I am always leaving it seems, during the season I love the most. The dogs return with dew dampened coats and eagerly retreat to their beds near the stove while a timid dawn takes hold, its light seemingly refracted by the concentrate of aromas in the air. October moons are easily accessible in an October sky and I seldom have to exert much effort to find one, which I do frequently during this month. Before my departure I determine if the moon is waxing or waning and when it will be full, for a full moon in October, when I am away, carries with it a significance of memory and meaning.
It does not seem so terribly long ago in my life, yet to be fully honest with you nothing seems too terribly long ago in my life outside perhaps the early years of the Jurassic, when I looked upon a full moon in October and felt quite small and isolated but at once in conversation with those I missed and loved at that precise moment. I was on the Cangshan in Yunnan Province in a small encampment called Huadiamba when the full moon rose and painted the valley floor and mountainsides in platinum iridescence. [Read more…]