cold and planetary

 

Yesterday, we took in a movie, dinner, and a quick evening visit at the Planetarium to see a Pink Floyd-inspired sky show in their enormous dome theater for J's birthday celebration. It inspired me to make even more space-focused collages, as if I had not been indulging that urge already the past couple of weeks with the latest series (see below). There is something about those black expanses of stars that have been drawing me to put them in art experiments particularly.

As we waited in the theater for the sky show to start, a huge image of the moon was on the wall, rendered amid rainbow colors that shifted and receded along the domed edges of the room. I couldn't help but think of how the moon is basically just this rocky satellite that orbits the earth and yet we've written countless lovesongs and poems and prayers to the moon since the beginning. Dare I say more than the sun, which is the thing that keeps this whole solar system spinning. And yet the moon is what we fall in love with the most, even though it offers neither light nor warmth.

Sylvia's moon and its "bald and wild" presence. This month's double full moons. The Sturgeon moon that means fish are more easily caught and snared in this month more than others. I once write a whole series of epistolary poems to the moon and tucked them into tiny vellum envelopes. Boxed them with old paper moon images and maps and transparency overlays of the moon. Despite this tribute, I've still managed to never get a really good and true shot of the moon with a camera--at last not the image I see with my eye--huge and looming over the lake sometimes as it rises. 

I've been reading about moon gardens after working on a decor piece about gardens in Savanannah. About planting things that will be equally beautiful and luminescent in the moonlight. About moon doors, which seem to be a cross between a garden gate and a fairy ring. But then again, all night owls must love the moon. Poets too. While I've never been a beach day kind of person (pale, pale skin and a tendency to get really drained by heat and sun) I am an avid fan of beach nights, especially when the moon is over the water and its clear enough to see a few brighter stars out over the lake.