Orion

Moon in Dawn Sky

I was blessed by perfect skies as I traveled to my hometown of Muskegon, Michigan. I started on the road from Ten Sleep about 3am, driving the two and half hours to the Cody airport under a crisp, clear, pitch-black sky filled with an almost full Cold Moon. The light reflected against the plains of snow, a kind of surreal twilight of colors and shadows as I drove. I decided it was apropos to follow a trail of lunacy as I returned to face a measure of insanity within my family of origin. It made me laugh honestly. The strength I need, the perspective to truly see what I need to, doesn’t come from well ordered lines or the brilliance of daylight. I’ve had to invert everything I know, find beauty in darkness, feel how light travels to us through skies for hundreds of years before truly finding us to begin to understand my family.

The Orion constellation was distinct and clear despite the brightness of the moon. Legends vary, but some offer that he is placed there in the sky constantly hunting the constellations of the bull and the rabbit, as far away from his death as possible (Scorpio), and perpetually chasing the Pleiades, the seven sisters. The hunter and its prey, something I understand intrinsically. I understand the obsession, even compulsion, of seeking redemption in destruction. Tempering desire with ration is a fine line to balance and hunger drives us all to strange painful edges. I don’t want an eternity filled with want, the ache of a heart empty and grasping splayed across an endless horizon.

Rising into the sky, I admired the predawn light, and as we reached altitude, a few moments of the moon as it rose out of clouds banking on the horizon. And then, the glory of a red ball of light rising as we flew. A sky warmed with the passion of its rising. 

It was a good beginning, I thought, for a trip full of uncertainty, difficult emotions, and the hope for peace somehow in the midst of it all.