Subtle Emotion
I couldn't really pick a topic to write about tonight, so I've decided to just let what's on my mind flow out, at the risk of none of it making any sense. As I sit here, at nearly 4:00 in the morning, I find the usual late night sense of restlessness has left me, leaving only a calm peacefulness. It's new, to be sure; for the past couple of weeks I've been catching sleep an hour or three at a time, and even those were restless half-sleeps. Perhaps it's this strange calm that's inspired tonight's topic, I don't know. The Moon, of all things.
Lately I've taken to staring at the Moon in those absent moments between thoughts (a result of the long walks I take when I can't sleep). Over the past two months or so I've noticed it so much (just as much in the daytime as at night) that I know intrinsically what phase she happens to be in. It occurred to me the other day that though I've had a long interest in photography and photo-manipulation, I've never once seen a photo or effect that accurately reflects the raw feeling you get when you look up at the Moon hanging in the sky; all pictures of the Moon to me look dead, like a bright rock, not like the captivating beauty I see above.
You'll notice the weird switch between "it" and "she" above. To me, "the Moon" and "it" are labels almost insulting to the "essence" I associate with the disk, which brings me to the second thought I had. All names I have ever heard referred to the Moon as I see it in photographs; bright, but dead, desolate, and lifeless. Only one name, Levanah (Hebrew LBNH), brings to mind the feeling I get when I see her, a feeling you'll notice I refrain from describing because I really don't have the words to do so. It's like looking into a living mirror, in Levanah I see all we recognize as life, though stripped of our subjective viewpoints. I see a world of dreams, terrifying and disorienting at times, sweet and wonderful at others, but always with that cool calm associated with dreaming. The fact that I feel anything consistent at all is rather strange to me, but I'm starting to see why man has been utterly fascinated by the heavens for so many generations.
On another note completely (I think), I had a thought randomly pop into my head several days ago that seems to still be lingering around. It came to me fully formed, with none of the layer-by-layer constructivism I tend to form my thoughts with, which just feels odd to me. Perhaps just my subconscious throwing up flags, I don't know.
I saw myself standing in empty space, holding four roses of different colors. In my right hand (left as I was looking on) I held three of the roses, one a bright white, another radiant green, another deep purple, and all of them closed; I got the feeling they were about to open, but paradoxically, would remain "about to open" forever. In my left hand was a bright red rose, closed like the others, but I could almost "feel" it opening, opposed to the stasis I felt in the others. None of them felt any more important than the others, only... different. Though I never really pursued the meaning behind the image, it provided inspiration for the "Four chambers" bit I have in my AIM profile (on Nikons Blade). Interpretations are welcome, and if it makes any difference, this random thought came to me while walking to breakfast, while staring at the waxing sliver of the Moon.
Comments on any of this are certainly welcome, and even encouraged (for once). I hope you're all doing well.
~japlin