Beaver Moon Dreams
It was the night after Election Day before I realized there had been a Full Moon and eclipse. It had escaped my attention in the collective upsurge of energy an election brings. As I crested the ridge on the edge of my small town, the darkness of the countryside hung like a curtain before me. And there, only two lights were visible. The moon’s shining barely visible behind the ashen cloud cover. But a bright headlight off to my right shone brightly, illuminating my car. It was a tractor cutting down acres of dead corn stalks in the dark.
When I discovered it was the Beaver Moon, that tractor emerged in my mind. The way it hungrily consumed the entire field of corn, unrelenting in its determination — not even a lack of light could deter it. Perhaps it was even the light of the moon itself that made the farmer choose this night. It was a mechanical animal in my mind, in a frenzy of gathering before the cold came — like the beaver gathering food for the winter.
The lunar eclipse was a moment of the earth’s shadow passing the moon. A moment of reversal — we receive on earth the moon’s shining most nights, but this night it was as if the earth spoke back and the moon briefly received it. The tractor’s surreal gathering and feeding in the night reminded of this reversal — as the dark nights become longer, I feel that my unconscious dream time is gathering, feeding on the bits of light and intentions of my days. These dreams allow me to make of myself a shelter. Dear reader, on these November nights, what have your dreams been illuminating about your days? How has the dark field of your unconscious spoken back — yielding up nourishment for the winter ahead?
