The other night was a full moon.
I hopped on my bike, heading east on side streets I haven’t explored yet, past, along and through streets I’ve only heard about in the news – gangs, a shooting, a funeral.
I ended up looking over some kind of park at the back of a community centre. A neighbourhood of tall apartment buildings and bungalows. Tons of kids still out playing, even in the dark. Funny thing, how the most notorious neighbourhoods of the city are also raising the most children.
Sitting on a bench, listening to the kids and watching the moon, I thought of Em in France, wondered if she was looking at this very moon over there, walking her dog in the evening.
I love this about the moon, it makes me feel how small we are on a spinning planet, all looking out at the same moon.
Em tells me she was indeed out seeing that very same full moon, and sends a picture of a glorious, blooming rose.
Here the roses are maybe a month away and everyone is still licking their wounds from the long brutal winter – it’s fierce frigid temperatures and endless quantities of snow, as if somehow it’s responsible for the state of the economy, tension in marriages, the deteriorating health of aging parents, aside from the devastation to any number of tender plants in gardens.
The sudden spring is still a shock of disbelief.
Each morning I’m on the patio doing sunrise ceremony, grateful for the new day and hot coffee, delighting in the variations in the clouds, watching them move from wispy vertebrae to fingers of god, hinting at summer storms to come.
Even here in the crummy, notorious neighbourhoods, the skies reveal their splendour every day, and up amongst the clouds, geese and ducks pass, looking for places to settle in for the season, seagulls hurry by in singles – this one heading south, that one heading north, another crossing by east to west. Like business men they seem, rushing about with self-important determination.
From France Em reminds me: Each fleeting moment is real and true.
And it occurs to me that even weeds have their own kind of beauty.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Forces of Nature
Force of nature in the ‘hood
follow your nose 
Great, great stuff here! Thank you for sharing!!!!!!
Oh my pleasure – thanks so much for your kind words 🙂
Great photos!
Thank you!
I particularly enjoy your final sentence and photo.
Beautiful.
Matt, I really appreciate you saying that – simple pleasures…
Wonderful. I was reminded of my childhood in Poland in quite similar neighborhood, though this was the norm at the time rather than an exception.
Thank you.
Wow! I guess high-density low-cost buildings are the same everywhere…
Thanks so much for your kind comment.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts and that first shot of the moon.
janet
Oh Janet, I’m so glad you liked that moon picture – I almost didn’t put it in, cause it’s not very sharp, and the composition is a bit weird.
But I like the wee suburban bungalows and the colour of the moon… 🙂
The great firmament! Behind it, the stars and distant galaxies flying!
“The great firmament…” – lovely phrasing. Thanks for those words 🙂
And keep looking up!
I love this! Sorry it took me so long to tell you about it.
How did you manage to have the moon look as big as it does to the naked eye?
Gorgeous apple blossoms … and the clouds!!
Yes! all those marvels and dream spinners watch over life’s rhythms fitting the mood of the moment.
As usual, I thoroughly enjoy the easy writing style, always thoughtful, sometimes playful that leads us to your photos, a thousand words in themselves.
A delight.
No worries! A comment is welcome at any time… 🙂
The moon appears very large when it first appears above the horizon – so it was biggest while I was biking through back streets, and was already higher and smaller by the time I found that park.
Thanks so much for your words, here and other places… xxx
Kat, I am loving this direction. Really meditative and beautiful. Brings us into your experience and then into our own. Bravo! Going to share.
❤ ❤ ❤
There is something comforting about the Moon where ever we are.. We know others will be looking up and seeing it.. Lovely photo’s Kat..
I so appreciate you bringing nature again into my field – that reminder that even by just stepping outside she is there waiting to connect. I felt that very much transmitting through your work today.
Yes yes yes! Enjoy your garden…what a blessing… 🙂
Chino mino means cute n lovely….