new moon, August 2025
My dharma sibling, Maia Duerr, publishes a public newsletter upon every moon cycle, and I want to follow suit.
And I believe that this moon-aligned behaviour is alive in practitioners of the Jewish tradition.
Different faiths, same moon. Different beliefs, same planet.
without further ado, here are snapshots from my part of the world:
Warning: image-heavy content follows
Verlaine's poem, Clair de Lune (Moonlight), from 1869 AD
Votre âme est un paysage choisi Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune, Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau, Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau, Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
Your soul is like a landscape fantasy, Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise, Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise.
Singing in minor mode of life's largesse And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite Reluctant to believe their happiness, And their song mingles with the pale moonlight,
The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming, Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees, And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming— Slender jet-fountains—sob their ecstasies.
translation courtesy of https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/853446.html