2 Pieces For Valentines
I love that today we have the beautiful combination of the full moon and Valentine’s Day. A cultural celebration of the experience of love and the first full moon of Chinese year, which is celebrated in Singapore and Malaysia as the Lantern Moon…
To the moon…
The darkness is profound. So rich that it feels like cool velvet pressed gently against our skin. Someone stumbles over a stone lying in the grass, and muffled laughter breaks out. I turn slightly towards my right and capture his hand in mine. He squeezes my fingers, and I imagine him smiling at me, even although I cannot see his lips.
I feel him tug lightly at my arm, and I realize that he has stopped. I turn to face him, and I strain to see his profile darkly silhouetted against the night. ‘Here,’ he says, and I nod, even though I know he cannot see me. But we both know that the place where we will light our lantern has been chosen.
Crouching low, the grass tickling our ankles, we hold between us the lantern that we bought earlier. I can hear the sound of his cheap plastic lighter as he tries to ignite the wick. After a couple of attempts, a small flame sits atop the lime green plastic lighter, and the lower half of his face is illuminated. He is smiling, just as I imagined.
My own smile broadens as he passes the light from the lighter to the lantern, and a beautiful, orange glow envelopes us both.
We can feel the air beginning to warm the palms of our hands placed against the thin paper, and soon we can feel the light pressure of the lantern’s desire to touch the sky. Looking into one another’s eyes, he nods, almost imperceptibly, and then we take our hands away. The lantern hovers for a moment, poised in the gap between me and my love, and then it slowly begins to rise. The inky blackness is now punctuated by a diffuse light that travels across its deep shadows.
He catches hold of my waist and pulls me close as we watch our lantern join hundreds of others all across this New Year’s night.
On the new moon, millions of people will begin their celebrations for the Chinese New Year, a date which alters each year according to the Gregorian calendar, as it is determined by the Chinese calendar which is lunisolar (a combination of lunar and solar dating system). From the new moon, the festivities will continue, culminating in the Lantern Festival, held on the first full moon of the New Year.
The lanterns are said to guide wayward spirits home, or to celebrate the coming of the sun, or to commemorate narratives of survival against a coming threat. In Singapore & Malaysia it is also a festival which celebrates romantic love, and it was this interpretation that I wanted to draw upon, the Lantern Moon arriving so close to the western celebration of St. Valentine’s Day.
You may wish to use this cycle to explore your beliefs around romantic love and your concept of romance. It might be a good time for you to develop some romance rituals, such as the one described in this interpretation. Or, indeed, it may be an opportunity to romance yourself: buy yourself flowers, treat yourself to a bubble bath, and maybe a movie or two.
Start the year surrounded in the loving light of the Lantern Moon.
You can now purchase all 48 lunar interpretations plus journal prompts, plus introductions to each cycle. Bloom By Moon is available at a really low price so that this work can be as accessible to as many as possible – listen to the introduction and purchase here: BLOOM BY MOON.
To love…
My lover curls around the curves of my body, his hot prickly cheek resting against the velvet flesh of my breast. I place the flat of my palm against his chest and feel the languid lubdub of his heart beat beneath the skin and the muscle and the bone. Each beat marks a moment past. And just for a second I allow myself to mourn its passing, knowing that I can never experience that exact beat of his heart ever again – so recently felt, it is now lost to me. And part of me is still wondering how many beats of his heart and mine we still have left to share when he opens his eyes, lids languid from sleep, and looks right into my soul.
“Mornin’,” he says. “Sleep well?”
This week I am sharing some of my favourite pieces from my e-book Hymns to the Bliss Body – a collection of prose poems written with the intention to connect you to your birthright to bliss. The full collection is only £5 and includes audio of all 20 poems. Gift yourself for Valentines Day this year, and come home to the pleasure that is available to you through the flesh of your own body. Buy Hymns to the Bliss Body now….
