Last night I hiked up to the top of a Verdugo-adjacent hill in Tujunga near my house known as Canyon Hills, and watched the moon rise over the San Bernadinos. It looked extra round and bright as it rose up slowly behind the crest the mountains.
The occasion was that of the super blood moon eclipse, coinciding with the harvest moon and the fall equinox. There are too many witchy things happening at once in that sentence to address here, but you get the idea. It felt significant.
The man in the moon stared back at me as I drew and journaled and stretched from the top of one of the peaks where someone had installed a 15 foot white cross with solar-fueled lights illuminating it at night. I resented the implication that I would be encouraged to mount the summit and contemplate my Christian faith, but it was, I decided, the best spot to see the moon. As the man in the moon rose, I could see a flat, dark spot on his upper right temple expanding towards his eyebrow as the eclipse progressed. The sun was still setting so the sky behind him was pale blue and a purple (similar to that of the background color of Art Date for those reading on their browser).
I had hiked about 25 minute into a trail that started in a cozy, upper middle-class neighborhood and went west for miles surrounded by chaparral and telephone poles, with the occasional shack left in the hillside from before the big fire in the ‘80s. Even during the day it felt wild. I had once seen a coyote the size of a german shepard. As I wondered whether to walk further west from my spot on the hill or head back, my ears pricked up at the chorus of dogs and coyotes echoing from the residential streets across the canyon below me.
It was still light when I left my perch, but I had gotten greedy. It was much darker once I descended the hill because I lost the remaining light from the west in the shadow of the cliffs. As I crunched down the path, phone light on, my heart started to race at the fear of what could be hiding in the bushes. I began humming to calm my nerves, and hopefully warn off any large mammals in the area. I realized I didn’t know what spent the night in this neighborhood after dark. Coyotes, yes, but what about mountain lions or bears? Oh my!
I rounded another corner and came to a fork where I had seen the coyote on my previous hike and had to decide whether to go the longer route with more visibility on either side, but less room for escape should I need to fight off an animal, or the shorter route that was nestled between two cliffs that loomed over you as you passed through and had a blind corner, Because it was becoming increasingly dark, I decided to take the shorter route to save time. But as I did the additional darkness and closeness of the rock walls amped up my anxiety.
I was still about 5-10 minutes from the car and decided I was being both ridiculous and making myself easy prey. To further calm my nerves I decided rather than humming I would sing a song, any song. What came to my mind out of nowhere was a Christmas song that I had heard maybe a million times, but that I had only ever considered to be a seasonal staple and at times, a nuisance of holiday-themed capitalism. But singing it to myself while surrounded by the mysterious dark, and a rising lunar eclipse, it took on new weight- although certainly not because of my singing voice.
Oh holy night
the stars are brightly shining
this is the night doo-do-doo doo-do-doo
I struggled to remember the lyrics. And then:
Faaaall on your knees
heeeeaaar the angels’ voices
Oh niiiiight diviiiiine
Ohh night, oh night divine.
The beauty of talking about a holy night, a divine night where miracles can happen like the covering of the moon by the shadow of the earth, and our timeless connection to the stars, helped me reconnect with the sky that I had ventured out in to the wilderness to gaze at.
As you might imagine, part of my desire to go into the mountains and be close to nature on a night like this is inspired by the moment of transition that I find myself in. Even a recent tarot reading with the nice tarot reader at PRS this weekend said that the cards were encouraging me to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. This is certainly not the definitive answer that I was looking for, but it made me trust the reader more. Before the reading I intuitively sensed that this moment is not meant to be clear for me, but of course, as a control freak Scorpio stellium I needed a tarot reading to confirm it.
When I went home after my hike, I turned on the second half of the new season of Emily In Paris that just came out on Netflix this week. The first episode was a Christmas-themed one. Emily gets into various plot twists during the episode including a breakup she initiates, and finds herself in the last scene walking back from a train station alone (and free!) on the empty streets of Paris, as the rest of the world is presumably in their homes celebrating family and togetherness. I cringe knowing how she feels. Then a snowflake falls, and a second one.
Earlier in the episode one of the characters had told her that it rarely snows in Paris, but when it does it’s good luck. Et voila! It’s snowing. It looks like Emily’s luck has started to turn around. Then a song comes on: Ohhhh holy night. The stars are brightly shiiiiiining.
“What the f*ck!,” I exclaimed to my kittens. I stare incredulity at the screen and think from one midwestern bumpkin who loves Paris to another: Yes, girl. I’m right there with you. (Side note, if you want hilarious recaps of EIP, click here.)
This synchronicity, as silly as it might be, felt like a message from the universe. Embrace the night and all it’s divine power. Accept the gifts of not knowing.
