Today's Full Moon-The Pink, Egg or Seed Moon

The heavy rains yesterday limited my ability to do much farm work today. The soil is still very wet. After potting up some peppers and eggplants in the warmth of the greenhouse, I went for a walk to the swamp where I had taken cattail photos earlier in the week. The procreating toads and the surrounding egg masses reminded of Mary Oliver's poem Pink Moon-the Pond.

Pink Moon—the Pond

You think it will never happen again.
Then, one night in April,
the tribes wake trilling.
You walk down to the shore.
Your coming stills them,
but little by little the silence lifts
until song is everywhere
and your soul rises from your bones
and strides out over the water.
It is a crazy thing to do —
for no one can live like that,
floating around in the darkness
over the gauzy water.
Left on the shore your bones
keep shouting “come back”!
But your soul won’t listen;
in the distance it is unfolding
like a pair of wings, it is sparking
like hot wires. So,
like a good friend,
you decide to follow.
You step off the shore
and plummet to your knees–
you slog forward to your thighs
and sink to your cheekbones —
and now you are caught
by the cold chains of the water —
you are vanishing while around you
the frogs continue to sing, driving
their music upward through your own throat,
not even noticing
you are something else.
And that’s when it happens —
you see everything thru their eyes,
their joy, their necessity;
you wear their webbed fingers;
your throat swells.
And that’s when you know
you will live whether you will or not,
one way or another,
because everything is everything else,
one long muscle.
It’s no more mysterious than that.
So you relax, you don’t fight it anymore,
the darkness coming down
called water,
called spring,
called the green leaf, called
a women’s body
as it turns into mud and leaves,
as it beats in it’s cage of water,
as it turns like a lovely spindle
in the moonlight, as it says
Yes.

Mary Oliver

Unlike Mary Oliver, I did not feel compelled to enter the water with the frogs and toads. Instead I explored the woods; enjoying the trout lilies, spring beauties, blood root and spice bush. My earlier posting on foraging inspired this quick scouting for potential edibles-after a review of the Lancaster Farmacy blog. Enjoy the photos, enjoy the full moon.