Coming Alive with the Supermoon

(Image from pixabay.com)


Just a few days back (14 Nov 2016), we had a wonderful sight of a supermoon. The moon appeared bigger than usual and was beautiful to look at. I saw a number of excellent photos clicked by friends on social media. Sights like this spark something within us, making us more alive. Nature does that to us, and the supermoon certainly did that to us that day.

There are several possible reasons we love the moon:

• It is the biggest body close to our planet – in sight and keeping us company most days.
• It is also the brightest body in the night sky, reflecting light on our planet which we can see.
• It is the only other celestial body man has set foot on.
• The moon has a personality – different shades and lighted shapes. In that sense it comes alive in the sky every night.
• It has served paranormal and thriller authors well – seemingly impacting our personalities!

We, of course, thankfully, do not reason why we like the moon making a list of positives as above. If we were to take this further we would have to make a list of negatives as well, such as -

• The moon has no atmosphere and cannot support life.
• It is a slave body trapped by the Earth's gravity with very little to contribute to us.
• The moon sports no colour – being primarily shades of white, black and grey, with one side of the moon being always dark to us.
• The tides it causes on Earth is more a nuisance and also puts us more at risk at times.

This is not how we relate to the moon – we appreciate its presence and are happy that it is around in the sky, and appreciate it for what it is.

We, however, find it difficult to have a relation like this with the company we have on Earth - people, animals and greenery where we are more analytical – trying to reason what value they offer us.

Can we re-orient our relationships on Earth taking a cue from how we relate to the moon?