BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… THE DARK MOON QUIET. The cold night wind is in the elm branches, making a faint whistling sound. From somewhere nearer the creek comes the light scratching of talons on branch. Starlight is twinkling, save for patches of black, denoting clouds moving in. The weather is changing, getting colder. There is white on the North shadows of the forest floor, white of frost that never melted this afternoon. There is no other light. The night of the dark moon is here.
Thanksgiving Week. Black Friday. Black Friday weekend. A time of houses warm and overflowing, of sleeping, stuffed onto the couches before big screen commercials; a time of crammed and crafty parking lots. I drove by the mall Friday and the lots were full, traffic backed up waiting to get in, shoppers hoping for a lone space. Retailers are full of hope after a hard economic season of loss. I wish them luck; less so to the driver who abruptly turns in front of me. Another swerves into my lane and I hit the brakes. My Basset dives nose-first to the dash, then huddles on the floorboards, sad eyes looking up at me. “Seriously, dude, I’m just trying to get to the bank.”
On social media, photos of a vaunted city mall pop up on my feed. The theme is nostalgia. Back in the good old days, the post suggests, we had monolithic parking lots with thousands of shoppers clamoring of goods for the holidays. I see little about which to be nostalgic. That time has certainly not passed. ‘Tis the season, of course. My heart yearns for the woods and the cold dark calling.
This weekend is, perhaps appropriately, the weekend of the New Moon, or Dark Moon. Moon cycles are surprisingly simple for the uninitiated: Over four weeks’ time, the moon will pass from Dark (or New) to Waxing (Getting Larger) First Quarter, to Full Moon (werewolves abound) to Waning (Getting Smaller) Quarter, to another Dark (or New) Moon, just like clockwork. Older generations planted by the moon sign, chose certain actions (like cutting hair) by the moon sign. Beans planted in the two weeks of the Waxing Moon produce better, it was said. Root vegetables should be planted when the Moon is Waning, as that’s when the underground powers are strongest. Silly old superstitions, perhaps, but in a secular world devoid of belief, we still reach for anything with apparent power, often grasping the artificial and commercial.
Modern nights are strange things. We scarcely look for the moon, or notice its subtle changes. The idea of natural rhythms of things, or elemental energies, is relegated to the superstitious. That’s how, in case you wondered, our old cultures were eroded. Just call the old ways your choice of epithets — dumb, silly, backwards — until the upcoming generation walks away completely, worshiping instead at a secular altar of modern. False gods don’t change, they just change masks, and human nature is irrepressibly predictable. And yet the elemental, the meaningful, still remains.
Some call the rhythms of the moon — and the watching thereof — witchcraft. The dark of night is, after all, the realm of witches and ghosts (haints, here in the hills). And the night of the New Moon is said to be powerful indeed. The number of place names for the devil are formidable here in the Ozarks: Devil’s Backbone, Devil’s Den, Devil’s Promenade…. No wonder we are afraid of the dark, but creation need not be the domain of evil. Instead, there can be solace.
Early winter is a strange time. Suicides, it is rumored, go up. Addictions, pretty verifiably, rise. Our vaunted modernity with its promises of tech and happiness have come up all too empty, gutting generations, replacing Ozarks bootleg liquor with meth and opioid addiction. The devastation lies just below the surface. Don’t ask, don’t tell, just drive on by. Let a social worker deal with the problem. That’s what they get paid for. The real witchcraft of our society happens out in the open, beneath the afternoon heat of the sun, while we — overwhelmed by our own self-imposed demands of schedule — walk callously by. “There, but for God’s grace, go I.”
Fears are often misplaced. Above, the night is dark, blackened by lack of moon. Time stops. There is a soft, almost imperceptible brush of feathered wing on night air. A great owl is aloft, hunting. The creek water is cold, so cold, black and rushing over rocks reflecting scant starlight. Here, there are no demands. Here, there is hope, a dark strength fortifying our inevitable return to the fold, to the countless, clamoring voices. Night, silent as a snowfall, save for the cold night wind, whistles faintly in the bare elm branches, here in the dark moon quiet.
— Joshua Heston, editor-in-chief, StateoftheOzarks
