In today’s story, the glorious moon comes to visit a boggy land. It doesn’t go well.
Audio Recording
For Your Contemplation
The luminous Moon so loved the people of the marshland and heard the tales of the wicked things that haunted the watery marshlands. And she was curious to find out if the tales were true. Has there been a time in your life when you have gone into an unknown place? Into a dark place out of curiosity? What happened?
Can we take the perspective of the creatures that live in the swamp? Are they really evil and nasty? Or are they products of their environment? I don’t know. Can you take the perspective of the swamp creatures? What are some motivations behind being nasty and wanting to hurt somebody? Or dim somebody’s light? That’s a great metaphor, right? To dim somebody’s light. It’s such an injustice and such a sadness to witness somebody else’s light being dimmed. I’m having a hard time taking the perspective of the swamp creatures, but I’m feeling a lot of reactions to them. How about you? Are you feeling some reactions to those creatures and what are those responses? They’re pretty primal creatures, right? So I’m thinking you might even be having some somatic sensations arising. When you think about people who are nasty or situations that are nasty… it might not even be a person it might be a political system or a corporation. What are some somatic sensations that arise? Where do you feel it in your body? When do you think about those injustices? The inequality?
Another contemplation could be there’s a wise woman in this story. She only has a few sentences but she gave some good advice to those people in the village. She told them where to find the Moon. Who do you consult with? Who do you lean to for wisdom? Do you lean into yourself? Do you trust your own wisdom?
Oh let’s try to be the bog, the actual landscape. The bog has some clear paths that are safe as long as one stays on those paths. And then it has other areas of danger. peril. Are you like that? Do you have areas of safety in areas of peril? I reckon you do. We’re all human and we are complex. So what are some of the things that happen when people stick to your safety zones? And what are some of the things that happen when people stray into the more perilous zones of your life?
And then let’s circle back to the moon for a final contemplation. She was released at the end. She rose up into the sky and shone even brighter for those people in the marshland. What arises for you when you think about that situation of rebounding and rising even stronger and brighter? What is that that arises for you when you think of that happening for yourself?