A Part of the Cycle

Well, there are clouds at times and some places have rainy morning. Granted a few hours difference for sunrise and sunset during the year, though, the cycle of our universe has the visible count on appearance of light, lots of it, and that time is called day. However, as the earth turns, darkness awaits. How dark is no sun depends on a little starlight and what St. Francis called Sister Moon, the lesser light that rules the night. At one time the appearance of a full moon was the calendar mark for a specific period of time and the names given provided a hint for what might happen in that time or a designation for a certain celebration. If you live in my time zone and happened to get up and go outside at the time this blog appeared, you would have viewed the full moon for July, arched in the heavens or caught in the limbs of a tree as it sank toward the western horizon. Its special name is Buck Moon, noting it is the time of the year male cervids grow their antlers before shedding in the fall.

A mixture of information surrounds this glow in the dark wonder. Romance is one word that comes to mind. Walking in moonlight, holding hands, stealing a kiss all sound perfect. Tilt 180 degrees and walking on the moon as an astronaut is more than a dream. Plant root vegetables during a waning moon and flowering and on the surface vegetables in a waxing moon and harvest at full moon time to have a little more light, hence the October name, Harvest Moon. Folk lore from my dad says if you can hang a hunter’s horn on a crescent moon, it’s not going to rain. The happening that seldom comes to pass occurs once in a blue moon.

Pitch black happens in life and diurnally. That term is remembered when we urge someone, “Be sure to get home before dark.” As in all of time that cycles though, light comes again. Maybe a full day of sunlight; maybe just enough light at night to walk without stumbling. And it was planned for us from the beginning.

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:16 – 18