MOONWATCH

“Two things fill my soul...with wonderment...and joy: the starry sky above me, and the moral law within me.”

-Immanuel Kant

Since ancient times, the sky never has ceased to amaze us. We are looking at the moon and unexpectedly discover that it is as if we looked into a deep, dark well! Maybe we just glimpsed the dark side of the moon, which is ordinarily beyond the reach of our eye?

Channeling mankind’s collective stream of consciousness, you might recall the predictions of an old star tracker. He thought that the hidden side of the moon was concave.

Extrapolating from that, he concluded that one day, heavenly forces would turn the moon around its axis, and its light, as if focused through a magnifying glass, would burn the earth.

But the moon is rather an abandoned dwelling. As a Russian poet wrote:

“Looking at night...the moon in the heads,

as the empty square:

without the fountain. But made from the same stone.”

-Josef Brodsky

We want to believe that we are not alone in the universe...

The night is deep.

On the dark horizon

The constellations arise.

The face of the horse is beautiful and light

His gaze is directed toward distant worlds

Where perhaps herds of horses just like him