Taos Mountain Last Light (New Moon in Pisces)

Last sunset light on Taos Mountain on a winter evening

God loves shadows

I love new moons. (This one was 3-1-2014.) I love being aware of new moons.

I like that in an astrological, psychological, spiritual, and folkloric sense, it’s an opportunity for new beginnings. Remember, this isn’t just some idiot’s idea but the actual moon itself, lined up on the same side of the Earth as the sun every twenty-nine and a half days. The weight of the moon is said to be seventy-four sextillion kilograms, or eighty-one quintillion tons. It pulls the oceans from their beds, over and over and over. Behold our planetary cultural inheritance! Sometimes I wonder if we even recognize it anymore.

I have to tell you, though, when I typed “folkloric” up there, something twitched. What do you suppose that means? And then I remembered going out to play on summer evenings, running wild and playing games. We’d be outside and see the sunset, watch the moon come up. There were trees to climb and fireflies to put in jars. We knew things, you know? Big things, true things. Stuff that didn’t come from someone else’s head.

Be that as it may, we were going to take a drive today, and then it snowed like crazy. Never mind, she’d do the laundry. My wet underwear drying on racks beside the wood stove, my fat butt in the chair, everybody cozy. After nodding off too many times while pretending to work, I finally gave in and took a nap. A whole hour underneath a blanket on top of the bed. It was fabulous, I tell you. Nothing like it on a wet and cloudy afternoon.

So I’m standing in the bathroom afterwards, looking in the mirror with my hat on, right? And it feels like something got delivered in my sleep.

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John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on About page. For a complete list of all John’s writing, photography, NFTs, and social media links, please visit JHFARR.ART  

  • Mark March 2, 2014, 11:10 PM

    Well I have to say something this time. That is another great photo JHF, and the paragraph about the nap got me chuckling. My afternoon was about the same, being shut in from the crazy cold here, 1200 miles north and east of Taos.

    • JHF March 2, 2014, 11:24 PM

      I can’t miss. All I have to do is walk outside and point the camera. Did something happen in your sleep? 🙂

  • Leanne Retana April 9, 2014, 7:29 PM

    Gorgeous photo! As for the moon, I delight in her waxing and waning and the older I become the more I recognize her influence over me.

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