day 7: feb 27
DAY SEVEN
February 27, 2023
seven days dreaming the dark of a new moon
day seven, february 27
the seventh day of dreaming the dark of a new moon. According to this site(moongiant.com):
Moon Phase for today: Feb 27, 2023
The Moon's current phase for today and tonight is a First Quarter phase. This phase occurs roughly 7 days after the New Moon when the moon is one quarter of the way through its orbit around the earth. Exactly half the moon will be illuminated and half dark. On the day of the First Quarter phase the moon is high overhead at sunset and is visible until mid-night when it sets in the west. The First Quarter phase is a one-day event and in the following days enters a Waxing Gibbous phase becoming more illuminated each day until the Full Moon.
I’m kinda taken with the fact that today, the last day of dreaming the dark, it is exactly half the moon is in light, half is in dark. And it’s not technically the seventh day. I skipped a few days between the sixth and this day. But it feels right, as things often do, when you’re following a feeling.
It does feel like half and half today. Something has arrived, something else is being taken away.
This morning, I wrote:
Sitting in the sun on a calle called Maravilla, coffee before me, the sun straight on my face, a river flowing in my ears (I had my headphones on to the audio of a water flowing, it really helps dull the sharp sounds and I feel especially sensitive to city sounds after years in the countryside)
A pigeon is exploring the slope that descends towards a parking garage.
A woman in jeans and a headband is sweeping one rectangle of the small plaza in which I am sitting, the rectangle fronts the entrance to a building. The wall of the building has a stripe of red, and above it, white and thew windows are edged with mustard yellow.
Geometry and color with coffee.
Across the narrow street, on the walls of other buildings, there are five rows of posters, haphazardly stuck, some inatact, others torn. Some of them read:
Life Drawing, Sevilla, black woman with a head scarf
Guitarista Flamenca, black and white poster
Clases de Salsa y Bachata
Flamenco Sevillanas
And a most curious drawing, above all the posters, is of a man who looks like he may be Rastafarian or Na’vi from Avatar.
There is a black metal garage pulled shut, and I know inside there is a wooden statute of a saint that men will carry on their backs for Semana Santa - they have already started practicing - I have seem them gather on Sunday mornings and the statue is taken out and they carry it past the calle Maravilla.
Now the sun is slowly inching behind a building and the side of my face is half in sun, half in shade.
Now the woman who was once sweeping has climbed on top of an orange bucket, placed upside down, and she is cleaning the metal grates of the entrance to the building with a cloth.
Now the last sip of coffee.
Now the sun recedes
Seven days of dreaming the dark of the new moon ends today when officially I have entered all the paperwork and officially I will be in Spain, inshallah, ojala, another year.
I trust this mystery I am living. I commit to it, I submit, I follow what calls, to live and die the truest expression of story tree stone song, on the page, on the stage, in the sea, on the beach, in the dark, in the light, and especially in the shadow lands.
PS: There’ll be a lag time of a few hours between your posting and the words appearing in the comments.
