walking in the moonlight, wrestling with my inner being. Just as if I were a wave on the ocean I began to feel directed by the influence of the moon’s power—and I danced! Rallying all of the courage within me I threw off my clothing and danced naked on this hill a dance that only could have been choreographed by the moon herself.

It was just me and her spinning and twirling and laughing! As if in some sappy movie, as if on cue, a light, warm summer rain started to fall. I’m not sure if ever there has been a time of feeling so alive as when my skin soaked in the refreshing of the earth and glistened from the illumination of my life-long friend. That night something freed inside me, indeed—never again has fear imprisoned my spirit.

After dancing and skipping and running around I fell asleep on that hill, just watching the moon watch me.

There’s something about being under the moon that speaks to my spirit and centers me amidst the busy-ness of my life, the clatter in the spirit realm, and the ever-turning thoughts of my heart. As everything is silent around me, the moon’s presence becomes a force that demands my silent stillness.

Just as she commands the waves of the ocean and just as she commands the dance of my spirit, she commands the stillness of my heart and mind. In this still place I am reminded that I have been created on purpose, with purpose, for a purpose.

The moon reminds me that it is in the darkness that the authenticity of light is known. In her presence I am reminded that darkness needs light and that light was created to dispel darkness. The moon reminds me that the same God, who hung her in the sky to rule by night, is the same God who divinely ordered the creation of my existence. I am reminded that this life I am living is really not my own; that I, too, am the light of the world created to dispel darkness.

In this still place, with the beams of the moon illuminating my spirit, I feel secure and sure of myself, empowered and encouraged, challenged and reassured night after night—just watching the moon watch me.