We Are Held

Full moon magic.

The sky is clear, my excuses laid bare. All the reasons not to be there. 

Mosquito bites.

Too hot.

Past my bedtime.

When we first got on the pontoon boat for our evening ritual – Mike fishing, me writing, reading, making art or taking photos of the fish he catches and releases – our plan was to get off the lake just after sunset. 

We’re having an old-fashioned hot summer with humidity like honey and like my childhood days where we splashed in the lake from dawn to dusk.

We decided to stay on the lake after sunset. Something about the milky wet air, the sacredness of the coming moon invited us to be still.

The lake feels different just after sunset, shrouded by a tree line. Screeching black birds quiet down, and frogs start bellowing. Starlings begin to disappear to be replaced by bats, chomping on at least some of the mosquitos that love to feast on my bare feet.

We join the night owls, their low calls quietly humming through the darkening sky. The rattling songs of sandhill cranes scream as they carry out their community evening ritual from one side of the lake to the other, their cries bouncing from the cattails. 

The mirrored water becomes flat, reflecting everything above it while the last light leaves us. Lightening bugs dot the shore, reminding me of little-girl days when we’d capture them in pickle jars and pretend we needed them for lamps.

We live on a small, private fishing lake, absent of raucous sounding jet skis and where large, loud engines are blissfully prohibited. It’s quiet except for our breathing. 

In the distance, the August Sturgeon moon begins her ascent. A bright yellow-white circle of light splashes above the tallest willow tree, teasing what is to come. With surprising speed, her crisp fiery outline filled in with golden light appears. 

Her reflection against the black water becomes long like a separate beam of light is reaching toward me saying, see? I’m worth it. In the darkness there is light.

As the portal to magic opened, her beauty struck perfect chords in my heart – the sweetest music. She danced her way up the sky, her shadow lengthening. Behold. I’m here. My soul crawled up inside her to sit for a while, and be held by her light.

Each day the sun sets, the moon rises, we love, we laugh, we feel everything life gives us and we carry on. It’s good to receive this reminder of the rhythm of nature when sometimes hope for the future is fragile and fickle.

We are here. We are held. We are magic.