Original Composition Date: Saturday, April 03, 2010
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Weisst du wieviel Sternlein stehen, an dem breiten himmel's Zelt?
A child’s lullaby, which my mother sang to me, many times when I was little. Usually, I was sitting in her lap, in the car, as we drove home at night from town where we did our weekly grocery shopping.
“Do you know how many stars shine in the broad heaven’s canopy?” is the first line of the song. The rest, I can’t remember.
I do remember, it goes on to list many other things in the world, of which we cannot possibly count how many there are. From this song, I became ‘ feelingly’ aware of the “unknown”, larger than life forces that exist in our lives. All the things, that as a child especially one needed to accept with a kind of open heartedness, and just “go along” with a kind of suspension of disbelief. This suspension of disbelief, made it a lot easier to imagine fantastical worlds, and even new languages.
The things that peopled my childhood world were more fantastical than the “fairy tales” that were sometimes read to us at bedtime. My inner world was more interesting, because I didn’t have to curtail it to fit with someone else’s “reality”. It existed for me because I said it did. Perhaps, some adults thought I was good at making up lies, as a result. I soon learned to keep my imaginary worlds and beings to myself alone. It kept me out of trouble that way!
To get back to the image of a person in the moon, it seems very possible to have an ‘aura’ of silvery light surrounding a person, almost entrapping them inside the light’s boundaries. Why? Because a part of me wants the moon to have a personality, and a voice, so it can communicate with me. What do I imagine the moon would say? To me specifically, it would tell me great wisdom as a result of it’s “high up in the sky” altitude, and the amazing perspective it would have. From that high up vantage point, it’s got to be able to see some amazing, and horrifying things.
The logic follows that if the moon would communicate these images, visions and ideas to me, I could in turn write them down. It’s an image of the writer’s muse for me. When I look at the moon, it inspires me. When I see a person in the moon, I see human faculties engulfed by the silvery light of inspiration.
Writing by Regina Stemberger
Photo “Transparent heart.” by kelsey_lovefusionphoto
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