Why Don't We Look Up?

I was out strolling with my parents. I was strolling. My parents were on a brisk walk ahead of me. I was somewhere around the Brandywine river sightseeing while they were somewhere in Fangorn woods trying not to be seen. But I digress. The main point is that we were out. It was around afternoon. It had rained heavily in the morning and now the green of the trees and the plants was lush, the blue of the sky was mesmerizing, the clouds were white as the platonic concept of it, and the sun was gleaming like the gold of Smaug’s hoard.

And as I looked around me, seeing how everything had become clean and how everything was glowing, I happened to look straight up. And what did I see? The crescent moon directly on top of me.

Now it was the bright moon you’d see at night with the soft glow and cool warmth. It was a faded moon and it was missing itself like the outer part of an eaten slice of watermelon. But it was more alive than the moon which one saw at night. For it moved much faster than I had ever seen the moon move.

Most times the white lamp would appear stationary in the sky. Then, it would be someplace else the next time you viewed it. Hardly would you catch it on the move. Hardly, would you believe that it was alive?

But not on this afternoon. I saw it scurrying across the sky from my right to my left. I saw it pass electric lines, clouds, and even my finger as I placed it upon the sky like I would place it beside the progress bar. The queen of the night was riding towards night, and I had caught her in the act.

Now presumably one might wonder (this one might be you, dear reader, and it might be not), what’s so alive about the moon? Doesn’t it always move? And isn’t its movement a result of the earth’s gravitational force? Isn’t it, to speak in a matter of fact, un-alive?

All those questions can be answered in a simple bit of extrapolation. Is the hand alive? Doesn’t it move? Isn’t its movement a result of the mind’s nervous force? Isn’t it, to speak in a matter of fact, alive?

‘But the hand is alive through me,’ you might say.

‘But it is alive,’ I might reply.

‘Well, not the kind of alive I am,’ you might argue. ‘It is an extension of my life within me.’

‘Ah, your hand has a different sort of life. An extension. Well, I say the moon has a different sort of life. An extension of the forces beyond this world which the fleeing queen of the night is but a sign. A living sign.’

Anyways, back to my experience. The moving moon moved me, literally and figuratively. I wanted to share this with somebody. There were other people around me, but nobody looked up into the sky like I did. And I was not going to tell them to look up at the sky. They’d think I am a buffoon, or God help me, a dreamer! Can’t be caught as one in this day and age. So, I hastened from Brandywine to Buckland, to Bree, took a longcut through Moria, and finally into Fangorn and right behind my parents. I looked up, about to tell them of my discovery. But she was gone. It seems the veiled queen had found herself being found riding across the blue plains by a mortal and had commanded her retinue of clouds to cover her path. I never saw her again after that.

And it made me wonder. Why don’t we look up? Why do we stare at the mud on our shoes and miss the crown above our heads? I do not mean to denigrate the poor man, for I have seen the poor man who finds simple joys which hold greater life. I suppose I could not blame my parents or those pedestrians who just want to get through life. But life is where it is at. Life is movement. It is here and now. Why should we move through it? No man who has said they want to get through life means something greater than it. They chase a horizon which they look at from the periphery, but when it is looked dead-on, it is but nothing there. It is empty as a brisk walk for the sake of walking. Strolling is where it’s at. You move and see that life moves too.

And maybe you will glimpse something you never thought it could move.

Come summer, come winter, come day, come night
Is it only the jewels that hold our delight?
The gold in hand has luster gone
But the gold of the sun is seldom sung