The All Gathered Moon of November

It's the eleventh full moon of the calender year, and when seen, it's a colder frostier visitation by far than October's golden orb.  I considered staying indoors last evening, but tradition prevailed, and Spencer and I wrapped up warmly and went out into the garden with our tripod, telescope and camera.  It was windy, and the night was a sea of intense brooding cloud - we wondered if the moon would put in an appearance or hide her face this time around.  If we were fortunate, she would persevere, climbing out of the scudding clouds and gifting us once more with something wondrous and quite beyond description, but one never knows quite what to expect on stormy November nights.

Spencer is still puzzled by his mom's lunar studies, but he leaned against me wagging his expressive tail and looked up at the sky, content to be there and certain that whatever we were about, it was important stuff and worth doing.  My sweet furry son is a fine companion for moon watching or anything else for that matter - we trust each other implicitly, and we trust in the wild and elemental grace of our common existence, the Great Round of our days and nights together.

Alas, the moon was not ours to see last evening, and so here is the previous night's moon, extracted from its inky darkness and copied into caring hands by enchantments of another sort entirely. I was surprised when the exercise came together as it did.  Who knows??? The old girl may just turn into an artist one of these days after all. The visual metaphor is an apt one, for this is what these moon ramblings are about - bearing witness and cultivating mystery, tending the truth of the moon and the sky and the good dark earth we are all walking around on.  Then there is the matter of light - look closely, and there is always light within.

We also know this moon as the: Buffalo Moon, Cold Begins Moon, Dark Moon, Deer Rutting Moon, Twelfth Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Fog Moon, Freezing Moon, Frosty Moon, Geese Going Moon, Hunter's Moon, Large Tree Freeze Moon, Little Bear's Moon, Long Moon, Mad Moon, Moon of Cold, Moon of Fledgling Hawk, Moon of Freezing, Moon of Storms, Moon of Falling Leaves, Moon of the Shaker Leaves, Moon of the Turkey and Feast, Moon the Rivers Begin to Freeze, Moon When All Is Gathered in, Moon When Deer Shed Antlers, Moon When Deer Shed Their Antlers, Moon When Horns Are Broken Off, Moon When the River Freezes, Moon When the Rivers Start to Freeze, Moon When the Water Is Black with Leaves, Mourning Moon, Moon of Much Poverty, Ring Finger Moon, Sacrifice Moon, Samoni Moon, Sassafras Moon, Snow Moon, Snowy Mountains in the Morning Moon, Trading Moon, Trail Moon, Tree Moon, White Frost on Grass & Ground Moon, White Moon, Whitefish Moon, Willow Moon, Winter Divided Moon, Yew Moon.

I am fond of "All Gathered Moon", also "Moon of Falling Leaves".