Daily Times

That night the moon wasn’t shining, she was hiding behind the thick clouds and it was a dark winter night. She felt lonely; she was dependent on the sun for her own light and happiness. She had fallen in love with the sun a long time back.

When the sun would give it light she would beam with joy like a newly-wed bride and then when she reflected off that light, every particle of her body would glisten and shine like diamonds and she would dance like a drunken maiden rejoicing and celebrating herself in the light of her beloved. She would count the hours for the night to come and for her to feel her beloved in herself. When he gave her his light she felt beautiful and ecstatic and wanted to spread that light in the whole world, make everyone happy, let the lost find their way, the fruits ripen, and the tides of the sea escalate. She would be so enchantingly picturesque that lovers all over the world would try to find the moon maiden in their beloveds.

It had been a few days that the sun couldn’t show up as strongly as it usually did and that kept her dull and grim. She craved union with him, yearned for his touch as she knew they were a perfect fit. Opposites but complete when together. He was independent and strong, fierce with fire, stable, duty conscious and subservient to God’s will. She was a hopeless romantic, playful and coquettish, flirtatious and moody, when angry would leave the whole word in darkness and hide behind a bouncy cloud. She had been arguing with the sun to come and meet her in the night and play with her and the stars, but the sun knew it wasn’t possible as the system of the world would go topsy-turvy… the whole world would know.

All throughout the world the Blood Moon was being interpreted in different ways with creativity giving rise to human fears, prophecies and imagination. From bad omen for pregnant women, anticipation of calamities to old folklore myths of lunacy, ravaging demons, and voracious jaguars and in some parts of the world it was seen as an attack on the moon

As a result, she had refused to come out of the clouds, making the sun extremely upset. She was angry and asked the Earth to come between the sun and the moon. She passed directly behind the Earth into its shadow and the earth’s umbra completely covered the moon. That night she showed her anger and was bathed in red and orange hue. All throughout the world the Blood Moon was being interpreted in different ways with creativity giving rise to human fears, prophecies and imagination. From bad omen for pregnant women, anticipation of calamities to old folklore myths of lunacy, ravaging demons, and voracious jaguars and in some parts of the world it was seen as an attack on the moon. Only the sun really knew… but was confused as he didn’t know how to fulfil her demand.

It had been days that the sun had been thinking on how to make its beloved moon happy. She complaint that he was glorious and arrogant, magnificent and proud, cared about making the crops grow, warming the world, and fulfilling God’s duty, but ignored her demands of love. She fought with him about being heartless and rational, warm for the world but cold for her as left her stranded with her loneliness in the night.

The sun finally decided to go to God and talk to Him as he knew how she yearned and craved him and making her sad brought him pain, too. He kneeled down in the court of God who looked at him smiled a knowing smile as He was familiar with the agony of lovers. He whispered something in his ear and the sun came out happy and strong, confident and made the world extremely warm.

God provided a veil for their union in the middle of the stark day. His warmth and burning light took all her pain and sadness away, she stood there absorbing every fragment of that fiery and intense love; her soul was euphoric, body quivering with elation and a feared bliss of celestial retrograde

He happily came and shared everything with the moon, at last the long wait was over, it was the time of the realisation of her dream. The possessive moon stood in front of the Earth completely obscuring the disc of the sun. She wanted him all to herself… his grandeur and magnificence were only for her and no other… in that moment no one else mattered or existed. The whole world was covered in a blanket of darkness in which the slightest invasion of privacy could cause lunar blindness.

God provided a veil for their union in the middle of the stark day. His warmth and burning light took all her pain and sadness away, she stood there absorbing every fragment of that fiery and intense love; her soul was euphoric, body quivering with elation and a feared bliss of celestial retrograde. That night, when she shone, poets wrote poems about her beauty, lovers felt the contagious magic, wolves howled in the forest and there was wilderness in the sea.

The writer is a Psychotherapist and the Business Development Manager at a publishing house. She can be reached at momina.ma15@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, August 5^th 2018.